Hope everyone had a great first day of the new year! New comics should be out at shops. What did you all get? What’d you enjoy? What’d you dislike? Sound off in the comments below.
Newsarama – Disney+’s Wandavision Moves to 2020 – Nice! A good way to start the year.
The Beat – A Year of Free Comics: O Human Star examines human-like AI through a LGBTQ lens – Free comics!
Reviews
Monkeys Fighting Robots – Books of Magic #15
CBR – Star Wars #1
Laughing Place – Thor #1
O Human Star, is a webcomic about a trans robot, the humans who made her and the complex world of robotics and human development they all live in. I interviewed series creator Blue Delliquanti.
Blue is the creator of the Prism Award-winning webcomic O Human Star. Blue is also the co-creator of the graphic novel Meal (with Soleil Ho) and The ‘Stan (with David Axe and Kevin Knodell).
We discuss artistic inspiration, transhumanism, robot politics, Rossum’s Universal Robots, Mike Mignola’s influence, queer stories and generation gaps and the unique joy of finding fanart of your work.
One of my favorite shows of recent memory is The Boondocks. The comic strip written and drawn by the talented Aaron McGruder was a bright light for many children of color who did not think any creator knew who they were. The comic strip spoke to generations of black kids who were raised to have “knowledge of self” who have seen themselves in comics and comic strips throughout the years but not with all the complexities of the characters who were not melanized. The show tackled subjects head on that were often considered too taboo to be spoken of outside the community.
One of those episodes revolved around a previously cryogenically frozen Martin Luther King Jr. waking up after decades of sleep to a world he had some parts to do with. The episode spoke to the realization of seeing what one plants borne fruit. The episode was powerful and poignant, in ways that most of the audience will take years to understand. In Blue Delliquanti’s brilliant O Human Star we find one such character seeing how years of work has become something more than he ever dreamed of.
We meet Alastair Sterling, a man who suddenly dies, only to wake up 16 years later, to a world ran by his inventions. His old assistant, Brendan, has taken his inventions and created an empire, one that would start a robot revolution. His grief led him to create a carbon copy of his friend with one very important difference, a female version of Alastair named Sulla. As Alastair starts to understand about what transported him back to life he also gets acclimated to this new-fangled world, one which is run by robots.
Overall, the graphic novel grips readers right from the start and makes you fall in love with the characters and this world. The story by Delliquanti is heartfelt, well developed, and engaging. The art by Dellquanti is elegant and alluring. Overall, it’s a story that shows that love truly transcends time .
Story: Blue Delliquanti Art: Blue Delliquanti
Story: 10 Art: 9.6 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy
The Small Press Expo (SPX), the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons, has announced the 2015 nominees for the annual presentation of the Ignatz Awards, a celebration of outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning.
The Ignatz, named after George Herriman’s brick-wielding mouse from his long running comic strip Krazy Kat, recognizes exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression. The Ignatz Awards are a festival prize, the first of such in the United States comic book industry.
The nominees for the ballot were determined by a panel of five of the best of today’s comic artists, Lamar Abrams, Cara Bean, Robyn Chapman, Sophie Goldstein and Corrine Mucha, with the votes cast for the awards by the attendees during SPX. The Ignatz Awards will be presented at the gala Ignatz Awards ceremony held on Saturday, September 19, 2015 at 9:30 P.M.
ComiXology will be sponsoring this year’s Ignatz Awards.
The 2015 Ignatz Award Nominees
Outstanding Artist
Outstanding Anthology or Collection
Outstanding Graphic Novel
Outstanding Story
Promising New Talent
Outstanding Series
Outstanding Comic
Outstanding Minicomic
Outstanding Online Comic
SPX will be held Saturday, September 19 from 11AM to 7PM and Sunday, September 20, noon-6PM at The North Bethesda Marriott Convention Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Admission is $15 for Saturday, $10 for Sunday and $20 for both days.
This year’s image of Ignatz, as seen above, was created by 2014 Promising New Talent Winner Cathy G. Johnson.
At the Alternative Press Expo, Prism Comics announced the recipients of the 2012 Queer Press Grant on October 13th during the Queer Cartoonists Panel moderated by Justin Hall. For this year’s recipients, it’s a tie between Blue Delliquanti for O Human Star and Christine Smith for The Princess. Prism Comics, which supports LGBT comics, creators and readers, established the Queer Press Grant in 2005 to encourage the publication of LGBT-themed comics. It is now the only grant today given to independent comic book creators, as the Xeric Foundation is no longer awarding grants for comics.
Blue Delliquanti’s entry, O Human Star, is a longform graphic novel, serialized online and in print. Delliquanti is an artist and illustrator based in Atlanta. She has contributed to Womanthology and Smut Peddler and has also collaborated on nonfiction comics with Nathan Schreiber and David Axe.
O Human Star concerns Alastair Sterling, an inventor who sparked the robot revolution, finding himself alive sixteen years after his death in an advanced robotic body that matches his old one exactly. He also finds that his mind has been copied into another robot, in the form of a teenage girl named Sulla, designed by his old research partner Brendan, who was also his lover. O Human Star follows the story of this unconventional family while also exploring Al’s lifelong discomfort with his gender and sexuality, Brendan’s reluctance to rekindle a relationship with the person he loves, and Sulla’s struggle to step out of Al’s shadow and form her own identity as a young woman.
Find O Human Star online at ohumanstar.com.
Christine Smith’s submission, The Princess, is an ongoing web and print comic, which has already won several webcomic community awards, including the DrunkDuck award for best strip. It has been published in Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Borgman, and No Straight Lines: Forty Years Of Queer Comics edited by Justin Hall.
Christine provided this description of herself in introducing her work: “I am a teacher, artist, and I am transgender. These are who I am and they represent what I am passionate about. At the intersection of these paths is my webcomic. It is called The Princess. It is autobiography in the form of fiction, in which I reflect on growing up as a transgender child. It is a tale of inspiration for the child I was, empowering the character who represents her with determination and moxie I wish I’d had. It is a hand reached across generations, in which I offer gender nonconforming children, LGBTQ children, and children from LGBTQ families inspiration and hope to be themselves and shine brightly.”
The Princess can be read at www.drunkduck.com/the_princess.
Prism Comics’ Queer Press Grant is awarded to assist comics creators in publishing comics with LGBT characters or themes. Entries are judged first and foremost by artistic merit, followed by concerns such as financial need, proposal presentation, and the project’s contribution to the LGBT community. They are reviewed by the Prism Board, past recipients of the Grant, and Prism’s Advisory Board.
