Mixed-Race Creators, some recommendations

"Scion or Shafted: Being Mixed Race in Sci-Fi & Fantasy Cultures." @punuckish, @geniusbeee, @syrrann, @sarahmiyoko & @backthatelfup #GGC17 pic.twitter.com/Oj07gAJvfV

— Lauren Bullock (@LBullockPoetry) October 1, 2017

It's been a while and thank you for patiently waiting for the return of these blogs. Awesome and rewarding things have happened since I last posted a blog here (I recently got two articles published over on Women Write About Comics) and to start off the New Year (yes I know it's the beginning of April and past Lunar New Year as well) I'm going to toss out some creator recommendations.

Last year at GeekGirlCon, I moderated a panel on mixed-race characters in fiction. You can see the footage of it here and the tweet/photo above was from the awesome Lauren Bullock who attended the panel. I had a great group of people on the team and between that and the upcoming Alloy Anthology I thought it would be a great time to plug a few mixed race creators.

Tristan J. Tarwater

One of my favorite panelists of all time and an all around awesome person is Tristan. They has been on a bunch of panels with me and is a fantastic writer. They write Shamsee an ongoing webcomic and their book The Marauders' Island was the first physical book I finished reading in 2017 and is amazing. The book is a high seas family reunion in world where land and sea operate as one world and magic traditions are woven into the culture of each place. You can grab their books off of amazon and many local libraries (do a purchase request if you can't) and if you pick up her stuff don't forget to write a review. To find out more about her check out her website and follow her @backthatelfup on social media.

Marjorie Liu

A paranormal and comics writer, Marjorie Liu is fantastic. I really enjoyed her book The Iron Hunt, which was set in a paranormal-noir-modern-Seattle, and would love more audiobooks for her impressive oeuvre so that I could consume more of her work. She currently writes, Monstress for image and is specifically interested in talking about, and to, the experience of mixed-race people. While through allegory (which uses the biological definition of race as opposed to the social concept of race), it touches on the diversity of mixed-race people and the myriad ways we can or have “passed”. You can also buy her work on amazon or get them from many local libraries (do a purchase request if you can't) and if you pick up her stuff don't forget to write a review. You can check out her website for more information and follow her @marjoriemliu on social media.

Julie Fiveash

I met Julie at Indigenous Comic Con 2017 and her work is really cool. She blends the unsettling with the cute (I got a bunny sticker from her that says “Death Awaits”) and was great to talk to at the convention. She had a bunch of zines available (so if you catch her in person pick up a couple) and I grabbed “Why Can’t You-: A comic about multi-racial identity,” which is exactly what it sounds like in the best possible way. It blends 2-6 panel short comics into one plot and goes through the type of interactions that all multi-racial people have gone through. You can follow her work on tumblr, instagram and view her portfolio here.

Yoshi Yoshitani

I had the honor of having Yoshi on a panel with me at Rose City Comic Con to talk about Cultural Appropriation and she is an amazing artist. Her work covers all sorts of topics and what initially drew me to her work is a Tarot deck inspired by fairy tale stories from all over the world. She has an amazing and unique style and recently, she has decided to go full freelance (congratulations) and has worked on a bunch of awesome new covers for Star Trek, Monstress, and other comics. You can find out more about her on her website and buy her work here. To hear more about her upcoming projects and appearances follow her on social media @yoshisquared.

Kiku Hughes

Last but not least is Kiku who was also on the mixed-race creators panel at Geek Girl Con last year. Her ongoing webcomic the Sublimes is great and her graphic novel Displacement is going to be published by First Second in 2019. She also has the amazing honor of being the assistant editor to Der-Shing Helmer on the Alloy Anthology. Check out more of her work here and you can follow her on social media @geniusbeee

One of the best parts about looking for panelists for the mixed-race characters in fiction panel (and accidentally also my #ExpressiveAsians panel at Emerald City Comic Con) has been to see how large the multi/mixed/bi-racial creative community is. Many of us fall into the “ambiguous brown person” (a quote directly from Julie Fiveash's “Why Can’t You-: A comic about multi-racial identity”) category and no matter where we grew up there are some experiences that we all share. And if the works of these creators pique your interest, check them out and follow the the Alloy Anthology website to find out when the Kickstarter begins and to find out about more mixed-race creators.

Comics recommendations

So a few blogs ago, I wrote about how to get into comics. Tips, strategies, etc. Now I’m writing about the comics I suggest whenever people ask me about what series to start with. I try to be genre and publisher diverse, though the only thing from DC I recommend is Bombshells but it's not on this list. It's good but it's not the first thing I recommend Anyways, my recommendations are:

- Bitch Planet

- Giant Days

- Monstress

- Ms. Marvel

- ODY-C

Now go read them.
























Just kidding! So all of these are currently ongoing series. This means that they will have new issues coming out. You will have to wait longest for ODY-C because it is currently on hiatus and Matt Fraction has promised us 12 more issues. Why exactly twelve? Well I’ll tell you in a second, or an hour, or you can skip down to the ODY-C segment at the end. I chose ongoing-series in case anyone out there is interested in starting a pull list. Because these are established series, I recommend grabbing the first trades and then picking up floppies after that.

Also, all of these should be available at your local library or local comic book shop as they are not obscure titles. I picked rather widely published books, aka from the major comics publishers, because of that accessibility and, depending on your familiarity with comics, it can be hard to decide what in the “indie” world, Kickstarters or zines, interests you. If you already know, great! I also chose to exclude webcomics because in many cases people are already familiar with the medium because of memes, xkcd, and Penny Arcade. This means that when people ask me for comics recommendations they mean stuff from the floppies -> trade paperback pipeline.

The above are not meant to be read as a “best to less best” list. Each of the titles rotates to bottom of my reading list, for savoring until the end. These are also all things I currently read and collect (except for Monstress on which I am behind and my partner Mychal called dibs on for collecting but I recommend regardless).

Bitch Planet

writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick | artists: Valentine De Landro and Robert Wilson IV | colorist: Kelly Fitzpatrick | letterer: Clayton Cowles | logo and cover designer: Rian Hughes | editor: Lauren Sankovitch | backmatter and design consultant: Laurenn McCubbin | stylist and research assistant: Dani V

Synopsis: Non-compliant women are arrested and sent to a prison planet. What makes you non-compliant? Basically anything a man takes offense with.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Now more than ever we need books like this. Science fiction like Bitch Planet regularly exposes and critiques the faults in our society allowing us to discuss them in a safe space. Additionally, the creators do an extremely thorough job with their research, taking the time to bring all sorts of intersectional feminist issues to bear in technicolor. This is not a book we want, its one we need.

Giant Days

writers: John Allison | illustrators: Lissa Treiman and Max Sarin | colorist: Whitney Cogar | letterer: Jim Campbell

Synopsis: Three first year university students become fast friends.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Its funny and exceptionally down to earth. The characters are people you know. You might not have been friends with them but you know them. It’s not gritty but doesn’t flippantly deal with serious issues. One of the character is training to be an archaeologists too, which doesn’t hurt. I also occasionally forget that it’s set in the UK because the situations have so much applicability to anyone attending university.

Monstress

writer: Marjorie M. Liu | artist: Sana Takeda | lettering and design: Rus Wooton | editor: Jennifer M. Smith | editorial assistant: Ceri Riley

Synopsis: This high fantasy world where an ongoing tension between two kingdoms threatens their world.

Why do I love this book recommend it: Mychal first saw this so got dibs on collecting the individual issues but honestly it’s just an amazing work. There is a great discussion of the issue and variation of being mixed-race, though in fantasy rather than in reality. The art is fantastic and creates a fully immersive world that draws from Asian fantasy genres and designs that people familiar with Manga will find familiar but rests more easily on a balance between a blend of Asian and European aesthetics.

Ms. Marvel

writer: G. Willow Wilson | editor: Sana Amanat | artists: Adrian Alphona, Sara Pichelli, Jacob Wyatt, Takeshi Miyazawa

Synopsis: Comics superfan gets what they’ve always wanted: superpowers. Now what do you with those in Jersey City?

Why do I love this book recommend it: It’s got enough interactions with other superheroes to make their well developed appearances meaningful and has avoided since it started most crossovers. Its full of great references and heartfelt discussions about relationships and identity. It got all the superhero punching you could want and new villains that fit with our modern world and modern problems balanced expertly with genuine interpersonal moments that keep you coming back.

ODY-C

writer: Matt Fraction | artist: Christian Ward |

Synopsis: It’s the Grecian epic The Odyssey but in space and also, Zeus burned all men in existence to death and created Sebex so that women could procreate sans the dudebros.

Why do I love this book recommend it: I love this comic so much I wear the first cover as tights. And well, I recommend it because it’s freaking awesome. Every issue is a psychedelic Grecian inspired righting of a historical wrong and it’s written in hexameter and Limerick as an ode original Homeric presentation styles. It’s a dense worthwhile book and is really the only version of the ODY-C I want to recommend to people, as it has keeps the core of the story without being horrible to women. There will be 12 more issues to round out the cycle following the chapters in the Homeric form. Also the first issue had an 18 page opening spread.

My hope is that based on this recommendation list one of these will be something that you enjoy. I try to give a breadth of genre to deconstruct one of the most common comics myths. Aka it has never been, and never will be, just superheroes. Any time you think that, remember Sunday comics, political cartoons, manga, and Archie. Reading broadly genre-wise in comics is also key to finding what you want to read in a particular moment. Sometimes a book doesn’t work for you, and that’s fine, but there’s lots to read comics-wise so I guarantee there’s something for you.