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June Reading 4: Comics About Love and Sex
In honor of Loving Day, bookblogging catch-up with comics about love and sex!
Also all of these were actual review copies, but they were not supplied in a way that would make me feel at all obligated to review them with any particular slant. (also the person who supplies my review copies knows my tastes a little too well so consider that a warning.) Some of them may not be out yet, most of them probably are because I'm slow at reading them.
Interspecies Reviewers (Vol. 1): This is a sex comedy manga about a party of adventurers in a D&D-ish world who come back to the city to spend their winnings on sex and drunkenness - until they discover that they can make a steadier (and marginally safer) income by reviewing the city’s multitudinous houses of negotiable affection. Especially since recent immigration changes means that there are a lot more options than there used to be. Think Oglaf x The House of Red Fireflies as a shonen manga, except not as brilliant as either of those, which is a very high bar.
It is definitely not trying to sensitively address any issues around prostitution, but it does have a disclaimer that acknowledges that there are issues but that in this world all sex workers have the jobs by choice and they really like the work. Because magic. So at least there’s no fetishizing of consent issues (at least about the workers; there is one story where the reviewing party sign waivers of consent without reading them first despite being repeatedly warned that they need to read them.)
It is porn by US comics standards but not Japanese, which means no genitals or sex fluids but lots of scenes with certain parts conveniently obscured and lots of bare boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. It is definitely a comic for the het male gaze, and specifically a het male who likes boobs. And the adventurers are pretty no-homo in that way where we don’t have anything against lgbt people but if we're in a room with another naked man we have to be performatively uncomfortable regardless. You know the way.
It’s somewhat redeemed by the fact that one of the core party is not actually a het male, but someone from a race of “angels” who are all nonbinary and bisexual, who is pretending to be a het male because given all the no homo they’re afraid the others will make it weird if they come out. And given what kind of comic it is, that storyline actually seemed really well done! I am pretty invested in the angel. Also, it is made very clear that the angel has way more fun with sex than the guys who are all being performatively straight.
It’s also somewhat redeemed by the fact that other than liking a) heterosexuality and b) big boobs, it’s pretty body-positive. The whole thing is kicked off by an argument over whether it’s weirder that human men like 600-year-old elf women (lithe bodies, untouched by time; lots of experience; inexplicably not in demand by elf men) or that elf men like 60-year-old human women (still young in the world and dewy of aura, don't smell like your grandma;just enough experience to be fun; inexplicably not in demand by human men) and nobody wins the argument, although there's some actual worldbuilding about how it's been affecting economics in the red light districts. That sort of spirit of “there’s somebody who loves every shape of person and they’re all correct” is sort of the core ethos of the book; the fact that each chapter ends with reviews of the sex shops is made a lot softer by the fact that the reviewers never, ever agree. Which I like. I also like that it takes advantage of the kinky fun possibilities in a world with magic and with sex partners with really different shapes and abilities and desires, which is something not enough fantasy porn is brave enough to do.
I don’t want to make it out as better than it is, because you know, still a shonen manga about dudes reviewing sex workers, but it was good enough that I mostly just found it fun. And I’m going to keep reading if it keeps falling into my hands, if only for the angel.
The fanwork I would like of this is a version of it that isn’t entirely from Straight Male No-Homo land, please, and also has recurring sex worker characters.
Yuri Bear Storm (Vol. 1): Just about the right amount of yuri, not enough bears.
Ok to be serious: I feel like I would need to have read a lot more recent yuri to say much useful about this and what it's doing. It’s about an Ordinary Japanese High School girl who maybe has some kind of clairvoyant powers? Who unexpectedly makes friends with the New Girl, who thinks they’re soulmates, but who may actually be secretly a TALKING BEAR, especially given the strange dreams they’ve been having together. And then OJHSG gets a new roommate, who thinks she is Bear Girl’s roommate! But they end up all being best friends instead of a love triangle by the end of Vol. 1, which is actually really nice. I have no idea what’s going on with the magic bear storm stuff, thought, it’s very confusing. Maybe they’re bears? Or maybe they’re literally the only people who aren’t bears? Or maybe it’s just a mind game? Anyway, needs moar actual bears, not weird conceptual ones.
I don’t understand what’s going on, so really the only fanwork I want right now is a crossover with the next comic down. Also, the main character doesn't seem to have ever heard of lesbianism, which is kind of odd in a comic set in modern day Japan, especially given that all the other characters clearly know all about it. I suppose that's probably a yuri trope?
I sometimes have trouble following shojo manga because of something about the art conventions, and that might be part of it, although I liked the art in this a lot better than the last few shojo I’ve tried, so I think my confusion was mostly the plot.
I will stick with it at least one more volume just to see if it really swerves full OT3 like it looked like it was going to.
My Boyfriend Is A Bear: Exactly the right amount of bear, not enough yuri.
This is what it says on the tin. A woman dumps the latest in a string of crappy boyfriends and instead starts dating the bear who took refuge in her yard from wildfires in the hills.
It’s a really sweet love story about two crazy kids making it work despite all the judgement of society and their own cultural differences. I like it a lot. I ship them hard. I want to learn more about the bear and the woman who loves him and their life together.
It is pretty much summed up by the fact that all her friends try to convince her that this relationship is is a bad idea because the bear could freak out and kill her at any time, and she basically responds, “sure, but he doesn’t have any of the other downsides of dating a human guy, and he’s really good at cuddles” and they don’t really have a good counterargument there.
(We should make it clear that the bear is a bear. He is not a hairy human man, he is not an anthro bear, he is not a prince in disguise or a magic talking animal, he is a bear, Ursos americanos. Admittedly, he is a bear who understands (but does not speak) English, enjoys reading Cosmo, can juggle, and can hold down a corporate job, but that all seems reasonably within the capacity of a smarter-than-the-average bear.)
(No, they very carefully never specify what if anything they do in bed together other than cuddle, this isn't Canadian literature okay.)
Form of a Question:
The first one in this batch that got the “dispose of with great prejudice” treatment! I mean, it’s not, like, actively bad. It’s just a graphic memoir about a nebbishy guy who thinks his life is incomplete and he’s a failure as a man because he hasn’t scored his perfect girlfriend yet. The local color in this one is the he was a man who won on Jeopardy!, and I picked it up just out of curiosity because of my stint in quiz bowl in high school/college and I thought maybe it would be about quiz bowl stuff instead, but the Jeopardy part gave the impression of being what dude thought was his One Interesting Story but he failed to make it actually interesting. I mean, if I tell my quiz bowl story, there is going to be at least one side track into the part where the teacher got arrested for soliciting a crossdressing sex worker who was actually an undercover cop, just to start. And I didn’t even make it on to Jeopardy! If you want an interesting coming-of-age with a realistic portrayal of quiz bowl kids, watch Spiderman: Homecoming instead.
If you have read one graphic memoir about a straight dude who thinks he will suddenly be a complete man if he finds and captures His Destined Woman, and the only thing he does about this is to mentally sort all female bodies around him into Taken and Potential Girlfriend and then obsess about it at the expense of becoming a real person himself, you probably never need to read another one, and this is another one.
The art’s fine. It makes the interesting choice that everything is in black and white except Potential Girlfriends, which is kind of on the nose, although probably not in the way they intended it to be.
The only people I found interesting in it were the woman who beat him on Jeopardy (taken), and the Potential Girlfriend he confessed his love to who responded with basically “oh, crap, another out-of-the-blue love confession, I have to stop trying to make friends with boys” and split, which. Big mood, lady.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me:
I would have read this sooner if I realized it was about wlw! You can’t tell from the cover or the back copy unless you look real close, I thought it was another straight dude memoir about how he can't get girls, but no, it is actually good! So if you want a lovely lesbian coming-of-age memoir about the importance of friendship that you can read in front of your grandmother, this is for you!
I will admit that the first half or so of the book is about the kind of Pointless Teen Relationship Angst that I was tired of by the time I was about 11, but it is somewhat leavened by the fact that it’s two queer girls (with circles of queer friends) having out and loud relationship drama who are very aware that even ten years ago they could not have been nearly as publicly dysfunctional about each other, and who aren't really sure what to do with that.
And then it slowly becomes apparent that Freddy and Laura’s borderline-abusive relationship is not actually what the story is about, it’s about Freddy’s friendship with her non-lesbian best friend Doodle, and how Laura being around changes that relationship, and along the way it has really interesting things to say about what’s it’s like to be a teenager in a milieu where you can have a messily public queer relationship without constantly thinking about being judged for the queer part of it, especially in the light of the eventual reveal that Doodle has spent the whole book being in a secret shameful relationship with a married older man who was in a position of power over her, and had nobody she felt like she could talk to about it, because Freddy was too busy being a disaster lesbian, and everybody else would judge her.
The bears come in because Freddy and Doodle have a hobby of buying thrift-store toys and turning them into Frankentoys, which then give Freddie commentary about her life choices. This is never expanded on. There are some rather disturbing bears.
I would really love a fanfic for this from the POV of literally anyone other than Freddie - I liked the book, but the entire point of Freddie’s character arc is that she’s too wrapped up in Laura drama to pay attention to anyone else, and everyone else is so interesting in comparison to the Laura drama.
That said, for any teenager I think this would be a great choice, I love all the things it has to say about relationships and being a teenager in them.
n.b. I do not have a bear kink in particular but sometimes you just have to roll with what you've been given
Also all of these were actual review copies, but they were not supplied in a way that would make me feel at all obligated to review them with any particular slant. (also the person who supplies my review copies knows my tastes a little too well so consider that a warning.) Some of them may not be out yet, most of them probably are because I'm slow at reading them.
Interspecies Reviewers (Vol. 1): This is a sex comedy manga about a party of adventurers in a D&D-ish world who come back to the city to spend their winnings on sex and drunkenness - until they discover that they can make a steadier (and marginally safer) income by reviewing the city’s multitudinous houses of negotiable affection. Especially since recent immigration changes means that there are a lot more options than there used to be. Think Oglaf x The House of Red Fireflies as a shonen manga, except not as brilliant as either of those, which is a very high bar.
It is definitely not trying to sensitively address any issues around prostitution, but it does have a disclaimer that acknowledges that there are issues but that in this world all sex workers have the jobs by choice and they really like the work. Because magic. So at least there’s no fetishizing of consent issues (at least about the workers; there is one story where the reviewing party sign waivers of consent without reading them first despite being repeatedly warned that they need to read them.)
It is porn by US comics standards but not Japanese, which means no genitals or sex fluids but lots of scenes with certain parts conveniently obscured and lots of bare boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. It is definitely a comic for the het male gaze, and specifically a het male who likes boobs. And the adventurers are pretty no-homo in that way where we don’t have anything against lgbt people but if we're in a room with another naked man we have to be performatively uncomfortable regardless. You know the way.
It’s somewhat redeemed by the fact that one of the core party is not actually a het male, but someone from a race of “angels” who are all nonbinary and bisexual, who is pretending to be a het male because given all the no homo they’re afraid the others will make it weird if they come out. And given what kind of comic it is, that storyline actually seemed really well done! I am pretty invested in the angel. Also, it is made very clear that the angel has way more fun with sex than the guys who are all being performatively straight.
It’s also somewhat redeemed by the fact that other than liking a) heterosexuality and b) big boobs, it’s pretty body-positive. The whole thing is kicked off by an argument over whether it’s weirder that human men like 600-year-old elf women (lithe bodies, untouched by time; lots of experience; inexplicably not in demand by elf men) or that elf men like 60-year-old human women (still young in the world and dewy of aura, don't smell like your grandma;just enough experience to be fun; inexplicably not in demand by human men) and nobody wins the argument, although there's some actual worldbuilding about how it's been affecting economics in the red light districts. That sort of spirit of “there’s somebody who loves every shape of person and they’re all correct” is sort of the core ethos of the book; the fact that each chapter ends with reviews of the sex shops is made a lot softer by the fact that the reviewers never, ever agree. Which I like. I also like that it takes advantage of the kinky fun possibilities in a world with magic and with sex partners with really different shapes and abilities and desires, which is something not enough fantasy porn is brave enough to do.
I don’t want to make it out as better than it is, because you know, still a shonen manga about dudes reviewing sex workers, but it was good enough that I mostly just found it fun. And I’m going to keep reading if it keeps falling into my hands, if only for the angel.
The fanwork I would like of this is a version of it that isn’t entirely from Straight Male No-Homo land, please, and also has recurring sex worker characters.
Yuri Bear Storm (Vol. 1): Just about the right amount of yuri, not enough bears.
Ok to be serious: I feel like I would need to have read a lot more recent yuri to say much useful about this and what it's doing. It’s about an Ordinary Japanese High School girl who maybe has some kind of clairvoyant powers? Who unexpectedly makes friends with the New Girl, who thinks they’re soulmates, but who may actually be secretly a TALKING BEAR, especially given the strange dreams they’ve been having together. And then OJHSG gets a new roommate, who thinks she is Bear Girl’s roommate! But they end up all being best friends instead of a love triangle by the end of Vol. 1, which is actually really nice. I have no idea what’s going on with the magic bear storm stuff, thought, it’s very confusing. Maybe they’re bears? Or maybe they’re literally the only people who aren’t bears? Or maybe it’s just a mind game? Anyway, needs moar actual bears, not weird conceptual ones.
I don’t understand what’s going on, so really the only fanwork I want right now is a crossover with the next comic down. Also, the main character doesn't seem to have ever heard of lesbianism, which is kind of odd in a comic set in modern day Japan, especially given that all the other characters clearly know all about it. I suppose that's probably a yuri trope?
I sometimes have trouble following shojo manga because of something about the art conventions, and that might be part of it, although I liked the art in this a lot better than the last few shojo I’ve tried, so I think my confusion was mostly the plot.
I will stick with it at least one more volume just to see if it really swerves full OT3 like it looked like it was going to.
My Boyfriend Is A Bear: Exactly the right amount of bear, not enough yuri.
This is what it says on the tin. A woman dumps the latest in a string of crappy boyfriends and instead starts dating the bear who took refuge in her yard from wildfires in the hills.
It’s a really sweet love story about two crazy kids making it work despite all the judgement of society and their own cultural differences. I like it a lot. I ship them hard. I want to learn more about the bear and the woman who loves him and their life together.
It is pretty much summed up by the fact that all her friends try to convince her that this relationship is is a bad idea because the bear could freak out and kill her at any time, and she basically responds, “sure, but he doesn’t have any of the other downsides of dating a human guy, and he’s really good at cuddles” and they don’t really have a good counterargument there.
(We should make it clear that the bear is a bear. He is not a hairy human man, he is not an anthro bear, he is not a prince in disguise or a magic talking animal, he is a bear, Ursos americanos. Admittedly, he is a bear who understands (but does not speak) English, enjoys reading Cosmo, can juggle, and can hold down a corporate job, but that all seems reasonably within the capacity of a smarter-than-the-average bear.)
(No, they very carefully never specify what if anything they do in bed together other than cuddle, this isn't Canadian literature okay.)
Form of a Question:
The first one in this batch that got the “dispose of with great prejudice” treatment! I mean, it’s not, like, actively bad. It’s just a graphic memoir about a nebbishy guy who thinks his life is incomplete and he’s a failure as a man because he hasn’t scored his perfect girlfriend yet. The local color in this one is the he was a man who won on Jeopardy!, and I picked it up just out of curiosity because of my stint in quiz bowl in high school/college and I thought maybe it would be about quiz bowl stuff instead, but the Jeopardy part gave the impression of being what dude thought was his One Interesting Story but he failed to make it actually interesting. I mean, if I tell my quiz bowl story, there is going to be at least one side track into the part where the teacher got arrested for soliciting a crossdressing sex worker who was actually an undercover cop, just to start. And I didn’t even make it on to Jeopardy! If you want an interesting coming-of-age with a realistic portrayal of quiz bowl kids, watch Spiderman: Homecoming instead.
If you have read one graphic memoir about a straight dude who thinks he will suddenly be a complete man if he finds and captures His Destined Woman, and the only thing he does about this is to mentally sort all female bodies around him into Taken and Potential Girlfriend and then obsess about it at the expense of becoming a real person himself, you probably never need to read another one, and this is another one.
The art’s fine. It makes the interesting choice that everything is in black and white except Potential Girlfriends, which is kind of on the nose, although probably not in the way they intended it to be.
The only people I found interesting in it were the woman who beat him on Jeopardy (taken), and the Potential Girlfriend he confessed his love to who responded with basically “oh, crap, another out-of-the-blue love confession, I have to stop trying to make friends with boys” and split, which. Big mood, lady.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me:
I would have read this sooner if I realized it was about wlw! You can’t tell from the cover or the back copy unless you look real close, I thought it was another straight dude memoir about how he can't get girls, but no, it is actually good! So if you want a lovely lesbian coming-of-age memoir about the importance of friendship that you can read in front of your grandmother, this is for you!
I will admit that the first half or so of the book is about the kind of Pointless Teen Relationship Angst that I was tired of by the time I was about 11, but it is somewhat leavened by the fact that it’s two queer girls (with circles of queer friends) having out and loud relationship drama who are very aware that even ten years ago they could not have been nearly as publicly dysfunctional about each other, and who aren't really sure what to do with that.
And then it slowly becomes apparent that Freddy and Laura’s borderline-abusive relationship is not actually what the story is about, it’s about Freddy’s friendship with her non-lesbian best friend Doodle, and how Laura being around changes that relationship, and along the way it has really interesting things to say about what’s it’s like to be a teenager in a milieu where you can have a messily public queer relationship without constantly thinking about being judged for the queer part of it, especially in the light of the eventual reveal that Doodle has spent the whole book being in a secret shameful relationship with a married older man who was in a position of power over her, and had nobody she felt like she could talk to about it, because Freddy was too busy being a disaster lesbian, and everybody else would judge her.
The bears come in because Freddy and Doodle have a hobby of buying thrift-store toys and turning them into Frankentoys, which then give Freddie commentary about her life choices. This is never expanded on. There are some rather disturbing bears.
I would really love a fanfic for this from the POV of literally anyone other than Freddie - I liked the book, but the entire point of Freddie’s character arc is that she’s too wrapped up in Laura drama to pay attention to anyone else, and everyone else is so interesting in comparison to the Laura drama.
That said, for any teenager I think this would be a great choice, I love all the things it has to say about relationships and being a teenager in them.
n.b. I do not have a bear kink in particular but sometimes you just have to roll with what you've been given