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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

(The real coolest things are 20th Century Boys and Assorted Crisis Events but you didn't hear it from me)

Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

(The coolest thing is Martian Manhunter but more on that later)

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

Also in other reading news, @denizcamp.bsky.social somehow snuck Michel Foucault's 'Discipline and Punish' as well as a nonbinary anticolonial indigenous Hawkeye into a friggin Avengers(Ultimates Comic) and that STILL isn't the coolest thing they're writing just for the big two!

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

all of which you get in a lot of queer narratives. There's sex, there's grief, there's anger, and cringing embarrassment, but the book really serves you something that feels real and grounded while also incredibly hard to put down.

Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

It's nice to read a book that is able to give a reader a nuanced mix of humor, drama, and eroticism all in one without being overwhelmed or oversimplifying any one of the aforementioned aspects. There's no quips, there's no contrived rending of the hair, and there's no porny sequences...

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

identical framework. Cannon also felt a lot easier to read emotionally for me, since I found myself putting it down less frequently, and the breaks I was taking were because of a kind of second-hand embarrassment watching these characters behave so badly.

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

Cannon shows lee delving more deeply into less rote characters, and engaging in a far more intimate portrait of her cast. By keeping the layout to 2x2 on every page, but focusing on a more consistent realism, the writing really shines, since you're seeing a different story existing in an

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 7h

I am once again taking to this app to scream the praises of another Lee Lai x @fantagraphics.bsky.social book, this time, her second novel "Cannon," which shows off Lee's incredible character writing. Stone Fruit's character work was obviously beautiful, but the real strength of that work was formal

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 1d

Okay so I started reading DC's Dark Knights Metal in lieu of finishing up some indie reviews for TCJ(sorry Sally). I've been so stressed with moving and everything I decided I needed some good mindless fun, and oh nelly, it is immediately that! Page three of issue 1

Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

Plus, Nico Minoru is a fortune-telling goth mutant with a magnifying glass in the Ultimate universe. I love love LOVE Runaways so it really got me!

Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

The art is amazing, obviously, since it's Peach Momoko doing interiors again(finally!). But the story is also so fresh from Marvel since it's Peach doing beautiful water-color manga set in the classic setting of a Japanese school. I hope she keeps getting full cartoonist work from the big houses

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

In other "stuff I'm reading right now," I just finished the first trade of @peachmomoko.bsky.social Ultimate X-Men. I've been enjoying a lot of the new Ultimate line, but Peach's is definitely the most original of them all(the rest are just really well-written capes comics).

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

or the overwhelming joy of a child's song. If you're a big Fantagraphics reader, I do think Stone Fruit fits very well in Fanta's library, but its quality shines through. Stone Fruit will persist as a piece of the queer canon. I hope to see some really excellent scholarship about Lee in the future.

Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

Like Machado's memoir, Lee's craft in Stone Fruit follows a well-established, but organic framework. Lee uses the four-panel grid on almost every page, a layout that fosters a quiet, emotional, and thoughtful reading experience and forces its readers to confront the emotional weight of a silence,

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

Lee's work reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, which blends theory, memoir, and magical realism in a rich representation of the fluidity and inexpressibility of queerness and desire.

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

Comics offer cartoonists the ability to play with the body in relation to the mind and the self, and Lee's characters exist as free monsters when running through the woods like children, and realistic understated realism when experiencing the difficulties of queerness in the adult world.

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

This is such a book. I see so much of myself and my relationship to love in this comic. In my reviews I often talk about comics as a form that is uniquely able to portray queer subjectivity in all its depth, and I think Lee's book is an epitome of this idea.

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Tate McFadden @janethesturgeon.bsky.social · 4d

I sat down today and read this incredible book from Lee Lai and @fantagraphics.bsky.social occasionally I read a book that depicts the deep difficulties of queerness in such an unflinching manner that I find myself having to put it down ever few minutes and take a deep breath.