Kiss me, you big dork

This potentially cheeky, ribald concept – a princess from a planet of women sent to find a man – is presented with a leaden earnestness, inviting serious inquiry into its plausibility … Even after “millions of years” of evolution, Astra’s people look exactly like Earthly women, and reproduce in the same way. Neither evolution nor the science of a futuristic, space-travelling society can find a better way – or even any other way – for life to go on. The message seems to be that if cisgender, heterosexual human reproduction became impossible on Astra’s planet, that would not be an acceptable variation in a literal universe of biological possibility, but an imbalance that must and will be corrected by the power of love.

Astra isn’t going to hurt anybody who doesn’t go out of their way to find it. The problem is not this one obscure example of bias-reinforcing narrative, but how utterly conventional it is. Genre fiction often sacrifices logic in this way to preserve the ideal of cis- and hetero- normativity as an objective, universal truth.

In this minicomics roundup, I’ll be taking a look at four self-published comics from four different creators [That Night (This Must Be the Place) by Tony Breed aka @tonybreed at Mega Hugs Press,  Evident Truths & Day & Night for It by Tyler Cohen aka @tylerzonia (available at tyler@primazonia.com), Orbiting by Penina Gal aka @penina-garlic (distributed by Radiator Comics),  Sporgo 2 by Laura Pallmall aka @nothinglefttolearn​, (Nothing Left To Learn)].

While these artists are of different ages, backgrounds, and aesthetics, all the work discussed here focuses on managing the impacts of grief, trauma, or simple day-to-day struggles. While that may sound like heavy-going, the immediacy and open nature of the graphic narrative form has a way of lightening the load of even the heaviest of subjects. Comics can be a great form of therapy, both for readers and creators.

A decade ago, you’d have a hard time finding Black girls in a fantasy comic book. Now, comics like Princeless and Niobe: She Is Life are filling that void and showing that Black girls can be magical. Lion Forge Comics’ newest mini series Cloudia & Rex adds more magic to the mix through a compelling family adventure starring three Afro-Latinx female characters. The completed miniseries was recently collected in a digital and physical trade book.

After the unexpected death of their father, 12 year old Cloudia, her little sister Rex, and their mother go on a road trip that is dramatically interrupted by Thanatos and Hypnos, the twin gods of death and sleep. When their car is hit by a blinding light, Cloudia gains the strength of a hundred gods, Rex gains the power to shapeshift into various animals, ­and the family finds themselves irrevocably embroiled in the gods’ affairs…Besides the artwork, the characters are wonderfully written by writers Ulises Farinas and Erick Freitas. Cloudia, Rex, and their mother are relatable, sympathetic characters each dealing with grief in their own way.