Friday Feature: Jamie Baywood's Getting Rooted in New Zealand

As you may have realised I'm still stuck in blogging limbo whilst I look after my mother (another two weeks to go) however travel writer Jamie Baywood has graciously offered to write a guest post for you all!

Jamie is a Californian now living in wedded bliss in Scotland. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her account of the start of her journey to find happiness: fleeing California and her ex-boyfriend for New Zealand, a country with 100,000 fewer men than women...but things never go as planned and it is going to take new weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs before she even gets close to finding what she is looking for.

Jamie has put together a soundtrack for her journey through New Zealand so that you can feel like you are living the adventure with her:

Getting Rooted with Jamie Baywood from rachel.yelding on 8tracks Radio.

1. Bitter:Sweet - The Mating Game
2. Goldfrapp - Ooh La La
3. Santigold - L.E.S. Artistes (Brummer Remix)
4. Kids of 88 - Just a Little Bit
5. Naked and Famous - Young Blood
6. Kavinsky - Nightcall
7. College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero
8. Metronomy - The Look

Here are some of Jamie's reasons for choosing the tracks she did:

 

These songs I listened to a lot in California before New Zealand:

 

BiitterSweet – The Mating Game

Goldfrapp – Ooh La La

 

I listened to these songs a lot when I was about twenty-five and single in California. I was young and getting chased by a lot of guys – most I was completely uninterested in.

 

These songs I listened to while I was in New Zealand:

 

Santigold – L.E.S. Artistes

 

There are some lines in this song that really apply to how I felt when I first arrived in New Zealand:
 

What I’m searching for I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up 

What am I here for 

I left my home to disappear is all I’m here for myself

 

Kids of 88 – Just a little Bit
Naked and Famous – Young Blood

 

Kids of 88 and Naked and Famous were New Zealand bands I discovered during my time in there. I had the chance to go to a concert where they both performed. It was a great night.

 

I listened to while living in the UK after New Zealand:
 

Kavinsky - Nightcall
College & Electric Youth - A Real Hero

Metronomy - The Look

 

I can get obsessed with listening to movie soundtracks. Last year when I first moved to the UK and was living in Scotland I was obsessed with the Drive soundtrack. I listen to Nightcall and A Real Hero over and over. My husband also introduced me to Metronomy in Scotland.

 

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Getting Rooted in New Zealand is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482601907

Jamie Baywood can be followed on:

Facebook.com/jamiebaywood
Twitter.com/jamiebaywood
Pinterest.com/jamiebaywood
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7069448.Jamie_Baywood
amazon.com/author/jamiebaywood
 

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If you are a writer, musician, band, artist or movie maker and are curious about being a Feature Friday or if you know someone who you think would make a good Feature Friday please get in contact!

Support / Pre-order your copy of The Strumpet volume 3 featuring me!

If you do and you are able to attend the London launch party in November I'll sign your copy and give you a big thank you hug! If you come dressed as Edward Nygma I'll even give you a thank you kiss ;) ;)

Here is a sneaky preview of my featured short comic Pest!

Friday Feature - Margret Helgadottir

This Friday is another guest post by an author, this time Margret Helgadottir. It is about writing her character Iselin from her short story Shadow, self-harm and The Moomins and is part of the Impossible Spaces Blog Tour (if you click on the button you can read all the other posts in the tour - I shall be contributing two guest posts very soon too, though I'll tell you more about those as they happen).

Margret is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who has travelled all over the world and has just started to write fiction in English. She mainly writes speculative fiction and is very much inspired by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Shadow is about a young woman called Islelin who thanks to both nature and nurture has always felt isolated and different.When she meets freedom fighter of sorts, Berge, she is flung into an alternate, desolate world where lizard creatures, not humans, are the apex predators but could it be that in this hopeless future is where her salvation lies?

Margret with her copy of Impossible Spaces, one of the many publications she has stories printed in.

"I’ve had the image of Iselin in my head for a long time. Iselin is an old Norwegian female name that means dream or vision. Originally I wanted it to be more a chaotic and confusing horror story that travelled through visions and dimensions, with Iselin as the key factor. Then, as I started to write, a different narrative wanted to be told. This often happens in my writing. I’ve started to spend less time on the planning of my stories, because they often seem to have a life on their own. You asked me to take pictures of my notes. For this story I only had five small sentences, in Norwegian, and the only thing that I used was that Iselin entered an elevator on her way home late one night.

 

 

I’ve had the image of a scarred young woman who hides from the world, too scared to pop her head up, for a long time, and I’ve also played with ideas of how an outsider would react if suddenly almost all the people were gone and the person had no society to avoid. Would this encourage the person to take up more space in the world, and no longer fear being visible? You know, like plants do when you give them a larger pot and more earth. Their roots will stretch and they will grow larger and blossom. But if they’re forced to stay in the same tiny pot forever, they will remain the same size until they die, and maybe never blossom fully.

 

In hindsight, I see that the story about Iselin is a sad story about self-preservation. Iselin is a young woman scarred mentally and physically by her childhood. She’s been raised to not be a burden to her parents and has always managed on her own. As an adult, she’s been sucked into a vicious spiral: she shuns contact with people and they in return avoid her, leading to her feeling even more isolated and misunderstood so that she redoubles her efforts to stay away from people, and so on. Getting stuck in such a self-reinforcing spiral is much easier than people think.

Street art by C215 in Oslo that inspired Margret.

Iselin learned to keep all her emotions on the inside early on, so she wouldn’t provoke or disturb her parents. This has stuck with her. The emotions are locked up inside her and someone seems to have thrown the key far away. She suffers, but she doesn’t know how to deal with it. She tries to ease her pain with substitutes, like many people do when life gets unbearable or they want to escape their heavy thoughts. However, she does not resort to starving herself, drinking large quantities of alcohol, losing herself in drug-induced highs, or throwing herself from cliffs. No, Iselin works until she drops, and when that doesn’t help, she cuts herself with razor blades. Numb and exhausted, she drags herself from day to day, hoping no one will notice her, yet secretly longing to be seen.

 

The world sees only a stone face. Iselin has not only become a shadow of herself, she’s also a shadow in the world. She is like the shy, scared little girl in Finnish author Tove Jansson’s story The Invisible Child, from her book Tales from Moominvalley (1962). Because an adult made sarcastic comments about her, this girl became totally invisible. Under the kind care of the Moomin family, she became secure enough to act spontaneously on her emotions and this led to her gradually becoming visible again. The story about Iselin spins around the same ideas of invisibility. The guerrilla soldier Berge is Iselin’s tolerant, accepting and generous Moomin family. Berge is an old Norwegian name that means “to save”.

Ninny and Moomin play hide and seek in the 1990 Moomin animated series.

But Berge has his own scars and is in many ways a shadow too. Rachel, you pointed out that the idea of fate is very strong in the story. You said that when Berge rubs the glove he wears to hide his scales over Iselin’s scars, it feels as if they were meant to save each other from themselves. Thanks for this. You’re right. Berge and Iselin are both miserable and lonely lost souls who live in the shadows of their own worlds. It’s only when they follow their instincts—Berge when he goes to the office building, Iselin when she chooses to follow Berge—that they find the solution. Shadow is all about Iselin and Berge helping each other to come out of the shadows, but on a macro level, the story is about something else: lost souls and a mysterious helping hand from another dimension that responds to their unvoiced cries for help. At least I hope it became such a story. I’ll leave it to the readers to decide whether I have succeeded in this or not.

Street art in Oslo by AliCe Pasquini

So, Shadow evolved from an idea for a horror story to a tale about hope, about how it can be possible to spot the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of how hopeless the situation is, regardless of how lost you feel. Follow your instincts; follow the good guys; be brave enough to step out of the shadows. There are many kind-hearted lost souls walking the streets, scarred from their own battles, who’d like to meet you."

Send Margret your love via her blog http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com and also on twitter @MaHelgad.

Also if you are a goodreads user / reviewer you can win a copy of Impossible Spaces here!

Minx Review: Re-Gifters

This week's Minx Review is dedicated to my friend Len. I trawled the whole of London to find a copy of Re-Gifters for her and it got 'lost' in the post (being a parcel I had weighed at the post office that means someone stole it grrrr). I know a review isn't the same but perhaps we can live vicariously through it. Re-Gifters is written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel.

 

Re-Gifters is about Korean-American hapkido competitor Dixie. She blows her $200 entry fee for a big championship on a birthday present for fellow martial artist and crush Adam only to discover that not only is he disinterested in her present but also her! Completely off her game, Dixie must now fight the street rounds to get the chance to re-qualify for the championship where she takes on tough guy Dillinger. Re-Gifters is also the story of the warrior statue Dixie buys for Adam and its journey around LA.

 

Re-Gifters is the most accessible Minx comic if you're a guy: it features sport, tough guys, girls who act like tough guys and eye candy Megan. That is not to say it's not also entertaining for young women, in fact it is perfect for young women who are bored of the weak, bland, overly-girly lead characters that often appear in young adult media: Dixie and her very charming best friend Avril are tough-talking city girls who are more than capable of standing up for themselves (though the male characters do spend a lot of time talking down to them). Dixie is also trying to battle with her teenage hormones resulting in a volatile temper and a giant crush on Adam. When Avril makes Dixie over for Adam's birthday party Dixie is literally stripped from her armour revealing her more fragile side. This provides a nicely balanced heroine you instantly want to root for.

 

Adam is a douchebag. Not as much as a douchebag as Jake from Water Baby (Water Baby is probably the most adult of the Minx titles) but he gets pretty close. Not only does he not realise that Dixie is crushing on him (even when he makes her give him advice on how to get closer to Megan) but he gives the warrior statue to an equally unappreciative Megan without a second's thought and even plays mind games with Dixie when he thinks she might beat him in the hapkido championship. Apart from being blonde he really has very few redeeming features.

 

Though Dixie harbours feelings for Adam for the majority of the book  the last thing you want is for her to get together with him. Enter Dillinger. Dillinger is the rather unbelievable bad boy. He's a tough guy with morals (not always logical morals) who, when he's not beating up Megan's brother is helping Dixie get out of her Adam-induced funk and win the championship. He is much more likeable than Adam but does feel strangely motivated. He's there to prove that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (aka just because he's a street kid it doesn't mean he's out to murder you) but his desire to pound on Megan's admittedly annoying brother (a device to get the statue to continue to circulate LA) somewhat sullies it and makes when he is being nice a bit cheesy. The men in Dixie's family are always spot on though, in particular her twin brothers who are lively little monkeys and very endearing.

 

The ending is pretty predictable however because you're rooting for Dixie from the very beginning and she gets the ending she deserves (rather than the one she thinks she wants at the beginning) it has that warm, cute, satisfying feeling.

 

Much like the subject of Re-Gifters the art feels very male centric - it doesn't have the smoothness and artiness you expect from a graphic story aimed at young women - if anything it looks perfect for a comic aimed at pre-teen boys. I appreciate that a young woman new to graphic stories might reject it for something more elegant however if she is already into graphic novels she'll appreciate its indie feel and obvious quality. It somehow manages to balance simplicity with detail and is wonderfully lively - which is perfect for a story about martial arts. Also a quick thumbs up to Jesse from Good as Lily for the shading. It might just look like a bit of grey but that bit of grey adds so much dimension to Sonny and Marc's lines.

 

Re-Gifters is about learning to expand your horizons and by attempting to blend boys comics with a female protagonist it mostly succeeds on both physical and thematic levels. It is also a story about not only people but things going on journeys...so if you see a copy of Re-Gifters floating about it's probably the one I sent to Len. Do a blogger a favour and gift it on to someone you care about and maybe, like Dixie's statue, it might also eventually find its way back to Len.

You'll like Re-Gifters if you like:
Confessions of a Blabbermouth, My Faith in Frankie, The Next Karate Kid, Bamboo Blade, Peach Girl and being a tomboy.

Selected graphic novels also by Mike Carey:
Lucifer, The Sandman Presents: Petrefax and The Furies, various Hellblazer volumes, Batman: Gotham Knights #37: "Fear is the Key", Detective Comics #801-804: "The Barker: When You're Strange", My Faith in Frankie, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, various Crossing Midnight volumes, God Save the Queen, Faker #1-6, Confessions of a Blabbermouth, The Unwritten, Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due #1-5, Spellbinders #1-6, various Fantastic Four volumes, various X-Men volumes, Ultimate Vision #1-5, Ender's Shadow, The Torch #1-8, Thor: Wolves of the North, Sigil #1-4, Red Sonja #0-6, Vampirella: Revelations, Wetworks: Worldstorm, Voodoo Child and The Stranded #1-5.

Novels also by Mike Carey:
The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle, Dead Men's Boots, Thicker Than Water, The Naming of the Beasts and The Steel Seraglio (co-written with Linda Carey and Louise Carey).

Also by Sonny Liew:
Fighting Turtle, Malinky Robot: Collected Stories & Other Bits, Marvel's Sense and Sensibility, Au Pays des Merveilles, Le Tour du monde en bande dessinée vol 2, Marvel Adventures Spiderman #50, Wonderland, Liquid City (Vol.1, 2), Flight (Vol. 2, 5, 8) and My Faith in Frankie.

Also by Marc Hempel:
Sandman: "The Kindly Ones", Breathtaker, Mars, Blood of the Innocent, Gregory, Tug & Buster, Marvel Fanfare, Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, Jonny Quest, Tarzan the Warrior, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, Flinch, My Faith in Frankie, The Dreaming, Lucifer, and Disney Adventures.

Malala Yousafzai's birthday / Malala Day

If you don't know Friday was Malala Yousafzai's 16th birthday. Malala was the Pakistani school girl shot last year in the head on her school bus by the Taliban due to her campaigning for women's rights and education. That's right a group of grown men shot to kill a bus full of young girls. But guess what? The cowards didn't win as Malala survived and she now dedicates her life to the rights of young women and an education for all. Instead of silencing her they have made her shout louder.

It was also my friend Tom's birthday on Friday but he was willing to move his celebrations to Saturday so as not distract from Malala's speech to the UN and in particular the celebrations in the UK which his wife helped organise as part of Plan UK.

Here is Malala's moving speech:



You can learn more about Plan UK, Malala Day and how to get involved here.

Minx Review: Token

As the cat dispute continues (she's refusing to give up coming here) I present to you the next graphic novel in my Minx Review series: Token written by Alisa Kwitney and illustrated by Joëlle Jones.

It's the summer of 1987 and daddy's girl Shira is spending another summer alone seeing as her social life was ruined by an unfortunate incident with a bar mitzvah cake. Life's okay though, she's best friends with eighty year olds Pearl and Minerva and has her dad all to herself...until he starts dating his secretary. Feeling that her dad is changing for the worse Shira lashes out by shoplifting a scarf only to be spotted by Latino hottie Rafael but instead of turning her in Rafael offers her shoplifting lessons and so begins their flirty and thrilling relationship.

 

First of all YAY. A mainstream western graphic novel written AND illustrated by women. So it IS possible! More please!

  

Read Token on a beach / in the garden / by a pool / anywhere sunny and warm. It won't be half as enjoyable in the middle of winter (unless you need some reminding of what summer is like of course)! I wouldn't say it's anything new, but then it's not trying to be - it's the story of a daddy's girl learning to share her father with another woman wrapped up in a summer romance - but thanks to likeable, well shaped, well drawn characters it doesn't need to do anything crazy and daring to be enjoyable.

Shira is perfect for Minx's target audience: she's pretty but also gawky, cool but not part of the cool crowd, intelligent, self-aware, melodramatic and very spunky. It's very rare in mainstream graphic novels and most other genre writing for a feisty female character to be so well rounded (and also likeable) and I have to say it's because she's written by a woman. Male writers like Paul Dini, Ross Campbell and Joss Whedon get amazingly close to understanding the female mind (and I love them for it) but then there are people like Steven Moffat who think they write females better than they actually do and those who just don't care as long as the female has big boobs to bounce about. Believe it or not nothing beats a woman for understanding a woman! Or the pains of being a teenage girl (trust me guys there's much more to it that PMS). Alisa understands it perfectly and writes it perfectly, getting just the right balance of fragility and feistiness. She also fills Token with settings and secondary characters that are completely up an intelligent, daydreamy teenage girl's street: the 1980s John Hughes beach setting; a wry, 1940s screen siren, Jewish grandmother best friend and a charming bad boy love interest.

Rafael is hot. Just saying. Joëlle's art is fantastic (more on that later) and she manages to make him practically smoulder. For the first time in all the Minx books I can actually see why the lead falls for the boy. I would. The scene where he catches Shira shoplifting is so loaded! Shira's feistiness combined with Rafael's smoothness leads to some great banter and top notch flirting. Be still my beating heart! Usually I want to vomit when I read / watch a romance but I actually wanted to read Shira's and Rafael's scenes most of all - I wanted to see how their relationship would end considering all the complications connected to it - and I wanted to see them get it on (a bit of vicarious living).

Despite the dream ingredients Token also has a very realistic feel and resolution which I think is to it's credit. Shira's father's secretary is not an evil stepmother stereotype - she's actually really nice - any animosity is purely from Shira and it is up to Shira to realise it. The ending is also not a happily ever after ending. As Batman would say, Shira doesn't get everything she wants but she gets what she needs and when Alisa has been so careful to craft a story and characters with so many layers and dimensions it's the only correct ending there could be.

Now what was I saying about Joëlle's art? IT'S EPIC! It is proper mainstream stuff with all the quality and detail you would expect and see in an issue of Batman or X-Men whilst maintaining a unique and personal style. The characters' expressions are just perfect, very much taking Alisa's writing and running with it. I could look at Joëlle's art all day. It makes me so happy that she is now working with the big comic publishers. I would most definitely love to work with her should I ever get so lucky!

What was that? You want some endearing, perfectly written, perfectly drawn summer romance? Then get yourself a copy of Token!

You'll like Token if you like:
John Hughes' 1980s films, Dirty Dancing, The Lost Boys, Mermaids, Grandma's House, The O.C. and Ocean Waves (I Can Hear the Sea)

Also by Alisa Kwitney:
Till The Fat Lady Sings, The Dominant Blonde, Does She or Doesn't She?, On the Couch, Sex as a Second Language: A Novel, Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold, Vertigo Visions: The Phantom Stranger and Sandman: King of Dreams

Also by Joëlle Jones:
12 Reasons Why I Love Her, You Have Killed Me, Sexy Chix, Shojo Beat, Fables, Popgun, Portland Noir, Madman Atomic Comics #16, Dr. Horrible, Madame Xanadu, Troublemaker, House of Night, The Girl Who Owned a City, Spell Checkers and Ultimate Spider-Man #150

Friday Feature - Nerdy Girl / Cecil Seaskull

Can you remember two weeks ago? I reviewed Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's Plain Janes graphic novel series and we discovered that along with being a Young Adult author Cecil was also an indie rock performer sooooooo...this week's Friday Feature is Nerdy Girl / Cecil Seaskull an 1990s indie rock singer and her band from Montreal, Canada.

 

When I first heard Nerdy Girl I had to get the calculator out to work out how old Cecil was when she recorded with them, she has the sweetest most innocent voice. I was amazed that she was in her late twenties! And actually when you listen to the lyrics of Twist Her you realise that these are not sweet songs, they are about confused love, stealing boyfriends, drugs and self-loathing. Combined with her young voice her songs become wonderfully teenage (and I do mean that in a good way) full of hormones and hope and depression and uncertainty. Cecil describes her sound as 'twee' and it does indeed sound unmistakably 1990s indie like a less trippy Mazzy Star, The Cardigans, Dressy Bessy, Go Sailor etc. If I had to recommend an order of listening it would be listen to Cecil's band's album Twist Her before seeking out her solo effort Whoever. Twist Her has definitely aged better than Whoever. It is more accessible, more polished more varied and very easy to listen to. That is not to say that Whoever is not without merit, for instance I very much enjoyed listening to Sweet Girl.

 

 

Where will I have heard her before?

You're much more likely to have encountered Cecil in her guise of Cecil Castellucci, a very successful Young Adult author. You can read my review of her Plain Janes series here.

Featured Song: Anne Eliot

Where can I hear more?

Nerdy Girl released some 7" and 10" EPs but the only album that is easy to access these days is their 1997 album Twist Her via iTunes. Cecil Seaskull's 1998 album Whoever is also only available through iTunes.

What is her website?

http://castellucci.wordpress.com/

Next week: We'll return to the Minx Reviews

Folkestone Knit Bomb - "Women hold up half the sky"

Wednesday was the hottest day of the year so far so I paused my writing and took myself off to my favourite place in the world: Folkestone and the Leas. It's not a glamorous place. Some would call it faded and many parts are down right neglected but it still holds much beauty and magic for me. It also has a growing art community and I was very excited to see some knit bombing / yarn bombing (I've never seen it in real life). I saw some in the town centre covering some bollards and then as I walked down the art quarter I saw this:

Okay, the originator of the quotation (Chairman Mao) had a very questionable human rights record but the effort and good intentions that went into this knit bomb really cemented why I love Folkestone so much and why I hope to move to the Leas one day.

Here are some more pictures of art in Folkestone:

 

P.S. A lot of you guys liked my fox tails so when I get some time I'll do a series of posts on how to make them as well as how to make a faux fur scarf and possibly even a fur muff :-) Keep an eye out! 

Minx Reviews: The Plain Janes and Janes in Love

So I was going to review a different Minx title this week but I was so distracted drawing my own graphic story (which I'll share with you at a later date) that I forgot to re-read it! D'oh! So to make up for it I'll review two other Minx graphic novels in one go: The Plain Janes and Janes in Love written by Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Jim Rugg.

The Plain Janes is all about...uh...Jane, a popular girl who is caught in a terrorist explosion. Jane survives but afraid that next time she might not be so lucky her parents relocate from the city to the safe suburbs of Kent Waters. The explosion really gets Jane thinking and she realises she wants more in life than being popular. She redesigns herself and instead of sitting at the cool girl table on her first day of school she sits with the 'rejects', a group of girls (and one guy) who all happen to be called variations on the name Jane. Jane wants to channel her feelings from her bad experience into making the world a more beautiful place and together with the other Janes create art installations in the dead of night (think Banksy or Knit Bombing) however not everyone can see the art in P.L.A.I.N's (People Loving Art in Neighbourhoods) art and will do anything to stop them from defacing Kent Waters any further.

 

Janes in Love continues the activities of P.L.A.I.N with Jane realising the only way she can continue to make Kent Waters more beautiful is to make her art legal however whilst she's applying for an arts grant the other Janes are flaking out on her as the Leap Year Dance (their school's Valentine's Day ball) is coming!

 

The Janes books are some of the more positive books in the Minx series. You know that whatever the plot suggests things are going to turn out okay for Jane and her crew. This is great if you need a lift on a miserable day but not so good if you want some gritty realism. A more subtler positivity that the books contain is the concept of turning something ugly into something beautiful. Jane believes deeply in her cause - a project that will not only help her work through her trauma of the bombing but also change for the better the lives of everyone around her - and works at it doggedly no matter what fate throws at her. When you think of the more popular Young Adult heroines such as Bella Swan and Clary Fray such selflessness and dedication puts Jane head and shoulders above them as a positive young adult role model.

 

The other Janes are more stereotypical which is fine in the first book but a little lazy in the second. Each Jane is known as their thing eg Theatre Jane and Sporty Jane and that's pretty much as deep as they get. There is the odd twist to their stereotyping eg Sporty Jane though very unladylike is the first to bag herself a boy in Janes in Love but it's rare. Clever Jane's quirk is that her parents are two gay men which though unusual and refreshing isn't really about her, is it? Then there is James, the only gay in the village...er...I mean Buzz Aldrin High (best name for a school ever). We know he's gay because his face is drawn differently from all the other male characters and he only ever hangs out with girls. He is most definitely stereotyped by his sexuality which is sad as I know that wasn't the intention. I really wanted him to find some straight / gay male friends so that he could explore aspects of himself that he couldn't with a bunch of straight girls.

 

The most developed of the other Janes is Theatre Jane which is ironic as her speech patterns are the most unbelievable (she talks like a male Shakespearean actor). This development happens in Janes in Love where she goes to meet her crush (theatre actor Rhys) on the same day Jane goes to her arts grant pitch. Theatre Jane goes from being a stubborn drama queen to showing a gentler, more nervous and fragile side as well as displaying very endearing resilience.

 

Janes in Love definitely has the stronger narrative (The Plain Janes' overarching story is very basic - succeed at spreading art - leaving lots of space to explore Jane making friends, spreading art, understanding her feelings, getting an art crush on a guy in a coma and winning bad boy Grant) but the 'girls falling in love' part of it is much less original. Maybe it's because every slice of life Young Adult book aimed at female readers involves at least one obligatory romance or maybe it's because the other Janes don't really expand beyond their characters established in the first book that it feels unimaginative. I mean if you're going to do teen romance you really need to put a new spin on it. Theatre Jane's visit to Rhys does have that spin and there is a suggestion of a lesbian encounter but apart from that it's all pretty much paint by numbers stuff. Luckily art is not completely forgotten in the second book and Jane's attempt to continue P.L.A.I.N is enough to carry the book through (though you are never in any doubt about how the art grant will go). 

 

Apart from James not looking like anyone else in either of the books (this is particularly apparent in Janes in Love where his eyes are just dots) the art, as usual, is first class. Jim manages to combine bold lines with wispy shading. The characters (apart from James) have large eyes that really do act like the doors to their souls. I could honestly stare at main Jane's eyes all day. The characters and backgrounds, though not always 100% realistic have so much beauty an emotion to them. They feel like art which I suppose makes them perfect for books about the beauty of art.

You'll like The Plain Janes / Janes in Love if you like:
Rookie, Art School Confidential (and the art class scenes in the Ghost World movie), The Gilmore Girls, It's Kind of a Funny Story, The Perks of Being s Wallflower and knit bombing

Also by Jim Rugg:
Street Angel, Afrodisiac, One Model Nation, and The Guild.

Novels by Cecil Castellucci:
Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool, Beige, Rose Sees Red, Grandma's Gloves, First Day on Earth, The Year of Beasts and Odd Duck.

Cecil is also an indie rock musician releasing music as Nerdy Girl and Cecil Seaskull. Maybe I should do Friday Feature on her music. What do you think?

Patrick Stewart's speech against female abuse

I always knew this guy was cool.

Minx Reviews: Water Baby

This week's Minx review is the graphic novel Water Baby by Ross Campbell. I think Ross Campbell is epic however I promise to be subjective with this review (mostly).

 

Water Baby is a story of two halves. The first part focuses on surfer chick Brody's recovery from having her leg bitten off by a shark. She is plagued with nightmares of a mutant version of the shark which attacks not only her but also her best friend Louisa. Just as Brody starts to get used to her loss another shark enters her life: ex-boyfriend Jake. Jake is a total douchebag and is ruining Brody and Louisa's peaceful existence. When he trashes their apartment Brody decides it's time to send Jake packing. This is where Water Baby enters phase two and becomes a road story. Instead of just ejecting Jake, Brody takes it upon herself to drive Jake back. At a service station he meets Chrissie. They say bad people attract each other and this is very much the case and before Brody and Louisa know what is happening Jake has invited Chrissie along with them. Chrissie's boyfriend apparently abandoned her and it becomes obvious why as she systematically tries to destroy the trio's already strained relationship.

As far as I remember Water Baby was my first Minx graphic novel and though, by no means perfect, it was enough to get me hooked on not only on the Minx imprint but also Ross Campbell.

I'll talk about the art first. It's faultless. If you like the slightly moody and decaying style of Wet Moon then you will be at home with Water Baby. When Brody shaves off her hair she very much looks like Mara. The story too has a very Wet Moon-ish feel to it (it was written between volumes 2 and 3). It is definitely the most grown up of the Minx stories. Brody's accident and nightmares are very graphic and the characters have very mature relationships with sex and sexual fluidity.

The first part of the story is very much the strongest. Because you start with Brody and Louisa a few minutes before the accident you already feel like you know them and their relationship when it happens. You are much more invested in Brody's recovery than if you had started a few seconds before the attack or just after. Louisa takes a lot of crap from Brody but because you know how close they were you want to see their relationship recover too. Then there's Jake. He is a trigger for the nightmares and causes some good extra tension but he is such a selfish, ignorant, douchebag that whenever he pops up he really sticks out. Everything is so nuanced and subtle and inferred then Jake comes along and does something dumb because he is an irredeemable idiot. You could say that maybe his stupidity is cute but he is also a chauvinist so unless you like guys who treat women as little more than put on the earth for their gratification he is not cute. I guess what I'm saying is he's a little bit too much of a jerk. I most definitely would not have offered to drive him home - but then that is also part of the story - Brody realising that you don't have to tolerate or pander to jerky exes.

The second part of the story is the road trip. It is very standard fare. It is here we meet Chrissie. Chrissie is cute but poisonous. I knew a girl exactly like her at university and maybe we all know girls like Chrissie but if you don't you'll probably find her a bit of an evil seducer stereotype in a book that is otherwise very liberal. I think because the book is so open to all sorts of ways of life if feels strange to have such an obvious 'villain' but like I said...girls who look cute and use their cuteness to do incredibly destructive things do exist. I suppose it doesn't help that Jake really is such an idiot and falls for her sly ways so easily whilst Brody and Louisa know there is something up and want as little to do with her as possible. I think because the books is a single volume and a big chunk is devoted to Brody's recovery there is not much space to develop Chrissie as much as the other characters. Though it is not intended she has a tendency to come across as bad because she sleeps around rather than bad because she is generally out to cause trouble.

Water Baby desperately wants to be two different stories but if you're willing to overlook the meandering plot there is a lot still to enjoy, notably the naturalistic dialogue, Brody and Louisa's relationship and Ross' beautiful art. It is also refreshing to find a male writer who can actually write good female characters and isn't afraid to write a less than perfect male. It gets very tiring seeing male writers mouth off about how great they are at writing strong females when in reality though their characters are not the 1950s housewife stereotype they are still no way near dimensional enough to be 'real' (yes there is a difference between 'strong' and 'real'). Long live Ross Campbell's obsession with deep, gutsy girls!

You'll like Water Baby if you like:
Wet Moon, Ghost World, Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, female road trip movies such as Boys on the Side and grungy surfer stuff.

Also by Ross Campbell (writer and artist):
Too Much Hopeless Savages!, Wet Moon, The Abandoned, Resurrection (v2), Shadoweyes and Shadoweyes in Love

Also by Ross Campbell (artist only):
Spooked, House of Mystery #1: "The Hollows", Hack/Slash, Fraggle Rock (v2 #2), Glory (#23-34) plus a load of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff.

Minx Reviews: Emiko Superstar

Sorry I forgot to do this last week - when I start writing I get completely carried away sometimes! Anyway, I thought I would start with my favourite Minx graphic novel Emiko Superstar by writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Steve Rolston.

Emiko is the kind of girl who drifts through life. Bad things happen but she's always too scared of the repercussions to ever try to shake things up...that is until she sees Poppy, a beautiful, alternative teenage performance artist, at the mall. She is faced with a choice: attend young executive summer school with her 'safe' frenemies (but the closest she has to friends) or explore an alternate side of herself at the not-so-legal performance venue 'The Factory'. At first Emiko is fine just watching the performances but soon finds herself performing pages from the diary of the young mother she babysits for. She is an instant success but soon finds all that glitters isn't gold when 'The Curator' of The Factory (and Poppy's sleazy older boyfriend) comes on to her.

I think out of all the Minx heroines Emiko is the one most appealing to the intended readership. She is an everyday, intelligent, slightly introverted girl (much like the average Minx reader) who decides to leave a world and friends that dissatisfy her and reinvent herself for the summer as a character with no restraints on her freedom of expression (probably the biggest angst a teenage girl has) . Because The Factory is not some alternate world, just a hidden place on the other side of the tracks, it makes the idea that anyone can explore a different side of themselves much more accessible. Mariko doesn't try to over glorify the alternative scene though. Yes Emiko makes good friends there, but she also finds parts of it unnatural to her nature / personality and is especially unsettled by the motives and pushiness of The Curator. Mariko and Steve depict life at The Factory as beautiful but transient with those unable to move on paying the price. The biggest example of this is Poppy. Poppy is Emiko's idol and appears to revel in her role at The Factory and with The Curator but is also the most unhappy. She is like a butterfly trapped in her chrysalis with the lifestyle that created her slowly suffocating her and her life's full potential.

The art is also very likeable. Everything has a gentle roundness to it like the character designs for Lilo and Stitch. The panels are characterful and detailed without being crowded. Emiko is also a refreshing character design being short and curvy rather than tall and skinny or massively out of proportion like a your usual DC female.

The only niggle I have with Emiko Superstar (and it is a small one) is that Emiko refers to her school friends as being geeks (and she does not mean the cool kind like yours truly ;-) ). I'd say the people she hangs out with aren't geeks but friends of convenience (we've all been in that situation where you haven't managed to make any real friends so hang out with the first group willing to take you). Mariko somewhat assumes that if you're a geek you're uncool and unpopular (therefore lumping the three together) but that really depends on what circles you move in. I'm happy being a geek and *shocker* I have friends who *bigger shock* think I'm cool(ish). Being a geek doesn't necessarily make you uncool. Being a douchebag does. I think the best way to perceive it is that Emiko is a geek AND unhappy with her position in life. Throughout the story she remains herself (therefore remains a geek) but comes to understand herself and her needs better.

You'll like Emiko Superstar if you like:
Andy Warhol and his Factory, Kids on the Slope, Adventureland and modern American poetry and prose such as the work of Jack Kerouac, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg etc

Also by Mariko Tamaki:
Cover Me, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice, Fake ID, Skim and Set Me on Fire.

Also by Steve Rolston:
Jack Spade and Tony Two-Fist, Queen & Country, Pounded, Mek, One Bad Day, The Escapists, Tales of the TMNT #28, Degrassi: Extra Credit vol. 4, House of Mystery #4 and Ghost Projekt.

Violence Out Tonight - Little Comets

This morning I read Rosie + the wolf's post about Little Comets and just had to share with you guys their video for their single Violence Out Tonight. The song is about rape and the general abuse of women by men. The video by Fern Berresford is simple yet effective. It makes me so happy that there are men out there who get that it is not right for a woman to not be able to go out at night alone without apparently inviting someone to rape her. It makes me even happier that out of all the songs they could have picked to be their single they chose this one.

Friday Feature - Rebecca Sugar

For my first Friday Feature back from Japan I really wanted to write about a Japanese musician but the honest truth is I was so busy making wasabi and taking naked public baths that I didn't get to buy any music! Luckily in Hong Kong I did hear some really cool music - not by a hot Hong Kong band (unfortunately) - but the epic songs written by Rebecca Sugar for Adventure Time!

Adventure Time is an American comedy fantasy animation about the RPG-style adventures of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog. One of the storyboard artists is Rebecca Sugar who also writes many of the songs performed in the series, in particular those sung by Marceline the Vampire Queen (and Marshall Lee her gender bender character in Fiona and Cake). She is basically epic. So here are some of Rebecca's demos accompanied by her concept and storyboard art:

Gummedup / Warmedup

I'm Just Your Problem

Tropical Island

 

Susan Strong

 

Marceline's Song

Fiona and Cake

Good Little Girl

And because I love the 'Bad Little Boy' episode (the second Fiona and Cake episode) SOOOOO much here is the final version of Good Little Girl:

I love Fiona. She is blonde and curvy but so not a bimbo (kind of like me...a little bit...maybe...). I hope there are many more Fiona and Cake episodes! She has the potential to be a wonderful role model.

Anyway you can watch all of Rebecca's demos here and enjoy more of her magical world here.

Next week: Bad Veins

Videos to escape to on a sick day

Hi guys, I'm ill at the moment. If you're ill too (or just bored or curious) please enjoy these videos. 

These Calender of Tales videos come from the BlackBerry10 Keep Moving Neil Gaiman project. Please visit the website to watch all the other videos, look at all the art and read / listen to all the stories <3

April Tale



May Tale



July Tale



September Tale



October Tale



80s Video Dating Montage (reblogged from Rose + the wolf).

I know I'm supposed to find this funny (and I did laugh) but I also found it tragically beautiful. I wonder what kind of relationships they're all in now?



Courtney Stodden's Tweets Read by Janvier



Dirty Girls (a short documentary from 1996)



Amanda Palmer's 'The Art of Asking' TED video



Have a lovely day and if you are ill too, get well soon :-)

D.I.Y. - Poison Ivy's Arkham Asylum Shirt

Hi guys, here is the second part of my Poison Ivy DIY! In this part I'll talk you through painting the Arkham Asylum symbol onto the back of your shirt (this tutorial works for any kind of stencil, not just the Arkham Asylum symbol).

1) Make sure you've followed PART ONE!

2) Design your stencil! To do this you'll need an image, cardboard (I used the side of a cereal box), glue, scissors / a craft knife and some toothpicks. If using scissors you may also need some tape.

If you wish to make the Arkham Asylum symbol into a stencil you can print off this one and stick it onto your cardboard. You can print off almost anything and make it into a stencil but remember the more complicated the picture the more difficult it will be to make the stencil! Of course you can also design your own stencil and if you're feeling brave you can draw it straight onto your cardboard. Once again remember the more complicated you make your design the more difficult it will be to cut it out!

The Arkham Asylum symbol is a complicated design as it involves letters with holes in which need to be magically attached.

3) Cut out the black bits. If you have a craft knife (only use one if you are old enough to and are confident with one) this shouldn't be too much trouble (remember to use a board so as not to damage the surface you are working on) however with a bit of creativity and blind faith you can also neatly cut out a fiddly stencil with scissors. If you are careful you can make extra incisions into the white of the stencil and then patch them up with the tape (I used a water proof tape and stuck it onto both sides of the stencil for extra security). For example the letters were far too thin and angular for me to cut them out smoothly. By making an extra incision into the white around each letter the scissors had more freedom of movement and could get into all the points.

Remember I talked about magically reattaching the holes (they are officially called 'islands') in the letters? Well I taped thin lines cut from the scraps to create 'bridges'. Here is a much clearer example of what I mean. For extra sturdiness I used toothpicks on the big As.

When the stencil is completed it should look like this when held up to the light:

4) Paint your design onto the back of your shirt!

Spread your shirt out onto a piece of newspaper (so as to protect the surface beneath) - remember to undo the shirt! If you paint onto a buttoned up shirt the paint will go straight through onto the front! If you are painting onto a t-shirt put newspaper / card into the shirt to protect the other side.

Because my shirt was quite flimsy I pinned the stencil onto it to prevent extra folds. I put old padded envelopes between the shirt and newspaper for something for the pins to go into.

Paint on that stencil! I used Dylon Fabric Paint and a small everyday paint brush. Leave to dry.

Once dried you can apply another layer of paint to even the colour out. If you wish to paint with more than one colour paint each colour as a separate layer. Leave each layer to completely dry before painting the next.

Leave to dry again then remove the stencil.

5) Set the paint. This next step depends on the instructions of the fabric paint you used. With Dylon Fabric Paint you must iron the paint to make it permanent. Because my shirt is made of a thin material I put it between two tea towels when I ironed it. Don't use a steam iron!

6) Wear it! Wear it! Wear it!

 

The cat is called Freya. She actually belongs to the people across the road but prefers it with us lol

 

 

For extra Poison Ivy touches wear the shirt over green and with floral accessories (especially in your hair) though of course all of Batman's greatest foes end up in an Arkham Asylum shirt at some point in their lives so you could also match it with colours and symbols worn by any of your favourite villains!

 

P.S. - I haven't forgotten about my short comic tutorial - I just haven't finished my character designs for the next stage yet. D'oh!

Friday Feature - La Sera

This week's Friday Feature is La Sera is an indie pop band from Los Angeles, USA featuring vocals from Katy Goodman of Vivian Girls. La Sera's sound is much gentler than that of Vivian Girls. Their first album La Sera in particular is a dreamy affair, seeking inspiration from 1950s and 60s pop but even more bouncy second album Sees the Light is filled with summery instrumentals, a touch of reverb and Katy's gentle, breathy, flowing vocals. Listening to La Sera is like all the fun of a midnight beach party but without all the sand getting in your shoes.

 

Where will I have heard them before?

Katy is a member of punk rock band Vivian Girls.

La Sera spent the majority of 2012 touring, including opening for Father John Misty.

Featured Song: Devils Hearts Grow Gold

Where can I hear more?

You can sample two songs on La Sera's Hardly Art page and another two on their last.fm page. You can then download their two albums La Sera (2011) and Sees the Light (2012).
 
What is their website?

http://iamkatygoodman.com/
http://www.hardlyart.com/lasera.html

Next week: Because I'm enjoying them so much...Dry the River

Friday Feature - Graphic Novels for Female Readers 3: Wet Moon

This week is my last (for now) graphic novel for female readers, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell. Wet Moon is a series of graphic novels set around the eponymous college town featuring the trials and tribulations of the young adults (mostly female, mostly into alternative cultures) who live there.

Though Wet Moon features an ever widening ensemble cast much of the action rotates around eighteen year old Cleo Lovedrop. Cleo is still getting over ex-boyfriend (and ultra broody love of her life) Vincent when she bumps into screamo chick Myrtle. They quickly become attracted to each other and Cleo must work out if she is gay, bi or just going through a phase whilst still trying to get over Vincent. Things start to get complicated when Cleo's sister falls pregnant by someone very familiar, Myrtle turns possessive and Cleo realises she'd much rather have a relationship with childhood best friend Mara. Then there are the 'Cleo Eats It' posters posted all over town, the mysterious almost magical Fern, the FBI guy with the monkey, a mysterious slasher, a masked vigilante and the weird stain on Cleo's bedroom floor.

Wet Moon's a little like a sub-culture soap opera. Every character has a story, no matter how grand or small, and whatever happens ends up being everyone else's business. My friend compared it to a load of gothic girls being bitchy about each other...and it kind of is...but then that's what teenage girls do. What she means is Wet Moon is as much about creating characters and an atmosphere as it is telling a story - its focus is much more on dialogue and the everyday life of the town than it is fast moving storylines. It will appeal much more to young women already into or accepting of sub-cultures than someone who isn't as to be 'normal' is to be the odd one out in Wet Moon.

The best thing about Wet Moon for me is that Ross Campbell never exploits his characters. It would be so easy for a graphic novel about gothic girls to be aimed squarely at over-sexed male readers looking for a quick you-know-what but instead he rises above it and creates a world anyone open to it can enjoy. His cast is all encompassing - characters come from all races, all sexual orientations and all body shapes. Some are inherently cool, some are geeks and some are complete mysteries. Campbell doesn't take the obvious root of making his gay characters' storylines about being gay - refreshingly (apart from Cleo) the majority of the gay characters' storylines are those anyone could go through with being gay being as incidental as the colour of their hair. Ditto for body shape. Characters such as Fern and Zia are disabled but Wet Moon never becomes a freak show and they are depicted as so much more than their missing limbs. The same goes for curvy Audrey - she could easily become 'the fat girl' - but is instead a radiant, gentle, blabbermouth and moral compass. Indeed it is because Wet Moon is a town where unique is the norm that so many of the characters' beauty is so easily accessible. I am especially fond of main character Cleo. She is by no means perfect - she can be two-faced and flaky - but we share the same body shape (short and curvy) which I can promise you is not what your average comic book heroine looks like!

Of course we would not know what Cleo and here friends looked like without the art. Campbell's style finds a wonderful balance between detail and decay, embracing the grayscale of the indie graphic novel medium. All his characters are gorgeous without being gratuitous. I'm not going to lie - I find his style one of the most unique and beautiful I have encountered - I truly find it a feast for the eyes. I really hope one day I'll be lucky enough to write for him!

Campbell starts the first few volumes of Wet Moon in a more realistic style then between volumes three and five become more cartoon-like (Cleo's eyes in particular become very large) and in volume six he returns to his original style. Despite the change in style neither to me is better than the other. As a Batman reader I'm used to characters being drawn in multiple styles and though I must admit I prefer Campbell's more realistic work I completely appreciate the effort and love put into his more cartoonish style.

Wet Moon is the perfect place to go if you're searching for someone to relate to as there really is someone there for everyone. I only ever read Wet Moon in the bath. Bath time is my escape from the stresses of the real world. Likewise Wet Moon is the place I go when I want a relaxing escape. I can spend hours exploring its strange streets and breathing its originality in...well until the bath water goes cold and it's time to face the real world again.

You can find out more about Ross Campbell, Wet Moon and his other works here.

Everyone in Wet Moon likes Bella Morte so here is a song by them!

Next week: We return to music with La Sera!

P.S. - did you enjoy this series? Would you like to see more recommendations? Are there any graphic novels in particular you would like to see featured?