Today at TCJ, we're very pleased to share this extensive interview with cartoonist Dana Simpson, courtesy of Alex Dueben. The passage below is from the very end of the interview, but it is a valuable sentiment worth sharing twice:
Now we’re at the point where kids can say, I know who I am, and people will listen.
I know. I’m super envious of those kids. It makes me feel like I was born thirty years too early. Not that it’s easy being a trans kid. The trans kids that I know are some of the bravest people that I’ve ever met. I’m in awe of them.
I don’t know how I would have been if that had been an option. It was not when I was growing up. Now you can say, this is me, I’m going to be me, and some people will actually listen to you. I think if I’d said “I’m a girl,” no one would have known what to do about it in 1985. Or 1995 even. Hell, in 2005, when I came out, people acted, like, very differently than I think they would act now. I know differently than they would act now. In 2005 I I didn’t know any trans people. It turned out that I did, I just didn’t know that they were trans.
I’m glad people can authentically be themselves. People are much more aware of it now in a way they weren’t. I speak at schools a lot and I usually don’t bring that up, but sometimes I do. Especially if they tell me there’s a trans kid at the school. When I do that, kids react like it’s not a big thing. Maybe that’s just the kids I’m meeting, but they always just nod like, oh, okay. This generation is great. We have to start listening to them more.
Today's review is from Tegan O'Neil, and it's on the new graphic novel from Nate Powell, Top Shelf, and the color black.
There’s a lot of black ink in Nate Powell’s Come Again. The pages are soaked, with darkness creeping around every edge, devouring each panel border and threatening every character therein. It’s a paranoid story, defined by disappearance and memory loss, as well as the fear of secrets left to fester. The bright parts aren’t any less unsettling. The juxtaposition between light and dark that recurs throughout the book is disorienting and echoes in multiple places throughout the narrative. Throughout the story characters are hiding secrets or struggling to exhume secrets, caught in some fashion between ignorance and understanding.
Abhay Khosla briefly touches upon one of comics' ever present annoyances: morons, and why it's no fun to read their reviews of comic books.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go refresh youtube until I can see the ding dang Aquaman trailer!
