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Mute Power

Mute Power

A review of Savannah Houston-McIntyre and Andrew Hewitt’s Amya Vol 1 (2014)

By Derek Newman-Stille

Amya Vol 1 is a fantasy tale of mystery and suspense, filled with secrets and magic. It is about two kingdoms on the brink of war and the possibility of the return of a divinity who may be able to save everything. This is a tale of a secret, sacred history that is revealed in pieces.

Houston-McIntyre and Hewitt tell a story of a mute noblewoman who has incredible magical potential, the power to create illusions… but there are hints of something more about her personality. Amya touches the lives of those around her, changing them through her contact, but she begins to draw together a group of adventurers who are interested in supporting her. Though Amya is mute, she is not portrayed as defenceless and she is not someone who is seeking a “cure” for her mutism. She is a complex and powerful character.

Amya vol 1 is a tale of political power plays in a world of change, where there is a fight for half-elf rights, where patsies are set up as regicides, where young noblemen escape from family lands, and where myth and reality intersect in forging a new future.

To discover more about Amya and the creators of the comic Savannah Houston-McIntyre and Andrew Hewitt, visit http://www.amyachronicles.com/about/the-amya-team

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Coming of Age With Super Powers

Coming of Age With Super Powers

A review of Mariko Tamaki’s Supergirl: Being Super (DC Comics, 2018).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Canadian comic writer and artist Mariko Tamaki has frequently explored coming of age and that fascinating experience of being between childhood and adulthood in comics like Skim and This One Summer. She shows an incredible ability to draw her readers into those moments in our own past where we were in that awkward state of transition between childhood and adulthood and we sought out our own identities. in Supergirl: Being Super, Tamaki unites the awkward time of questioning identity in our teen years with the figure of the superhero… another figure for whom identity and transformation are a central issue.

We all remember what it was like to be a teenager and feel like we are in the wrong skin and like we don’t fit into our society… but that is magnified for Kara Danvers, a girl who just got her first pimple and exploded it all over her bathroom…. literally. Along with her friends, the young lesbian Dolly and track star Jen, Kara is seeking out what it means to be a teenager… but she is still holding back a secret from these friends. It turns out that her feeling of alienation comes from actually being an alien. Kara is from another planet.

Tamaki frequently explores the idea of being an outsider and what it feels like for a teen who is treated as though she doesn’t belong… as though her entire existence is at conflict with the world around her. In Kara Danvers, Tamaki is able to explore what it means to ‘pass’, keeping an identity secret from friends, teachers, and all of those around her, what it means to worry about being a danger to everyone around her, coping with post traumatic stress, exploitation, rejection from family, and the death of a classmate… along with the desire to do something to make this world a better place. Tamaki’s Supergirl is someone who holds onto the idea of hope that people will become better even when she is constantly faced with disappointment from a human race that is still shaped by bigotry, intolerance, exploitation, and hate.

To find out more about Supergirl: Being Super, visit https://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/supergirl-being-super-2016/supergirl-being-super

To discover more about Mariko Tamaki, visit http://marikotamaki.blogspot.com

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Next Top Villain

Next Top Villain

A review of Jeff Lemire’s Thanos Vol 1: Thanos Returns (Marvel Comics, 2017).

By Derek Newman-Stille

Canadian comic book writer and artist Jeff Lemire has worked on independent comics, but has also worked with the comic company giants DC and Marvel. He tends to take his Canadian interest in grey areas and ambiguous endings into his comics for DC and Marvel, allowing for complex plots and characters.

In Thanos Vol 1: Thanos Returns, Lemire takes on one of the big villains in the Marvel universe, trying to add moral complexity to a character that has often appeared in comics as irreconcilably ‘bad’. Lemire is able to introduce some pathos for Thanos by portraying the villain in illness, creating a ‘god’ obsessed with Death… who is, himself, dying. Thanos is viewed as and views himself as a personification of strength, and Lemire explores what it means for someone who takes so much of his identity from his strength… to suddenly have to deal with vulnerability, with something that he would consider weak in others and would likely kill them for.

But what does the death of a powerful tyrant mean for others? This is a universal race to grab power in the perceived power vacuum that Thanos will leave, and Lemire uses this comic to comment on political power and the discourse of vulnerability on a universal scale. Revenge, the lust for power, and the desire to be significant are all wrapped together in the people who race to fill the perceived void that Thanos will leave. Lemire creates a race between villains to secure their place in a changing universe.

To find out more about Thanos Vol 1: Thanos Returns, visit http://marvel.com/comics/collection/62231/thanos_vol_1_thanos_returns_tpb_trade_paperback

To discover more about Jeff Lemire, go to http://jefflemire.blogspot.com

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Poor Monster

Check out my review of a Frankenstein story by Charles de Lint, set in his created city Newford. “Pity The Monsters” is a story that is as much about poverty, institutionalization, and family violence as it is about monsters.

We Shall Be Monsters

Poor Monster

A review of Charles de Lint’s “Pity The Monsters” in The Ultimate Frankenstein (Simon & Schuster Inc., 1991)

By Derek Newman-Stille

I was surprised to see that Charles de Lint set his Frankenstein tale Pity The Monsters in the city he invented – Newford – a city that he generally sets tales of fairies and fantasy in, but in doing so, he illustrated the fantasy quality of Frankenstein tales, and he stuck to areas that he has often evoked in his Newford-centred stories. De Lint used a Frankenstein tale to explore ideas of poverty and homelessness, setting his tale in the impoverished part of Newford generally called The Tombs, an area of abandoned buildings that house squatters of the human and supernatural variety. De Lint explores the interweaving of normal city life with the uncanny, as he generally does in his Newford tales, having characters pulled out of…

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Not Grimm… But Grim

A review of White as Milk, Red As Blood: The Forgotten Fairy Tales of Franz Xaver von Schonwerth – a translation of the ‘lost’ fairy tales collected by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth, translated by Canadian scholar Shelley Tanaka and illustrated by Canadian illustrator Willow Dawson.

Through The Twisted Woods

Not Grimm… But Grim

A review of Willow Dawson and Shelley Tanaka’s White as Milk, Red as Blood: The Forgotten Fairy Tales of Franz Xaver von Schonwerth (Alfred A Knopf Canada, 2018).

By Derek Newman-Stille

When I first read the fairy tales recorded by Bavarian folklore collector  Franz Xaver von Schonwerth, the tales seemed whimsically short and light even though many of the tales featured the grim characteristics of fairy tales like abuse, murder, violence, hunger, and torture. This underscores the power of translation and the influence that it has on the way we read folk narratives. Simple things like word choice, tone, or presentation on the page can shift our readings of fairy tales.

When I encountered Willow Dawson and Shelley Tanaka’s White as Milk, Red as Blood: The Forgotten Fairy Tales of Franz Xaver von Schonwerth, my reading of von Schonwerth’s tales changed drastically, and I attribute…

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First Couple of Rows Might Get Glittered

First Couple of Rows Might Get Glittered.

A review of Buffy The Vampire Slayer the Musical: Once More With Feeling at The Theatre on King in Peterborough, Ontario. Produced by Eryn Lidster, directed by Samantha Mansfield.

By Derek Newman-Stille.

I fell in love with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Once More With Feeling” when I was doing my undergraduate degree. We would gather in the common room and watch Buffy episodes together and the episode Once More With Feeling left us singing for weeks.

I had thought that Buffy was a hallmark of an older generation, so I was extremely excited to see that the Theatre on King brought Buffy right into Peterborough, transforming my town into Sunnydale for a few magical minutes.

When I had first watched “Once More With Feeling” on television, it was aired with an “adult content” warning because of a lesbian kiss, so it was wonderful to see that there was no need for a content warning in the performance at the Theatre on King and there were children in the audience. It is hopeful to see a space where queerness wasn’t censored.

Although presented without the magic of television special effects, the show allowed for some of the magic to be brought close to the audience with glitter, make up, and great performances. The smaller theatre space also allowed for an intimacy with the characters and their experiences that television or even a larger theatre wouldn’t permit. The cast were able to access the power of local theatre and make Buffy’s story their own.

The cast was able to capture the nuances of the original Buffy cast while bringing their own understandings of the characters and their own dynamics to their parts. This was Canadian local theatre at its best and it will leave you singing about demons, witches, and vampire slayers until you burn up with passion and excitement.

To discover more about the Theatre on King, go to http://ttok.ca

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Artificial

Artificial

A Review of Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer Vol 2: The Event (Dark Horse, 2017)

By Derek Newman-Stille

Nothing is quite what it seems in the perfect small town that superheroes Barbalien, Golden Gail, Abraham Slam, Talky Walky, and Colonel Weird, and Madame D have found themselves in. It is a town that is held apart from the rest of the world, surrounded by an energy field… but it is also a town without history, where the history books are blank and everyone seems to just keep repeating the same patterns over and over again.

In Black Hammer Vol. 2: The Event, Jeff Lemire creates a world out of the golden age of superheroes, but he complicates the world, pulling it out of the easy morality of golden age comics and making his superheroes confront realities that they have denied and their own complexities. Barbalien has to deal not only with his disconnect from his home planet Mars, but also with the homophobia that surrounds him and prevents him from being in a relationship with another man. Golden Gail has to face the duality of her identity – young girl when she is in her superhero identity and older woman when she leaves that identity. Here in this village out of time, she finds herself trapped as an eternal child, cut off from her adult identity. Abe (Abraham Slam) faces the opposite experience, flashing back to his experiences as an ageing superhero now considered obsolete and his life in the village where he has created a space of comfort for himself to age away from the superhero scene.Talky Walky, a sentient robotic life form with a taste for adventure has to deal with being trapped in a small space, unable to escape and venture into the wider world. Colonel Weird, a man trapped between worlds, able to see the past and the future, has to confront his knowledge of the future while keeping it secret from those around him. Lucy, the daughter of Black Hammer has found her way into this strange world cut off from her own and lost her memory of the outside world. She has to confront the people she knew before The Event and see how they have changed in this altered world. Meanwhile Madame D tries to maintain this strange bubble of reality and prevent what she fears the most – a supervillain.

Black Hammer Vol 2: The Event is a comic about the effects of battle on the superhero psyche and the damage that it does. It is a tale of repression and avoidance where characters seek to hide from themselves even while they face aspects of their pasts.

Lemire brings attention to classic comic books while adding his own complexities and twists to these worlds, creating uncertain realities and characters who are equally uncertain about exploring them.

To find out more about Black Hammer Vol. 2: The Event, go to https://www.darkhorse.com/Books/26-745/Black-Hammer-Volume-2-The-Event-TPB

To find discover more about Jeff Lemire, go to http://jefflemire.blogspot.ca