QUEERS AT THE TABLE: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes), a guide for those perplexed by the hows

QUEERS AT THE TABLE: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food (with Recipes)
ALEX D. KETCHUM & MEGAN J. ELIAS (Editors)
Arsenal Pulp Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: An anthology of essays, comics, and recipes that reveals the dynamic and transformative relationship between queerness and food

Food has long played an important role in queer culture. Lesbian- and queer women–run feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses have been safe spaces for queer and trans folk where gender norms can be challenged and where female authority is legitimized. During the AIDS epidemic, gay men and their allies centered food as an expression of collective care for those who needed it most. And queer and trans folk have asserted themselves in a restaurant culture largely controlled by white cisgender men.

Queers at the Table celebrates the various intersections between queers and food. In its essays, comics, and recipes, the book shows how this shared culture fosters connections, defies norms, honours legacies, and creates community. Taylor Hartson and Tristian Lee write about a queer farming community in which queerness is part of a broad network of living things to be enjoyed and shared; Danielle Kydd writes about food security issues as faced by LGBTQ2S+ folk; and Blue Delliquanti's comic on urban foraging in Minneapolis demonstrates the role of a queer friend group in a local ecosystem.

In full color throughout, Queers at the Table is a diverse and enriching anthology that reveals the myriad nurturing ways that queerness informs food production and restaurant culture and how food empowers, transforms, and unites queer and trans folk.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Many are the queer folk who, throughout the decades, have no holiday cheer...they very often have no space to spend holidays that is accepting of them as they are. It's a painful passage to realize you can't go home for {insert food-centered holiday here} without hiding your self and/or receiving abuse. It knocks the Cindy-Lou-Who out of you, turning you into a grinch.

But...and this is key...someone has been here before you! They can show you fellowship via sharing their stories. It's axiomatic that food holidays are about community. It's becoming more and more understood that community comes in many types and styles. The queer people ou know will, I hope against hope, have a community with you...but even if they do, a reminder that their complicated feelings around food holidays are perfectly in keeping with those who have trodden this path before them can't hurt. Know someone young, or relocating, or just thinking afresh about their place among us? This is a great gift to give.

examples of essays in comics form

No book about food is going to be truly complete without some recipes! A newly-fledged wannabe host is likely to need a simple place to start, along with a visual reference to be sure there's at least some resemblance between product of labor and intended appearance.

A thoughtful presentation to address an ever-growing (sad to say) need.

BIRTH OF A HIPPIE: A Graphic Memoir, a charming visit to a bygone future

BIRTH OF A HIPPIE: A Graphic Memoir (The Chronicles of a Back-to-the-Lander #1)
JoDEE SAMUELSON
Pownal Street Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$21.95 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Birth of a Hippie is a heartfelt graphic memoir that begins in the Prairies, as JoDee Samuelson, the youngest daughter of a Baptist minister―begins to search for her place in the world. Through her enchanting illustrations and witty storytelling, JoDee chronicles life on the Canadian prairies. Ultimately JoDee’s journey takes her from Alberta to Prince Edward Island.

In telling her story, JoDee blends humor, heart, and introspection. Birth of a Hippie recounts JoDee’s coming of age story from Prairie girl to be an independent spirit, back-to-the-lander, and health-food pioneer in a small Island on the East Coast. This graphic novel explores themes of family, identity, and self-discovery―offering an intimate glimpse into the life of a woman finding her place in an ever-changing world.

Perfect for fans of LGBTQ2+ narratives and those interested in the history of the back-to-the-land movement, Birth of a Hippie is both a personal story and a universal exploration of roots, resilience, and belonging.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Giving new life to the old nostrum "there ain't nobody here but us chickens" is the best, quietest moment of humor in Author JoDee's graphic memoir...her life is a journey from mainstream religiosity to self-acceptance of her sexuality, to the world of those who believe in living with instead of off Nature's gifts.

What made this a more-than-usually good sequential-art read for me is that I'm of the author's generation. The story is one I'm much in sympathy with as a result. The aesthetics are familiar to me, being those of the old underground comix scene. I'm in sympathy with Author JoDee's journey out of an environment of prescribed roles and thought into one that is exciting. is dynamic, tries new things and invents stuff for itself.

A young dyke, a back-to-the-lander, a questing, questioning ecowarrior, are all good giftees for the book. Also, old folks feeling like the past is the place to be, or just nostalgic for a vanished kind of optimism could use an inoculation against feeling forgotten.

You get the idea. I'm charmed, and suspect I'd be charmed by Author JoDee as well. I felt a bit off the five-star rating because there were moments I did not understand why we were cutting to or away from a scene; it could easily be me, since I'm not native to the sequential-art audience.

Getting one for old Aunt Lynne might prove to be the best gift this Yule.

TOPP: Promoter Gary Topp Brought Us the World, graphic biography/memoir of 1970s coolness

TOPP: Promoter Gary Topp Brought Us the World
DAVID COLLIER
Conundrum Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$20.00 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: As with all of Collier's work, his latest graphic novel is a combination of memoir and biography. This time, he explores his involvement in the cultural landscape of Toronto in the 1970s and 80s, specifically focusing on the life of Gary Topp, a concert promoter and founder of the pioneering Canadian repertory cinema.

Topp emerged from an immigrant background, abandoned the family textile business, and became an influential figure in the lives of an entire community. He was also Collier's first boss and mentor. Though outspoken and opinionated, Gary Topp inspired love and devotion, not only in those who worked for him, but also in the acts he booked—including the Ramones, The Police, and the Dixie Chicks.

This graphic novel looks at a rapidly disappearing past and uses Topp's ability to see beyond the mainstream for a look at where our culture is heading.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I feel old. Everything in this graphic novel took place, not just in my lifetime, but during my adulthood.

And it's fading history! This is the dim, distant past to the crowd most likely to buy a graphic novel. I'm gonna go shout at some clouds.

Anyway. I'm not from Toronto, but I feel a lot more aware of the reach of punk, and of weird 70s films, and the pervasive, why didn't I see it then, dissatisfaction of young men with the world. The thing about dissatisfaction is, it can be manipulated and redirected by those as observant and savvy as Topp was; often enough for wicked, nasty purposes. Neatly explaining today.

Each panel is an episode in the ongoing story, so it can be browsed without fear of losing the plot threads. Ain't none. I must say I'm lukewarm at best on the art...very appropriate to the period and milieu, though.

I got a few more samples; I don't think you're in any doubt about your feelings for the art by now, so I'll stop here.

Your too-cool-for-school nibling might enjoy seeing how it was done; any oldster punk-rock scenesters might feel nostalgic and dewy-eyed; comic book fans might like a graphic memoir about the edges of fame. It was a decent read.

HEARTCORE, Štěpánka Jislová's graphic...in both senses...memoir of coming to terms with her life

HEARTCORE
ŠTĚPÁNKA JISLOVÁ (tr. Martha Kuhlman)
Graphic Mundi (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$29.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Where does love come from?

What is at the core of romantic attachment? Does our upbringing play a part, or is falling in love a magical, uncontrollable process? Are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over, or can we break unhealthy cycles and learn new ways to love?

These are the questions asked in Heartcore, an award-winning graphic memoir from comics creator Štěpánka Jislová. In this empowering story of self-discovery, the author reflects on her troubled experiences in dating and love and finally seeks to understand the reasons behind her many toxic relationships. She explores topics such as normative gender roles, online dating and casual sex, alcohol abuse, sexual violence, and the psychology behind interpersonal attachment, all in an engaging graphic-novel format. By confronting her unhealthy behaviors and seeking help to come to terms with her trauma, the author provides an inspiring example of how people can change for the better.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Angsty sexual abuse survivor (not depicted on the page) contemplates her manifold struggles with dating, finding what love means to her, dealing with other broken people and their issues...becoming, in other words, a grown-up. It's a messy awkward embarrassing process for us all. It's greatly to her credit that Author Jislová decided to give voice to it.

I found the art suited the subject very well indeed, the color pallette was suitably restrained, and the ideas about finding the ability to be one's messy, ungainly self to and for and in front of others as an act of love inspiring.

So why only four stars? What I wasn't quite so excited by was the sense of clinicalized detachment in her truly interesting dive into her therapy. It was not pervasive, but it was there in the whole story as a strange kind of disconnect. It's natural, in that to write of her experiences of abuse, then patterns of dysfunction requires a remove if not detachment from the pathology, but it sits oddly with the confiding tone she's after in most of the story.

That said, I feel confident in recommending it to y'all as a gift for the new-adult reader (male or female) in your ambit who is permaybehaps perplexed by the whole relationship dynamics thing. It seems to me sufficiently personal to give it standing, and sufficiently authoritative—she's lived to tell the tales with good quality help—to make her words and ideas solid and fertile ground for introspection to begin.

FEMINIST COMIC BOOK MEMOIRS: SHRINK: Story of a Fat Girl & BALD

SHRINK: Story of a Fat Girl
RACHEL M. THOMAS
Graphic Mundi
$24.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Derided by her high-school peers for being overweight, Rachel finally found a sense of purpose and belonging in a promising career as an EMT—that is, until her body got in the way.

Shrink is a work of graphic medicine that depicts the emotional and physical realities of inhabiting a large body in a world that is constantly warning about the medical and social dangers of being “too fat.” This smart and candid book challenges the idea that weight loss is the only path for a fat person and encourages the reader to question the prevailing cultural and medical discourse about fat bodies.

Seamlessly weaving the most current research on the fatness debate with her own experiences of living in a fat body, Thomas lays bare society’s obsession with size and advocates for each of us to push back on body weight bias and determine what’s right for our own health and well-being, both physical and mental.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I spent a lot of my life "fat" and had to endure much verbal abuse for it.

The struggles in this graphic memoir were all too familiar to me, and I do not mean the ones about dieting.

I mean the comments...whether well-intentioned or just meant to be slyly insulting in that un-call-out-able way so many passive-aggressive or simply unpleasant people enjoy so much...that freely pepper even the simplest conversations. I mean the looks of horror or disgust aimed one's way by strangers. I mean the earnest, ill-informed "advice" about eating from medical professionals, or goddesses please protect us from such malevolence, dietitians *shudder* with their irrelevant portion-control mantra.

I mean the perpetrators of The Whale. I mean you, every time you've said something off-handedly about how big a celebrity has gotten, and what a shame it is because they were so hot before. Or how funny it was that time Courteney Cox put on a fat suit to be young, fat, unattractive Monica on Friends.

Stop it. If you need a reason (other than not being a jerk), read Rachel's story. She lived it, and came out of the experience with a fine education, a clear eye, and an academic career about social issues like this. If a young giftee of yours, especially but not exclusively a girl of a vulnerable age, is struggling with weight as a social issue, this is a good resource to offer; not a gift, unless specifically requested, though.

Even if it's just a sensitization exercise for you, or another person in your young soul's ambit, it's a very worthwhile gift to share with them.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


BALD
TEREZA ČECHOVÁ (illus. Štepánka Jislová; tr. Martha Kuhlman with the author)
Graphic Mundi
$21.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Tereza never thought she would go bald before her boyfriend did. She couldn’t imagine being unable to sweep her hair up in a ponytail or to style it in other ways. But when she lost all her hair in just a couple of months due to alopecia, her perspective on relationships and work—and above all, herself—radically changed.

Navigating the particular trauma of female hair loss, Tereza comes to terms with her new reality with humor and self-reflection in this prize-winning graphic memoir featuring eye-catching art by Štěpánka Jislová.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Generations ago, I knew a young woman from Puerto Rico who, during the year we were acquainted, steadily lost her hair to alopecia. It was the first time I'd every heard of the condition. As the weeks went by, I'd stop in the bodega and chat while buying the little thises and thatses one always needs but aren't important enough to trek to the biffer, cheaper store to get...plus it was a chance to catch up on the happenings.


Mostly to get an earful from my young friend about how the people in the neighborhood were horrible to her, accusing her of having ringworm, mange, and...given the time, this made some sense...AIDS. Those were mean and awful things to say. They made her angry.

What hurt her was her family calling her "pelón"..."hairy guy"...and laughing about it. I was appalled, but felt unable to do anything but be blandly comforting of tone, and listen to her. In the end, she bought a wig and got a new job, and we lost contact.

I will never, ever stop regretting I didn't say to her then what I say on a daily basis to my male-pattern baldness: "It's just hair."

It's only a big emotional deal because people around you make it one. Tereza takes us on a very, very pink-tinted trip with her as she learns the realities of hair loss from alopecia, which are interesring to me; what will mostly interest others, I suspect, is the shocking amount of emphasis placed by others on women's hair.

Want to radicalize your young feminist? Hand over this startling deep meditation on how effectively women are indoctrinated into their value being that of face. And hair. No ruse is more effective than drilling into a young woman that her role is to be beautiful, and woe betide her if she falls short. The stupidity of this offends me, but it should infuriate all of us.

GAY GIANT, a graphic memoir from Chile about being Different in a place at a time where that was Bad

GAY GIANT
GABRIEL EBENSPERGER
Street Noise Books
$19.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A child who feels like an outsider in a world that’s set against him. A boy who sings on the playground instead of playing soccer, who likes Barbies, and whose secretly favorite car is the one called Tutti Frutti. Gabriel Ebensperger shares with us his struggles with his own inadequacy, his feelings of guilt, and above all, his fear that his “difference” will be discovered. The vibrant bright pink pages of Gay Giant paint a picture of what it was like to grow up being gay in the ’90s, through the voice of an endearing character, who on the way to becoming an adult realizes that the rejection of the world is never over, and that true acceptance comes from within yourself.

A gay giant can't hide. This charming coming-of-age and coming-to-terms with oneself story shows us what it feels like to grow up queer in a heteronormative society in the 1990s.

Filled with pop culture touchstones from Cher to Steven Tyler, from Jurassic Park to Grey's Anatomy, this book navigates both the joy and the pain of puberty surrounded by ignorance and homophobia. How do you love yourself if you've learned so well to hate yourself? For all of us who've ever felt bizarre, damaged, or strange, we are shown that all is full of love, and that true acceptance must come from within yourself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Chile isn't exactly famous for its history of QUILTBAG rights protections. The country legalized same-sex, um, relations in 1999. But like everywhere else on Earth, at every time since there have been humans on Earth, people been usin' what they got to get their groove on since forever.

What Author Ebensperger experienced, then, as a youth in a macho culture, wasn't external affirmation or even acceptance. He was, well, weird. And weird kids suffer at the hands of their peers. It's the hands of their parents that do the most damage, though it looks like Author Ebensperger's parents were either remarkably chill, if significantly out of their depth, or he glossed over some stuff. Frankly I don't think that is the case because he and I share a favorite car: The godlike Citroën CX. He prefers the first year, 1974; where I idolize the 1978 Pallas model. Probably because I drove one and had A Crisis. *shiver*

How do I know this about him? He draws all of his cars very carefully, so I can see them vividly. (I confess I don't understand why his parents' 1967 Peugeot was evil; but I totally support his assessment of the W114 Mercedes-Benz as the Vehicle of the Antichrist.) And at a crucial moment, the aforementioned Citroën CX does a Back-to-the-Future-esque cameo. And that explains why I rated this graphic memoir a full four stars when 1) I HATE PINK and b) I ain't wild about sequential-art storytelling in general.

Look:

Under normal circumstances, I'd struggle to find something polite to say about the pinkness of the exercise, despite the really wonderfully clear message of self-acceptance and a dropping of one's internalized homophobia about "nelly queens" or "femmes" or, generally, men who don't fit the masculine stereotype. I mean, no one's asking you to marry the guy! Just don't sneer at him, or belittle him, or even (if you simply can not keep your heteronormative judgments to yourself) pollute his air with your breath. (Pink was the only color my mother could really love so I was surrounded by it. I hate it for that reason.)

But let me say again for the rare newcomer to my ambit: I am always looking for ways to challenge my habits and patterns and prejudices because I am hell-bent on not dying above the neck before I do below it. I get lovely rewards, like reading this charming essay in knowing your true self and working until you're in a love relationship with that self. I get to look at people from countries so very far away from my own perch in the Northestern US tell stories that were true for me, thirty years before these stories took place. I am not alone; neither is the author; we are connected in an experience of the world as outsider other unwanted and, as a result, damaged in ways no one should be.

Here we are, in a new century, in a world that keeps trending towards a better, brighter future (if you ignore climate change) and yet there are always people who don't fit and whose pain is crippling. Yes, Our Flag Means Death was renewed, and there's a lovely clap-back against the vile racism recrudescing in the Star Wars stewpot, and still we hear the lunatic right-wing idiots braying their teeth out about pedophile faggots (almost exclusively a heterosexual crime, pedophilia, but we all know how much that crowd respects facts). I am still gruntled and kempt as I contemplate Street Noise Books's list in all its truth-telling glory. I am still wreathed in happy smiles as I leaf again through this 256-page bath of pinkness, because it tells me that my story is shared...right down to the survival and thriving of its main character.

Who has awesome taste in cars.