#steenz

[lackadaisycats]

For any St. Louis area folks who might be interested, I'll be at Left Bank Books later this month for a graphic novel roundtable with some wonderful local comic-makers. Honored to be invited to be in such company! There'll be discussion, Q&A, and book signing if you want to come say hi!

Feb 18th at 6pm Left Bank Books on Euclid Ave, St. Louis.

[gentlyorbiting]

in april 2020, cartoonist steenz took over the daily syndicated comic heart of the city. their version of the comic slightly aged the characters up (to middle schoolers), changed the art style to their own, and brought queerness to the heart universe, introducing heart's friend charlotte's moms and recasting heart's single mother addy as bi.

the most prominent queer character, though, is heart's friend kat. it's neat to have young queer people showing up in a nationally syndicated newspaper comic, so i thought i'd collect some of the strips related to kat's gay li'l arc in case you don't want to read back through the ~three years of steenz's run. (i do recommend doing this though! it's an incredibly fun middle school comic!)

anyway, please enjoy:

[michaelvarrati]

COMIC-CON@HOME’S QUEER HORROR PANEL - 2021 Horror films, TV shows, books, and comics have always attempted to bring us to the threshold of our fears and force us to come face to face with the “otherness” that exists outside of the mainstream. For those in the LGBTQ+ community, this sense of otherness is not only terrifying and titillating, it’s quite often also relatable. From James Whales’ Frankenstein to the oft-cited “gayest movie of all time,” A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, we’re posing the question: Does a queer horror genre exist, and if so what makes it different from mainstream horror? And how does the current social movement for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC diversity inform the creation of the horror comics, films, and television shows we see today? Join Prism Comics, moderator/filmmaker Michael Varrati (The Boulet Brothers Dragula, Unusual Attachment) and panelists Drusilla Adeline (Dead for Filth, Sister Hyde Design), Darcie Little Badger (Elatsoe, Strangelands), Terry Blas (Reptil, Dead Weight), Trinidad Escobar (Crushed, Bruhas), Joamette Gil (Power and Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology), and Steenz (Archival Quality, Heart of the City) as they explore the horror genre from a queer perspective.

[dailydamnation]

Illyana chilling in her new Limbo crib, wondering where the previous tenants could possibly have gone.

Love this mix of creepy and cute, it fits Illyana well.

By Steenz

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

“Be gone. I have to LIBRARIAN.” From the graphic novel Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir & Steenz

[bookmama]

Archival QualityBy Ivy Noelle Weir & Steenz comes out next March from Oni Press and it seems like people either love this graphic novel or hate it. I personally loved it and I am going to break down why for you in a bit. I did receive this as an ARC on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

The story is what first appealed to me about this graphic novel.  It’s main character Cel short for Celeste is a young woman who has just been fired from the job she loved as a library assistant/librarian.  This happened because Cel has an ongoing battle with mental illness and experienced a mental breakdown at her place of work. Now with being unemployed Cel is facing the fact that it will be hard to find another librarian position without having a degree. Her boyfriend Kyle is trying to get Cel to take this time as an opportunity to slow down and get some help for her to get back on her feet.  Cel doesn’t see things the same way and instead applies/interviews to become the archivist at a medical museum that she has never heard of, and nobody seems to ever visit.

Cel quickly accepts the job despite the strange rules, hours, and suggested living arrangements.  Cel has to work overnight when the museum is closed, she is told to move into an apartment inside the museum, and then lastly she is told to ignore any strange sounds and not to be scared.  All of these are big red flags for her boyfriend but Cel just believes he doesn’t want her to be happy or to have the job. 

Very quickly strange things begin to happen and Cel begins to dream about a specific girl, who she thinks is tied to the museum in some dark way.  Cel believes that she has to help this girl and if she is able to help her then maybe she will be able to help herself with her own mental health.

Things I loved about the book besides the overall dark and spooky storyline, which were awesome.  This book had an amazingly diverse cast of characters. we had different genders, race, and sexual orientations represented in a way that didn’t seem forced. It made the story more interesting and dimensional. The other thing that was great about this book is how it handled mental illness. the story showed not only how terrible our countries history of dealing with mental illness is but also how we still have work to do when it comes to not stigmatizing people you struggle with mental illness.  Cel on multiple occasions addresses people treating her like she is crazy or thinking she is crazy and the it shows the weight of that single word for a person like Cel.  There are also so great conversations between characters where I thought it showed great examples of how to show concern and support for a person who is struggling mentally without accusing or attacking them.

The overall story was exactly what I had hoped for. It takes place in the archives of a museum at night. There are ghosts and a spooky medical mystery to be solved by a diverse cast of bookish characters.  The art work was not my favorite and in some frames seemed a bit awkward especially with hands/arms but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the graphic novel as a whole.  I highly recommend this book.

[paigebraddock]

Back on the West Coast. It was so great seeing everybody at NYCC! 

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

Reluctant Reader Wednesday: Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir & Steenz

Celeste has spent a lot of time dealing with depression, and she lost her last job because of a mental breakdown. When she gets a new job working in the archives of the Logan Museum, she realizes right away that this is an unusual job. She’ll have her own apartment inside the museum, she’ll spend most of her time scanning strange pictures from the museum’s history, and she can only work overnight when the museum is closed. Soon Celeste begins having dreams about a girl who was a patient years ago, when the building used to be an asylum. It seems that this girl needs to tell Celeste something very important, but Celeste won’t be able to understand the girl’s message unless she trusts other people to help her. That means she’s going to have to convince them that this isn’t part of her mental illness. The ghost is real, and it needs their help.

This graphic novel is emotionally moving, as well as spooky and atmospheric. It mixes several unusual topics, including ghosts, libraries, and mental illness. And it’s a book that will be hard for readers to forget.