#if they didn’t want me to love the anthropomorphic representation they should have made him less of a wispy little twink

[variousnumbers]

any other autistic babes find themselves INCREDIBLY attached to dream of the endless due to his being inherently defined by and made of strong emotions but also kinda bad at showing or understanding them, only when it comes to himself personally?? no?????? just me???????

[world-of-puppets]

Puppetry Lost Media

In honour of reaching 50 followers last week (now 55 followers, as of writing this) I decided to cover two subjects of great interest to me: puppetry (of course) and lost media.

Everybody online loves a good old bit of lost media. Whether it be being a part of the many searches for the media in question, or watching documentaries about them on sites like YouTube. I’ve been mildly addicted to the latter kind of content for a while. From what I’ve seen, though, there aren’t many videos or articles out there specifically covering lost puppetry. So, in no particular order, here are a couple of pieces of lost puppetry I found while scrolling through the lost media wiki.

銀河少年隊 - Ginga shounen-tai AKA Galaxy Boy Troop (1963 - 1965)

Osamu Tezuka is one of the most pioneering figures in Japanese art and animation. Starting as a manga artist in the 1940s inspired by the animated works of American studios such as Walt Disney and the Fliecer Brothers, he adapted and simplified many of the stylistic techniques of both artists to create his own signature style of big shiny eyes, physics defying hair and limited animation. A style that would go on to heavily influence the world of anime and manga as a whole.

But animation and graphic art were not the only mediums Tezuka would dabble in. Ginga Shounen-Tai, or Galaxy Boy Troop in english, was a television series that aired on the public broadcast channel NHK from April 7th, 1963 to April 1st, 1965. Running for 2 seasons with a total of 92 episodes.

The series was a mixture of marionette characters that utilised the Supermarionation marionette technique, popularised by Jerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds, and limited traditional animation. The story revolves around a child genius named Roy who leads a rag-tag group of heros around the galaxy in a rocket ship in order to revive the earth’s sun and later protect it from alien invaders.

Out of the 92 episodes that aired, only episode 67 still exists in its entirety with French subtitles, and the full episode can be found on YouTube with English subtitles uploaded by user Rare TezukaVids. According to user F-Man on the Tezuka in English forums, footage of episode 28 exists but with no audio, and episode 87’s animated segments exist without the marionette segments. F-Man also claims the reason for Galaxy Boy Troop’s disappearance is due to Tezuka not being proud of the series and having all episodes of it destroyed.

Personally, I think it’s a shame that pretty much all of this series is gone. From what I’ve seen in episode 67, it looks really charming. Tezuka’s signature character design style was adapted suprisingly well to marionettes, and the puppetry itself isn’t that bad either. I love the little face mechanisms like the blinking eyes, flapping mouths and others. It gives the puppets a lot of personality and charm. Like, just look at this old mans eyebrow mechanism and tell me you wouldn’t want to watch 92 episodes of this show;

Tinseltown (2007)

Tinseltown was a 15 minute sitcom pilot created by the Jim Henson company under thier Henson Alternative banner. The pilot was commissioned by the Logo Network and aired as part of the Alien Boot Camp programming block in 2007.

The pilot (and likely the series, had it been picked up by the logo network) features a cast of both puppets and live actors as characters. The premise revolves around Samson Kight, an anthropomorphic bull preformed by Brian Henson and drew Massey, and his partner Bobby Vegan, an anthropomorphic pig prefomed by Bill Barretta and Michelan Sisti, as they attempt to balance thier lives working in Hollywood with life as parents to thier sullen 12-year-old foster son, Foster, played by Paul Butcher. Other human characters included Mia Sara as Samson’s ex-wife Lena and Francesco Quinn as the family’s manservant Arturo.

The Tinseltown pilot used to be available on the Logo Network’s YouTube channel, but was later removed for unknown reason. Since then, the pilot has not been made available online. However the characters Samson and Bobby have made appearances in other Henson related works, such as the improv stage show Stuffed and Unstrung, where they played the role as the shows producers, and in a 2011 video on the Jim Henson Company YouTube channel celebrating Jim Hensons 75th birthday.

I find Tinseltown pretty interesting as I feel like it should be more noateable or known, considering that this is (as far as my knowledge goes) the first Jim Henson Company project featureing openly lgbtq characters as its leads, and would have been the first Henson show to do so had it been picked up. As someone who’s interested in lgbtq+ representation in creative media such as animation, I realised that there’s not many examples of canon lgbt characters in puppetry. The only ones aside from Samson and Bobby I could think off the top of my head would be Deet’s Dads from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and Rod from Avenue Q. Though, obviously, there could be more I’m not currently aware of. I don’t think the Tinseltown pilot was a masterpiece or anything. After all, there’s probably a couple of good reasons Logo didn’t pick it up for a full series. But I think it be cool if either Henson co. or Logo made this available online again, if just so we could appericate it as an interesting little footnote in the history of lgbtq rep in puppetry.

With that said, considering the pilot’s obscurity and the fact that it’s main couple haven’t been used in any Henson Related projects in almost ten years, as well as the possibility that there may be legalities preventing the Henson company from releasing it such as Logo still owning the rights, it’s unlikely we’ll see the Tinseltown pilot anytime soon.

Sonic Live in Sydney (1997 - 2000)

Sonic the Hedgehog is a fictional character no stranger to multiple interpretations of him and his universe across a diverse range of media. From the more light-hearted and comedic stylings of The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Cartoon Networks Sonic Boom cartoon series, to more serious faire such as the Sonic SatAM cartoon and the Sonic Adventure videogame duology. One of the more obscure and stranger adaptations of the character came in the form of Sonic Live in Sydney, a one an a half hour live show hosted at the former Sega World Sydney amusement park in Darling Harbor, Sydney, Australia. Originally beginning as a live show with actors in meet-and-greet style costumes, the show eventually was replaced with a puppet show during its last two years.

The shows plot was set in an alternate timeline whos continuity was a mix of the SatAM cartoon and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, where Doctor Robotnik’s Death Egg crash lands in Sydney, Australia instead of Angel Island and attempts to take over before being foiled by sonic and friends. According to Phillip Einfeld of Phillip Einfeld Puppetoons, the company that made the puppets, Sega felt the costumed actor version of the show wasn’t dynamic enough, and wished to replace it with a version featuring live puppets with animatronics. Both versions of the shows plot are identical.

While Sonic Live in Sydney’s soundtrack is available on YouTube, and some photos of the show are available on the Lost Media Wiki, no footage of either the costumed actors version or the puppet show version have resurfaced. The show was closed down in 1999, possibly due to cost, shortly before the Sega World park as a whole in 2000. So unless there is someone out there who viseted the show between 1998 or 1999 who recorded the show via a handheld camera, footage of both incarnations of the show are likely forever lost to time.

On a personal note, I don’t have much to say on this one other than how gloriously peek gaudy 90s Sonic the set/puppet design is. I have no doubt finding footage of these puppets in action would truly be a silly delight to behold...

Legend of Mary (year unknown)

This one is a little different from the other entries on this list as while the film itself in its entiraty is available on YouTube for anyone to view, the information surrounding Legend of Mary, specifically its year of release, remains a mystery as of writing this.

I have mentioned the film before on this blog so I’ll keep it brief here: in summary, Legend of Mary is a short film retelling of the Nativity featuring the Rod puppets of Austrian puppeteer Richard Teschner. the video was uploaded to YouTube by user canada 150 archive. I looked up the people credited in the film and was able to find most of them, but didn’t find Legend of Mary listed in thier credits, and was unable to find the film on sites like IMDB, tMDB or Letterboxd. I reached out to Canada 150 archive asking if they had any info regarding the Legend of Mary’s release date, and after a coupe of months, they replied saying they didn’t know.

And that’s as far as I got on my search for answers, if anyone of you guys has any information regarding Legend of Mary, then it be of huge help in finding the release date.

Sam and friends (1955 - 1961)

Sam and friends was the very first puppetry television series created by Jim Henson alongside his colabarator and future wife Jane Nebel. filmed in Washington, D.C. and airing twice daily on WRC-TV and the NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C. from May 9, 1955, to December 15, Sam and Friends would mark the first apperence of Kermit (though not yet as a frog) and paved the way for Henson’s iconic and revered legacy in the realm of puppetry on film and television.

With the impact this show had in mind, it may come as a shock to some that almost half of Sam and Friends, specifically, 42 of the 86 episodes, are considered lost. With 16 existing, 8 documented, 9 known from memory, plus 8 existing Esskay commercials and 1 memory-known Esskay commercial. Some taped episodes have been shown at venues such as the museum of the moving image while others have been erased. It’s unknown if copies of these erased episodes still exist.

This post would become far to long if I were too list every episode missing from Sam and Freinds, but if your curious, the lost media wiki article has a comprehensive list of all lost episodes.

Annnd that about it for this post. This type of content is pretty different from the stuff I usually post. So I’m egar to see what you guys think about it. If you enjoyed this article, want to see more like it or have ideas for what puppetry-related topics I should cover in the future. And again, thank you all so much for helping me reach 55 followers. Your support really does mean a lot to me, and I hope you enjoyed this as a follower milestone gift.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed this dip into lost puppetry, and have a happy holiday season!

[sparklyaxolotlstudent]

Karma Chameleon: The Finale.

AKA I can’t write drama to save my life. I’m sorry.

ENJOY!

-------------------------

“Ugh!” Adrien threw his bag at his bed, ignoring the protest coming from inside.

“Hey, watch it kid, I was taking a nap!” protested Plagg, floating out of the bag.

“I can’t believe them! Chloe provokes Lila into akumatization and somehow I’m the bad guy?”

Adrien kept ranting, pacing around his room. Plagg only occasionally nodded, while he ate his cheese. “Are you done?” He asked once Adrien had made a pause. Adrien glared at him.

“I really don’t need your sarcasm right now, you lazy cat.”

Adrien’s words felt icy, something Plagg was definitively not used to. But he knew this boy, and he also knew that he should have said something earlier. Uncharacteristically for Plagg, he placed his cheese in the plate, which surprised Adrien, and then floated directly to his face.”

“I’m sorry ” It was a simple statement, and Plagg had said it while putting his hands on what would be his hips, trying to look all business like.

“What?” Adrien was confused. He was expecting a scolding from Plagg, not an apology.

“I’m sorry I have let your attitude go unchecked for so long Adrien Agreste. I should know better than to let a human teenager become this entitled.”

“What? What are you talking about? Entitled? I’m not entitled.”

Plagg sighed. He really really didn’t like to play the stern father. Or any other figure of authority. He was destruction, for Tikki’s sake!

“Remember when you tried to manipulate me into introducing you to Master Fu?”

“Manipulate? I deserve to know the same things that Ladybug knows!”

“That might be true, but you did it while an Akuma was flooding the city. While people were drowning”

Adrien opened his mouth, but really couldn’t refute what Plagg had said. He hadn’t stopped to think in the implications when he had done that day; after all, he still got to meet Master Fu.

“Ladybug’s power fixed that” said Adrien weakly. Even he knew it was a lame excuse.

“They came back to life, yes, but the trauma of drowning didn’t magically go away.”

“But…”

“Adrien, for once, listen to me. I’m not finished, and I don’t know how much I can maintain being this serious”

Adrien closed his mouth. Plagg being serious was a bit scary.  

“Being the Holder of the Miraculous of the Black Cat is a duty, yes, nothing says you can’t enjoy its perks, but what you have to do come before what you want to do. No whats, no buts, no ifs. You duty is to stop Hawk Moth first and foremost, to protect people, not to throw a temper tantrum because you didn’t got what you wanted.”

“But Ladybug…”

“Ladybug was told not to tell. It wasn’t her secret. Would you like if your friend… glasses boy told everyone stuff you have told him in private? She got to know him because very special circumstances forced her kwami to do it.”

“But…”

“And I understand your frustration, I really do, but there’s the other times you have acted like a brat while an Akuma was attacking and wreaking havoc on the city”

“What? I never”

“That Ice Cream Akuma? When you were acting all pissy at Ladybug because she didn’t go to a date she said she wasn’t going because she already had plans? Not to mention you also ditched your friends to make that dinner”

Adrien was silent. Plagg’s words were stinging him in the worst ways. He had acted like that and he didn’t even notice it at the time. “She would love me if she gave me the chance”

Plagg had to use all his will to not facepalm in the wall. That would surely destroy the whole manor.

“Adrien. While that might be true, and I’m not saying it is, that’s not your decision to make. Ladybug doesn’t owe you anything more than collaborate to defeat the Akumas, and maybe a bit of friendship, but that is all. I have had cats that weren’t even on friendly terms with their ladybugs and they still got the job done.”

“Oh, so now I’m the worst Black Cat ever!”

Plagg noted the bitter tone. He really hated being the serious one, and he would make Adrien pay for this in camembert.

“Adrien” Plagg sighed, and then forced himself into Adrien’s field of vision. “I love you with all my heart, and if you make me repeat this, I will deny it and make you suffer with 700 years of bad luck. You are one of the most unique Black Cats I have had in my care, you’re brave, nice and always put Ladybug’s safety before yours… not always a virtue, but we’ll work on that. That’s why you acting like you have been, is so… odd. You’re a good kid, PLEASE keep that.”

“Thanks” Adrien was barely audible. Having Plagg acting like this was freaking him out, but in a good way.

“Now now, no need to get all mushy… but I do have to ask. Why side with Lila of all people?”

Adrien wiped a tear. “I wasn’t siding with Lila”

“You basically disowned Chloe.”

“I just want everyone to get along! What Chloe did seriously messed Lila”

“Lila was trapped in her own web of lies. And Chloe has done much worse than what she did today”

“But she wasn’t doing anyone any harm!”

“Except for Marinette and the tomato kid. And the ladyblog’s credibility would have been destroyed.”

“People don’t change just because you confront them.” Said Adrien defensively. “I tried. I told Chloe a lot of times, way before I met you. She just kept being Chloe. I tried again and only managed to get her butler akumatized. And my father. He was like that way before mom… He never changed. I know people don’t change”

“Still, Lila might not have changed, but people would have stopped believing her lies. She would have been akumatized sooner, but still, you should have said something”

“If I had confronted Lila, everyone would have shunned me too!” yelled Adrien, a little too loud. Fortunately, everyone in the manor was busy with their own stuff.

“Oh… Oh!” Plagg’s face went from stern to a sad realization. He approached Adrien, tentatively. He was really bad at this mushy stuff and really wished that that pony kwami of friendship or the bear of love were here instead of him. He would even settle for the kwami of fluffiness. He wasn’t sure one existed, but with the internet the way it was, it was entirely possible for humans to have come with that one. “Adrien, it’s okay. You can’t control how people feel about you, and you shouldn’t worry about that.”

“You don’t get it. I have been lonely all my life. I only had Chloe as a friend!”

“I’m the anthropomorphic representation of destruction. I know how it feels for people to hate you. Every time sometimes decays, runs down, every house that falls, every thing that explodes? They blame it on me instead of what caused it. They love Tikki, even if she created Hydras, and Chimeras and all manners of monster, but then they blamed the destruction those monsters created on me.”

Adrien looked up to Plagg. He was still unsure at how to feel about having an open talk with him.

“I know you just see me as a lazy freeloader, and I don’t blame you. I do enjoy the easy life, but should know better than that. At the very least, I should be able to hear you out. I’m bad at this stuff, but I will try my best””

“People… people who matter will NOT abandon you. At least not voluntarily. So maybe your class mates would have turned on you like they turned on Marinette due to that Mop girl lies, but you know Chloe would have jumped at your defense. Marinette too. And that Tomato boy would have been on your side. And you honestly believe Glasses dude would have abandoned you?”

Adrien was speechless. He was barely able to shook his head “no, they wouldn’t”

“Friendship is about trusting, about support and supporting. Glass… Nino even got akumatized because your dad didn’t let you have a birthday party. How many people have been akumatized for someone else?”

Adrien wanted so badly to reply with ‘Miss Bustier’ but that was not the point that Plagg was trying to make.

“I know your schedule is really packed, but you should still make time for your friends to get some stress relief. And talk to Master Fu. He’s 180 years old, he will be able to listen! And probably be better than this silly dumb cat”

“You’re not dumb” Adrien approached Plagg and hugged him as best as he could.

“Just let’s not make this a periodical thing; you’re ruining my style.”

Adrien wiped a tear from his face and gave Plagg a small smile.

“That being said, you still should apologize to them… And to Ladybug too, for how you’ve been acting.”

Adrien was about to protest but knew Plagg was right. He did need the stress relief, but also needed to work on his attitude, especially his one sided crush on Ladybug. Maybe Kagami was right after all and he should change targets. Not Kagami herself, but maybe someone else. Maybe a good friend.

---------------

THE END

I won’t write Adrien apologizing because, again, I can’t write angst, and it would just be rehash of the apology that Alya and Nino gave to Marinette. Adrien might slip in future fics, but at least Plagg will be quick to call him out. 

Chloe too. She’s still a sassy bitch, but she will try to use her bitchiness for the Greater Good. And Marc is a good influence on her. Speaking of Marc, I want to write him with some friends of his own class, even if I have to make a ton of OCs to achieve this. And the Trials of Marinette will continue until I make a chapter for each kwami or I run out of ideas, whichever happens first.

I’m also playing with the idea of Nathaniel knowing Marinette is Ladybug(His “get Ladybug” dialogue was ambigous like that)

And I really really REALLY want to write some dialogue for Juleka and Luka calling each other names like “buttface”, “purple booger” “Lezzy McGuire”, “Jonas Brother Reject” and other such things.

[pathfindersemail]

Do you think people like Reyes because he's the spicy Latino character? im trying to understand the hype. I kind of think people just like him for being hot brown boy with hot accent.

lol wtf you’re like the third nonny to ever ask me to speak for the entirety of Reyes stans and tell you why we like him. I mean, whatever answer I give will be personal and not necessarily a reflection on the community, so let me get started on something I can generalize: fetishization.

[*Note I have a small postscript answer anticipating Sloane Kelley’s characterization at the end of this post.]

Short answer: No, but… Long Answer: Yes, but… >both buts lead to: but racism is something we participate in regardless of whether or not we are anti-racist.

Basically, we consume and propagate tropes and images regardless of how we problematize it, and it’s really up to your consumption of Reyes’s character to determine your complicity in the fetishization that inevitably follows a character like him.

The Unintentional Lecture on the Spicy Brown Boy with an Accent Trope

I think you’d all be lying if you say you didn’t get a wee bit charmed by the accent when you first heard it. It’s subconscious; it’s ingrained in everything we consume; the person with the accent is exotic, mysterious, and jarringly different from the identities you formed in the creation of your protagonist.

Writers, filmmakers, and artists have constantly employed accents for characters to instill a very impermeable yet nonetheless alluring sense of “difference.” This is why George Lucas racistly gave the aliens accented English in the prequel trilogy despite having given them acceptable yet unintelligible (to us) alien languages in the original Star Wars trilogy. The bureaucrats starving Naboo for a trade deal get the haughty Japanese businessfolk accent; the slaver who owned Anakin and is “stingy” has a vaguely semitic accent; Jar Jar Binks with his “massah” lingo and incoherence eerily mimics the language white writers ascribed to black slaves in 19th-century fiction (as seen in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Huckleberry Finn), and it’s weirdly reminiscent of Jamaican accents as well, so you can’t help but think of his “tomfoolery” in a racialized undertone. I’m sorry to call out George Lucas in this (I’m really not tho), because he isn’t alone. My point is that in the most blatant of cases, accents from real communities and groups are transposed onto alien or monstrous creatures in a move that simultaneously anthropomorphizes them (i.e. giving them voice and characterization) without granting them the dignity of being fully human and an American or British accented English seems to be the dominant mode of doing this. [Let’s not talk about how Bioware has handled accents for aliens in GENERAL in the ME Original Trilogy for now, because this is complicated]

On the flipside you can dehumanize human characters by giving them this same treatment of accents. See this post for an elaboration.

What happens when you give a human character an accent?

Oh all sorts of things. I’m gonna just drop it right here and lay it on y’all this foundational and phenomenal book called Orientalism by Edward Said. Being a product of the late 70s, updates and headway have been made in this mode of literary criticism. But basically, artists and writers have always romanticized “Eastern” tropes, cultures, and artifacts (including speech) in a way that hides the violence of imperialism while inundating the “motherland” with its stolen wealth. Writers loved them their muslin fabric, their jade jewelry, their olive-hued women; the sexual provocativeness of 1000 and One Nights. It was a way for the “West” to impose and project its imagination on cultures they do not and refuse to understand.

Spanish accents (whether from Spain, Latin America, and other spanish-speaking post colonies) are not exempt from this “Orientalism” despite its emphasis on the East. As some of you might recall, Spain was once part of the Islamic empire of Al-Andalus in the fifteenth century; Western Europe (cough cough mostly England cough cough) constantly ascribed to the Irish and the Spanish a “blackness” associated with “Moors” - no doubt a result of their trade dealings with Muslim cultures at the time. There is a long history of Spanish figures and characters being treated as malcontents - they are outsiders who fit remarkably well in their courtly contexts. [See this post for examples, but I also recall Spanish Tragedy as an early modern example]. 

So to sum up what I mentioned above, Reyes definitely is a product of all these tropes at work. As a prominent character, his accent does have a function. Everything you’ve absorbed via your good friend Cultural Osmosis Jones will subconsciously make you alert to the following descriptors: enigmatic, elusive, charming. I also think it’s interesting that he walks up to you as Umi is aggressively making her customer pay by brandishing a dagger. Your introduction to Reyes are therefore associated with: seedy bar fight and accent.

The complicated part of this answer is, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Reyes is nonetheless well developed and humanized. He does not flirt with you at every turn (contrary to what some people say), and he does not make advances if you choose the non-romance options for dialogue. He also expresses genuine vulnerability WITH you (so you’re not manipulated into pitying him). But perhaps the most human part of him (that arguably makes him more exciting than other Andromeda characters) is that he is unapologetically flawed. In the culmination scene of their romance, he either thanks you for accepting these flaws, or he makes a cheesy line about how you have him figured out.

“You’re the encrypted one.”

“haha… I was about to say something cheesy.”

“Say it.”

“Consider me hacked.”

We can say aw cute how cheesy, but what he’s really trying to say is that he likes you because, like any hacker, you mastered his code and can read them, whereas with others he maybe constantly misread to be what they want him to be (a smuggler, the Charlatan, etc). The sweeter option where he thanks you for accepting him is a more straightforward way of admitting the exact same thing. 

To return to the question, YES the accent plays a heavy part in hooking the player into his backstory (conscious or not), but Courtney Woods really did a great job psychologizing him into a very relatable and refreshingly honest figure whose irreverence makes for an interesting experience of a game that otherwise poorly handles ethical quandaries.

Skin Color?

There’s no question that people LOVE a brown character. The aforementioned “classic” Uncle Tom’s Cabin has an array of enslaved black characters, but the only ones who get a happy ending are… “quadroons,” which is a derogatory term for black slaves who are visibly mixed/mostly white (i.e. they pass as “a quarter black”) whereas the unambiguously black character like Uncle Tom dies horribly. But that was the nineteenth century. What has happened since? I don’t have to explain to you that when casting for a protagonist who is also black, Hollywood tends to hire light skinned black characters. Why? Frankly because people are racist and tend to criminalize dark skinned black people. “Brownness” goes along with the orientalism mentioned with accents; it hearkens to an exploited colonial wealth that speaks of exotic flavors. The description of darker skin as chocolate, caramel, or other foods grown from colonies and plantations relies heavily on the consumer/reader/viewer’s acceptance of brown as exotic.

Again, Reyes gets better and more humanizing characterization than his skin color and accent, but this history is nonetheless present in our consumption and imagination of him. And fandom has to be aware of this history if they want to avoid fetishizing a Latino character in their artistic works and contributions. 

So nonny, I think the trope is sedimented in our love for Reyes, but to not be able to see past it and appreciate the better parts of his development would be reductive and, frankly, just as racist as sidelining the few representations of Latinos we get.

Postscript note: Sloane Kelley is also a victim of all this baggage and history. As one of the few black women in the game, she was written to be disposed of and unliked. Even if you side with Sloane from the very beginning, she doesn’t get as much fun developments and moments with Ryder as Reyes does, which means Bioware deliberately made her not easily sympathetic. And unlike the original trilogy’s Aria T’Loak, she isn’t presented as competent given how her mob boss antics are shown as unnecessarily violent (it’s the first thing you encounter when you arrive at Kadara), and she is presented as tactlessly uncompromising whereas both Aria and Reyes are allowed room for a business savvy maneuver. 

I still argue that you should be given the option to broker a truce between the two. It’s so fucking shameful that you basically lock the romance over her dead body (which is why I rarely share gifs and images of the cave scene). It’s violent, and I really expected better from Bioware.

[justsomecynic]

Pantheon Books

Oh boy. Hoo boy.

I’ve been avoiding talking about this graphic novel. It’s kind of my guilty pleasure. It’s a story with so much character diversity, aesthetic beauty, and emotional value… but many consider it problematic. Me? I’m not the one that should say. I’m neither from the Middle East nor some kind of comics connoisseur. But I can compare and synthesize what other critics — better qualified critics — have said, and use that to build a personal, informed opinion that absolutely should not be taken seriously.

Okay then. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the author.

Craig Thompson was once a rural Wisconsin small-town boy raised in a highly conservative Christian family. Since childhood, almost every piece of media he consumed was carefully filtered, from movies to music. The only medium that wasn’t censored were comics. After all, comics are for little kids, right? He attributes his early affinity for comics to this. In high school, he was a young vegetarian feminist enchanted by Jesus Christ but disenchanted by the Church who wanted to live a hippie lifestyle. His comics — mainly his magnum opus, Blankets — were his way to communicate to his parents that he didn’t consider himself a Christian anymore. This made his relationship with his parents grow tense. [4]

Thompson began his career as a comic artist with his official debut, Good Bye, Chunky Rice, published by Top Shelf, which stars an anthropomorphic turtle and mouse and follows a semi-autobiographical plot. This debut got him a Harvey award and an Ignatz nomination. He followed it with small projects like Bible Doodles and Doot Doot Garden, but his next great autobiographical work, Blankets, was the one that got him the most praise and catapulted him to fame in 2003. After this, Thompson battled physical and mental health problems and even published a sort of travel journal, Carnet De Voyage, before his next great success: Habibi. [3][4] His last work is the middle grade comic, Space Dumplins. [6]

Before continuing with the inspiration behind Habibi, let’s keep talking about Thompson’s general works. One could say he’s an author centered in his personal experiences. This is my hypothesis. However, there’s exceptions; Space Dumplins and, the star of this review, Habibi. While Space Dumplins is a sci-fi work, for which he can take more liberties, Habibi is set in an orientalist fantasy for which he required intensive investigation.

But was it enough?

Let’s start with the parts that really stuck. And by that I mean the parts that really stuck with me.

[HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD]

Chapter 4: Mirage

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is the chapter that tells since Dodola’s arrival to the sultan’s harem until she solves the challenge of turning a jug of water into gold (through wit and trickery). I think this is the chapter that most reflects Thompson’s investigation about Islamic tradition. At least to me, a person who doesn’t know about Islam and the Quran, it was a great first impression.

In these pages, Dodola dives into the world of chemistry and alchemy, in which the Arabs were pioneers, to solve the sultan’s challenge. In addition to this, during the 70 months that the sultan gave her to solve the challenge, she carried and gave birth to a child. But she gave herself to drugs and was careless with her child, who soon died; it’s not clear whether from her own carelessness or an assassination. Also in this chapter (it’s worth mentioning that it’s not narrated in linear fashion), Dodola finally tricks the sultan into trading her a jug made of gold for her jug of water.

These are the most notable events. The ending was what stuck with me, since it proves Dodola’s wit, but I can’t help but think all that alchemy and chemistry she learned were for nothing. Just to impress the reader. But well, that’s just my impression.

Chapter 5: The Hand of Fatimah

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In this chapter we learn about Zam’s side of the story. Since his misadventures in the desert and the city, through his stay with the hijras (a South Asian and Middle Eastern term for what we know as intersex or trans people; a gender unknown to western societies)[5], and until his reunion with Dodola.

Maybe you’ll have guessed by now that what fascinated me in this chapter was the representation of LGBT+ identities as three-dimensional characters. While the rest of the novel is fairytale-esque, this struck me as a particularly realistic part (not that others aren’t; this is just the one that stuck with me the most) which shows the difficulties of the people outside traditional gender and sex roles, and the injustice with which they are perceived.

But well, I can’t dance around it anymore. What’s wrong with Habibi?

[ONLY MILD SPOILERS AHEAD]

It’s a fantasy in which the merits of the characters is being western in a non-western world. The conventional notions of love, sex, gender, maternity, etc., and this is just inside the story. Outside, in a more meta way, I can say I personally dislike the nearly morbid use of sexual violence as a plot device; the nearly bizarre caricaturization of dark-skinned characters; and Dodola’s perpetual status as a damsel in distress. However, all of this can be countered. One could say Thompson is open with topics seldom talked about such as sexual assault; one could say it’s not caricaturization, but effective and distinctive character design; one could say Dodola is a representation of the Middle Eastern woman. I sincerely don’t know. As I said, I shouldn’t be the one to judge. See: [1] and [2].

Despite all this, I liked Habibi. I understand why it’s problematic, but honestly, it’s a visual gem.

Craig Thompson, in general, is a clearly dedicated artist. I admire his dedication, with Habibi as much as Blankets, and his courage in writing such evident parts of himself in his craft. Not everyone can, and from those who can, not all of them manage.

In the case of Habibi, I think Thompson deserves a golden star for at least trying.

To wrap things up, let me direct you to this piece by one of my favorite composers, Pyots Ilyich Tchaikovsky; one of the pieces from the Nutcracker suite. I guess you could consider it, like Habibi, an orientalist piece. And like the novel, its aesthetic value has no match.

Finally, I’d like to invite you to read these key pieces of my opinion-building process. In the meantime, I’ll go back to reading some more comics. Thanks for making it here!

Sources:

[1] Damluji, N. (October 4th 2011) Can the Subaltern Draw?: The Spectre of Orientalism in Craig Thompson’s Habibi. The Hooded Utilitarian. Retrieved from http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/10/can-the-subaltern-draw-the-spectre-of-orientalism-in-craig-thompsons-habibi/

[2] Hatfield, C. (October 27th 2011) A Habibi Roundtable. The Comics Journal. Retrieved from http://www.tcj.com/a-habibi-roundtable/

[3] Heater, B. (May 7th-28th 2007) Interview: Craig Thompson (parts 1 and 2). The Daily Cross Hatch. Retrieved from: http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2007/05/07/431/ (part 1) and http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2007/05/28/interview-craig-thompson-pt-2-of-2/

[4] Mechanic, M. (2011) Graphic Novelist Craig Thompson on Parental Censorship, Leaving Christianity, and His Epic, “Habibi”. Mother Jones (Sept/Oct 2011 issue). Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/media/2011/09/craig-thompson-blankets-habibi-interview/

[5] Pandeia. (2018) Hijras And Bangladesh: The Creation Of A Third Gender. Pandeia. Retrieved from http://pandeia.eu/region/inter/hijras-and-bangladesh-the-creation-of-a-third-gender/

[6] The Blog of Craig Thompson. (2018) Books. Retrieved from http://www.craigthompsonbooks.com/

Craig Thompson: Habibi - a review Oh boy. Hoo boy. I've been avoiding talking about this graphic novel. It's kind of my guilty pleasure.