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Review: Resistance

by Kathryn Briggs, adapted from a radio program by Val McDermid. Published by Profile Books in association with the Wellcome Collection.

Song of Choice: Sister Rosetta Tharpe—Didn’t It Rain? Recommended meal: a vegetarian sausage on a hot dog bun, with your preferred toppings. No meat, by the gods. Finish it early in the story, before people start dying. 

Val McDermid has won a lot of attention and acclaim as an author of crime and mystery fiction, and as a librarian whose patrons have a strong interest in the harder-hitting stuff, the news that she was coming out with a graphic adaptation caught my eye. McDermid’s work also has my attention, as she’s a prominent Scottish radical feminist (and out lesbian) whose Twitter shows that she’s actually in favor of transgender rights, making her an unfortunate rarity among feminist authors from the UK in these recent years. So, I approached this work with high hopes and an open heart.

And then the first two pages dashed that all to hell.

It’s not that artist Kathryn Briggs is without talent. Her personal website shows off a brilliant portfolio, with a style that I’d certainly give attention elsewhere. I think she’d make a marvelous cover artist.

But right from the start, it’s evident that she doesn’t have a sense of page and panel layout. Scenes that would be best executed as single panels are split in two with the gutter obscuring parts of characters’ faces, line tangents direct the eye nowhere or run into each other. Pages are laid out with artful panel divisions that draw one’s attention to specific elements, but the elements are not the actual focus of the panels, and in many places the symmetry of panels and captions or dialogue is completely unbalanced.

Moreover, the work suffers greatly from its monochrome format. Foremost, this is a story about disease, and we are told that characters are ashen grey with illness, that there are strange purple blotches that are vital plot elements —but none of this comes through clearly, because the pages are black and white with limited shading. 

And that shading is hampered heavily by the additional design choices Briggs has made. Perhaps to bolster the colorless pages, the entire book is layered over a watercolor-esque backdrop. But this distracts from the actual shading in the panels, and confuses the eye. Important scenes are made blurry and indistinct.

Even more unsettling is the frequent use of public domain images as background elements on the panel, the content of the panels themselves, or in a few cases, dominating the page entirely. One particularly egregious page is superimposed with the image of the Seven of Swords (not from the tarot, but in the style of Spanish playing cards), which makes absolutely no sense in symbolic terms. It’s followed by an even more jarring page of three double-bordered panels set vertically down the center of the page, where the characters are cut off in ways that make their actions ambiguous; the upper two panels are bordered by stereotypical anime-styled nurses and doctors. It’s a disruptive contrast with Briggs’s more western style, and the asymmetry overall creates an unbalanced page that draws the eye away from the dialogue and character actions and leaves it unfocused.

McDermid is a talented writer whose social media suggests is making an effort to make up for earlier poor portrayals of transgender women in her work, so I’m willing to give her a chance in many respects. But her work suffers greatly when paired with Briggs, and none of the charm of Briggs’s own portfolio comes across on the page. 

Ultimately, what should be a topical work about the response to a pandemic is hampered by an incompatible pairing of author and artist. 

And we’re going to see more and more of this, I’m sure: adult OGNs are the Hot New Thing in publishing right now, and everyone is scrambling to print properties they think will grab the readers' wallets. But maybe I’m being pessimistic. and this is just one stumble among many successes to come.

Either way, I don’t recommend it. Pick up some of McDermid’s prose fiction if you want a solid story from her.

[varialibraria]

Review: Sneeze: Naoki Urasawa Story Collection

by Urasawa Naoki; english translation by John Werry with touch-up & lettering by Steve Dutro, cover & interior design by Yukiko Whitley. Published by Viz Media

Song of choice: Urasawa Naoki — Bob Lennon Recommended meal: A cold bottle of soda pop fresh from the fridge at the store, the condensation on the outside of the bottle like the sweat dripping off you in the summer heat. Pair it with a crisp, cool apple of your favorite variety, the sort where biting into it reminds you of the oncoming chill of winter setting in during late autumn. 

While I first became aware of Urasawa's work through his longform series like Monster, Billy Bat, and Pluto, I'd argue that it's this collection of short stories that shows his real talent. Like most manga creators, Urasawa's serves as both artist and writer (assistants are usually uncredited in the fast-paced and thankless manga industry; whether Sneeze features any additional creators in the original Japanese edition is not apparent).

Sneeze's collection is eclectic; the first two stories ("Damiyan!" and "Throw Toward the Moon!") could be described as crime drama built around psychic powers, while the following "The Old Guys" is an autobiographical work that jumps between scenes linked by Urasawa's observation of older men who share his love of music. "Henry and Charles" is a comedy in the vein of classic western cartoons, focused on the antics of a pair of mice avoiding a cat. The collection then returns to true-life stories of music, where "It's a Beautiful Day" is based on stories related to Urasaw by the late musician "Enken", AKA Kenji Endo; the following "Musica Nostra" is a short set of Urasawa's observations about guitarists, as well as his five-part "L.A. Music Travelogue". The following "Kaiju Kingdom" seems to link to Urasawa's interest in the genre as expressed in his ongoing series Asadora, but is focused on a French kaiju otaku who visits Japan to see the sites where giant monsters attacked. The final story, "Solo Mission" is a sci-fi short, but suffered in the digital format due to having been originally published as a French BD; its left-to-right reading order reverses it from the entire remaining text, and its twist ending is easily spoiled by readers who don't know to jump to the end of the book and read backwards after the previous story.

I mentioned that Urasawa is both an artist and author for a reason, because he's actually what you call a triple threat: he's a musician as well, as seen in the music of choice this time around. His passionate interest in world music including British and American rock shines in this collection, and it's interesting to see how the mood contrasts with and influences his fictional works. Endo's name was elsewhere lent to a fictional musician in Urasawa's "20th Century Boys"; I'd even hazard a guess that those interests broadened Urasawa's horizons; both Sneeze and his long-form works feature frequent inclusion of foreign characters and settings. There's drama, comedy, painful romance, and supernatural weirdness, but the global scope of the work still manages to feel very personal and human.

This all ties in Urasawa's ability as an illustrator; whether representing real people or envisioning fictional characters, his style has a strongly western-influenced touch that tends to feature diverse face shapes. Per stereotypes, white characters can mostly be picked out by comparatively oversized and detailed noses, but the more serious visual style of Urasawa's pencils makes each feel like a real and unique person. Faces are instantly recognizable even with strange expressions or different hairstyles; expressions are conveyed with passionate intensity, bodies are diverse and postures powerful.

Overall, Sneeze is a solid collection that shows much of the range of its creator's ability and interests. My only complaint is that the localization team didn't seem to make much of an effort to explain the contexts of some of the nonfiction bits; I had to look elsewhere to learn who Endo was.

[varialibraria]

Yes, I’m doing this again! Expect more, more often.

Review: Bionic

by Koren Shadmi Published by Top Shelf Productions

Song of choice: Lemon Demon—The Machine. Because this book is about a machine, but it's also nothing. It's pointless time-consumption.

Recommended meal: A can of Bang energy drink, the Black Cherry Vanilla flavor. Cloying, familiar yet artificial, touched with something that tries to be sexy but falls so very far short of its goal. You'll need the caffeine to get through this text, and the artificial sweetner will remind you that this story of technology is lacking in substance.

Forewarning: this review is based on a digital galley read months ago, so if there’s any details that are incorrect, blame most of my ability to recall details being tied into my access to a computer.

Billed as a "coming-of-age tale for the digital generation" and praised as a romance, Bionic instead betrays a startlingly regressive, outdated and misogynistic mentality by its author, who apparently adapted this story from a shorter comic penned over a decade ago. It sure does feel that old. The story focuses on a stereotypically nerdy young man--looked down upon for his slight build and interest in technology, in spite of the futuristic setting. The only twist seems to be that part of the bullying stems from his working class background and the specifics of his tech interests; still pretty standard stuff that never bothers to deconstruct whether part of the bullying is just that protagonist Victor is a viscerally unlikable person. Everything about him suggests a story that was outmoded by the mid-Nineties: he's a highly intelligent yet socially awkward heterosexual cisgender white geek of no particular cultural or religious background who is bullied by popular "hot" classmates and struggles to catch the eye of any women. It's a character trope betrayed by the rise of guys like Victor to positions of power, and one that I personally find distasteful since my own high school bullies included a guy who is now a multi-millionaire in tech.

I wonder if a more likable, relatable, up-to-date protagonist might have made this story more enjoyable; set just a short jump into the potential future, Bionic sees Victor crushing hard on popular and conventionally pretty blonde Patricia. An interaction outside of school foretells some of the plot, when Victor's stalking of Patricia outside of school at a pet shop leads her to offer him a cyborg pet that is later revealed as a lab test subject for her wealthy father's robotics company. A gruesome accident leaves Patricia transformed into a sleek and shiny cyborg--and embittered by her new form. She reaches out to Victor as the sole person who seems to still be interested in interacting with her as a human instead of a curiosity, and alternates between seeming to seduce or confide in him, and rejecting him for flings with people more in her original circle. Victor quietly, meekly, yet stubbornly persists in following Patricia even as her behaviors become blatantly self-destructive, her interest in him starting to seem to be more about pissing off her father (who she blames for her accident, going so far as suggesting it was a deliberate act to promote his new tech) than about finding anything attractive about Victor.

A barely-glimpsed side plot establishes that Victor's dad has been lying about going to work, having recently lost his job; the tension and conflict within Victor's home life is background static that doesn't interact with the story at all beyond giving the protagonist another thing to angrily lash out about.

Eventually, Victor himself is injured in an accident after Patricia convinces him to visit one of her father's factories, setting up a not-so-subtle and miserably blunt reveal at the finale. Patricia is as shallow a character as Victor, if not more so; she seems to exist to serve alternately as a drunken confidant and an object of disinterested lust, and there is no resolution to her suspicions of the cause of her injuries. I struggled to find any suggestion of the "romance" asserted by the creator, publisher, and other reviewers; this is a story about surface obsessions and toxic people being harmful to themselves and each other.

Bionic features an unlikable protagonist, a deuteragonist laden with sexist perspectives, a clumsy story, and a heavy reliance on extremely tired tropes with a slight "twist" that feels more like the turn of a gut punch as a bully grinds his fist into you. Not recommended by any means.

[varialibraria]

Review: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell Published by First Second 

Song of choice: the scary jokes—Emotional Vagrant (the entire “Burn Pygmalion!!!” album by @snout felt like a good fit, but especially this song) Recommended meal: a vegetarian wrap. Not the pretentious bullshit kind from Whole Foods, but the kind you get from a little hole-in-the-wall that isn’t going to be there a year from now. The woman behind the counter has tattoos you can’t make sense of and can’t see entirely. Tonight you will not remember how the wrap tasted, but you will, synaesthetically, remember the taste of her subtle smile. A feeling of something missed, lost time from a timeline that diverged away from this one.

I’d seen “Laura Dean” around. I hadn’t realized, somehow, that it was a graphic novel, or that it was queer until i cracked it open almost as an after-thought; the titular Laura Dean is the blonde-haired figure in the foreground, while the one looking at the viewer is the book’s protagonist, Freddy Riley. Freddy was named “Frederica”, but she can’t stand being called that. She likes to take apart thrift shop and secondhand dolls and plushies, and reassemble them into unique new creations with her best friend Doodle. She’s the kind of person who, at sixteen, still hangs out near the jungle gym with her friends. Her family goes bowling, she works part-time at a lesbian-themed organic wraps restaurant. She’s a little quirky by most standards, and fits in well with her friends who are the odd ones out.

And so, she makes a very odd couple with popular party-girl Laura Dean. And Laura can’t seem to stay faithful to Freddy, and doesn’t seem to think enough about other’s feelings to consider responsible non-monogamy. When the story opens, Freddy waits for Laura at a school dance—where was she? Laura, annoyed, says that she said she’d meet Freddy at the gym. A glimpse at Freddy’s text message history shows that Freddy sent messages asking if she’d do that, but Laura never replied. Mid-way through the dance, Laura excuses herself, and by the time Freddy finds where she’s gotten off to, she’s managed to get all the way into a storage closet and halfway up the inside of another girl’s pants.

Freddy relates all this in narration that takes the form of emails to an advice column. It allows the story to break from needing to have narration at all times, makes the lack of consistency a reflection of Freddy bouncing in and out of love with Laura Dean, in and out of the relationship. It allows for all the little moments where someone’s internal dialogue is made external as inanimate objects converse with them in pink-lined speech balloons. 

About that: the book makes use of a limited color palette—grayscale except for rose pink used for accent and emphasis, sometimes bringing attention to a particular object, drawing the eye to a single panel on the page, or even creating contrast with the parts of the page that are not in pink, to give a feeling of loneliness. And the loneliness is deep and aching. Laura openly fetishizes Freddy, saying that her full given name is “hot”, because “it’s so multicultural to have an Asian girlfriend with a name like [that]”. She mocks Freddy’s time spent with her friends as “boring” and talks derisively about the hobbies Freddy shares with Doodle. 

It’s very easy to hate Laura. It can, at times, be easy to feel contempt for Freddy and how she keeps falling for Laura, and ignoring her friends and her commitments in order to follow along with Laura’s flippant, hi-and-bye lifestyle where everyone else’s needs are secondary and selfish.  At the same time, for anyone who has ever been in love, who has ever been infatuated (whether romantically, or in general being so passionate about another person that you lose your own selfhood), it can be easy to sympathize. And when Laura finally gets a taste of her own medicine, there’s a little sting of sympathy. 

It’s messy, it’s complicated. Like relationships, like being a teenager. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is very much about the dumb shit we do as teenagers trying to be adults. About the dumb shit we do as adults, too, because becoming an adult is a process. The adults in Freddy’s life fuck up, too. 

Things resolve. Not neatly, not with everyone feeling better. But bridges are mended, or burned where they need to be. New connections are made, deeper understandings.

It’s a book worth reading quickly, and then going back and savoring. The weak points? ...hard to pin down, really. Maybe the bits with the inanimate objects; it feels just a bit too tangential to the rest of the story, and there are points where the interaction between them and the human characters confused me, especially at the very end. There were times when the splashes of pink distracted too much, but maybe it was deliberate, meant to unfocus a panel. 

In the end, it’s a book that has gone onto my birthday wishlist. I need a copy of my own.

Content warnings for readers: infidelity, underage drinking, unsafe sex, abortion.

[varialibraria]

In a few weeks, I’ll be retired, and I had every intention of wrapping up my 42-year career in public libraries by writing a sentimental column this month.  But, alas, instead of marking the end of four decades in librarianship with a warm and fuzzy feeling, I find myself red-hot over the latest moves by publishers to limit access to digital content in public libraries.

Until now, I’ve been inclined to give publishers the benefit of the doubt.  As co-chair of the ALA’s Digital Content Working Group from 2011 to 2014, back when libraries were working to get basic access to e-books, I came to recognize that some of the restrictions publishers place on libraries in the digital space are business decisions that, to some degree, reflect an economic reality the library community must learn to accept.  But recent changes imposed by some of the major publishers have gone too far.

A year ago, Macmillan placed a four-month embargo on new-release titles from its Tor imprint — part of what the publisher characterized as a “test.”  In a series of recent meetings, Macmillan representatives told librarians that the test has validated its belief that library e-book lending depresses consumer e-book sales and author payouts.  Speculation is that Macmillan will soon announce new digital terms and pricing for libraries that will include some version of an embargo on new-release titles across more of Macmillan’s imprints.

Despite holding meetings with librarians (including me), as well as with representatives from the American Library Association, it does not appear that Macmillan has listened to our concerns.  Embargoing new releases in libraries is unacceptable.  Windowing digital content will place libraries at a true disadvantage at a time when they are already under increasing pressure to serve digital readers and audiobook listeners.  Further, libraries are already limited in the digital space.  We often pay three to five times the consumer price for two-year access to e-books: terms that dramatically limit the number of copies we can afford to purchase, resulting in long wait times for readers — often many months for the hottest, buzziest titles.  Adding an additional embargo period will only extend these already-long wait times for digital readers.

Part of the problem here is that public libraries have little leverage with which to negotiate digital pricing and terms with publishers and vendors.  With physical materials, our ability to buy and lend copies and to create rich collections for our communities is protected by law.  In the digital world, however, we can’t license content without agreeing to the terms the publishers set.  Yet, neither can we walk away from the digital formats our public is asking for just because the terms and prices are too onerous.  That would be counter to our values and mission.  And it would signal to our supporters and funders that the library can’t meet the community’s needs.  With so much digital content readily available to consumers these days through a variety of commercial platforms, the library story of embargoes, exclusive author contracts with Amazon, and high digital pricing decimating our collection budgets is tough enough to explain to our boards, let alone to our public.  This is part of the story, too.

In another recent setback, Hachette Book Group and Simon & Schuster became the first of the Big Five publishers to meter digital audio purchases in libraries.  Like e-books, digital audio licenses from these two publishers will now expire after 24 months.  The change comes despite digital audio consumer sales showing strong double-digit sales growth for each of the last six years, with no sign of slowing down.  Any objective, reasonable read on the data would suggest that libraries have played a positive role in the growth of the digital audio market, with their collection dollars and in terms of marketing and exposing the format to new consumers.

Both Hachette and S&S said the change in its audio terms was driven by a simple desire to align their e-book and digital audio policies.  But you have to wonder what is really driving this change.  Meanwhile, as the format becomes more popular, Amazon is growing more aggressive in its tactics.  Its Audible subscription service is pursuing exclusive contracts that deny libraries access to some of the most highly desirable digital audio content, including from major authors such as Margaret Atwood and Michael Lewis.  And adding another unwelcome twist to the digital audio story, following an exclusive deal with an unnamed “important strategic partner,” Blackstone Publishing last month imposed a 90-day embargo on new-release audio titles in libraries.

We appreciate that four of the Big Five publishers — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster — have thus far committed to a no-embargo policy for new-release titles.  But the fact remains: high prices and limited term licenses are severely impacting our ability to build collections and serve our communities.  Making it all worse, managing these increasingly complex digital licenses requires significant additional expense and time from library staff — resources that could be spent serving users or buying more books from more authors.

Following its formation in 2011, the ALA’s Digital Content Working Group worked with publishers and vendors to open a dialogue about digital content in libraries.  By the end of 2014, all of the Big Five publishers were in the library e-book market.  And when the working group’s six-year charter expired in 2017, we had a growing, relatively stable (albeit expensive and complex) library e-book market.

Recent developments, however, suggest that we are facing a grim future for digital content in libraries.  Where will we librarians and library supporters draw the line?  When will we say that access terms and pricing have become too oppressive?

At last month’s ALA Annual Conference, the ALA Council passed a resolution urging ALA to form another working group on digital content, as well as to start a public outreach campaign about the challenges we face in the digital realm.  The resolution also urged ALA to approach Congress.  I am skeptical that another working group will be effective.  By now, we know well the issues and the forces at play.  And there is plenty of data to show that working closely with libraries in fact makes good business sense for publishers.

But I do believe it is time for library supporters to mount a vigorous campaign to communicate widely the challenges libraries face in the digital content market.  Last month, the Association of American Publishers filed comments urging the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize the business practices of the tech industry.  Perhaps libraries should take this opportunity to share our experiences in the digital market with government officials as well.  Like the AAP and its members, we recognize that Amazon has been a particularly destabilizing force.

We have reached a tipping point.  Access to digital content in libraries is more than a financial issue; it is an equity issue.  Ask yourself this: if libraries are effectively shut out of performing their traditional roles in the digital realm, do you trust Amazon to be the public’s open and fair discovery engine?

To those who are truly stakeholders and champions of libraries, I ask you to weigh in and stand with us.  And I challenge all librarians and library supporters to think about what our next steps will be.

PW columnist Sari Feldman is executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio, and a former president of both the Public Library Association (2009–2010) and the American Library Association (2015–2016).

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[varialibraria]

Review: Dreadnought

by April Daniels, audiobook narration by Natasha Soudek published by Diversion Books, audiobook edition by Audible Studios 

Song of choice: Ashby and the Oceanns—Something Better (music by @fakegamergirlcomics just seemed the right fit, especially after @naidje suggested it) Recommended meal: Slices of cheap, greasy pizza, because it’s your body and you get to choose what you put in it. But also some salad on the side, because all that oil will make you feel terrible afterwards.

I started reading Dreadnought—the first in a planned trilogy—as an mp3 audiobook, in the midst of Pride Month. As I took a 67 mile round-trip journey down to the only store that had a pair of particularly cute shoes in my size, i had a lot of time to listen to the book, to think about gender, and the ways i’m more or less fortunate compared to other people i know.

The life of protagonist Danielle Tozer is a similarly mixed bag. At the story’s outset, Danielle is hiding out behind a mall to express the one tiny bit of femininity she’s managed to secure herself while living as a closeted trans girl. From her hiding spot, she witnesses the fallout of the final battle between a supervillain and the beloved superhero Dreadnought—which sends Dreadnought crashing at Danny’s feet. His dying act is to pass on the “mantle” of his powers to her, and like every Dreadnought before her, Danielle is transformed into her ultimate physical ideal. Superhuman strength and speed, resistance to injury to the point of immunity to small arms fire, the ability to fly...

...oh, and she’s given a body that outwardly appears to be that of a cisgender girl. It’s the ultimate transition, no need for pills, patches, or injections. But it comes with complications.

And here’s where it gets tricky to recommend Dreadnought. See, April Daniels is an excellent writer, her prose is snappy and the balance between dialogue and narrative is just right. The narration by Soudek makes it even better, with talented voice acting bringing even nameless minor characters alive as unique individuals. But it’s also a painful story; for every soaring up, there’s crashing down that follows almost immediately after. Danny lives with a a verbally abusive homophobic father and a meek mother who prefers the illusion of familial integrity to acknowledgement of just how fucked up things are, and just how much and how long Danny has been hurting. Unable to hide her new body, Danny leans into it, and is stunned to face all kinds of bigotry. As she struggles to understand her new powers and keep them secret, she meets up with people representing many aspects of the superheroic world: the “white capes” who cooperate with local governments and enjoy popular support and municipal stipends, and the street-level “gray cape” vigilantes.

There are points in the story when it can get really painful to follow Danielle’s journey, especially if you’ve ever faced the kind of hatred she does, just for how she was born. In particular, Graywytch, a magical “superhero” and ally to the previous Dreadnought, stands out as an openly hateful trans-exclusionary “feminist”. In fact, in spite of how violently bigoted and blatantly hypocritical Graywitch’s dialogue is, it’s actually toned down from quotes of real-life statements the author encountered.

But all of this also makes Danielle’s triumphs sweeter, and her endurance in the face of adversity more relatably human than superhuman. It also allows her to serve well as a stand-in for transgender readers looking to find someone relatable among superheroes. In those respects and many others, Dreadnought is a much-needed starting point for trans inclusion in the superhero genre.

There are weak points, mind; as a consequence of needing to set up a familiar world for Danielle to inhabit, one that does not require too much introduction and does not take over the plot on its own, the setting can feel kind of cookie-cutter. The history of superheroics dates back only as far as WWII, and the scope of those powers is familiar to fans of Marvel & DC. Several characters feel like they are designed to fit into superheroic tropes, winding up flat on the page; the characterization of the relationship between supers and magic in particular felt like the same old territory retrod many times over by the comics.

These weak points are minor quibbles, however. They don’t detract from the virtues of the story, and they didn’t ever keep me from being so excited to finish listening that i wound up borrowing a library copy of the print version and skipping ahead while i was away from my car stereo. Oh, and ordering a copy of the second book, Sovereign.

Content warnings for readers: transphobia, transmisogyny, misogyny, homophobia, mention of suicidal ideation

[varialibraria]

Review: Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu, volume 4

by Natsuya Semikawa and Virginia Nitouhei, character design by Kururi published by Udon Entertainment Song of choice: Clammbon— Prosit! (anime version ending theme) Recommended meal: Chilled beer, or ginger ale if you’re not the beer type, and a bowl of hot edamame. Fresh fish prepared simply, if it suits your diet.

Disclaimer: this review is based on an advance copy via NetGalley and may not reflect the final publication.

I first became aware of Nobu via the anime, viewed on the Crunchyroll video streaming service. As the title suggests, it’s part of the “isekai” genre of anime, manga, and “light novels” in Japan, a booming (or is that boomed?) subgenre of fantasy fiction. “Isekai” is usually translated as into English “otherworld” or “otherworldly”, though “parallel universe” works just as well. The core of the genre is someone from “our” world—usually a modern Japanese person—winding up in a fantasy world with a roughly Medieval European culture. Its roots as a genre go way back, and while we could discuss the origins in franchises like Knight Ramune & 40 or .hack, it’s just as easily traced to the same impulses and desires behind A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: the standard is an otherwise unnoticed person winds up in a world where their modern knowledge makes them a great hero. 

Nobu is part of an arguable sub-sub-genre of isekai, where the focus is less on heroic deeds, and more on heroic meals. Food-centric series are a staple of anime and manga that do not often make a splash in the west, and the recent examples of this theme crossing with isekai tropes are some of the best and brightest on both sides, from the stellar Nobunaga no Chef (”A Chef of Nobunaga”) to the more calming, casual mood of Isekai Shokudō (”Restaurant to Another World”). 

Like the latter, the focus in Nobu is less on the modern Japanese characters who come to the fantasy world of Alteria, and more on the experiences of its customers, and how dining on a mix of traditional and contemporary Japanese pub food affects their lives. However, we also get a glimpse of how the relationships go both ways, as the staff of Nobu are enriched by their new customer base. 

Compared to the anime adaptation on Crunchyroll—both are spun from a prose-only light novel series by Semikawa—the manga goes down smoother. The Alterians pepper their speech with German and French names for food that were not clearly translated in the subtitles for the anime, and the wordplay flows more smoothly on the printed page where there is no need to account for time. Volume 4 serves as an excellent jumping-on point in the series, with the first “course” (chapter) being a play on rookie Hans’s confusion over everyone ordering “the usual”, along with their favorite drinks. For Hans, this includes “whatsontapp”, the Alterian misunderstanding of the concept of draft lager. 

As the focus of Nobu is less on the content of plates and bowls and more on the experiences of the diners, there’s less in the way of grand, dramatic shots of richly-illustrated dishes that you might find in other food-centric manga. This isn’t to say that Nitouhei’s artwork doesn’t make you hungry looking at lineart of tempura and bouillabaisse, but the thing that really does it is soulful responses of the diners and the resolutions to the troubles that they bring in with them. Unlike a lot of food-centric manga, Nobu doesn’t make you look at overblown reactions to the taste of a dish, but explores the whole emotional experience of dining through its revolving cast of regulars and newcomers. 

Volume 4 in particular doesn’t offer much explanation for why a modern Japanse izakaya is in a fantasy world, nor does it even especially dwell on this being the core plot device, though later chapters do touch on it. In that respect, this might not be the best choice for readers who may be unfamiliar with the basic conceits of isekai. However, it stands out strongly as a collection of stories for food lovers and fantasy fans alike. The pub fare of a standard izakaya as served by the fictional Nobu blends both traditional Japanese treats and contemporary European and American-derived dishes in a way that mirrors the cultural exchange of the cast: as the restaurant’s “Chief” experiments with dishes to meet the tastes of his Alterian patrons, he starts to come into his own as a chef.

If i had to complain about anything in the series—especially this volume—it’s that the female characters are almost exclusively defined in relation to the men. Even a story about a businesswoman who rejects the advances of suitors dwells on her relationship with her father and how it affects her views of men, and while Nobu’s core waitress is hinted to have a past of powerful influence and incredible culinary potential, she’s mostly presented as the cute young miss handing out glasses of whatsontapp. An extremely weak point comes in a chapter about a mysterious and beautiful lady turns out to be a visitor from a previous volume in drag, with the other characters reacting in shock and horror, albeit not as extreme as countless other examples of transphobia in media.

At the end of the volume, a reader’s guide to food vocabulary serves as an explanation for all the details the translation couldn’t fit in-panel, and though many may be familiar  to regular fans of Japanese food, there are also translations provided for the uses of French, Spanish, and German.

Content warnings for readers: alcohol, violence (in flashbacks), transmisogyny, animal death

[varialibraria]

News!

This blog has sat around untouched for a long time now. So, i’m going to experiment with using it as a review space for books and other library content. I’ll try out a few things for the exact content....

[varialibraria]

The New York Public Library just released a treasure trove of digitized public domain images, featuring epic poetry from the 11th century to photographs of used car lots in Columbus, Ohio from the 1930s.   Over 180,000 manuscripts, maps, photographs, sheet music, lithographs, postcards, and other images were released online Wednesday in incredibly high resolution, and are available to download using the library’s user-friendly visualization tool.  It’s a nostalgist’s dream come true.

“No permission required, no hoops to jump through: just go forth and reuse!” writes Shana Kimball, manager of the library’s public programs and outreach.

It’s a dizzying display.  Casual users will likely have to wade through a surplus of mundane ephemera — Yiddish menus for vacation retreats in the Catskills, watercolors of Dutch military officers, 19th century stereoscopic images of the White House — before stumbling upon something truly unique, like these utterly delightful 18th century Indian color drawings.

The images can be sorted by century, color, genre, or library collection.  And to inspire further exploration and reuse, the library has also created a number of digital games and tools, such as a “mansion builder” game, where users control a little blue Pac-man-like figure through the floor plans of grand turn-of-the-century New York apartments.

Then there’s “then-and-now” comparisons of New York City’s 5th Avenue from wide-angle, placing photographs from 1911 alongside the Google  Street View of today.  And finally, users can explore a “trip planner” using locations extracted from a mid-20th century motor guide called The Green Book that “list[s] hotels, restaurants, bars, and gas stations where black travelers would be welcome.”

Digitization is all the rage among libraries and museums these days, with millions of books and images posted online over the last decade.  The New York Public Library says it hopes this recent release of public domain images serves as a starting point for future creative reuses.  Given the overwhelming number of images now available in the library’s collection — well over 670,000, they say — it seems very likely that someone with a penchant for coding and history will certainly take them up on that offer.

Woo hoo!

[varialibraria]

Wow, incredibly unsettling behavior on the part of the publisher.

If you are a member of ALA and receive American Libraries, you may have seen an article we wrote in the most recent issue (Jan/Feb 2016) titled “Special Report: Digital Humanities in Libraries.”  Unfortunately, because the article was edited after we thought we had turned in the final version, we aren’t nearly as happy to share it with you as we had hoped to be.

The edits in question were not harmless.  They were quotes added to the body of the article from a representative from Gale/Cengage about steps they are taking to develop commercial products which they believe will be useful for digital humanists.

We probably do not need to spell out why we are disappointed by this but, just for the record, we have two major problems:

These were not superficial changes and the editors at American Libraries should have spoken to us before publishing them.

More substantially, we feel it is grossly inappropriate for a magazine that is supposed to represent libraries and librarians to insinuate a vendor’s perspective directly into an article without the authors’ knowledge or permission.  This is especially true when the vendor has a very obvious financial motive for being part of the conversation.

Let us state for the record that we did not speak to anyone at Gale/Cengage about this article, we had no role in developing or carrying out the survey, we did not see those quotes prior to publication and would not have included them in our article if we had.

Importantly, our problem is not with Gale/Cengage but with the way American Libraries is handling their relationship with them in the context of the article we wrote.

When American Libraries approached us about the article, they said “We are also conducting a survey with Gale/Cengage, so that data would be incorporated” in our article.  This was reiterated in the official scope document for the article which stated, “[w]riters should also include the results of the Gale and American Libraries survey of faculty and librarians.” The editor at American Libraries gave us access to data from that survey and we did, in fact, cite some of that data in our article.

There is something else that happened that is relevant here.  Throughout the writing process, the editor at American Libraries kept mentioning that they were going to give us a contact at Gale/Cengage in case we had questions.  On October 27th (nearly a month after we accepted the assignment), the editor gave us contact information for a “Senior Manager of Public and Media Relations” at Gale.  We didn’t really see how someone in that role would have much to add to our story and, because we were almost finished anyway, we decided not to bother contacting them.   We turned in the first draft on November 9 (only three days late!).   For the next week, went back and forth with some minor edits and signed off on what we thought was the final version on November 16.

We became aware of the troublesome edits when we received our hard copies in mail shortly before New Years.  Hoping that it was a harmless misunderstanding or oversight, we contacted American Libraries and asked that they take the following steps:

Edit the online version of the article to remove the quotes from Gale Cengage.

Run a correction/retraction in the March/April issue.

Waive their 90 day exclusive licence so that we could place our version of the article in an Open Access repository and make it available immediately.

We also mentioned that we would be writing an account of what happened for Stewart’s blog to try to clear up any confusion.  We said that we would really like to end that post with a note stating that American Libraries apologizes for the misunderstanding and is working to make things right.

Unfortunately, that’s not how this post will end.

Whoa.

[varialibraria]

Librarians, by exposing yourself and your patrons to various authors you are being the “radical” for your community. You’re promoting positive change in the publishing industry by showing support to authors who are diversifying literature. But most importantly, you are fostering the overdue change that is needed in the books of tomorrow.

from A Call to Action for Librarians (via bookriot)

[varialibraria]

Free books eat at the heart of Capitalism.

A former coworker in the NCSU Libraries, in re: this article on local governments cracking down on tiny free lending libraries [source]

[varialibraria]

Library Gothic

“Do you have that book?” a patron asks. You reply, “I’m sorry, could you be more specific?” “The book,” is the only answer you get. This happens with three more patrons today. “I’m sorry,” you say to them all, “I don’t know what book you’re talking about.” The book. The book. The Book. Should you know The Book? Should you have The Book?

An elderly couple comes in every morning for the newspaper. Nobody remembers a time that they didn’t. They have always been elderly. There’s a faint foul smell in the library when they’re in.

There is a branch on the system map that you’ve never heard anyone talk about. You’ve never seen books with their branch sticker come in and you’ve never sent books to them. You asked a co-worker about it once, but they just smiled and asked how much shelf reading you got done that day. You tried to find it once, but kept finding yourself in the same grocery store parking lot over and over.

You weed for hours. There are no fewer books on the shelves. You weed for days. There is still no room for the new books that have come in. You weed for months. You feel like you’ve withdrawn a lot of these books already. You know you threw this stained, tattered, moldy copy of Bleak House in recycling a while ago. You weed for years. You weed forever.

(You never weed books on witchcraft. In fact, you put ten brand new ones on the shelf yesterday. They have already disappeared.)

One day the elderly couple doesn’t come in. The library has a much fouler smell that usual during the time they’re regularly in.

You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a copy of Ramona Quimby, Age 8. You loved that book as a child, and it looks like the same edition. You open it to check the publishing date and there is your name and childhood phone number written in purple crayola marker in your 8-year-old self’s handwriting. You did not grow up around here. Your family is not close.

You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a book with a photo used as a bookmark. You take it out to let the patron know they left it in there next time they come in. The photo is of a child at the beach and you would swear that it was a picture of you, but you have no memory of that swimsuit and no memory of that beach. The patron does not return.

You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a book written in a language you can’t identify. You pass it around to your coworkers, and none of them know either. You upload a picture of the cover to reverse google image search and there are no matches. You open the book to double check for copyright information and you don’t know how you missed it until now but there is your your name and childhood phone number written in purple crayola marker in your 8-year-old self’s handwriting.

“Do you have that book?” a patron asks. You reply, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what book you’re talking about,” even though this time you get the nagging feeling that you do.

[varialibraria]

The Librarian's Gender Masterpost

General:

Trans Student Resources

Gender Spectrum

Gender Fork

The Gender in Between

#Genderflux

Nuestro Hijos/ As Trans (PDF)(Spanish)

Everything Gender Part 1 (Video)

Everything Gender Part 2 (Video)

The Gender Spectrum (Video)

Gender: Crayola Edition (Video)

Trans Enough Project (Video) (Warning: Cursing)

Gender Spectrum

Identities List

Glossary of Helpful Words

Concepts

Gender Chart

“What am I?”

Gender Notation Idea

Foreign Language Tag

Spanish Terminology (Spanish)

General vs Sexo (Spanish)

Pronouns:

Gender Natural Pronouns (Video)

What’s a Pronoun?

The Story of Gendered Pronouns

Pronouns Stuff

Gender Natural Language 

How Non-Binary Pronouns Work

Guide to Non-Binary Pronouns

Gender Natural Titles

Pronoun Dressing Room

Practice Using Pronouns

Gender Dysphoria:

What is Dysphoria?

More Subtle Dysphoria

8 Signs and Symptoms of Dysphoria

5 Common Insecurities

25 Ways to Ease Dysphoria

Transgender:

Trans Teen Survival Guide

Susan’s Place

Trans What?

The Art of Transliness

Ask a Trans Woman

Ask a Trans Guy

Trans Friendly

Am I Transgender? (Video)

Being Trans (Video)

I Think I Might be Transgender, Now what do I do?

Trans Advice Resource Guide

Family Resources

Psychology on Transgender

FTM Support

Transgènero (Spanish)

Nonbinary/Genderqueer:

Nonbinary.org

Genderqueer ID

Crushing the Binary

What Does Enby Mean

Life Outside the Binary

Gender Queeries

Ask a Nonbinary

Fuck Yeah Transitioning Genderqueers!

Nonbinary Autistics!

The Nonbinary Safespace

Out of This Binary

Genderqueer in the Midwest (Video) (Warning: Slurs, Cursing)

Genderqueer and Hormones (Video)

Why I’m Genderqueer

Exploring the Community

Nonbinary Interview

Nonbinary Flowchart

Explaining Genderqueer

Living as Nonbinary (Spanish)

Genderqueer (Spanish)

Agender:

Hell Yeah, Agender!

A-Gender

Genderless Person (Video)

When no Gender Fits

Grey Gender

Androgyne:

Androgyne Online

Practical Androgyne

Ambiguous Sexuality

Neutrois:

Neutrois.me

Neutrois.com

Neutrois Nonsense

What is Neutrois?

Experiences as Neutrois

Bigender:

Bigender Resources

What it’s Like Being Bigender

Weird Bigender Shit

Demigender:

Demigender Safe Space

Demi Safe Spot

Introducing Demigender

Subgenders

Definitions

GenderFluid/Flux:

Genderfluidity

Genderfluid Facts

Genderflux Support

Teaching About Gender Fluidity (PDF)

How can I Live as Genderfluid?

Genderfluid Definitions

Two Spirit:

2spirits

Who Are They?

Native American Concepts

Of Indigenous North Americans

As They Are

Two Spirits: The Story of a Movement

Other Cultural Based Genders:

Hijra Wikipedia

Hijra Takes place in Indian Law

Kathoey Wikipedia

Where the ‘Ladyboys’ are

Muxe Wikipedia

In Mexico, Mixed Genders and Muxe

Fa’afafines Wikipedia

Fa’afafines: The Third Gender

Intersex:

INSA

Advocates for Informed Choice

Interact Youth

What it’s Like (Video)

What is Intersex?

Intersex Definition

Male, Female, or Intersex

Coming Out:

Tips and Advice (Video)

Coming Out Tips (Video)

Coming Out Tips (Video)

Coming Out Story

Coming Out Stories

R U Coming Out: Stories

Coming Out: The Plan

Coming Out

On Coming Out

Coming Out Tips

9 Bits of Advice

10 Tips for Coming Out

28 Words of Advice

When Should You?

Coming Out Letter

How to Come Out to Parents

Coming Out to Family and Friends

Coming Out to Friends

Coming Out to Partners

Coming Out Simulator

Resources for Coming Out

Resources for Coming out as Trans to Spanish-Only Speaking Parents

Coming Out as Gender Variant/Transgender

Coming Out as Nonbinary

Allies:

Allyship: The First Steps

Practice Using Pronouns

Trans Youth Family Allies

Supporting Trans Friends

So Your Child is Nonbinary

Intersex for Allies

Social Things:

Local Resources

LGBT Social Group Meetups

LGBT Center Directory

SAGE Affiliates

LGBA Bands

GALA Choruses

International LGBT Sports

LGBT Friendly Bookstores

Agender Chat Room

Trans Place Chat Room

Other Helpful Things:

It Gets Better Project

Human Rights Campaign

Point Foundation

GSA Network

Trevor Project

Trans Suicide Hotline

Transgender Housing Network

Queer Housing Network

Open House

Sexuality Masterpost

For more Links and Masterposts Follow me Here

Have a link or website that you didn’t see on here? Submit that link here

My next project will be transition!

[varialibraria]

Ok so I have to talk about how excited I am about this book. It’s an upcoming children’s novel called George, written by genderqueer author Alex Gino. It’s about a little trans girl who wants the world to see her for who she is.

I’ve poked around the author’s website and was really pleased by what I found and this looks like it could be a terrific read. You can pre order it at alexgino.com (which I am about to do right now) but if you can’t afford an expensive hardback bother your rich friends to get a copy or something idk in any case this looks exciting and I want people to know about it

[varialibraria]

Librarians are how libraries speak. Theirs are the small faces behind a million stories and facts. Theirs are the simple hands that introduce you to the people who will shape you, and the ghosts that will haunt you, and the ideas that will drive you, and the friends that will never leave you. They know the science of knowledge and beauty and laughter, and – though you can’t quite imagine it – they’ve cried over the same books that have broken and rebuilt your heart. They’ve ridden in the same sleigh with the snow queen. They’ve flown over London and sailed on pirate ships and visited Shangri-La and watched the world be destroyed and created and destroyed again. And what they want more than anything else is to share those impossible journeys with you.

A love letter to libraries | The Bloggess

(via librarylinknj)

So much love for The Bloggess!

(via theperksofbeingalibrarian)

[varialibraria]

I have yet to work at a library with a 3D printer, but I am very excited by the prospect!

Some Things Your Local Librarians Would Like You To Know

It is not a stupid question. Even if it is a stupid question, we have been thoroughly trained to answer your question without judgement or second-guessing. Besides, we’re mostly just glad you’re not asking us about the noise the printer is making again.

There are probably (at least) two desks in the library. One is where you check out books and is mostly staffed by people wearing nametags that say “Circulation Clerk.” These people can answer your questions about damaged or missing books, fines, and how many forms of identification we’ll need if you want to get a library card but your mailing address is in Taiwan. The other one is closer to the books and computers and is mostly staffed by people wearing nametags that say “Librarian.” These people can answer your questions about spider extermination, how to rent property to the United States Postal Service, and the number of tropical island nations in which you could theoretically establish the first United States Embassy. We would love to answer these questions for you. It would be a nice change from the printer.

We probably own a 3D printer by now. 3D printers, are cool, right? Please, please come use our 3D printer, it’s so lonely.

We spent a lot of money to hire this woodworker to come and teach a class at the library which you can attend for free. You will probably be the only person between the ages of ten and fifty in attendance, but your presence will fill the librarian with an unnameable joy. They will float back to their manager in a daze. “A young person came to my program,” they will say. You will have made their entire job worthwhile.

Every time you ask us for a book, movie, or music recommendation, a baby librarian gets their first cardigan.

Somewhere in the library, there is a form. If you fill out this form with your name and library card number and the details of the thing you are looking for, we will find you the thing. Sometimes the answer is “the thing is in Great Britain and they will not send it to us,” but more often the thing will just appear on hold for you, and one day you will pick up a copy of that out-of-print book you never thought you would read and maybe you will say, “Wow, the library is amazing,” and the librarian’s heart will glow. 

Please bring back book #2. The rest of its series misses it very much.

Five dollars is not a large library fine. Believe me, before I started working in libraries, I too wondered how someone could sleep at night, knowing they owed money to the library. When we laugh as you sheepishly apologize for your $2.50 in overdue fees, we are not mocking you, we are thinking of the ten people we sent to debt collection already today.

We really don’t care why you’re checking out Fifty Shades of Grey. Maybe you have a specifically-themed ironic bachelorette party to plan. Maybe you’re working on a thesis paper about mainstream media’s depiction of female sexuality. Maybe you just got curious. We will give you the benefit of the doubt. 

Whatever you’re smoking in the family restroom, please stop.

Somewhere on the library’s website, buried under “Links” or “Research” or “On-line Resources,” is a page that a librarian spent a month’s worth of work on. It contains many links to websites you thought everyone knew about, and one to a page that you could never have imagined existed that perfectly solves a problem you never expected to be resolved. 

Imagine the kind of person who would think to themselves, “Library school sounds like a thing I should do.” For the most part, you are imagining the kind of person who is now a librarian. We want very much to help you, but we’re not entirely sure how to do that unless you ask. You are not bothering us. Please, come and say hi.