June is Pride month, and I want to celebrate today by highlighting a few of the LBGTQ+ artists that have made my world a little brighter. I’ve always been a major fangirl of comics, but during the pandemic they’ve been especially important to my mental health. Who can possibly manage to not feel better after watching Superman punch Nazis?* This list is by no means comprehensive, but I tried to choose some of my favorite artists that you might not have heard of who are contributing to the wonderful world of comics

*Well, probably Nazis wouldn’t feel better, but honestly I doubt they read my blog. OK, maybe a few of them; we get the occasional email about how we are terrible people for saying that White Supremacists can all just go take a long walk off a short cliff, but I don’t think they are really reading it. 

Angela Robinson isn’t in the comic industry directly, but she was the director and writer of Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. I’m low-key obsessed with Wonder Woman and her brain father, Dr. Marston. Robinson’s movie was everything I could have wanted it to be; it was so honest to the (sometimes problematic) source material. I didn’t know this before seeing her movie and then needing to know more about the woman who made it, but Angela Robinson was also a main writer for the True Blood TV series. So basically she is the standard to which lesser fangirls such as myself hope to one day aspire to. 

Roxanne Gay is the co-author of Marvel’s World of Wakanda, a Black Panther spin-off. Although Marvel didn’t have the lady-balls to keep it on the shelves once the Black Panther Movie came out, you can still purchase and read it. It’s beautifully written and drawn, and it features a compelling love story between two female characters. Additionally, Gay is a writer for the New York Times, and an amazing short story and essay author. Her memoir, Hunger, was a hard read for me. It’s incredible, but hard. I strongly recommend it. I read it a few years ago after being introduced to her work through the World of Wakanda, but make sure you are in a pretty good headspace going into it. 

Jay Justice is maybe the greatest cosplayer in the known universe. She’s also incredibly kind to fans that get all weird about meeting the She-Hulk at conventions. Ahem. Not that I know from experience or anything. I myself am never even remotely intense when I meet people at conventions that I admire. Ahem. I had the privilege of meeting her at PAX Unplugged in 2018, and not only is she an incredibly talented cosplayer, this self-described Queer Disabled Black Superhero has been featured by Marvel and used as the inspiration for characters by DC. 

Happy Pride to all of the amazing, powerful, and brave people that have fought/are fighting to make this world a better place. You are always welcome here, we are honored to have you. 

A special acknowledgement of the difficulties and violence faced by black members of the LGBTQ+ community. As always, if there is something I can do to amplify your voice or support you, do not hesitate to reach out. 

BOOK CLUB

contains spoilers form ‘Dead Beat’ by Jim Butcher

Sue the Dinosaur. 

Sue. The. Dinosaur. 

Aside from the Blue Beetle, Sue is probably the most iconic imagery that I think of when I think about the Dresden Files. Beginning to end, I just love this book. If you haven’t been reading the books, and you’re thinking you’re going to read just one Dresden Files book, make it Dead Beat. It’s got absolutely everything I want from a Dresden book:

1. Wacky hijinks
2. Harry using up his last reserves of magic… Nope, that wasn’t it, this is the last-last… OK for real actually the last… Nope wait, he’s got one more last bit of magic to use before he dies;
3. Outrageous side characters
4. A big anthropomorphic dog
5. A zombie dinosaur
6. The White Council’s dirty underbelly
7. Denarians
8. The Alphas. 

Remember in my first couple of posts where I wrote about how one of the reasons I re-read these when I’m not in the best mental place is that you get to see Harry’s journey through very authentic encounters with mental health struggles? This is another one that really exemplifies that. A few books back, Harry picked up a cursed coin that contained a fallen angel, Lasciel. Harry buried the coin so it couldn’t tempt him to use it’s power and let the demon in, but unbeknownst to him, just touching it was enough to let a shadow – a facsimile – of that fallen angel take up residence in his noggin. In this book, Harry comes face to face with the shadow of Lasciel, who exists solely to get Harry to take up the coin so the real Lasciel can move in. Well, not face to face per se, but face-to-hallucination.

Not unlike Zoom meetings, actually.

Anyhow, Harry didn’t know it was going on, but the shadow has been subtly changing him, impacting the way he reacts to things, and making him into an even angrier, moodier nerd than he was before. And his friends have noticed. Billy the werewolf confronts him and for me it was a really powerful and well written scene. Jim Butcher did an excellent job of portraying how nervous Billy was to confront Dresden (who is a dangerous guy when he’s angry or feels threatened), and an equally excellent job of letting the reader in on Harry’s inner monologue while he copes with it. At first, he is angry. He thinks Billy is accusing him of being crazy. But then he considers the possibility that he might actually be crazy. And by the end he knows that, as it happens, he did look crazy because he’d been hallucinating compliments of the shadow. But he hears Billy out. He lets his friend be there for him, and that’s such a hard thing to do when you are dealing with mental illness. 

A lot happens in this book, but in short there are dangerous necromancers running around Chicagoland, killing folks, raising the dead, and looking for the Book Of Kemmler, which has the ability to bestow godlike powers on the person who finds it. Harry is blackmailed by Mavra, the leader of the Black Court of Vampires, to find the book and give it to her. He does, and he actually gives it to her in the end. I know that can be hard to swallow, but Mavra had the power to absolutely destroy Karrin Murphy (who spent the book in Hawaii with Kincaid, which I know a lot of readers hate, but I sort of love the Murphy-Kincaid thing). Harry teams up with Waldo Butters, the goofy Medical Examiner by day, Polka-enthusiast by night that we met a few books back. Butters comes into his own in this book and conquers his fears and saves the world with Polka. 

POLKA WILL NEVER DIE!

Harry is just beginning to see how much Mouse has to offer as a supernaturally intelligent and occasionally super-powered pooch. Waldo Butters and Mouse are enough to make me recommend this series all on their own. Harry also meets the Erlking in this book, and he’s a character that will come back up in some pretty cool ways. Also, much to the dismay of Morgan (the White Council Warden that’s had it in for Harry since he was a teenager), Harry is deputized as Warden himself, which is a hard mantle for him to take up. The Wardens had been persecuting him his entire adult life, and he tried to turn it down. He didn’t have much choice though, and being a Warden becomes an important part of his identity as the series progresses. Morgan very nearly kills Harry at the end of the book, because he thought Harry had shot and killed the Captain of the Wardens. Actually, Harry had shot her, Morgan did see that, but what Harry knew and Morgan didn’t is that a powerful necromancer had switched bodies with her. So the Captain is still around, but now she’s wearing a new body. I assume to punish him for having always been such a dick to Harry, Morgan is forced to show up at Harry’s apartment a few days later with Harry’s first Warden paycheck. Harry also has some important epiphanies about Morgan, and sees him for the burned-out cop that he is, rather than someone who just hates him for no reason. He doesn’t start liking Morgan, but he does start respecting him. 

Dead Beat brings us seven books deep, and about half way through the series. I’ll admit some of it hasn’t aged that well since I first read it. This book had a very early-2000s tone to it, and that shows its colors when Butters thought that Thomas and Harry were a gay couple. I didn’t even notice it when I read it when it first came out, and the older, more self-aware me couldn’t help but groan a little at it. The book’s not perfect, in some ways it’s a product of its time, but with the exception of me just not buying that Harry would care at all if Butters thought he was gay, Dead Beat is a killer novel. Actually, I think if it were written today, Harry would have probably leaned into it the way Thomas had.

YARN STUFF

Summer Court Socks, Clue 3

You can find Clue 1, along with additional information such as recommended yarn, needles, and gauge, at the bottom of THIS POST. Clue 2 can be found at the bottom of this post.

INSTRUCTIONS

HEEL

Note that the set-up row of this section is a partial round, worked over only the top of the sock. The second row, worked over the remaining sts, will be the heel stitches. This is an afterthought heel, so you will need enough waste yarn to work two rows.

Set Up: (worked over the 1st half of your sts) Still working with MC and larger needles, [Sl1, K5] x 4(5, 6, 7). 24(30, 36, 42) sts worked. 

The 2nd half of the sts in this round will become the heel. You can either leave the 1st half of the sts (those you just worked in step 1) on the larger needles where they are now, or you can transfer them to a holder while you work the heel. The heel is worked on the smaller needles. 

Heel Flap 

The heel flap is worked over only the 24(30, 36, 42) sts remaining on your needles. When working the wrong side, when told to repeat something to the end, that refers only to these heel sts, not the whole sock.

Change to smaller needles 

1. Sl1, K to end. Turn. 

2. [Sl1, P1] across the 24(30, 36, 42) heel sts. Turn. 

3. Sl1, K to end. Turn. 

4. Sl2, [P1, Sl1] to the last 2 heel sts, P2. 

Repeat rows 1-4 across the heel sts 5(6, 7, 8) times more. 

Afterthought Heel Set Up:

Have a length of waste yarn, long enough to work 2 rows across your heel sts handy as you begin.

1: With MC, K across heel sts. Switch to larger needles. 

2: Do not break MC. With Waste Yarn: P across heel sts, then turn and K across them. (2 total rows worked). Break waste yarn and do not secure the ends, you’ll pick out these sts after finishing the rest of the sock. 

I’ll see you back here next Wednesday with clue number four of the Summer Court Socks where we’ll start on the foot and discuss Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher!

~Megan-Anne

Harry dealing with Thomas not being able to “see the mess” at the beginning of the book is all of us.

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