The Geeks OUT Podcast: We’ve Got 20/20 WandaVision

The Geeks OUT Podcast

Opinions, reviews, incisive discussions of queer geek ideas in pop culture, and the particularly cutting brand of shade that you can only get from a couple of queer geeks all in highly digestible weekly doses.

In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by Eric Green, as they discuss the new trailer for WandaVision, get excited for the first look at Javicia Leslie as Batwoman, and celebrate Jonathan Bennett being cast in Hallmark’s first queer Xmas movie in This Week In Queer. 

.

BIG OPENING

KEVIN: Marvel rearranges movie schedule again in light of COVID
ERIC: Marvel reintroducing S.W.O.R.D. in December

.

DOWN AND NERDY

KEVIN: Enola Holmes, Fantasy Island, Lovecraft Country
ERIC: X-Men as always, the Leprechaun movies

.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

First look at Javicia Leslie as Batwoman

.

THIS WEEK IN QUEER

Hallmark’s first queer X-mas movie casts Jonathan Bennett

.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

New trailer for WandaVision 

.

THE WEEK IN GEEK

MOVIES

• New trailer for The Croods: A New Age
• Zack Snyder gets $70mil for Justice League reshoots
• Black Adam finds it’s Hawkman
• New trailer for Books of Blood
• New trailer for Over the Moon

.

TV

• Supergirl is ending with season 6
• Disney+ developing a Nick Fury series starring Samuel L. Jackson
• New trailer for Helstrom
• The Simpsons and Family Guy announce new voice actors for POC characters
• A spinoff of The Boys is being developed for Amazon
• HBO Max orders The Suicide Squad spinoff series Peacemaker   
• New trailer for The Haunting of Bly Manor     
• Netflix cancels The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance 

.

COMIC BOOKS

• Hellboy and Savage Dragon endorse Biden/Harris      
Archie Comics will release same-day on Comixology Unlimited 

.

SHILF

• KEVIN: Monet
• ERIC: Apocalypse

Interview with the Creators of BOOM! Studios Fence

Fence, created by C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad, follows the story of sixteen year old Nicholas Cox as he enters into the world of competitive fencing. I had the opportunity to interview C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad, as well as Fence: Striking Distance author Sarah Rees Brennan which you can read below.

In your own words, how did the genesis of Fence come to be? How would each of you describe your own path to becoming involved in Fence?

Sarah Rees Brennan: I came in at a later date than the others! I was a fan first: I love C.S. Pacat’s writing so I read the Fence graphic novels and was delighted by all the ingredients (the setting of a fencing team at an elite boarding school, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks versus the Olympic hopeful), and thus naturally became a fan of Johanna’s fabulous artwork. My lovely editor at Little Brown reached out to my agent and expressed interest in me writing a tie-in novel. My first reaction was ‘that’s so great, they must be doing really well! They deserve it.’ I’m always so delighted when wonderful LGBT stories find the audience they deserve. Then I went ‘Wait… me?’

C.S. Pacat: I got really into sports comics in Japan, where I lived for about five years. I love the striving and intense rivalries, the friendships and found families, the way you can take characters to their breaking point.  I fenced épée all through high school, and thought it was the perfect sport for that kind of comic: it’s intensely strategic and psychological, a solo combat sport with a rich history. Fencing is also a sport famous for its striking visuals, its silhouettes, and its arresting lines. I had started to see the first queer sports stories begin to appear, like Ngozi Ukazu’s fantastic LGBT hockey comic Check, Please! and the joyously queer-coded Japanese anime Yuri!!! on Ice. I started to wonder, what happens when all these energies come out in a combat sport?

Johanna the Mad: At the time, I had recently read C. S. Pacat’s Captive Prince trilogy and instantly became a huge fan of her writing. Parallel to this, I was also really into sports anime and manga so when I was offered to be part of Fence it was like a dream come true.

As a queer person, would you say you incorporated some of your own experiences into the queer media you create?

CSP: I know that for me, as a queer kid growing up, there were so few queer characters that I remember how I clung to each one, rereading the tiny handful books or manga I could find with queer protagonists over and over again. It was the era where queer stories usually had sad endings, and it made me want to write stories of joyful and exuberant queerness. That’s where my decision to write prejudice free, homo-normative worlds came from. I developed this approach to art where I thought: if the purpose of the art is realism, then of course it’s important to show real-wold prejudices, but if the purpose of the art is escapism, then I want everyone to be able to escape equally.

I write a lot of “found families”, because I grew up in a time where being able to be openly queer meant having to step outside the mainstream, and “find” others like you, with whom you could be yourself. More prosaically, I’m bi, and all my main protagonists end up being bi, and in fact I have to make a Herculean effort not to instinctively write every character as bi. Bobby is probably the closest that I’ve come to writing a character that expresses my gender(queer) identity, at least as I understood it back when I was in high school.

JM: Sure. My work is mostly based on displaying emotions which, the majority of the time, are romantic. There’s something about romance that I enjoy illustrating so I guess it’s a given I’d translate my vision and experiences into what I want to draw.

Prior to this book, you had already written critically acclaimed stories, including the Lynburn Legacy series. How did you get signed on to writing a novel for Fence? What was the process like writing a story with an already established world and characters? What did it feel like trying to stay faithful to the feel of the original material while providing your own spin?

SRB: I have written quite a few books! And it’s been so great to see the publishing landscape changing to be more inclusive over that time. I’m also a longtime fan of C.S. Pacat’s work. I loved her Captive Prince series, so when I went to live in Australia for six months several years back, I reached out and was like ‘Hey, be my friend.’ (I make friends like a pleasant, garrulous hostage taker.) Thus followed many writing dates in which I continually ate ice-cream while we yelled at each other about narrative tropes, and an adventure on a pirate ship on the Yarra river surrounded by black swans. 

As a writer, she’s extremely generous with her time and her story insights. C.S. Pacat has this amazing internal compass for story, a sense for finding the truest path, so when the opportunity offered I knew it would be fun to work with her, and that when we talked through story paths I could trust her to guide me right. 

I’ve written work in previously established universes before, most recently for tie-in novels in the universe of Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. A graphic novel is like a TV show in that they’re both visual mediums. I love storytelling in all its forms, so it’s an exciting challenge to think, how could this form work to tell this story? What light can this particular medium shed on this universe? A book has less surface than any other form of entertainment. Books can go into the deep waters, can offer introspection, so you know more of the characters’ pasts and feelings, and that knowledge can illuminate the action in all forms of the story. So to me, writing books in previously established worlds feels like going into the story spaces with a light. 

In previous articles, part of the stated inspiration for Fence came from sports-related anime and manga, such as Haikyuu, as well as American comics like Check Please! What would you say are some of your other favorite examples from the genre?

SRB: Hikaru no Go! I loved learning about the game of Go, and the fantastical premise of the ghost pushing a boy to learn a game which he doesn’t care much about… until he meets and becomes fascinated by a prodigy at the game. I love intensity of a rivalry, which has all the joy of enemy interactions but none of the moral dilemmas. You still really really want to beat them, but you don’t usually kill them at the end! (Sometimes you do. Sometimes rivalry goes wrong.) The characters’ connection to, and pride in, their skill at the game of Go/tennis/the magic ninja path/fencing leads them to connect to each other whether in hatred or love, or a mix of the two. And then the connection works in a feedback loop, so the more you care about your rival the more invested you are in the sport, and more the audience cares about the characters, the more invested they are in the outcome of the game.

CSP: My favourite sports manga is Hikaru no Go. It was one of the first sports manga I read that took its sport completely seriously. No one turned into a demon on the field, no one did a supernatural “finishing move”, it was just a young boy playing Go, often in smoke filled rooms with old geezers. Counter-intuitively, that made the sport itself seem more intense and thrilling.

I’d also want to shout out to my all-time favourite anime Utena. Although it’s not a sports anime, it was a huge influence on Fence. Each episode features the characters duelling in an arena swordfight, in a fantastical queer reimagining of the classic shounen level-up structure. 

JM: My all-time favorites would be Slam Dunk, Eyeshield 21 and Kuroko no Basket. A special mention would be Yuri on Ice since I love how they managed both the sports theme along with the protagonists’ queer relationship.

While all the characters of Fence are all incredibly lovable, are there any characters you have a preference writing about/ drawing?

SRB: I agree all the characters are lovable, which I can say without shame as I didn’t create them. Seiji was my favourite character to write, actually! I love them all, but there’s a particularly fun challenge in writing the guy for whom so much is internal. There’s a certain archetype of a character who’s a stickler for the rules, and doesn’t evince many emotions, but who clearly has so much going on under a seemingly cold surface. I love the frozen lake with lava beneath sort: the repressed emotion is always going to manifest in interesting ways. 

I just started watching, on the recommendations of many people, a Chinese drama called The Untamed, and I spotted a disgruntled elven-appearing gentleman, and was like ‘Ah, here we have that guy again. Love that guy.’ I do think, however, that character is much easier to convey in a visual medium. An actor can give you microexpressions to let you know where they’re at, or Johanna can give us clues through her fabulous art! So I read the graphic novels and read about this fencing prodigy whose life is about his skill, and went, ‘I love Seiji,’ and then thought ‘oh no… I have to write Seiji from inside his head!’ Nobody’s distant, emotionless or formidable in their own mind, and the drive to excel comes from deep caring. Writing Seiji required a lot of thought about how he saw the world, versus how he saw himself. Seiji and his parents have trouble connecting—Seiji and the world have trouble connecting—and the challenge of connecting to him made me love him.

CSP: Don’t ask me to choose!

JM: Yes! My favorites are Bobby, Harvard and Nicholas. Can’t have enough of those three. I get so excited whenever they’re in a panel together, it’s ridiculous.

One of my personal favorites from the series, Seiji Katayama, seems to display a number of attributes that could be coded as being on the autistic spectrum, i.e. trouble reading social cues, hyper-focus on specific subjects, etc. Are there any characters from the series that could be said to be neurodiverse?

CSP: One character that will be explicitly neurodiverse is Assistant Coach Lewis. I don’t want to spoil anything from upcoming storylines, but I’m looking forward to her having her moment to shine later in the series. 

One of the key defining elements of the series is the intense dynamic between Seiji Katayama and Nicholas Cox. Could you elaborate on their relationship, and the very slow-burn element of their story? 

SRB: It is a slow burn, isn’t it! I love that, I hate when a relationship feels rushed. In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘the suspense is terrible… I hope it will last.’ Seiji has a profound effect on Nicholas from their first fencing match, in which Seiji’s skill and dismissal of Nicholas spark fresh determination in Nicholas, and when they continue as roommates in a school where neither of them ever really thought they would be, Nicholas begins to have an effect back—not just Nicholas’s promise in fencing, but irrepressible Nicholas starts talking about being friends. It’s unstoppable force vs immovable object, so every step has to be earned. In Striking Distance we see Seiji making a concession to Nicholas, and C.S. Pacat and I had several discussions about how much of a concession it might be. It had to be tiny. The progress is incremental, but it is there. The suspense is terrible… and I do hope it will last.

CSP: I’m fascinated by the dynamic of “natural rookie” versus “highly trained pro”, which is a classic staple of sports stories. But I never really liked the way that the rookie always wins out in Western sports stories, either triumphantly beating the pro (like Rocky beating Ivan in Rocky IV) or with a moral victory when the pro realises they live a life of empty of feeling and quits their sport (like Maureen quitting ballet in Center Stage). It just seemed so unfair to the pro who had put in so much more work, dedicating their whole life to their sport! I much prefer the way these archetypes are handled in Japanese sports comics, where the rookie and the pro each have something to learn from the other (like Hikaru and Akira from Hikaru no Go, or Nodame and Chiaki in Nodame Cantabile). I loved the idea of using these opposites as the basis for an intense and developing relationship, where each character completes something in the other. 

As for the slow-burn, I always think—well, difficult accomplishments are the best because you have to work to achieve them.

Without any spoilers, how does Striking Distance fit into the timeline of the Fence comic universe? Will any references from the novel make its way into future comics?

CSP: Striking Distance is set right after Fence Rivals, the newly-released fourth volume graphic novel. Sarah Rees Brennan has a genius for amazing detail. A lot of her glorious and delightful additions will be carried over to the comics, including Aiden and Harvard’s childhood, and characters like Seiji’s father. 

SRB: I know not about future comics, but Striking Distance is set after Volume 4 of Fence, with events from Volume 4 giving their fencing coach a Brilliant Idea. The nature of tie-ins is that they should work both standing alone, and as a piece of a whole, fitting in and illuminating the rest. So the book has to introduce the characters and the world in an endearing way for new readers, but still be something new to (with luck) delight and surprise longtime fans. It’s like writing a sequel, magnified by ten. So far I’ve seen readers of advance copies who weren’t familiar with the universe getting into it, and readers who were familiar seeming pleased, and that’s all and more than I could hope for.

As creators from different parts of the world, what were the challenges in collaborating on these projects together? What were some of the benefits?

SRB: I’m a total night owl, so C.S. Pacat’s and my schedules fit pretty well. We tend to do long video calls, to plot the novels and then to check in at intervals. In between I send her what I’m writing, and sometimes I’ll call her at 9 pm, we’ll talk for ages, and then C.S. Pacat will be like, ‘What time is it where you are!’ and I’ll go, ‘Wow, it’s only four a.m… chill…’ I send C.S. Pacat chunks of the book, so I can send it off and wake up to her comments, and she can wake up to more book! On our latest video call, I was typing up notes about our careless playboy character Aiden’s narrative arc to come, and she was twiddling her fingers to amuse my new kitten so the kitten wouldn’t get all up in my keyboard. The wonders of technology—Irish kitten provided with Australian playtime.

CSP: Honestly, the hardest thing is the time difference. We have A LOT of dawn and twilight video chats.  It might be a cliche to say, but the benefit is the different influences and perspectives.

JM: I guess the biggest challenge for me was the availability of each one of us. Living in different countries also means different time zones so we have to schedule calls, emails take a bit longer to be answered, etc. 

What I love about it is the different points of view all of us bring to the table. They come up with the best ideas for the story and image of the characters so I’m always excited to get their notes on my designs.

If the characters of your stories could interact with other characters from any fictional universe, which ones would they be and where would they be from?

SRB: I would like to see Nicholas learn from Westley in The Princess Bride, though Nicholas actually is left-handed! The skill of swordsmanship is such a big thing in the novel of The Princess Bride, even more so than in the book, because we can enter into people’s love and grief so strongly. Inigo Montoya learns the blade because he wants to avenge his beloved father. Our hero Westley learns because he wants to return alive to his beloved lady. It’s another classic example of love for a person, impelling you on to love for a skill. To prepare for writing the Fence novels, as well as reading fencing books and taking fencing lessons and talking to a fabulous fencing coach named Olga Velma, I watched a lot of the old Basil Rathbone movies with famous fencing scenes, and the duel on the Cliffs of Insanity remains a favorite for both skill and intensity of feeling. Maybe the Fence characters and the Princess Bride characters could all teach each other some moves.

CSP: The Ouran High School Host Club.

JM: Oh, I’d love a crossover with Slam Dunk. I think our Fence guys would look amazing in basketball uniforms. Plus, it’d be cute to see the interaction between Kings Row and the Shohoku team.

Are there any projects you are currently working on or project ideas you are currently nursing and are at liberty to speak about?

SRB: I’m always thinkin’. No idea how other people even make toast without considering battle scenes or tortured confessions or love. Currently playing around with ideas for a rom com in which rival actors fall in love, and horror in a town featuring evil bargains and drowned children… plus I very recently finished some more fun in the Fence universe.

CSP: My next project is a YA fantasy called Dark Rise that’s due out next year. It’s set in an alternate London, where the heroes and villains of a long-forgotten war are being reborn, ushering in a dangerous new age of magic. I had wanted to write a queer fantasy series with a vast world and epic stakes for a long time.

Finally, since this is an LGBTQ+ website, are there any LGBTQ+ authors and/or books you can recommend for our readers?

SRB: A recent fave for me is Leah Johnson’s YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWN. A fabulous heroine of color competes for the title of prom queen which will help her accomplish her academic goals… but she’s terribly distracted by the cute new girl in town. Zen Cho’s THE TRUE QUEEN has a really unique fantasy world as well as a slow burn, low key, but totally compelling wlw relationship at its heart, along with musings about the twists, turns, and bonds of sisterhood. For fans of swordsmanship and LGBTQ+ romance, a can’t-miss ur-text is Ellen Kushner’s SWORDSPOINT about the master swordsman and a boy of mystery, and the fabulous follow-up about the niece of the mad Duke who learns the blade, THE PRIVILEGE OF THE SWORD. 

CSP: Fire From Heaven, by Mary Renault which tells the story of Alexander the Great and his love for Hephaestion. This one is a favourite, and Renault has been a huge influence on my own writing.

I just finished All Boys Aren’t Blue by LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson, a memoir describing his experiences growing up Black and queer in America. 

Barracuda, by Christos Tsiolkas—and I’d highly recommend the TV series of the same name. Tsiolkas and I share an ethnic background as Australian w*gs, and I really identify with the way the book and the TV series portrays the experience of being a queer w*g growing up in Australia in the 90s. Plus, it’s a sports story about boys at an elite private school! 

Lastly, keep your eyes out for a book that’s coming out next year, She Who Became The Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan. It’s a queer/genderqueer retelling of the rise of China’s first Emperor, and it is phenomenal.

Fence: Striking Distance is available September 29th

The Geeks OUT Podcast: Tatiana Maslany: Attorney-at-Law

The Geeks OUT Podcast

Opinions, reviews, incisive discussions of queer geek ideas in pop culture, and the particularly cutting brand of shade that you can only get from a couple of queer geeks all in highly digestible weekly doses.

In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by Jon Herzog, as they discuss Lifetime casting a real-life couple as the leads in their first queer X-mas movie, the new trailer for season 2 of The Mandalorian, and celebrate Disney+ casting Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk for our Strong Female Character of the Week.

.

BIG OPENING

KEVIN: New Harry Potter game reportedly doesn’t involve J.K. Rowling
JON: New trailer for season 2 of The Mandalorian

.

DOWN AND NERDY

KEVIN: We Are Who We Are, Ratched, Away
JON: The Boys, GLOW Season 2, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Invisible Man

.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

Tatiana Maslany cast as She-Hulk for Disney+ series

.

THIS WEEK IN QUEER

Lifetime casts married gay couple as leads in The Christmas Setup

.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

New trailer for Love and Monsters

.

THE WEEK IN GEEK

MOVIES

• Ant-Man 3 adds Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror
• New trailer for Synchronic
• New trailer for Evil Eye
• New trailer for The Lie
• New trailer for Nocturne
• New trailer for Black Box

.

TV

• HBO Max renews Raised by Wolves for a second season & Harley Quinn
• DC Universe becomes DC Universe Infinite and only offers comics
• CBS All Access is rebranding to Paramount+
• SNL adds first out Black LGBTQ cast member Punkie Johnson
• First look at the black-ish animated election special
• Netflix orders animated reboot of Good Times   
• New BTS look at the Animaniacs revival 

.

VIDEO GAMES

• Sony announces more details for Playstation 5 but screws up pre-orders

.

SHILF

• KEVIN: RBG
• JON: RBG

Interview with James Sweeney

Bred in Alaska, James Sweeney is an actor-turned-playwright-turned-filmmaker. His debut feature, Straight Up, was the Breakthrough Centerpiece at Outfest and distributed by Strand Releasing. I had the pleasure of interviewing him recently, which you can read below.

To start, how did you first find yourself getting involved in the filmmaking industry? What attracted you to it and how do you find yourself wanting to change it?

My first love was theater, then television, and film came later. I do believe good storytelling can positively affect the world, and that, plus the buckets of cash, is what drew me to Hollywood. I would like to see the entertainment industry become more sustainable environmentally and socioeconomically, for upcoming talent and crew alike. 

When the trailer for the film first premiered, various people including asexual activist David Jay, picked up on some ace coding for the main character. Were you influenced by the asexual community in any way while writing for this film?

Certainly. We wanted to address asexuality both explicitly and implicitly, but also didn’t want to misappropriate Straight Up by marketing it as an asexual romance because this is a story about two people who enter a sexless relationship for different reasons. Also asexuality is a spectrum, like most terms under the queer umbrella, and the reality is not everyone knows exactly how they want to define themselves by age XYZ (if ever) and I think that’s perfectly okay. So while personally I do see Todd as on the ace spectrum, I don’t know when another label is in the cards for him—and it was important to me to end Todd’s arc with a departure, instead of a destination. 

At a movie event in New York, you had described Straight Up as an “homage and deconstruction of rom com and screwball.” Could you expand on this statement and reconstruction on classic film tropes?

The screwball comedy is historically sexless because the genre was popularized during the Hays Code era; Todd and Rory would fit right in. Besides the staple fast-talking banter, the classic screwballs also challenged femininity, masculinity, and gender roles—and I like to believe Straight Up continues that tradition, but updates it for a modern, more fluid generation. As for romantic comedy tropes, we’ve got the meet-cute and the grand gesture, but we also question what even constitutes romantic love, and is it practical or laudable for one person to ‘complete’ you? One of my greatest frustrations with many romance films is how often I don’t understand why the leads even like each other, besides both parties being insanely attractive. In Straight Up, you know it’s not about that. 

What’s so unique about this film is its exploration of queer identity, touching on a period intense analyzation/ dissection of “attraction” that is familiar in many queer persons (especially ace persons) lives. Was it always the intention to explore how queer identity exists beyond single word descriptors like “gay?” 

Yes. Todd mentions in passing, but the politicalization of the word ‘gay’ had a specific purpose in history for civil rights, but on an interpersonal level, labels can be limiting and detrimental. As our vocabulary for various attractions and orientations expands and is normalized, I hope folks learn to view words as tools for communication, not barriers to distance or disparage others, or yourself.

Within the film there’s a truly captivating chemistry between you (Todd) and Rory (Katie Findlay) on screen. What was the energy like working together on set and would you work on any projects together in the future?

Thank you. Controlled chaos energy levels. And yes, Katie and I are looking to find something else to do together. 

In quite a few ways you seem to mirror your protagonist, Todd, in being a queer Asian man navigating his identity in a world that doesn’t reflect it back to him often. In what ways would you say you relate to your own character and what ways do the lines of fiction and reality separate?

On a scale of 6, I’m a Todd 2. Maybe a 3 pre-pandemic when I wasn’t wearing sweatpants every day.

Are there any projects you are currently working on or project ideas you are currently working on and are at liberty to say?

Twins. Parallel universes. That’s all I can say for now. 

The Geeks OUT Podcast: Crash Into Diversity

The Geeks OUT Podcast

Opinions, reviews, incisive discussions of queer geek ideas in pop culture, and the particularly cutting brand of shade that you can only get from a couple of queer geeks all in highly digestible weekly doses.

In this week’s super-sized episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by President of NYCGaymers, Raffy Regulus, as they discuss the new diversity/inclusivity initiatives coming to the Oscars in 2024, get excited for a redesigned and playable Tawna in Crash Bandicoot 4, and celebrate the news of a new season of Kipo & the Age of Wonderbeasts in This Week in Queer. 

.

BIG OPENING

KEVIN: Ubisoft apologizes for misconduct & “inappropriate content” in a game
RAFFY: The Oscars release new inclusivity requirements for Best Picture nominees

.

DOWN AND NERDY

KEVIN: Mulan, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, For All Mankind, Empyre Aftermath
RAFFY: X-Men comics (Johnathan Hickman oriented), Spellbreak, Lovecraft Country, Upcoming Hyrule Warriors game, Raised by Wolves

.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

New look at Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time finally gives Tawna a redesign and makes her playable

.

THIS WEEK IN QUEER

Netflix announces 3rd and final season of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

New teaser for the animated movie Wolfwalkers

.

THE WEEK IN GEEK

MOVIES

• New trailer for Hulu’s movie anthology series Monsterland
• New trailer for the remake of Dune
• Sony Pictures waiting until the pandemic is over before releasing big movies
• New trailer for Freaky
• Neve Campbell joins Scream 5 as 3rd original cast member returning

.

TV

• The Walking Dead is coming to an end, but adds two spinoffs
• New trailer for The Walking Dead: World Beyond
• Peacock orders 2 seasons of dramatic reboot of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• New trailer for season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery
• Adult Swim cancels The Venture Bros. 
• New trailer for Ratched 

.

VIDEO GAMES

• Microsoft gives more details on Xbox Series X & introduces Series S
• New trailer for the documentary Console Wars

.

SHILF

• KEVIN: Leah Williams
• JOHN: Jonathan Hickman

Interview with Author Ethan Aldridge

Ethan M. Aldridge is a New York Times and Indie bestselling author and illustrator. He is the creator of the fantasy graphic novel ESTRANGED (a Junior Library Guild selection, Indie Bestseller, and YALSA Great Graphic Novel For Teens), and its follow up THE CHANGELING KING. Ethan was raised in a small town in Utah.Growing up, Ethan’s favorite things to draw were monsters and whatever dinosaur he liked that week. He now does more or less the same thing for a living. Ethan lives in New York City with his husband, Matthew, and their dog, Kitsune. I got the chance to interview Ethan, which you can read below.

To start with, how did you first come to realize you wanted to be an author/ illustrator? What were some of the stories that originally drew your eye as a child or inspired your artistic journey?

I’ve enjoyed telling stories, and telling stories visually, for about as long as I can remember, though it wasn’t until I was about 16 or so that I realized that doing things like making comics and illustrating books was something I could do as a living. I adored strange detailed fantasies, everything from the book “The Dragons Are Singing Tonight” by Jack Prelutsky and Peter Sis to the epic fantasy films of the 80’s like “Willow” and Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth.” I poured over them again and again as a child.

Much of your work centers around folklore and fae mythology, particularly that of the changeling. What drew you specifically to this story?

I’ve always enjoyed old folklore and fairy tales, for all of their beauty and strange, surreal poetry. Just prior to starting work on my graphic novel series “Estranged,” I became  fascinated with changeling stories, where faeries would steal a human baby and replace the child with one of their own. Sometimes the stories are silly, and some pretty sinister, but at their core they all seemed to be about the same thing; a parent is convinced that the child in their care is not who they thought they were. As someone who grew up queer and in the closet, and who didn’t figure myself until much later, these stories seemed all too familiar. In the folktales, the swap is always discovered and the rightful baby returned, but I wanted to see what would happen if that wasn’t so. I wanted to see if the parents would learn to love the child they had, instead of the child they wished for. I wanted to give the story a happier ending, at least for the changeling.

Within your books, the Estranged Series, there are many parallels between one of the protagonist’s dual narratives as a changeling and as a queer teen, including the sense of being and feeling different from the people around you. For years, queer people have often gravitated towards fantasy, why do you think that is?

There are so many themes and tropes in fantasy that resonate with the queer experience; outsiders finding their way through a strange world, transformations, hidden identities. People find impossible loves, change form and gender, escape from inescapable isolation into a world wider and more strange than they ever imagined. Fantasy is all about a life and a world outside of what we are told is possible, and I think that sense is something that speaks to a lot of queer people. We grew up with those feelings in us, so we gravitated to the stories that told us those feelings meant something true and important and beautiful. From changelings to voiceless mermaids to love-lorn princesses locked away in remote towers, queer people have been using fantasy as a way to express feelings of queerness for a long time.

You are currently working on a new project called The Legend of Brightblade. Can you tell us in your own words what it’s going to be about?

It’s a brand new graphic novel about a long journey undertaken by a trio of bards, people who use music and storytelling to weave literal magic. Alto, the youngest child of a storied hero, runs away to create his own legend, and bumps into all sorts of trouble he’s not prepared for. It’s part epic journey, part coming-of-age adventure, and part Battle of the Bands rivalry. It’s about the way stories of the past affect us, and how we tell our own stories in response. It’s also got trolls, elves, a long-haired goat named Knud, and at least one dragon, and that’s always fun.

Hypothetically speaking, if the characters of your books or you yourself could interact with characters from any other fictional universe, where would they be from?

That’s a tricky question! The stories I tend to like the most have very messy protagonists, and the boys from “Estranged” don’t always play well with others. Imagine Edmund from my books meetings, say, Edmund from the Narnia books? It would be chaos. And a lot of sulking.

As a creator what advice would you give to other budding artists/writers on their own creative journeys?

If what you’re interested in is telling stories, then go ahead and do it. Don’t wait for a book deal or a publishing offer. Make sure it’s something you’re interested in, not just something you think you could sell, and make sure it’s something you can finish. Short comics are great for this. Having a complete story you can show to people is very beneficial, both for you and for your would-be readers.

Finally, what are some LGBTQ+ comics or books you would recommend to the readers of Geeks Out?

There have been so many great ones, especially ones that have come out lately! Some of my favorite recent LGBTQ+ comics are “Snapdragon” by Kat Leyh, the Witch Boy series by Molly Knox Ostertag, “Beetle And The Hollowbones” by Aliza Layne, “Mooncakes” by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu, and “TAZ: Petals To The Metal” by Carey Pietsch and Justin, Travis, Griffin and Clint McElroy. There are more coming later this year, like “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen, that I’m very excited about

More of Ethan’s work can be found online at ethanaldridge.weebly.com, and on twitter and instagram at @ethanmaldridge

The Geeks OUT Podcast: Scary Stories to Tell in the Park

The Geeks OUT Podcast

Opinions, reviews, incisive discussions of queer geek ideas in pop culture, and the particularly cutting brand of shade that you can only get from a couple of queer geeks all in highly digestible weekly doses.

In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by John Jennison, as they discuss Sony developing a Silk series from Marvel, a new trailer for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, and celebrate Star Trek: Discovery introducing a non-binary and a trans character in This Week in Queer.

.

BIG OPENING

KEVIN: Nickelodeon pulls Made by Maddie after Hair Love comparisons & a new trailer for Netflix series Grand Army drops that is already falling into controversy
JOHN: New teaser for The Haunting of Bly Manor

.

DOWN AND NERDY

KEVIN: New Mutants, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Empyre, Guardians of the Galaxy
JOHN: Supernatural, Lucifer, Oracle Decks

.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

Sony developing Silk series along with other Marvel based shows

.

THIS WEEK IN QUEER

Star Trek: Discovery is introducing a trans and a non-binary character

.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

New trailer for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous 

.

THE WEEK IN GEEK

MOVIES

• New trailer for The Boys in the Band
• Production on The Batman shuts down after the star tests positive for COVID
• John Boyega calls out Star Wars/Disney on their treatment of POC characters
• New trailer for Welcome to the Blumhouse
• New trailer for No Time to Die

.

TV

• CBS All Access announces a virtual Star Trek Day
• New teaser for The Stand remake
• Netflix orders The Three-Body-Problem from Game of Thrones ep’s
• New trailer for We Are Who We Are
• AMC cancels NOS4A2 

.

COMIC BOOKS

• DC Comics hires former Activision marketing officer as new GM
• Dark Horse teams with Comixology to print Comixology Originals
• Hasbro follows DC Fandome with their own PulseCon

.

SHILF

• KEVIN: Dean Winchester
• JOHN: Dean Winchester

The Geeks OUT Podcast: The Killer Babysitter’s Club

The Geeks OUT Podcast

Opinions, reviews, incisive discussions of queer geek ideas in pop culture, and the particularly cutting brand of shade that you can only get from a couple of queer geeks all in highly digestible weekly doses.

In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by J.W. Crump, as they discuss Marvel (finally) canonically acknowledging Hercules’ queer identity in the latest issue of Guardians of the Galaxy, the new trailer for The Babysitter: Killer Queen, and celebrate Big Mouth re-casting Missy with comedian Ayo Edebiri, as our Strong Female Character of the Week. 

.

BIG OPENING

KEVIN: After 4 years of battling colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman passes away
J.W.: HBO Max announces docuseries Equal about LGBTQ+ activists

.

DOWN AND NERDY

KEVIN: Freak Show, Bloodshot, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Trinkets
J.W.: Stage Mother, The Goes Wrong Show, Fangs, The Wig, The Bitch, and the Meltdown, The Memo, Happy & You Know It, Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling

.

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER

Big Mouth has found their new Missy

.

THIS WEEK IN QUEER

This coming week’s Guardians of the Galaxy confirms Hercules queerness

.

CLIP OF THE WEEK

New trailer for The Babysitter: Killer Queen 

.

THE WEEK IN GEEK

MOVIES

• New trailer for Enola Holmes
• New trailer for Justice League: Directors Cut
• New trailer for Tremors: Shrieker Island
• New trailer for Come Play
• Disney developing movie based on The Haunted Mansion

.

TV

• New poster for The Conners promotes mask use
• HBO developing an adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Sphere
• New teaser for season 2 of His Dark Materials
• New trailer for Raised by Wolves
• Netflix orders a series adaptation of Resident Evil
• Networks fill their fall lineups with game shows, sports, and DISCO  
• The Stand is coming to CBS All Access in December 
• NBC orders Kate McKinnon led Joe Exotic limited series
• Fox is developing an animated X-Files series  
• Live-action Powerpuff Girls series is in development

.

VIDEO GAMES

• New teaser for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
• New trailer for Gotham Knights
• Marvel and Galactus are invading Fortnite