In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by Jon Herzog, as they discuss Robert Pattinson being cast as the new Batman, anxiously await the final season of Jessica Jones, and celebrate Hulu’s new animated queer fairy tale series The Bravest Knight in This Week in Queer.
The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) is this Saturday and Sunday, June 1 & 2, 11a-6p, at Chicago’s Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted Street). It is a celebration of independent comics, inspired by Chicago’s rich legacy as home to many of underground and alternative comics’ most talented artists. Featuring comics for sale, workshops, exhibitions, panel discussions and more, CAKE is dedicated to fostering community and dialogue amongst independent artists, small presses, publishers and readers. The event is open to the public, and admission is free.
I had a conversation with two of CAKE’s queer organizers, Chris Lopez and Jon Mastantuono, to talk about their roles in organizing CAKE, highlights of the weekend, the role of conventions in sharing comics and queer culture, and more.
Gavin: I know there are two administrative roles in planning CAKE, coordinators and organizers. Can you detail what you do as organizers, and how are those responsibilities different than a coordinator’s?
Chris: I am in charge of Exhibitor Services. I set up the applications, organize the jury, create & send out the jury scoring packets. I started out volunteering for CAKE for several years before being asked to come on as a coordinator, and a bit later, as an organizer. We tend to have our organizers in charge of specific, key aspects of the show, while coordinators help out in some of those areas, as well, or are invited to take on their own projects, like putting together the CAKE anthology for the show.
Jon: I cover CAKE sponsorship, budgeting and accounting, show logistics, and I run the art auction fundraiser in the Spring. I’ve worked as a volunteer in similar roles at other art non-profits. Same as Chris, I started as a show volunteer and took on more responsibility as needed.
Gavin: Now that we’re getting close to CAKE weekend, what specific aspects are you looking forward to unveiling? There are a lot of panels and workshops that look engaging. I may be mistaken, but it seems like there are more than past years. Are there particular queer creators expo attendees should be mindful of? Who are you most excited to see represented?
Jon: We expanded the size of the curatorial jury by more than 100% this year, I’m looking forward to seeing the breadth and diversity of creators and types of work that result from that. CAKE is a curated show, and we felt that the best way to represent more and different voices was to have more and different eyes scoring all the applications. New people got in, people who were frustrated by our wait-list process, or the amount of competition for a spot, got in. The thing I look forward to the most is floating around and seeing if it worked.
I think ORGAN (Table 210A) is going to surprise and delight a lot of people. Calling it like queer horror is criminally reductive; it’s being chained to a wall in a dark room and you’re screaming not sure if you’re awake or dreaming and something horrible occasionally brushes across your thigh at irregular intervals. I naturally gravitate to work about the condition or contexts of being LGBTQA+ that are not cute or happy or confident or signifiers of community.
That said, you really can’t go wrong with locals Gabe Howell (206A), JJ McLuckie (206B), Sage Coffey (517B), Tony Breed (310A), or Aim Ren Beland (107B) – all super-perceptive, creative, and evolving, and succeeding hugely. Five wholly unique points-of-view.
Special guests Isabella Rotman (504A) and Corinne Halbert (216) are absolute pros of the highest order, you probably already know them. No one’s ever regretted buying anything of theirs for a single second ever.
I’m certainly forgetting people! There are always people I don’t know or haven’t read out there who are stunning and wonderful and wonderfully stunning- I’m sorry I don’t know them!
Chris: From a personal perspective, I am most excited to be revealing my own book this year! After several years of work, I’m proud to show it off. It’s a hundred pages of a play that I adapted into comics. Show-wise, the focus on queer creators has always been something I’ve felt strongly about, so I’m hopeful that the public can find a bit of themselves reflected in the work, no matter where they’re coming from.
Gavin: Sage Coffey, and their character Wine Ghost, is a big favorite of mine. Tell us more about your book, Chris.
Chris: It’s titled Signal & Silence. You can find it at the CAKE comics table, right by the info desk. It’s the story of a group of friends recently graduated from a religious school, and how they are trying to forge ahead with the rest of their lives after some secrets are revealed. The original play is from Randy Wyatt, a theater professor and dear friend. It is self-published, after realizing that a large, full-color dramatic adaptation might not be what publishers are clamoring for.
Gavin: Would you talk about the role of conventions/expos in proliferating queer and comics culture? How can patrons benefit from conventions in a way that, say, the internet cannot? Jon, you mentioned the importance in not just establishing diverse creators, but also involving a diverse curatorial body. Chris, can you add to that?
Chris: Expanding the jury pool for this year’s CAKE was one of our most ambitious goals, and I’m proud to say I was able to more than double the number of people who took time out of their schedules to study the applicants’ work and score them. More representation in who is curating the show will lead to more representation of the types of voices who have stories they want to tell. I mean, it’s not enough to just have a number of LGBT comics at the show. We also want to highlight and showcase LGBT stories from people of color, people whose experiences we may not get to hear about as often. I am a chubby, latino, gay dude from Miami who is into games, music, and nerdy shit – and all these labels are reductive, and far from a complete list of course, but they serve to highlight that it’s not just some singular gay experience that needs to be spoken to, but that people are wonderfully complex and their stories can be equally as deep and involved.
Jon: Hmm. I remember in 2002, when I was almost young, I had the good fortune to operate a kissing table at an experimental theater carnival. The show was narrative but during the hour before it started, you could have a tarot reading, or a band would improvise a song for you, or there were some tumblers you could watch- you were given tickets with admission and you could spend them on these things…I had a tuxedo jacket and breath spray and a single red rose and if you gave me a ticket I would kiss you. I’m bisexual, and I would kiss whoever with some amount of conviction and excitement. And one guy came back the next week, he paid to get in a second time, to tell me he’d been kind of wondering if he might be gay, and setting up my table and lowering the barriers for him to just try it, truly, without any consequences or worry- make out a little with a man in a public space and walk away- helped him in his thinking. Getting to do that was an invitation, or the asking of a question.
CAKE has always felt that same way to me…a person who’s there to meet Nicholas Gurewitch or Jim Woodring might also meet an exhibitor or read a book that helps them connect with some essential part of themselves or the world. They might ask themselves the question. Not just about sexual identity: they might understand intersectionality or colonialism better, or their own inherent biases. A person might orient toward an understanding of rape culture. They might look at poly in a different way, or the asexual pantheon, or any of the beautiful expressions of kink culture. Or they may think about their mental health in a new way. The times I was lucky enough to exhibit at CAKE, I cannot count the number of people who came out to me as newly queer or trans, or cried to articulate some truth about grief or loss that no one had opportunity to ask them before. Many. Dozens.
I don’t know how that’s different than the internet, and I’m not internet native….some of my group chats feel like that sometimes. Tumblr at its finest was not un-CAKE-like. But, you know, there’s some exchange, there’s some electricity when it’s real life. I think it’s good to go somewhere sometimes.
Chris: As for convention culture in general, I wouldn’t place the internet on one end and cons on the other; they are symbiotic and benefit each other. You can follow someone’s work for a while on the net, but getting to meet them in person, and at an intimate show like CAKE, you might actually have the chance to talk and make a connection face-to-face. Additionally, there are exhibitors whose work can’t be displayed on a web page, as they play with the form of either paper folding, laser-cuts, or somehow incorporating the physical medium as part of their art. Walking out of the show with an armful of comics by people you’ve interacted with is an entirely different experience than going to your regular bookmarks and spying the latest pages, but it’s not always possible to find or physically discover all this new talent out there, so the internet is still an amazing resource. I know I invited several people to apply to CAKE after following their posts for a while.
Gavin: Chris, you commented on the value of the physical medium of comics, and the importance of different techniques of expression within the form. Can you both identify trends that have shaped comics in 2019? I have seen risograph techniques increasingly used by many creators, for example. Have you seen similar ideas coming out of the collective consciousness in 2019, or recently?
Jon: I don’t know, I think in general the industry is contracting. If I’ve noticed a trend in art comics it’s that only the very strong and the very foolish survive, and it can be tricky to tell which is which. They’re also not mutually exclusive categories. But that’s probably not new?
Chris: Riso has definitely been gaining in popularity, but as of right now, I wouldn’t be able to identify any particular trends, besides all those Game of Thrones comics I’m expecting to see after the finale. 🙂
Gavin: Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience with CAKE, and queer comics in 2019?
Jon: Working with Chris and the other organizers (Matt Brady, Mike Freiheit,Jackie Roche, and Ed Witt) is a gift. I’m genuinely impressed by their generosity, quality of work, and deep commitment to the mission of CAKE. We’re all communicating well and trusting each other this year more than ever, and it is a dream to work with each of them. We all give a lot of ourselves to planning this book fair.
Also, please come to the expo! We have an amazing exhibitor list, workshops, and panels. You won’t be disappointed. It might change your life.
Chris: Working to produce CAKE has been immensely rewarding. I’ve gotten to interact with some of my comics heroes and meet a whole lot of people in this community. It’s like, you know there are all these amazing comics out there, but having this many creators all in one room takes it to another level. Like Jon said, we’d love to see you at the show. It’s free, fun, and fabulous!
When the documentary Changing the Game played at the Tribeca Film Festival, journalists were invited to a roundtable discussion with the transgender athletes featured in the film. At the cozy Battery Park offices of GLSEN, teens including wrestler Mack Beggs, skier Sarah Rose Huckman, and runner Terry Miller had a lively chat about transgender issues, their lives, and more. I was moved and inspired by their intelligence and bravery, even more so after I saw the movie.
“The film shows that we’re not just
transgender, that we live lives just like everybody else. It shows us.”—Terry
Miller
Changing the Game is an engaging and intensely
cinematic movie. It centers primarily on
three young trans athletes across three locations: Beggs in Texas, Huckman in
New Hampshire, and Miller in Connecticut.
Beggs, who isn’t allowed to compete against males under state
regulations, draws a ton of media attention, both positive and negative. Critics rail that he’s “cheating” by using
testosterone even as Beggs longs to wrestle other boys. Director Michael
Barnett introduces us to Mack’s support system: his sweet, horseback riding
girlfriend; his intensely driven, committed coach; and, most memorably, his gun
toting, Republican, and unconditionally loving grandma. These stalwarts come in handy as the quiet,
reserved Mack struggles internally with the jeers he receives at wrestling
events.
“I’m putting out a story that can be
related to other trans people. And it’s
just amazing to be able to have a platform and use that to create good in this
world.”—Sarah Rose Huckman
Huckman is
perhaps the most articulate of the teens, and the most involved in
activism. From her popular YouTube
channel to her impassioned speech before the House Judiciary Committee in
support of the anti-gender identity discrimination law HB 1319, which was
eventually passed, Huckman emerges as a champion for equality—as well as a good
candidate to enter politics someday.
Like Beggs, Huckman has strong familial support in the form of her
loving adoptive parents.
“They talk about fairness, but what
about our fairness? Is that not
important, or does it not matter?
Everyone else wants fairness, so why can’t we have ours?”—Terry Miller
Terry Miller
and her running colleague Andraya Yearwood , also a Black trans woman,
encounter their share of outspoken critics at track events. At one point a woman rants at the camera
about how neither girl will know what it’s like to run while on their period,
and eventually admits, “I forgot what the question is!” Barnett allows her to hang herself, but he
also makes a smart choice by giving screentime to the kids’ critics. These
moments and the news clips interspersed throughout show exactly what the young
athletes are up against—and underlines how brave they are to persevere in spite
of such venom.
“I take pride in being able to say,
‘I’m a transgender woman of color.’
Because there’s so many people out there who are not able to come out
and they’re afraid to.”—Sarah Rose Huckman
Changing the Game does a terrific job of depicting the
sports the teens excel at. Vivid slow
motion sequences bring the training, matches, and meets to life. There is exceptional cinematography of the
locations, such as the icy terrain Huckman skis across. Stark statistics about the realities of
transgender life appear, simply and without comment, over overhead shots.
“We just want to be known as who we
are. I’m Mack, I’m a guy.”—Mack Beggs
In a time
when transgender rights are being threatened on a daily basis, the importance of
Changing the Game cannot be
overstated. It’s a humanistic, beautiful
character study that makes a powerful statement just by depicting the
extraordinary/ordinary kids at its core.
Changing the Game will continue to
play at film festivals throughout the summer and fall.
In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by his best friend Keisha Zollar, as they discuss new teasers for season 3 of Westworld and season 2 of Pose, & celebrate Linda Hamilton and Mackenzie Davis in Terminator: Dark Fate as our Strong Female Characters of the Week.
Charles Manson’s crimes have long fascinated the American imagination, and this year’s fortieth anniversary of the murders has reignited interest. But is there anything more to say at this point? If anyone could add something new to the conversation, it’s director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) and writer Guinevere Turner (Go Fish, The L Word), who crafted the satiric masterpiece American Psycho nineteen years ago. They achieve this goal by focusing not on the charismatic Manson (Matt Smith) but on the three young women whose lives he ruined.
We first
meet “Manson girls” Leslie (Hannah Murray, Game
of Thrones), Patricia (Sosie Bacon), and Susan (Marianne Rendon) in the isolation
ward of a women’s prison. Though an administrator
(Annabeth Gish) is sympathetic to their plight, it’s not until teacher Karlene
Faith (Meritt Weaver) arrives that they are able to truly connect with someone
outside of Charlie’s sinister influence.
Through vivid flashbacks, we experience life on the Spahn Ranch, where
Charlie reigned supreme and the trio lived a hippie lifestyle with dark,
apocalyptic overtones. Harron conveys a
vivid sense of place and carefully renders period details, aided by terrific
production design and costuming. It’s to
her and Turner’s credit that the movie both leans into the absurdity of the
story—tales of elves and wings, a woman biting through an umbilical cord—and confronts
its terror and misogyny. Smith is
terrific, but it’s the strength and humanity of the women’s performances that
carry the day. The writing, acting, and
filmmaking bring us into the girls’ perspective as their dream of enlightenment
curdles into a nightmare of violence. Charlie Says is a thoughtful film that avoids
exploitation and instead treats these sensational events with reverence and
insight.
It was a
banner year for LGBT documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival, but even
amidst a crowded field, Circus of Books was
a standout. It takes a compellingly
quirky story and presents it with grace, humor, and heart.
Multi-hyphenate
artist/director Rachel Mason grew up in a fairly typical Jewish family, with a
twist. The business her parents ran for
decades was an infamous gay porn shop in West Hollywood, a reality hidden from
Rachel and her two brothers until they were in their teens. When Barry, who did special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Star Trek series and invented a medical
device, was forced out of work by steep insurance costs, his enterprising wife
took notice of a newspaper ad from the notorious Larry Flynt. They bought the failing Book Circus,
rearranged the sign, and started selling both the controversial Hustler and, later, the gay titles the
enterprising Flynt bought out. They also
became involved with gay porn production, though Karen ads “we never watched
any of these movies.” A certain amount
of cognitive dissonance was exercised by Karen—who “wore the pants in the
family” according to one former employee—to juggle her conservative Jewish
faith and the realities of selling dirty magazines and sex toys. Son Josh agonized over coming out to his
parents, and though Karen struggled at first, she and her husband are now
active and proud PFLAG members.
Mason delivers
an intimate, touching, warts-and-all-portrait of her family, especially Karen. The oft cranky matriarch is refreshingly
honest and candid throughout, whether stressing over laying off employees or
lugging boxes of material out to the dumpster.
All of the participants are revealing and frequently funny. Josh recalls how the porn tape he hid away
until he had a chance to play it alone turned out to be a Beta. Former employee Alaska Thunderfuck bemoans
the fact that he never knew about the store’s cruise-y attic. Even gay film legend Jeff Stryker turns up to
share his memories. Mason skillfully
weaves together a personal narrative and the larger picture of gay history to make
a significant and extremely entertaining documentary.
Netflix will distribute Circus of
Books later this year.
In this week’s episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by fellow board member Teri Yoshiuchi, as they discuss the next Arrowverse crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths and whether it will come to Netflix, get excited about the new Batwoman trailer, and celebrate Mr. Ratburn’s wedding on the PBS cartoon Arthur in This Week in Queer.
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival Pilot Season features five different television pilots, and with one exception, they’re all terrific. The first is particularly exciting for LGBT audiences: Lady Liberty, starring Julia Lindon as Shea, a young aspiring comedienne in New York City. Shea works for an established comedian (Jason Sudeikis), but is afraid to tell him about her own ambitions; she’s also struggling to define her own sexuality after an intense affair with a longtime friend (Rebecca Henderson). A chance encounter with a beautiful young lesbian (Karen Eilbacher) in an Uber pool leads to her first night out with “gay gals,” and it’s clear that Miller’s taking her first thrilling steps towards self-actualization. Lindon, who created the series, is tremendously appealing and relatable, and the first episode is wonderfully real and authentic. I think this could become the next Broad City.
Another,
distinctly different strong female is at the center of Halfway, about a woman’s struggle to re-enter society, and
reconnect with the daughter she abandoned, after prison. Anastasia Leddick is mesmerizing as Krystal:
she’s got an incredible punk look, and is utterly convincing as a woman who’s
been through the ringer. The first
episode is equal turns funny and dramatic, and left me wanting to binge.
The rest of
the program is comprised of DC Noir,
a strong, gritty slice of urban life; the goofy but promising Unimundo 45, about a plus-sized Latinx
news producer (Elizabeth De Razzo) looking to inspire her family and friends in
the wake of Trump’s election; and the faintly obnoxious Awokened. The latter was the
only entry I had no desire to see more of—it focuses on entitled, irritating
millennials and lots of forced wackiness, and it retreads ground better
explored by the critically underrated Enlightened.
Pilot Season screens as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Visit tribecafilm.com for more info.
Any LGBT
individual who grew up religiously—and that’s many of us—knows what it’s like
when your faith seemingly conflicts with your identity. That conflict is at the heart of Daniel
Karslake (For the Bible Tells Me So)’s
new documentary. Among the most powerful stories: Linda and Rob Robertson, who
encouraged their son Ryan to undergo conversion therapy, with tragic results;
Vico Baez Febo, who was thrown out of the house by his grandmother for being
gay, and later survived the Pulse shooting; and Sarah McBride, the first openly
transgender woman ever to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
The film is
well executed and affecting, with some deeply emotional testimony from all of
the participants, particularly the Robertsons.
The movie does a good job of making us understand their perspective, and
the profound sorrow they feel for the loss of their son is balanced by an
enlightened and ultimately hopeful view.
Vico’s vivid testimony, Snapchat video of his slain friend, and security
footage of his rescue bring the Pulse tragedy to searing life. But though every participant in the film
endured unimaginable loss, the movie is ultimately neither depressing nor
didactic. It does a great job of
outlining the current state of the LGBT struggle, explaining how, in the wake
of marriage equality, trans folks became the new scapegoat for the religious
right. But if McBride is any indication,
not to mention the other resilient and courageous figures depicted in the film,
we’re not going down without a fight.
For They Know Not What They Do screens as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Visit tribecafilm.com for more info.
In this week’s super-sized episode of the Geeks OUT Podcast, Kevin is joined by J.W. Crump, as they discuss the new trailers for Spider-Man: Far From Home and It: Chapter 2, and celebrate The CW ordering Batwoman, Nancy Drew, and Katy Keene to series as our Strong Female Characters of This Week in Queer.