I read a lot. This is a selection of what I read this week (12/27/20 through 1/3/2021) that I think you should read, too.
Articles
* An open letter to Candidates, the Media, Political Parties, and Policymakers: Organizations involved in actual human, child, and/or sex trafficking prevention, awareness, rescue, and victim advocacy speak out about the current conspiracy theories spreading lies about the issues. Such misconceptions and misdirections are having an extremely dangerous impact on their work and the people they’re trying to help. And politicians and platforms giving conspiracy theories such as QAnon and its ilk a platform are causing significantly more harm than good.
*Andrew Tejada’s Representation Without Transformation: Can Hollywood Stop Changing Cartoon Characters of Color? for Tor.com: Over the past decade or so, a trope involving shape-changing protagonists of color has emerged in animation. This robs viewers looking for representation of a chance to see themselves and their lives fairly reflected on screen. Tejada speaks of Into the Spider-Verse and Moana as examples of doing right by audiences of color when it comes to letting people be… well… people.
Comics
As always, my weeklies/weeklies-ish:
*Huda Fahmy’s Yes I’m Hot in This
*Phylecia Miller and Jules Rivera’s Hi, Phylecia!
*Taejoon Park’s Lookism
*Jules Rivera’s Mark Trail
*Linda Sejic’s Punderworld
*Jessi Sharon’s The Sea in You
*Rachel Smythe’s Lore Olympus
*Sensaga’s Ham and Mat
*Steenz’s Heart of the City
Books
I wish I could go into more detail about the two books I read and/or started this past week, but I’m trying to avoid spoilers with the Transmit to Your Eyeholes entries. Given the plot heaviness of both, unfortunately my descriptors will be vaguer than I tend to prefer.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is exactly what it says in the title. An eerie, slow-burning atmospheric horror full of colonial grotesqueries, decaying decadence in the middle of nowhere, and supernatural terrors lurking in the periphery. Standard stuff for the genre, but delectably written. Like a gorgeous but poisoned cake you can’t resist sinking a fork into.
Also made it through the first half of Justina Ireland’s first Dread Nation book, and I have the bags under my eyes from late nights unable to put it down to prove it. The story takes place in an alternate history where the Civil War ends when zombies rise up on the battlefields. Slavery is outlawed, but Black and Indigenous people are still forced into training schools where they learn how to slay the undead hordes and protect their white employers. Although that protection is more like self-sacrifice. We learn about this horrible new history through the eyes of protagonist Jane McKeene, one such student whose life unravels when she stumbles into a scary, and terribly human, political conspiracy alongside her despised academic rival and her roguish ex. Ireland fully populates and explores the world she’s created and I am so excited to finish up and pick up the sequel. Which I’ve already purchased.
See you next week, fellow bookish buffs!
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