Vaughan, Brian K., and Adrian Alphona - Runaways, vol. 01: Pride and Joy

All teenagers think their parents are evil. But what if they really are?

Six teens discover that their parents are actually supervillains. This volume doesn't feel especially new or different, largely because it's more concerned with introducing all the characters and setting up the entire concept. I'm ok with that.

(also, one should never try and look up character names on Wikipedia and inadvertantly spoil themselves. I'm sure no one else is stupid enough to do this, but I throw up this warning just in case)

So far, we have: Alex, a MMORPG player (black male); Nico, a goth teen (Japanese female); Karolina, a somewhat ditzy daughter of vegans (white female); Chase, a jock son of brainy scientists (white male); Gert, a purple-haired Janeane-Garofalo-esque miscontent (white female) and Molly, a twelve-year-old on the verge of adolescence (white female).

I like the female-to-male ratio, though I'm less happy with the number of POC characters. It also feels a little odd when the POC characters are paired off with each other; I don't think it's tokenism in this case, particularly because they seem to be the more proactive ones. But it feels like two is still a minority, while three would seem more integrated to me.

Also, is it just me or does it feel like most Asians in superhero comics are Japanese? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; I really haven't read that much. Also, do let me know if there are Southeast Asian superheroes! That would be awesome.

I also like the inversion of the usual black athlete stereotype; here, Alex is the brainy one and Chase is the jock.

There are a lot of expected plays on the usual parental sayings: "This is all for your own good" takes a much more sinister meaning when said by someone with a knife.

So far, the characters feel distinct enough, though no one's really been developed yet, and there's a good enough of a cliffhanger in the end to keep people reading.

Also: psychic raptor dinosaur!

ETA: Adding links that a quick googling for "asian comic book characters" turned up

• Coloring the Comic Books (Wired, 2003)


• Ethnic stereotypes in comics (Wikipedia)


• List of Asian superheroes (Wikipedia)

And because I am insane and obsessive, I am actually going through the last link and tallying.

Goss, Theodora - In the Forest of Forgetting

I vaguely remember rushthatspeaks mentioning Theodora Goss at Wiscon last year, but other than that, I don't know much about her.

This is a gorgeous collection of short stories. Two are original to this collection, but all the others have been published elsewhere. Goss writes a lot about Hungary and east Europe as opposed to west Europe, probably because she used to live there (according to the book flap). It was a really interesting addition to the already lovely stories, as I'm much less familiar with the eastern European than with the usual western European fairy tales. Goss also takes on a lot of fairy tales and myths and folktales, but she weaves them into contemporary settings, or transforms today's cold hospitals into magical forests.

On the surface, the language doesn't seem spectacular, but I love the different voices the stories are told in, as well as the structures of them. Goss often has two narratives sandwiched between each other: an old woman dying in bed, and the same woman, dancing ballet. Even more, I love the images in the stories, the contrast between the old and the new, poetry and prose.

My favorites are:
"The Rapid Advance of Sorrow," which would be my favorite just for this: "Sorrow: a feeling of grief or melancholy. A mythical city generally located in northern Siberia, said to have been visited by Marco Polo. From Sorrow, he took back to Italy the secret of making ice." It's a small story, but a fascinating look at a city.

"In the Forest of Forgetting," which takes sterile hospital rooms and breast cancer and transforms them into a delicate and strange fairy tale.

"The Rose in Twelve Petals," because I am a traditionalist and still love all the fairy tale retellings, particularly ones that contain the POV of the spinning wheel.

All the others are gorgeous as well, and some have continuing characters, despite being published in different times and places.