Continuing on from my last post on the early-’90s comic She-Male Trouble, the back cover of Issue #1 is highly relevant to all the cis hysteria about us pissing where they piss. #bitchesgottapiss #utijustsayno #washyourhandscunt
I was talking with a comic artist the other day and old ’90s language became a convo — shemale, tranny, chicks with dicks, heshes — and some of that connecting to transsexual sex workers in King’s Cross, Sydney back in the ’70s, where my elders tricked on the street, stripped in clubs, and worked in brothels. Which reminded me of a comic I think I got hold of in Sydney sometime in the late-90s, She-male Trouble. I think I saw an ad for it in Horny Biker Slut, where the degen sisters first appeared. Created by John Howard, published by Last Gasp, it’s pervy, exploitative comic porn, reminds me of Oglaf!, and is the direct but largely unknown ancestor of young trans femme tumblr artists from a decade ago. Would it get mercilessly shredded on the internet today? Yup. Was it actually one of the few representations of transsexuals (period more or less correct language there) which wasn’t vaguely TERFy and exoticising academic blaahs? Also yup, along with Grooby, Shemale Yum, Bob’s Tgirls, and that original world of equal opportunity internet trans porn.
Fave Muslim show since We Are Lady Parts and fave superhero show with Muslim superheroes since Legends of Tomorrow got cancelled (tbh that was the only superhero show with Muslim superheroes). The last episode was a bit of a letdown, but that’s really on Marvel / Disney and their compulsion to Big Superhero Smackdown, and overly CGI’d action / fight scenes. I’d have watched 26 episodes of Kamala and Yasmeen going ”Mashallaaaaah!!!” over hot shirtless bruvs, and calling each other bro.
I had to buy a new bike light today. Germany has some strange ‘regulations’ about what constitutes a bike light, things like brightness, flashing, whether a bike must have dynamo-powered lights or can have clip-on, all of that is in the Regeln. The Straßenverkehrszulassungsordnung to be precise. (Or StVZO if you wanna get all Abkürzung on it.)
This year, flashing lights are out. Because safety. WTF, Frances? I know! I had an argument with bored Polizei over this—it was a Friday night, they obviously had nothing better to do than pull over cyclists and engage in some haranguing. There’s probably a word for that like Ordnungspredigen. Oh wait! It’s German! You can make new words like that! “Of course flashing lights are safer,” I gegengepredigt in my scheiße Ausländersdeutsch, “People see flashing light as visual movement, which obviously is easier to identiy against a background of light noise–” “Nein! A proper German light must not flash because it is difficult to tell the distance of a flashing light—” “As opposed to just running your Auto up the arse of the StVZO-approved 5 lumens light which no one can see?” “Regeln sind Regeln.”
I had to buy a new light because my old one died, and the StVZO-approved front light frankly scares the shit out of me. 15 lumens vanishes when you’re in traffic and surrounded by cars’ front lights. I could really see drivers not noticing me until I was up their arses, and while I manage to throw myself over handlebars with some regularity (the price of badly excecuted technical riding skills), I prefer my suffering to be self-inflicted. So, off to the bike shop. It was a difficult choice between 300 or 600 lumens—which made me laugh with the insanity of it. Why stop there? It goes up to to 1500 lm!
Then I got home and xkcd had this:
“Yeah, I know Frances, it’s awfully ‘precise’ of me. Can we just leave aside that conversation for now and enjoy some shit?” “Ok, Other Frances, we can, but I’m not sure what everyone else will think of you…” “I’m just gonna leave that ellipsis hanging.” “As you like. Your decision.”
On and off for months/years, I’ve been porting the first I dunno how many years of supernaut properly into WordPress. When I gave Moveable Type the boot—and later ecto, opting to work directly in WordPress rather than with a haha ‘blogging client’ (remember when blog software was so crap you needed a blogging client rather than suffer the web browser?) I had all those years of images to deal with, assimilating them, attaching them to post, blahwork. Weeks of blaaahwork. Done. Fucking finished right now. 6312 images are all unified and fuck me if I ever have to change to another blogging platform it’s gonna be a piece of piss compared to this. Or I will throw my arms up and walk the fuck out of the internet for ever.
This is archaeology. The remainder. The images that weren’t attached, had no home, were left to languish in the dim recesses of my server. Jacques Derrida would probably find these telling. Bin Lang girls from Taiwan, I think from an exhibition, or they might have been actual workers in Tainan or Taizhong. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, I think from when I was in Taipei and was told about what Gen was up to—also introduced to the novels of China Miéville. A page from a comic called Dragnet? I think one of those mid- late-’00s types when tranny was a word we could still throw around without the Queer Police putting a fucking * on the end. That “Jesus Loves You” one … fuck knows. Maybe from Emile? Fuck Gender might even be a photo I took at some Queer* event in Berlin. Or Vienna. Dunno. Thought it was cool at the time (maybe, fuck knows, no memory here), enough to photograph, though not enough to blog. Don’t think it’s cool anymore. Lambs. Baaaaaaah! Was from Christmas 2008, with the mob all in Berlin, around the time I photographed a Nativity Scene. This is definitely one of my photos.
Finally I can remove that shitful “sorry things are broken” apology at the bottom of supernaut.
Relativistic Baseball! Spent Fuel Pool! A Mole of Moles! Machine-Gun Jetpack! FedEx Bandwidth! Exclamation key broken1
Those are some of my favourites from the utterly brilliant xkcd‘s What if? And then there were ones I’ve never read! Periodic Wall of Elements! Orbital Submarine! Lost Immortals! Plus Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox!
This is probably the most un-obscure book I’ve bought in almost forever, so there’s not much I can say that’s new, especially as the internetz went into meltdown when it was published. Still, xkcd I’ve been reading for ages and is one of my favourite webcomics, and buying this was a bit impulsive but also like going to see a show of an old friend. I was expecting something not as … well, wow, it’s a beautifully presented book. Large, hardcover, with a very touchable dust jacket, really attentively and attractively laid out (it’s far, far from just a reprint of every What If?), a lot of little details (like the inside of the dust jacket) make it a pleasure of a book. I single-handedly (the other hand was busy eating) devoured it (metaphorically; there was already food in my mouth) in an evening. And had planetary surface-sized sadness when I turned the page and it was already the end.
I seem to read so many books that I think, “Kids would love this!” They’d probably think I’m wholly and embarrassingly out of touch old person. But in the small event I’m not, this is the kind of thing to make someone go off and become an astrophysicist, or geologist, or make comics.
Along with The Shooting Star, my diversion in St George’s netted The Secret of the Unicorn. More Tintin, less racism! In the space between two volumes, Hergé manages to avoid all the embarrassing stuff that caused me to ask the question, “Is Tintin acceptable to read these days?” The Secret of the Unicorn is more-or-less completely safe to read. An epic detective story with pirates, the high seas, mystery and adventure, Captain Haddock, the twins Thomson and Thompson, Red Rackham, whisky! more whisky! It’s in my top-10 favourite. I’m slightly worried I’ve tricked myself into committing to buying all 24 of them (25 along with Tintin and the Lake of Sharks).
Listening to Wagner and Burzum, and reading Tintin is probably the trifecta of Euro-racism, or at least it can’t be done without knowing clearly what I’m engaging in. I was in St George’s (as usual) picking up some books (again as usual), talking with Jamie, then took a wander and found a stack of Tintin comics. Tintin was long my lunch accompaniment when I was a child (or at least that is my memory), with peanut butter and jam on toast. After reading Tintin again, today I went out and bought said items plus some Neuköllner Spross bread and … well, anyway, Tintin.
“Is Tintin acceptable to read these days?” I asked Jamie. In-between childhood and now I was well-aware of ‘over-reaction and hyper political correctness’ in regard to Hergé’s earlier, more overtly colonial works (if you change the term ‘political correctness’ to ‘being nice to people’ it’s actually what they’re saying), and have distinct memories of Tintin in America, the portrayals of Native Americans and Africans, and it isn’t pretty.
The Shooting Star from 1942 gets off to a pretty good start in this respect. It was one of my more favourites, having astronomy, meteorites, giant mushrooms and an oppressive, slightly hallucinogenic quality. Then we meet the principal antagonist, the spider at the centre of the web, a fat, be-speckled crooked businessman with a giant proboscis of a nose, who despite the not-so-Jewish name of Bohlwinkel is unmistakably the meanest caricature. Bohlwinkel was originally known as Blumenstein. Sure, Hergé caricatures everyone, from the drunken Captain Haddock to the prima donna Bianca Castafiora; there are different positions from which one may caricature, and Europe 1941 for Jews isn’t one of them. But as Hergé says, “That was the style then.”
I really liked Tintin when I was young, and still do. The art, the line-work, colour, stories, humour, all appealed to me then as they do now; it’s both light and entertaining, and serious and political. And definitely in places racist, colonialist, crypto-fascist, and the answer to my question, “Is Tintin acceptable to read these days?” is probably something like, “Weell… it’s not The Birth of a Nation …”
