COMICS REVIEW: Looking at the 2019 Best Graphic Story Hugo Finalists
Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers. This month, I’m going to take a look at the nominees for this year’s Best Graphic Story Hugo Award. Warning: these reviews contains spoilers! As regular readers will know, I’ve been in the habit of using this space to both recommend works that might otherwise be overlooked by Hugo voters during nomination season and taking a look at the short list in advance of the deadline for voting. If you aren’t already familiar with this year’s ballot, you can read the complete list here, but if you don’t want to click away, here are the finalists for this year’s Best Graphic Story Hugo:
At the Movies #78: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/sandfatthemovies78avengersendgame/SandF–At_the_Movies_78–Avengers_Endgame.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSBad haircuts, beer, and delicious pandering, oh my! Shaun, Alex, Trang, and Stina assemble to tackle one of the biggest films in cinematic history: Avengers: Endgame. This one is a spoilerrific podcast, y’all, which means we talked about some of the biggest permanent changes to the MCU, from who dies to who gets redemption and more. We also tackle some of the controversies about the film, including that scene and that other scene. You know what we’re talking about. So get yourselves ready. This one is a doozy! We hope you enjoy the episode!
Short Fiction Review: May 2019
My favorite stories from May all happened to be about resistance. They all had good and satisfying endings, although none of them had a clean ending where everything was wrapped up neatly with a bow. Then again, I don’t think resistance often works that way. First, I loved “Everything is Closed Today” by Sarah Pinsker. It’s delightful tale about skater girls, activism, and building community, and it appears in Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner. Next, I recommend Joe Ponce’s “Raices (Roots),” which appears in Issue 7 of Anathema: Spec from the Margins. It’s a powerful and important story about immigration, border justice, and political consciousness. Lastly, if you love academic scholarship and theory — or, for that matter, if you hate those things — you must check out “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island” by Nibedita Sen in Issue 80 of Nightmare Magazine. Now, on to the reviews!
Book Review: Do Not Go Quietly: an Anthology of Victory in Defiance edited by Jason Sizemore and Lesley
What are you fighting for? Your space? More space? Your territory? More territory? Your reputation? A better reputation? A better outcome? The best possible outcome? — Bianca Lynn Springgs “Plot Twist” from Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance Bianca Lynne Spriggs’ volume-closing poem “Plot Twist” challenges the reader with these provocative questions and many more, and had I been doing editors Jason Sizemore’s and Lesley Connor’s job, I would have been sorely tempted to put it first rather than last. However, since this poem’s challenges are as good a return to the real world we’re all stuck in as they are a microcosm of the themes this collection explores, I can absolutely see why they chose otherwise. Which is to say that Sizemore and Connor earned every nickle they could ever conceivably be paid for producing Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance.
Book Review: The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People by Robyn Bennis
The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People is an urban fantasy that deceptively starts off as a lighthearted take on a relationship with a supernatural being and eventually turns into a meditation on deeper explorations of a character’s pain, personality, choices, and mistakes. It tempts the reader with the fun and goofiness of its initial premise and gradually sucks the reader into a study of the main character and their history in a deep and sometimes painful dive. This latest book by Robin Bennis leverages and leavens Bennis’ droll sense of humor seen in the Signal Airship series and turns it onto a fantastic urban fantasy story.
#Booktube – May 2019
Because it’s proving difficult for us to do this on a consistent basis, we’ll just be doing monthly wrap-ups! May was a bit light, as was everything around here, but hopefully you’ll enjoy some of the fun content we produced! We were super excited when we got to 100 subs last month because it means we now have a unique url for our Youtube channel! It’s Youtube.com/skiffyandfanty, so head on over there any time and subscribe if you haven’t already. Another way to make sure you don’t miss these is to sign up for our newsletter. These are in the order we posted them, not by show (because they do occasionally reference one another!)
