Bingo Love by Tee Franklin, Jenn St. Onge, Joy San, and Genevieve FT

Title: Bingo Love
Author: Tee Franklin
Illustrators: Jenn St. Onge, Joy San, and Genevieve FT
Publisher: Image Comics
ISBN: 978-1534307506
Genre: Comics, LGBT,
Pages: 88
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 3 stars

Maybe it was just me, but I was expecting a lot out of Bingo Love after reading so much about it online and it being included in almost every 2018 best book list. While it is a great book, it yet disappoints in some ways. I was very happy reading it, and that too month of Pride and all that, yet something felt less and not up to the mark. Wish there was more to it.

To cut to the chase, the story is about two women Hazel Johnson and Mari McCray, who meet as girls at a church bingo in 1963 and fall in love at the very first sight. They hesitate to tell each other and when they do, their families tear them apart. They then meet again, decades later, now in their mid-60s, once again at another church bingo (Loved this part by the way. It made me weep and how), and then the story begins from thereon.

What I love about the comic is of course that it is diverse, of course that it is about two women who love each other very deeply and the love is still alive and lit even after decades of changes taking place. What it didn’t work with me was the entire time thing – racing to 2030s and then 2050s I think, which wasn’t needed. Also, the book was too rushed to encompass or make the reader feel the love between Hazel and Mari.

I am elated that comics such as Bingo Love exist. I really am. I just feel that it should explore more, and not be dealt with in a rush. It left me wanting a lot more. But you must read it, to understand love is love. Give it to children, to young adults, and to adults who also need to understand that love is love.

 

The Gaysi Zine – Issue 04 – Queer Graphic Anthology

Title: The Gaysi Zine – Issue 04 – Queer Graphic Anthology
Authors and Artists: Various
ISBN: 9770123456008
Publisher: Gaysi
Genre: Queer, LGBT Fiction and Non-Fiction
Pages: 122
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

The fourth Gaysi Zine is out! It is a graphic anthology and let me also tell you that it is the best anthology you might read in 2016. It is of course all about love and other issues but not just limited to the LGBT community (we are very inclusive you see). It is essentially all about different voices coming together, their stories, their losses, their hopes, their loves and all of this told in an all-graphic format.

I could not stop turning the pages and there were times when I also went back right to the top and started all over again. Gaysi Zine is not just a zine or an anthology – to a lot of us it is more than that – perhaps a reason to be hopeful, a reason to come out of the closet and not be pushed back again, a reason to smile and look forward to a new, bright and shiny day.

This anthology has 16 long pieces and so many short posters taken from times gone by – of events, of rebellion, of important landmark moments and more. Like any other reader, I had my favourites and here they are:

1. Going the Solo Route by Soumya Menon – It is okay to be single you know. It is absolutely alright to want to be single till perhaps you are found. This piece will liberate you in so many ways.
2. IlaSudyumna by Nandini and Upasana – a mythological story of man and woman and being androgynous. The art work in this is stunning. There is so much fluidity in this story and yet it is so stable.
3. Sexist things people say by Anushka Jhadav – kuch toh log kahenge…ab unka muh chup karao. Learn from this piece on how. It is funny and tongue-in-cheek.
4. The Case of the floating woman by Ravi, Adarsh and C G Salamander – this has to be my most favourite story. I don’t know whether this really happened or not but it is most heartbreaking and of course about love that still cannot be spoken about between two men. I could feel my eyes a little moist at the end of the story.
5. Bites by Karan Vohra – Love and its angst told in two pages. I have nothing else to say about this, but just this: Go! Pick up the anthology. Read this. Soon.
6. A Timeline of events in LGBT History: Educating the uneducated. You need to know.

Priya, Sreejita, Sakshi, Anuja, and Ojoswi (he also designed this awesome cover) together as a team have brought out yet again an issue to cherish and keep for years to come. I had so much fun reading this and more than anything else, as a gay man of course I could relate to each and every piece. It will be great to see this being bought and talked about as much as possible, after all we all need a chance to love and live the way we want to and every step in that direction counts. Go buy. Go read.

You can buy the zine here