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apostrophen's review
3.0
As always with a collection of writings, it's hard to decide where to stand on the collection as a whole. I daresay that Pohl-Weary did a damned fine job thematically and with the organization (there is a definite sense of, well, sense to the order in which the pieces are presented), but the quality of the works does vary quite a bit.
The highlight, for me, was "'Cuz the Black Chick Always Gets it First," by Candra K. Gill, a solid bit of work on the dynamics of race in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' - it's refreshing to find a fan who can deconstruct a show for its weaknesses, not just its strengths, and balancing both in the same entry was a nice touch.
The lowpoint, for me, was actually an artwork piece. Shary Boyle has a panel of five or six pages, which ran the gamut of a wonderful piece with a frumpy lady flying with birds, to a very angry looking woman with a baseball bat. But the piece that really threw me off was one where three young girls of various racial descent are holding a man pinned in a kneeling position - one little girl holding his hands behind his back, one with her foot on his groin, in a pose that speaks of pressure application, and one with a knife to the man's throat.
Now - I think there was an aim for role-reversal here - the typical (and factual in the majority of cases) white male pedophile. Reversed, this picture would be a disturbing violent piece about a pedophile, a predator, a sick tableau of violence. Instead, we have a sick tableau of violence where three little girls threaten a man's life, and we are left to assume the man has done something bad (since, for all that I can attempt to project here, it's not like one can point a finger at a row of men and say "Normal, normal, pedophile, normal...") Like I said, I think it aimed for role-reversal; it missed.
All in all, however, this was a solid bit of editing - prose and nonfiction both, some graphic novels, some artwork (the rest of the pictures by Shary Boyle, I should note, I quite enjoyed), all of it of a decent enough calibre to be substantive in total.
Definitely worth a bite.
The highlight, for me, was "'Cuz the Black Chick Always Gets it First," by Candra K. Gill, a solid bit of work on the dynamics of race in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,' - it's refreshing to find a fan who can deconstruct a show for its weaknesses, not just its strengths, and balancing both in the same entry was a nice touch.
The lowpoint, for me, was actually an artwork piece. Shary Boyle has a panel of five or six pages, which ran the gamut of a wonderful piece with a frumpy lady flying with birds, to a very angry looking woman with a baseball bat. But the piece that really threw me off was one where three young girls of various racial descent are holding a man pinned in a kneeling position - one little girl holding his hands behind his back, one with her foot on his groin, in a pose that speaks of pressure application, and one with a knife to the man's throat.
Now - I think there was an aim for role-reversal here - the typical (and factual in the majority of cases) white male pedophile. Reversed, this picture would be a disturbing violent piece about a pedophile, a predator, a sick tableau of violence. Instead, we have a sick tableau of violence where three little girls threaten a man's life, and we are left to assume the man has done something bad (since, for all that I can attempt to project here, it's not like one can point a finger at a row of men and say "Normal, normal, pedophile, normal...") Like I said, I think it aimed for role-reversal; it missed.
All in all, however, this was a solid bit of editing - prose and nonfiction both, some graphic novels, some artwork (the rest of the pictures by Shary Boyle, I should note, I quite enjoyed), all of it of a decent enough calibre to be substantive in total.
Definitely worth a bite.
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