Lez Geek Out!cast

This week it's Andi's turn to be unavailable for recording. Enjoy this rerun of our Queerbaiting episode instead. We'll be back next time! Promise!!

Lise's schedule is beyond hectic right now, so enjoy this rerun episode where Andi and Lise discuss how they write what they write. They'll be back to their usual hijinks for the next episode!

Andi and Lise are getting ready for a new year of geeking out! They each chat about movies they're looking forward to, books/authors they want to read and other geekly things. To that end, here are some things they're looking forward to:

Movies: Wonder Woman 1984 (trailer) Possibly the re-make of Dune, though both are a little more cautious of that. (trailer) No Time to Die (latest James Bond; trailer)

Books: Lise is looking forward to more Seanan McGuire Andi will be reading more Rebecca Roanhorse and N.K. Jemisin Both Andi and Lise are really looking forward to reading more diverse spec fic. Here's a good anthology to get started finding some authors: New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color

TeeVee: Andi is finally watching the animated series Star Wars: Rebels and she's loving it; she's also watching the latest season of Dr. Who (Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor); and will be continuing on with her usual series.

Gaming: Lise is stoked to check out Cyberpunk 2077 (info).

Andi and Lise do a second part of their conversation regarding women in comics, and portrayals thereof. Topics that come up are women superhero teams and women supervillains, and they both agree that there should be MOAR of both!

If you're interested: Newsarama: Top 10 Female Superhero Teams of All Time Marvel.com: 7 of the Best All-Women Teams in the Marvel Universe Ranker: The Greatest All-Female Superhero Teams and Ensembles Comicbasics.com: Top 10 Greatest Female Supervillains Newsarama: 10 Best Female Supervillains

Also! Andi geeked out about the book Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. It's the first in the Legacy of Orisha series. Lise shared how excited she is to be starting season three of the Amazon Prime show: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Andi and Lise talk about portrayals of superhero women in comics and the revealing clothing and sexualization of their bodies (and yes, they've also noticed the trend of increased and unrealistic musculature of male superheroes). They chat, too, about how indie comics might be taking the lead on better representation of female superheroes and badass women.

Find more food for thought:

The Artifice on sexism, impracticality, and the hopeful future of costuming Comicsverse: How to change the problem with female superhero costumes Tumblr account the Hawkeye Initiative For a different take, see this blog at Medium on reframing the debate on female superhero costumes

Lise geeked out about the latest season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Season 4 has some amazing things happening!!

Andi shared her excitement over Blade Runner 2019 from Titan Comics.

Andi Marquette flies solo this week (safe travels, Lise!) and chats with Christin Baker, CEO/president of tello Films, about the tello holiGAY romcom movie, Season of Love, officially releasing for download off the tello website December 1 (though you can preorder!). The movie has several screenings in the U.S. and another in the UK (London). Andi find out how the project came about, a bit about who's involved, and what might be next for holiGAY rom-coms from tello.

From the movie's website:

"Season of Love is a lighthearted rom-com featuring a large ensemble cast of diverse women and their connected love lives during the hectic holiday period just before Christmas through the New Year who discover love truly is the best gift of all. Follow IRIS, MARDOU, LOU, KENNA, JANEY, and SUE as they navigate the busy holiday season of love."

Find out more: Season of Love movie tello Films SoL trailer and behind the scenes vids Backstory, from the indigogo campaign

Andi and Lise talk about character-building (literally) for Dungeons and Dragons. Or, more to the point, Andi had Lise talk about all the things in that regard because Andi is a total D&D novice and is working on building her very first character. They also discuss different approaches to developing D&D characters and how it differs from developing characters for writing projects. They also talk about how characters in D&D are affected by the world-building the Dungeon Master develops, but also how things can change during play.

More resources: D&D website D&D character-building Official character sheets Types of characters Character species

Lise's shout-out: Epic fantasy tale The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. Includes at least 2 queer relationship situations.

Andi's: The CW's Nancy Drew reboot. Gritty, a little dark, with murder and paranormal elements intertwined. Includes lots of kickass women and at least one F/F dating situation. https://lezgeekoutcast.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/lgo_66_dnd_characters.mp3

Andi and Lise talk become total Halloweenies and talk about the origins of Halloween and Día de los Muertos (Andi luuuurvs both of these) and then share some memories about Halloweens past.

For more info on the history of Halloween: History.com Halloween history timeline History Channel–Samhain

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead): History.com National Geographic Day of the Dead

Shout-out: Andi read Jodi Taylor's first book in her time traveling historians book and LOVED it: Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary's). She's waiting to read the second.

This week, Andi and Lise chat with F/F fic reviewer extraordinaire Tara Scott, whose reviews you can find at The Lesbian Review, Lambda Literary and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. She also hosts the podcast Les Do Books at the Lesbian Talk Show. We talk a bit of history of F/F fiction, found out what she's reading and way into these days, and also what she sees as emerging trends in F/F fiction.

Books that came up in our convo!

Aurora Rey, Recipe for Love (audio and written); Anna Burke, Thorn; Courtney Milan, Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure; Ann Bannon's Beebo Brinker series (HERSTORY!!!! And Tara chatted with Ann about lesbian pulp fiction on her podcast HERE); Lee Winter, Breaking Character; Elle Spencer, Casting Lacey; Rachel Spangler, In Development; Alyssa Cole, Once Ghosted, Twice Shy.

Authors who write butch characters well: KD Williamson, Jenny Frame, Nell Stark, Rachel Spangler, Brenda Murphy

Other authors who came up: Radclyffe, Rebekah Weatherspoon, Kat Sebastian, Meghan O'Brien

The LGO crew and Tara also recommend Heather Rose Jones' podcast, The Lesbian Historic Motif, so if you're looking to write some F/F historical fiction, check it out.

Lise's shout-out this week was to Hugo-winning N.K. Jemisn's collection of short stories, How Long 'til Black Future Month? Tara's is for looking forward to reading Tara Muir's Gideon the 9th, which Andi and Lise love, and Andi's shout-out is to the fact that she's currently creating a character for a little DnD!

This week, Andi and Lise waxed philosophical fangirl about the first 2 collected volumes of the comic Rat Queens, put out by Image Comics. First launched in 2013, Andi is horrified that she didn't look into these sooner and thanks Lise profusely for telling her to get with it and read them already. ComiXology might have the best description of the Rat Queens:

Who are the Rat Queens? A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they're in the business of killing all gods' creatures for profit. It's also a darkly comedic fantasy series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Hobbit Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack!

Rat Queens is also full of diverse characters (primary and secondary), kickass women, and LGBTQ rep (it won a GLAAD award), including Betty, one of the queens. Great world-building, awesome characterization, strong writing, explorations of relationships and past baggage – Rat Queens is the shizzle. Give this comic a read and re-read!

Shout-outs: Lise recommends Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St. Mary's books, which are a time traveling historians saga (and Andi will be running out to read) that Taylor insists you NOT call time travel because it's "about a bunch of disaster-prone historians who investigate major historical events in contemporary time." And Andi is just about done with Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth (Lise's recommendation), which is mind-blowing and so much awesome – lesbian necromancers who also do some space travel. I mean. Why would you not want to read that? Also, Andi wants a poster of the cover.