How Loathsome - Hardcover

Naifeh, Ted; Crane, Tristan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1561633860 ISBN 13: 9781561633869

Publisher: Comics Lit, 2004

Synopsis

The new series by the artist of Gloom Cookie and Courtney Crumrin! Part “Queer as Folk,” part “Trainspotting,” this deeply personal, sexually bizarre, drug-addled adventure is a gothic exploration of the not-so obvious nature of gender. For mature readers

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

An androgynous figure, wearing nothing but black PVC pants, dominates this book’s cover. It’s an appropriate introduction to a story that explores gender experimentation. At an s&m party, Catherine meets Chloe, a "tall and immaculate" transvestite. The narration is entertainingly self-loathing, as when Catherine tells readers, "I wondered how to put her at ease, how not to come off as the person I was." With Chloe, Catherine sees herself as part of a pair of "outcast aliens... beautiful monsters." The four stories in this book explore various aspects of San Francisco’s queer, transgendered subculture as the characters drift in and out of a world of drugs and broken romances. The spare, angular style of Naifeh (Courtney Crumrin) makes the characters look inhumanly glamorous, capturing the cast as the freaks they not only think themselves to be, but pride themselves on being. But Crane’s sympathetic script puts this defiance in the context of the universal search for love and self-acceptance. Deep black and sepia pages alternate with gray-toned fairy horror stories, flashbacks and dream sequences to provide insight into a world of fetishes and addictions, appearance and identity. Like the best stories, these put readers inside the head of someone they might otherwise never know.
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From Booklist:

Naifeh and Crane's realistic graphic novel attests that San Francisco remains home to the most cutting-edge lifestyles. All four chapters star a lesbian in SF's "genderfuck" community of those of deliberately confused sexual identity. In the first, cartoonist Catherine Gore is infatuated with Chloe, an all-but-complete male-to-female transsexual who, alas, just doesn't go for girls. The second is a typical episode in Catherine's friendship with heroine-addicted rent-boy Alex; the inclusion of one of Catherine's comics stories suggests her and Alex's closeness. The third chapter pairs a drug- and sex-drenched week in the life of Catherine's sometime-dealer friend Nick, and one of hers, with a male-female Goth couple who think they want a threesome. Finally, Catherine, Alex, and Nick go to see Chloe's return to the stage of Dragshack (subplot: Alex hits on a boy-band member who turns out to be--quelle horreur--a girl). The writing is pitch-perfect in its combination of callow dissent and lost-soul sentimentality, and the black, white, and tan artwork is stylish in a David Bowie-ish way. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Comics Lit
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1561633860
• ISBN 13: 9781561633869
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 96