For information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, and on what to do if you are quarantined, have a look at the World Health Organization site.
So finally, finally, we get into the actual story of The Gate of Tears. On a quick art note, I'll say that I enjoy Marat Mychaels' interiors much more than his exteriors. When telling a story, he's a pretty good artist. But those weird pin-up covers don't do much for me. I've written about it elsewhere, most likely in my considerations of the Glory covers, about the different propensities for cover art, which can be broken, very generally into the pin-up shot and the action shot. Unsurprisingly, there's far more pin-up shots for female-led books than there are for male-led ones. Personally, I'd love to see some pin-up covers of Captain America, or Superman.
We've seen the opening of "The Gate of Tears" already, though it definitely looks nicer in colour. Granger Troy is still pretty creepy, though I'm getting the feeling that he's recognizing the goddess in Gloria West and is overcome with a desire to worship her, however he can. And though he continually worries that he's taking advantage of someone with fairly severe mental difficulties, he never takes into account Gloria's own desires or agency, which definitely skew toward her wanting the sex. It seems to me that we're being offered a critique of how neurotypical people see "mental illness" (I don't like that term very much), and of the ways in which we might view those in our world whose mental architecture is a little less Euclidean.
There's always been a link between the neurodiverse and shamanic magic in tribal societies. As with all things, the superhero genre softens and simplifies the metaphor, but it might do us well to listen to the neurodiverse in society. They may not be channeling divinities (though they may!), but they have very important, and different, views on how we might solve some of the problems we see in the world today.
More to follow.
No comments:
Post a Comment