Black, Queer & In Love: "Bingo Love" Comic Coming Soon

Black queer romance is not a common sight in comics.  Tee Franklin, a black queer disabled comic book writer, has set to change that with her graphic novel "Bingo Love". "Bingo Love" centers on two teenage girls, Hazel and Mari, who meet when their grandmothers bring them along to a church bingo night. They become best friends in the 1960s, then fall in love, and then are forbidden to see each other by their families. Over the next couple of decades decades, the two friends reconnect and become closer as they get older.

In an interview with The Root, Franklin said that she felt this graphic novel was important because “...very rarely do we see queer people, women of color and elderly people in comics, so I knew I was taking a risk, but it’s been well worth it,People need to see that you can be LGBTQ and have a partner for life. We are all worthy of that happy ending, too.”

Some of her own life served as inspiration for the characters' struggles. Franklin explains that she was "...once married to a man and wasn’t fully out to my extended family until very recently. I definitely understand that there are black LGBTQ people out there like Hazel and Mari who feel that they have to hide their true selves from the world because of how society views them. I wanted to tell that story.”

Franklin is no stranger to boosting Black-creator comics, as she is the creator of the #BlackComicsMonth hashtag, but she was still overjoyed to see her work supported. "Bingo Love" was successfully crowd-funded via Kickstarter in March and is currently available for pre-order.

"Bingo Love" is written by Tee Franklin and drawn by Jenn St-Onge ("Jem and the Misfits", "Steven Universe", "Rick and Morty") and the art is gorgeous. Here's an a page:

To get the latest news and pre-order the graphic novel, you can visit the "Bingo Love" website.

Dragons, Jewish Families & LGBT Romance

Author Shira Glassman recently announced a new republished collection of what she has dubbed her "Mangoverse books", a whimsical fantasy series featuring queer Jewish characters forging their own paths and forming chosen family through the bonds of adventure. Each book has new color cover art a Hebrew and Yiddish glossary, and the series as a whole gets a new tie-in with a collection of short stories called Tales from Perach. Here's some quick and witty summaries of each book:

• The Second Mango - origin story, in which the gay Queen and hetero demi warrior woman become BFFs
• Climbing the Date Palm - Queen helps the bi prince from next door rescue his activist boyfriend from Certain Doom
• A Harvest of Ripe Figs - Queen solving mysteries in her capital city, chiefly the theft of a priceless violin, while raising a baby with her bi partner
• The Olive Conspiracy - Queen saves her country from a plot to sabotage her country’s agriculture

Glassman's books are breezy and whimsical without coming off as insubstantial. Queen Shulamit carries power and agency and shows that kindness and compassion need not mean weakness or uncertainty, and is probably easily my favorite non-dragon character.

Bi The Way: Dragon Age Modder Adds In True Bi Romance

Nexus mod user ADHD-Bayonetta has released a new Dragon Age mod they call the "Complete Bi Overhaul". Unlike other mods which just toggle a flag so that women can date Morrigan and guys can date Alistair, the mod author went to great lengths to not just make those relationships possible, but immersive. As a bonus, they've also fixed it so that the Warden won't be misgendered no matter what relationship option you choose. They even went as far to edit dialogue, re-record and edit audio, and even add in a lot of brand new writing. They also undid all game gender restrictions since, oddly enough, the only restrictions that were favored were the ones that made the player character straight. Seriously, check out the feature list:

• Characters won’t misgender the Warden. This applies to every time the Warden’s relationship with Alistair or Morrigan is acknowledged.
• Any gendered dialogue has been edited.
• Added new banter for characters so that they’ll acknowledge the gay relationships.
• Added jealousy dialogues for Alistair and Morrigan if the Warden is cheating on either of them with the other.
• Women can do the dark ritual with Morrigan.
• Women can marry Anora.
• Men can marry Alistair.
• Previously dude-exclusive flirting options for Leliana are now open to women.
• Removed unnecessary gender restrictions on the Warden’s dialogue options.

You can get more details on the mod, as well as some video of it in action and download resources here.