Comics are totally rad! But the world of comics can be hard to navigate, and a little off-putting for radical minded folks.

I love comics. But when I read some of them, I’m sometimes forcing myself to look past the sexist, racist, ableist, classist and heteronormative aspects of the writing and art. In comics, you don’t always see representations of people who are not white, middle class, able-bodied straight men. When you picture a super-heroine, what usually comes to mind is the sexist image of a crazily-proportioned lady, with giant breasts and an impossibly tiny waist.

Often when characters who don’t fit the norm actually show up, they’re tokenized. The queer characters usually have a brief, sexy and tragic story line, and then disappear so that the straight characters can take the spotlight again. For characters of colour, race tends to be their only defining feature, and they have no story line or personality outside of their race.

Add to all this the hostile and male-centric atmosphere of many comic shops, on-line forums and conventions, and you’ve got a medium that many women or people of colour, or queer folks, or ability activists, or allies just steer clear of.

BUT! There are so many really great comics out there! Really amazingly awesome stuff! The comics industry is getting better, and more diverse all the time. There are comics creators who represent a huge spectrum of gender, race, class, ablity and sexuality. There are comics with characters who are interesting, complex and completely stereo-type busting. There is beautiful, hilarious, perfect art that represents all sorts of people and a range of experiences.

I’m going to post about some of these amazing books and awesome creators.
(more inside…)

We’re thrilled to announce that we have another new blogger! Tiina Johns is going to be writing our Monday comics column and we’re super excited.

A little bit about Tiina:

Tiina Johns lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she plays music with the Stolen Minks and sells comic books at Strange Adventures Comic Shop. She has given talks about ladies, queer folks and comics at the Anchor Archive Zine Library, on Halifax’s campus and community radio station, CKDU, and at Dalhousie and St. Mary’s Universities. Tiina is currently conducting a scientific experiment to see how many projects she can take on before her head explodes.

Welcome friend!

Mother’s Day comes and goes every year, many of us finding ourselves doing the usual flowers and brunch deal. Yet the actual celebration of this day has a lot more significance than Hallmark would like to admit.

It’s worth a click on Wikipedia to read some of the history behind the creation of Mother’s Day, however one thing that sticks out in my mind is how it used to be associated with the honouring of women as goddesses for our physical ability to actually become mothers, which is one of the most powerful forces on earth.

It’s also worth noting that before the Western blitz of the second weekend in May being Mother’s Day, many cultures around the world had and still perform ceremonies that recognize the strength and vitality of motherhood.

Being a mother is of course more than blood and skin deep. I am blessed to have many great friends who have been wonderful maternal influences on my life and whom I see really take care of everyone around them (see my pic below!)

So to all the rockin’ mama’s out there doin’ tha damn thang, nya weh! (thank you!)

Tina and Ariana Lopes who have been amazing mother figures to me.

This year, Shameless Magazine is a proud sponsor of Inside Out’s Queer Youth Digital Video project. In the days leading up to the Inside Out festival, Shameless will be posting trailers of some of the films on offer at the festival that may be of interest to our readers.

On Saturday May 17 at 1:00 p.m. Inside Out brings a children’s television classic to a whole new generation with the free family screening of Free to Be … You & Me.

Free to Be… You and Me is a record album and illustrated songbook for children, first released in November 1972, and later in 1974 as a television special, featuring songs and stories from celebrities. Using poetry, songs, and sketches, the basic concept was to salute values such as individuality, tolerance, and happiness with one’s identity; a major thematic message is that anyone, whether a boy or a girl, can achieve anything one wants.

Film Friday is on hiatus this week!

In its place please enjoy this clip from one of my favourite movies. No, it’s not Fellini’s 8 1/2, it’s the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie!

SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick are sure that they’ll never make it to Shell City to rescue King Neptune’s crown. They lack the chops, they’re nothing but bubble blowing babies. But then suddenly and mysteriously they grow facial hair. Never mind where it came from - now armed with their new manliness they “can do anything.” Or can they? An incisive commentary on modern masculinity. For serious!

This clip is so subversive that Youtube has disabled the embedding function. No matter, you can still view it right here.

20 years ago women in Canada won the historic right to abortion on demand. While the vast majority of Canadians support this right, it is still a choice that often stigmatizes women. These simple portraits show women who have made the choice to have an abortion for what they are: sisters, mothers, neighbours, lovers, friends. These portraits and stories give women voice in a society that so often keeps them silent.

Portraits by Kathryn Palmateer
Opening: May 15th, 7-10pm
Tinto Coffee House
89 Roncesvalles Ave, Toronto

Dance performance by Elizabeth Dawn Snell
Musical Performance by Laura Repo
MC: Jessica Yee

The show in Toronto runs from May 11th - June 1st.

Kathryn will be travelling across Canada after the Toronto show and is still looking for participants, so if you or someone you know is interested in being part of this important project, check out the newly launched website or e-mail arts4choice@gmail.com

Torontoist’s Johnnie Walker has a great piece on the Canadian Club campaign and its obvious homophobic overtones:

It’s also hard not to view the campaign as somewhat homophobic. The “YOUR DAD WAS NOT A METROSEXUAL” ad seems to basically say, “your Dad wasn’t a gay, but you probably are if you don’t buy Canadian Club.” Guess what, Canadian Club? Most of our Dads aren’t gay. This is not news. One would hope that our Dads’ likely heterosexuality is not the most interesting thing about them.

The comments section is packed with your usual “calm down” and “relax, it’s only an ad” offerings, but also some fantastic spoofs, like this one.

For Shameless discussions on Canadian Club, click here and here.

Dove’s still keepin’ it real, and by real I mean an unrealistic, retouched kind of real.

Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Pics Could Be Big Phonies?

In a May 12 profile in The New Yorker posted online, Pascal Dangin of New York’s Box Studios is quoted as saying he extensively retouched photos used in the Campaign for Real Beauty, which, if true, could seriously undermine an effort that already has subjected Unilever to considerable consumer and activist backlash in recent months.

The best quote of all?

“I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual ‘real women’ in their undergarments,” wrote Lauren Collins in the New Yorker article. “It turned out that it was a Dangin job. ‘Do you know how much retouching was on that?’ he asked. ‘But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.’”

This comes after Dove has maintained there was no retouching done to the images. Their response is that Pascal Dangin is a liar.

The Shameless Blog has talked extensively about the controversy behind this campaign, namely the hypocrisy of an “accept yourself as you are” and “beware unrealistic marketing” ad hook produced by the same company that brings us female sex slave imagery. Again, it seems that accepting yourself the way you are still involves a lot of retouching.

“No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” Um, yah.

Spirit is Canada’s leading Aboriginal magazine, featuring cutting edge material from the Native community across the country.

This current publication is their very first SEX issue and I am so darn excited and happy that it exists. The beautiful young woman you see on the cover is none other than Métis burlesque extraordinaire Veronika Swartz, photographed by the Über talented Ojibwe photographer Nadya Kwandibens.

Within these pages you will read some of the most progressive and provocative literary masterpieces as they pertain to sex and sexuality. The sweet essence of breaking down social taboos will linger in your mind as you are drawn into the demystifying truths of how beautiful and sacred sex really is in the Indigenous world. What remains is pride and ownership over our own bodies (a concept we actually started!)

It moves me to tears to know that we are taking back what has been exploited so harshly from us and letting it out now on our own terms. And it’s a pretty powerful thing.

Exposed and in control? I want to be too!