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Graphic Novel Review - 'Arcana: The Lost Heirs' by Sam Prentice-Jones

A nice, contemporary queer fantasy graphic novel, reminiscent of 'Les Normaux' and 'Doughnuts and Doom', with even a bit of 'Wash Day Diaries', and Marvel's 'Runaways' for older readers.

I like 'Arcana''s motif around tarot cards, and what they represent for each of the key players in the story, and just the overall magic, friendship and found family theme. Nearly every character is so nice and sweet!

These witches - these "lost heirs" - are great as a group. They are wonderfully diverse, and open, understanding and communicative - there are no secrets between them, there is trust, unlike with their shifty older authority figures - and their Halloween party costumes near the end of the comic are fantastic!

There is explicit queer and trans rep, and a character who is referred to by he/him/they/them pronouns; plus a vast array of POC and body positive rep.

The art is adorable, simplistic, colourful and expressive.

And it's a British queer fantasy series!

'Arcana: The Lost Heirs' is a first volume and it ends on a cliffhanger, but I really like these characters, their individual lives, their relationships with one another, and the magic system implemented. Its slowly growing dark mystery is intriguing, too (what exactly is the curse that the young witch team must break?). There is another important theme of breaking and changing archaic traditions and "family legacies" in modern times for necessary reasons, and nepotism, toxic and abusive patriarchal roles, and generational trauma.

Overall, I recommend it for any fantasy lover.

Though, as a sidenote, it is a bit odd for a story about witches and a secret witch society/government/MI6 to not have familiars, or any animal at all present.

Final Score: 4/5

Scribble #152

Diamond Haiku:

Fear an Independent Woman

Whore. Witch.

They call me names,

They sentence me to death.

They wanted to

For a long time before,

As I kept to myself.

I'm different.

Slut. Witch.

Scribble #151

Alice Oseman - Metaphor Haikus

Alice Oseman's books

and comics I so relate,

They give love and hope.

Her works are sunshine

Even through rain and thunder

There is a rainbow.

Always a rainbow

And it shines on everyone,

All flags included.

Representation

Inclusion and love and help,

That's Rainbow Alice.

Scribble #150

A Day in Her Life

My imaginary friend was an ordinary girl named Jane

    How disappointed I am in my younger self for being so unimaginative.

    I could have thought up a unicorn/sea hag hybrid and named her Opalescence, or a witch obsessed with dinosaurs from a magical realm called Tessaraptor, who uses her enchanted jewel to summon dragons as a stepping stone towards her dream of owning a triceratops.

    But no. I went with Jane. I settled for plain Jane.

    She wasn't even a proper imaginary friend. She was a half-arsed convenience and distraction at the school playground whose sole reason for being was to get me through my lonely days, by a) sitting next to me, and b) standing next to me. I was too much of an outcast to even imagine what a "real" friend would be like, and what we would talk about and do together.

    It was a harbinger of what was to become of my life, really.

    My name is Orchid Ness, for whatever it's worth. I mean, with a name like that, combined with a fertile imagination and writing ambitions, you'd think I'd be set: Famous author who sells millions of books, who makes a living out of the limitless ocean of creativity that is my mind; out of which I conjure fresh, exciting forms of storytelling, and put them to paper with my fountain pen, and then I spend weeks or months typing them up, followed by the arduous process of editing them to hell and back, documenting them, and finally selling them to publishers, begging them to recognise my genius and take the financial risk of getting my stories out into the world, for other people to read. A chance to move, inspire, and change lives.

    It did not turn out like that. At all.

    I am in my late twenties and I haven't published a thing, just on my barely existent blog. How fitting that that word sounds so much like blob and bog. I've hardly written anything, truth be told; my life, for all my inward, dreamworld excitement, hasn't offered much in the way of inspiration and motivation in the lucid, outer lake of reality. No, lucid is not the right word, nor is lake: dreary, cold, hard, bitter, bottomless pit of horror, stress, suffering, emptiness and nothingness that is reality should suffice my point.

    One of the lesser reasons for my lacking in the make-my-dreams-come-true department is that, with all the people I've dated - men, women, nonbinary, and other genders - I haven't had sex yet. I guess that, like with writing, I'm scared to. I get too anxious and self-conscious of what others think of me. The judgements, the criticisms, the potential diatribes on how awful - how fundamentally wrong I am. Exposing myself to anything new, challenging, and possibly life changing in the real world, in the here and now, scares me. I'm never as prepared and ready as I rush to believe I am. Every time, my inner fire is suddenly petrified out of me in a single snuff, leaving me alone, cold and compressed in the dark.

    I am a mess. Worse, a mess of nothing.

    No one, no publisher, has had a chance to see what is bursting inside of me, and no lover has had a chance to explore who I am, outside and in. Ecstasy is a myth and mystery to me. 

    Instead, I am numb with ennui behind a cashier at a shop where I don't care for the clothes and don't plan to buy and wear them myself. At this particular retail, everyday is stressful and frustrating - I swear I will die a happy woman if I never have to pick another item of clothing off the dirty tiled floor ever again, same goes for lost pens - my brain making space not for more fantasy and grand, epic stories and characters, but for the droning hum of Think of the money, think of the money, playing on loop.

    How I long to rediscover the passion; the sparkle; the flash; the light to my chronic tunnel vision; the breakthrough and bravery I need to be not only a dreamer and idealist, but an artist in a world that desperately needs them. To just break free.

    To have people who encourage me and believe in me.

Scribble #149

Haikus

Orchid Ness has phoned

She is never without mates

She is close with none.

Nisa No-nonsense

That is what she calls herself

In her noble voice.

Alice Oseman's books

And comics I so relate

They inspire hope.

Scribble #148

Any system that needs human suffering, discrimination, fear, abuse and corruption in order to function is not worth preserving. It is unnatural and inhuman. It should never, ever be normalised.

'Hatred/cruelty is the point' should never, ever be normalised.