Pregnant butch Nine long months spent in drag

This debut by Summers, who maintained a Web comic on the portal Act-i-vate for many years, is a memoir of her experience as a pregnant butch lesbian. It's a well-written, fast-moving narrative with many insights into gender roles, expectations about motherhood and femininity, and subtle homophobia. Some of the ground feels familiar, such as the trials of pregnancy and difficulties with birthing classes and unfriendly medical practitioners, but Summers, with her butch experience, definitely has a unique take, and she tells the story with candor, humor, and healthy self-criticism. The basic line drawings are reminiscent of the Hernandez Brothers and give the story welcome clarity, with wonderful moments of visual humor. The relationship between Summers, who refers to herself here as "Teek," and her partner, Vee, could have been more complicated, and it could have been explored in greater depth, but both feel like fleshed-out characters, and the end of the comic is quite moving. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

As one can tell by the title, this graphic memoir is refreshingly direct. Rhode Island-based writer and artist Summers (Negativa: Chicago's Astute Lezbo Fantasy Mag) depicts her thinly veiled fictional stand in Teek Thomasson as a Tin-Tin-esque masculine lesbian, struggling to navigate her way through the maze of pregnancy. Since giving birth is widely regarded as one of the most "feminine" things that can happen to a woman, Teek, as a masculine lesbian, must forge her own path to deal with the puzzled judgments of doctors, friends, her partner, and even her comically awkward apartment manager. Not to mention dealing with the changes going on in her own body! This comic's strength is its ability not to devolve into the oversentimentality or overseriousness that marks many pregnancy narratives. Instead, it forges ahead and finds complex personal meaning, and great inner strength, in the experience of bringing a child into the world. Summers's voice is fresh, honest, biting, and funny. Her art ranges from precise to sketchy, a bit unreliably. But the drawings do their job, telling a familiar story that is far more hilarious than it might at first appear. Verdict A surprisingly universal and refreshingly self-aware pregnancy memoir for graphic novel readers of all stripes.-Emilia Packard, Austin, TX (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.