_ Bayou Arcana is the title of a graphic novel anthology illustrated entirely by female artists. Its imminent release has prompted The Guardian to declare that "a new generation of female artists and readers is radically changing the face of comics."(1) In support of this claim they cite last month's Thought Bubble festival. This six-day event featured the Comics Forum 2011, at which I gave a talk on the Estonian artist, Kristina Norman "from a Dreddful perspective".

Lisa Wood, co-founder of Thought Bubble, told The Guardian that the prevailing "comic book culture" tends to leave "many female comic book fans... [feeling] ignored, harassed, or treated with hostility".(2)

This struck a chord with me given that I'm currently reading the science fiction novel Stjärnpesten (The Star Plague) written in 1975 by the Swedish writer, Dénis Lindbohm.(3) I have reached page 87, just as "the gates of hell" are about to open.

The story so far concerns an as-yet-unidentified entity that has wiped out life on earth. Seemingly the only survivors are a 20,000 strong community that managed to build a hermetically sealed underground city before the "plague" struck. Unfortunately, this band of plucky survivors has swiftly descended into internecine conflicts and is languishing in the subterranean equivalent of George Orwell's 1984.

Whilst I am thoroughly enjoying this dystopian distraction, it is striking that every single one of the protagonists so far has been male. The first challenge to this crops up on page 41 in the form of an unnamed female's corpse (p.41). Fifteen pages later appears an unidentified woman who gets pregnant without permission and undergoes a brutal forced abortion. Finally, a couple of mothers, an old lady and a young girl are paraded in front of the cameras and used for propaganda purposes by the dastardly dictatorship (p.84).

Fingers crossed that there are some interesting female characters behind those gates of hell...

Maybe as an antidote to all this sci-fi and comic machismo I ought to follow The Guardian's advice and read Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness published in 1970?(4) With luck by the time I've finished it Bayou Arcana will have been published.

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Notes

(1) Ben Quinn, "Ker-pow! Women kick back against comic-book sexism", The Guardian, 28/12/2011 accessed 29/12/2012 at, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/28/women-comic-book-sexism.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Dénis Lindbohm, Stjärnpesten, Stockholm, Regal, 1975.
(4) Justine Jordan, "Winter reads: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin", The Guardian, 27/12/2011 accessed 29/12/2012 at, www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/27/winter-reads-the-left-hand-of-darkness.


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Supplemental
02/01/2012

        But we must get the world to rot, because not until all
        dead organic material has decomposed
        can we sow the world with life anew.
        We must bide our time; our long period of waiting.
            Stjärnpesten (The Star Plague), p. 151

Well, I've now finished Dénis Lindbohm's entertaining novel. Alas, female characters didn't fare any better after page 87. The only properly identified woman was a Satanist by the name of Raader. She is allocated a single paragraph (p. 111). The narrator's meeting with "Lucifer's Alpha" wasn't terribly productive: "When I left her I wasn't any wiser than before I came." Perhaps things might have gone a tiny better for this ark of humanity if they'd opted to share power amongst both men and women? Lindbohm's novel would certainly have benefitted...

The wing-tip of the aircraft blazes in the dying light of the setting sun. Night is falling. The day is drawing to a close and with it my time in Scandinavia.

In an effort to repress this deeply depressing thought I reached for the in-flight magazine. Only then did I realize that I was racing through the skies in a flying memorial. This was not an intuition that the plane was going to crash. It was instead based on an article entitled, "Norwegian's tail icons" (Blågestad 2011). The low-cost airline, Norwegian has opted to dedicate each of its aircraft to "famous Scandinavians". Their faces appear on the empennage (i.e. the fin or tail of an aeroplane). The list includes Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) – a memorial to whom has featured in an earlier blog posting. His entry in the in-flight magazine notes that he was "one of the greatest polar explorers of all time. The Norwegian explorer was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles" (Blågestad 2011: 110).

One person missing from this roll call of famous Scandinavians is Dénis Lindbohm (1927-2005). You've probably never heard of this Swedish science fiction writer. But he features in my own personal canon of famous Scandinavians. Lindbohm would be a doubly-appropriate candidate for a flying memorial given that he wrote Bevingaren (The Wing-Giver). It tells the tale of John. One day whilst out walking in the forest he comes across what looks like a crater left by a falling meteorite. Closer inspection reveals it to be filled with pristine, ice-cold water. Stooping down he drinks from this unearthly spring – and soon realises this fissure was formed by no shooting star. It was caused by a crash-landing spaceship. The watery remains of its unfortunate pilot enter into symbiosis with John. It teaches him things that will change not only John's life but that of everyone on the planet. For this parasitic extraterrestrial is, quite literally, The Wing-Giver. John becomes the first of a new species of para-humans. He hides this fact until the day comes when he climbs to the top of a mountain, unfolds his wings, leans ever further over the edge...

    "Then gave out a sudden cry, an exultant and almost wild laugh, and flung himself forwards,
    upwards, straight into the wind, beating down with his wings. And flew.
        "The ground fell away as he ascended like an express elevator... He climbed like a kite in the wind.
    The treetops and then the whole landscape disappeared beneath. He couldn't stop laughing in
    furious jubilation. He literally threw himself upwards into the blue, blue atmosphere" (Lindbohm 1980: 44).

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References
Blågestad, Nina (2011) "Norwegian's tail icons", Norwegian in-flight magazine, no. 4, pp. 108-111
Lindbohm, Dénis (1980) Bevingaren, Vänersborg

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Supplemental, 02/09/2011
A flying memorial of a different and far more tragic kind took place today. The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team - more familiarly known as "the Red Arrows" - conducted a ceremonial flypast in the skies over Chatsworth House Country Fair in Derbyshire and at a RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire. Both events were dedicated to the memory of Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging. He suffered fatal injuries when his aeroplane crashed during a public event that took place near Bournemouth Airport on 20th August.

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Supplemental, 23/09/2011
The BBC reports that Flt Lt Jon Egging is to be honoured with a permanent memorial located near the scene of his fatal accident. See Anon (2011) "A Red Arrows pilot Jon Egging memorial for Bournemouth", BBC News, 22/09 accessed 23/09/2011 at, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-15012137.

Professor Arvid Gunnarsson from the city of Lund in the kingdom of Sweden on the planet Earth would make for an interesting artefact in the galaxy's most distinguished museums... [The] last human being of the original type.

                                                           Dénis Lindbohm, The Judgement's Stars
                                                                                      Delta, 1978, pp.110-111