Tootfinder

Day 23: Thi Bui
Indirect CW: parental neglect, war, intergenerational trauma
Bui is the author of "The Best We Could Do", a graphic memoir which explores her relationship with her parents and unpacks some of the intergenerational trauma coming out of the Vietnam War. It has a lot of wisdom to offer about both dealing with troubled parents as a 1.5th-generation immigrant, and it delves deeply into her parents' histories in Vietnam and the complexities of the situation there both in the north and in the south. It's beautifully illustrated and very nicely plotted together given all the disparate threads it is working with.
I haven't read any of Bui's other work, but it looks like she's published a picture book for kids as well as a series of short comics during the pandemic. Besides Oseman who also writes non-illustrated fiction and the two manga artists Ice mentioned, Bui is the first graphic novel author I've included here, but I've actually got quite a few of them in my longer list, one of whom may make it into the 30 I'll include in this thread. These days I'm reading a bunch of graphic novels since they're easy to get through, and the variety of stories and perspectives in that space is wonderful these days, with a huge array of indie stuff that probably never would have gotten off the ground in traditional publishing/comics spaces.
#30AuthorsNoMen

This is a beautiful and amazing graphic novel about a phone scam victim.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-india-digital-arrest-by-phone-graphic-novel/

Just finished "Kirby's Lessons for Falling (In Love)" by Laura Gao. I'd previously read her autobiographical graphic novel "Messy Roots" which was excellent, and this book continues that trend. Yet another complicated look at a Chinese-American immigrant experience, wrapped into a queer romance with a dose of spirituality in there as well. I think the background metaphor of falling is really strong, and gets used in so many senses it's beautiful.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Day 19 (a bit late): Alice Oseman
As I said I've got 14 authors to fit into two days. Probably just going to extend to 30? But Oseman gets this spot as an absolute legend of queer fiction in both novel & graphic novel form, and an excellent example of the many truths queer writers have to share with non-queer people that can make everyone's lives better. Her writing is very kind, despite in many instances dealing with some dark stuff.
I started out on Heartstopper, which is just so lovely and fun to read, and then made my way through several of her novels. The one I'll highlight here which I think it's her greatest triumph is "Loveless", which is semi-autobiographical and was at least my first (but no longer only) experience with the "platonic romance" sub-genre. It not only helped me work through some crufty internal doubts about aro/ace identities that I'd never really examined, but in the process helped improve my understanding of friendship, period. Heck, it's probably a nice novel for anyone questioning any sort of identity or dealing with loneliness, and it's just super-enjoyable as a story regardless of the philosophical value.
To cheat a bit more here on my author count, I recently read "Dear Wendy" by Ann Zhao, which shouts out "Loveless" and offers a more expository exploration of aro/ace identities, but "Loveless" is a book with more heart and better writing overall, including the neat plotting and great pacing. I think there are also parallels with Becky Albertalli's work, though I think I like Oseman slightly more. Certainly both excel at writing queer romance (and romance-adjacent) stuff with happy endings (#OwnVoices wins again with all three authors).
In any case, Oseman is excellent and if you're not up for reading a novel, Heartstopper is a graphic novel series that's easy to jump into and very kind to its adorable main characters.
I think I've now decided to continue to 30, which is a relief, so I'm tagging this (and the next post that rounds out 20) two ways.
#20AuthorsNoMen
#30AuthorsNoMen

Just finished "The Raven Boys," a graphic novel adaptation of a novel by Maggie Stiefvater (adaptation written by Stephanie Williams and illustrated by Sas Milledge).
I haven't read the original novel, and because of that, this version felt way too dense, having to fit huge amounts of important details into not enough pages. The illustrations are gorgeous and the writing is fine; the setting and plot have some pretty interesting aspects... It's just too hard to follow a lot of the threads, or things we're supposed to care about aren't given the time/space to feel important.
The other thing that I didn't like: one of the central characters is rich, and we see this reflected in several ways, but we're clearly expected to ignore/excuse the class differences within the cast because he's a good guy. At this point in my life, I'm simply no longer interested in stories about good rich guys very much. It's become clear to me how in real life, we constantly get the perspectives of the rich, and rarely if ever hear the perspectives of the poor (same applies across racial and gender gradients, among others). Why then in fiction should I get more of the same, spending my mental bandwidth building empathy for yet another dilettante who somehow has a heart of gold? I'm tired of that.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Vorhin ausgelesen: Fibre Tigre et al. – Künstliche Intelligenz. Kommt als Graphic Novel, liest sich also relativ schnell.
Gutes Buch, liefert abwechselnd Theorie/Grundbegriffe zu KI und damit verknüpfte Einschränkungen, was wiederum Motivation zum nächsten Grundbegriff wird.
Mir hat insbesondere gefallen, dass ethische Probleme und Grenzfälle bei der Benutzung von KI-Systemen einen breiten Raum bekommen. Leseempfehlung.

Just finished "New Kid" by Jerry Craft. An excellent graphic novel about navigating middle school as one of only a few Black kids at a rich private school. I love how clear Jordan (the main character) is about the racism he encounters and how it affects him and his friends. Even though his parents have done a good job of preparing him for the realities he'll face, getting through them isn't easy. Still, rather than a book about "learning how racist the world is" this is a book about "navigating the expected racism" and it's a refreshing difference.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "On Starlit Shores" by Bex Glendining. It's a really excellent graphic novel about grief, memory, and a bit of magic. I love the way that it isn't an adventure, and how completely usual the queer relationships in it are. The art is stunning, and the palette is especially excellent and truly harmonizes with the narrative.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Day 16: Mayra Cuevas & Marie Marquardt
Okay so this is cheating, but they're co-authors of multiple books together, and there's no way for me to separate their contributions... I've already got too many authors I'd like to list, so why not?
I read their book "Does My Body Offend You?" and absolutely loved it; it's a celebration of teen activism while also being a deep exploration of feminist issues through practical situations that bring out the complicated side of things, which the authors refuse to reduce back to a simple formulaic answer. It has a supporting cast of appropriately-complex male characters that help in exploring the nuances of issues like the line between female empowerment & male gratification, and it brings race and macho culture into the conversion as well.
CW for sexual harassment & deep discussion of the resultant trauma.
I'll cheat again here to sneak in mention of two male authors whose work resonates with theirs: Mark Oshiro's "Anger is a Gift" has a more pessimistic/complex take on teen activism along with a gay romance (CW for racist cop murder), while Jeremy Whitley's graphic novel "Navigating With You" deals with queer romance & disability, while having a main character pairing that echoes those from "Does My Body Offend You?" in a lot of ways. Another connection (to non-men authors this time) is with "Go With the Flow" by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann. Their graphic novel about teen activism and periods is a bit more didactic and has a much lighter tone, but it does necessarily have some overlapping themes.
To bring it back to Cuevas & Marquhardt, their writing is great and their ability to discuss such complex topics with such nuance, all wrapped up in a story that feels completely natural, is amazing to me, and makes their book feel like one of the most valuable to recommend to others.
In writing this I've realized a grave oversight in the list so far that I'll have to correct tomorrow, but I'm quickly running out of days. The didn't-quite-make-it list is going to be full of more excellent authors, and I'm honestly starting to wonder whether it might actually be harder to name 20 male authors I respect now that I've found the sense to be mostly somewhere between disgusted and disappointed with so many of the male authors I enjoyed as a teen.
#20AuthorsNoMen (cheating a bit)

»Gott sei Dank definiert sich Intelligenz nicht durch Siege beim Go. Sie definiert sich auch durch die Fähigkeit, ein Sandwich zu machen.«
Aus: FibreTigre u. a. – Künstliche Intelligenz (2019/2024). Ja, das ist eine Graphic Novel aka Comic. #bücherliebe

Graphic Novel zum Frühstückskaffee. Jerusalem, Die Geschichte einer Stadt. #GraphicNovel

#WritersCoffeeClub
28. Have you ever edited another's work? Was it harder than editing your own?
29. Do you include elements of the horror genre in your(non-horror) work?
30. Do you tend to include epilogues?
---
28. Yes.
Not really.
29. No.
Terror, existential dread, despair... yes. Horror... no.
30. I used to when I was a beginner. Now I usu…

VideoFrom3D: 3D Scene Video Generation via Complementary Image and Video Diffusion Models
Geonung Kim, Janghyeok Han, Sunghyun Cho
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17985 https://

VideoFrom3D: 3D Scene Video Generation via Complementary Image and Video Diffusion Models
In this paper, we propose VideoFrom3D, a novel framework for synthesizing high-quality 3D scene videos from coarse geometry, a camera trajectory, and a reference image. Our approach streamlines the 3D graphic design workflow, enabling flexible design exploration and rapid production of deliverables. A straightforward approach to synthesizing a video from coarse geometry might condition a video diffusion model on geometric structure. However, existing video diffusion models struggle to generate …

Just finished "Hunger's Bite" by Taylor Robin. A pretty great graphic novel bringing paranormal horror elements to a Titanic-era transatlantic voyage. I loved the characters and I had quite good plotting, which is not always a strength of graphic novels...
I think one of my favorite threads was how the villain's heteronormative assumptions became a small part of their downfall.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Tall Water" written by SJ Sindu and illustrated by Dion MBD. An excellent semi-autobiographical graphic novel about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Sri Lankan civil war, and parental estrangement.
Absolutely beautiful illustrations and a gripping plot had me tear through it in just an hour or so, though it's by no means short for a graphic novel. If my list of authors I deeply respect grows too fast, I'll just have to keep posting in my other thread indefinitely.
#AmReading

Just finished "The Deep Dark" by Molly Knox Ostertag. An absolutely excellent graphic novel about monsters, childhood secrets, and how self-love refracts through romance.
I've liked other stuff by Ostertag, but this is definitely my favorite of hers so far.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Roller Girl" by Victoria Jamieson, a graphic novel about navigating preteen social changes, dyeing your hair, and of course, roller derby! It's got a great subplot about dealing with complicated feelings, and I like that it doesn't tie things up neatly with a bow at the end.
I actually know the rules of roller derby now.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Age 16" by Rosena Fung. It's an excellent semi-autobiographical graphic novel about beauty standards, being fat, and how these things echo down generations, connecting 1954 Guangdong, 1972 Hong Kong, and 2000 Toronto.
The art is lovely, as is the message of accepting your body and standing up to your family when necessary.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Fitting Indian" by Jyoti Chand and Tara Anand.
Indirect CW: alcohol, self-harm, and suicide.
A graphic novel about mental health issues, being a second-generation Indian immigrant in America, international trauma, and both peer and family bullying. Beautifully illustrated and of course gripping given the subjects.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Low Orbit" by Kazimir Lee.
It's an excellent graphic novel about a queer Malaysian immigrant kid in small-town Maine, the unexpected friends she makes, and the science fiction author who happens to be her landlord. It reminded me a bit of the also excellent "Navigating With You" because of its interwoven fictional sci-fi novel (with really good writing!). CW as predictable for queer family trauma, although it doesn't get too bad and has a happy ending.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Thief of the Heights" written by Son M. and illustrated by Robin Yao. It's a very cool graphic novel about the illusions of meritocracy and loyalty to one's roots, with an interesting setting and better politics than most stuff out there, even if the plotting is a little rough and perhaps a bit too straightforward. The neat ending and reliance on heroism are themes I don't love in these kinds of tales, but I'm grateful for more stories in this category to exist in the first place, so I can't complain too much.
It's got disability, queer, and POC representation and some of that is #OwnVoices, which is cool, although those dimensions of the work aren't its focus.
#AmReading

Book about eating insects
Just finished "Meal" by Blue Delliquanti and Soleil Ho. It's a graphic novel about insect cuisine, with a cute storyline and a nice reminder that these are traditional cuisines from around the world, not some exotic fad that's mainly about shock value.
#AmReading #ReadingNow

In any case, day 2: Ursula K Le Guin.
As I've said elsewhere, part of her science fiction thesis is that "human" can encompass much more than what we mere Terrans think of it as, and that moral standing extends broadly throughout the universe. This is the antithesis of Tokens fantasy, wherein "race" is real and determines moral standing. For Le Guin, it's barely okay to intervene in complex alien politics unless you carefully ensure you're not causing systemic harms; for Tolkien, it's okay to ambush and murder orc children, because they are by nature evil.
Add to her excellent politics Le Guin's masterful worldbuilding and unparalleled range of plots, and you have the one author I loved as a decidedly liberal and naïve teen and love even more now that I'm an adult. She's an absolute legend and deserves a very high place on any list of women authors (or list of authors, period.).
For a short story, try "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" which you can read here: https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf
For fantasy "A Wizard of Earthsea" (also has a nice graphic novel adaptation), or for science fiction, "The Left Hand of Darkness" or if you want a more anarchist flavor, "The Dispossessed."
I'll close this with an amazing quote from her:
"""
We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.
"""