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Moon Child continues to grab my attention by the lapels, despite some dubious racial and gender issues (oddly mixed with some cool gender-bending and cameos by totally normal random people of color) and a somewhat tasteless use of real-life disasters. Whatever. It's totally awesome and awesomely insane! I urge you to read it!
It wins the prize for Most Bad Wrong Relationship Ever, given that the heroine is a boy named Jimmy who is supposedly twelve but acts six and is an alien mermaid who is a descendant of the Little Mermaid and was raised on the moon, swam through space to spawn on the Earth, and transforms into a beautiful woman-- with the mind of child!Jimmy-- named Benjamin and is the object of desire in her female form by the abusive Broadway dancer who has adopted Jimmy, and sort of in any form by the male mermaid who is desperate to father his eggs on her. Also, she sometimes wears panties on his head.
The biology of the mermaids is based on clown fish, in which the fish all hatch as androgynous, and then the most dominant becomes female and the second-most male. Others remain neuter. In Moon Child, all the mermaids are absolutely desperate to either become female and lay eggs, or father eggs, or find a father for their eggs. There is also spirit possession, resurrection, the Apollo astronauts, musings on water pollution and nuclear power, amnesia, backstage rivalry, cross-dressing ballet, and bargains with the undersea witch who gave the Little Mermaid her legs.
The art is incredibly beautiful and striking, the (unsurprisingly bizarre) omake are hilarious, and there are random pin-ups of the characters dressed a la the court of Louis XXIV. And endless discussions of "birthing eggs." And giant hallucinatory fish skeletons. Volcanic eruptions. The male mermaid sadly muses that his kiddie true love likes cake better than him. Why are you all not reading this already?
It wins the prize for Most Bad Wrong Relationship Ever, given that the heroine is a boy named Jimmy who is supposedly twelve but acts six and is an alien mermaid who is a descendant of the Little Mermaid and was raised on the moon, swam through space to spawn on the Earth, and transforms into a beautiful woman-- with the mind of child!Jimmy-- named Benjamin and is the object of desire in her female form by the abusive Broadway dancer who has adopted Jimmy, and sort of in any form by the male mermaid who is desperate to father his eggs on her. Also, she sometimes wears panties on his head.
The biology of the mermaids is based on clown fish, in which the fish all hatch as androgynous, and then the most dominant becomes female and the second-most male. Others remain neuter. In Moon Child, all the mermaids are absolutely desperate to either become female and lay eggs, or father eggs, or find a father for their eggs. There is also spirit possession, resurrection, the Apollo astronauts, musings on water pollution and nuclear power, amnesia, backstage rivalry, cross-dressing ballet, and bargains with the undersea witch who gave the Little Mermaid her legs.
The art is incredibly beautiful and striking, the (unsurprisingly bizarre) omake are hilarious, and there are random pin-ups of the characters dressed a la the court of Louis XXIV. And endless discussions of "birthing eggs." And giant hallucinatory fish skeletons. Volcanic eruptions. The male mermaid sadly muses that his kiddie true love likes cake better than him. Why are you all not reading this already?
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