More of a good thing is rarely a bad thing, and that’s exactly what transgender author Joey Allison Sayers is offering us with her second collection of Just So You Know autobiographical strips1. The pointed observations are still here, as is her moving and tender view of life which feels so good: a lot of autobiographical comics are about the author’s tribulations, and those comics can be important and worthwhile, but from time to time, it’s uplifting to read about someone who, having made the never easy choice to take her life in hand and not follow the easy path, manages to make a good life for herself.
While the first issue had a large range of stories depicting her life from 2003 to 2008, most moments recorded here are from mid 2007 to early 2010, though there are a few older ones. The author continues to chronicle her daily life as a woman, the reactions of people around her, from family to strangers, to her coming out and her appearance, while never shying from showing her own foibles and doubts.
The most moving stories for me were three one-pagers entitled “True fantasies of a closeted transsexual”, where Joey, still living as a man, shows that he’d been thinking about changing his gender for a very long time—the first moment is from 1986, while the other two are from 1993 and 2002. If coming out as gay to oneself and to others is rarely easy, the road to completeness as a transgender person seems even more complex and fraught with uncertainty.
But a lot of strips are more on the humorous side, such as a January 2009 scene where Joey realizes that being a woman has unforeseen consequences: her health insurance goes up, while her car insurance goes down. Fair or not, I guess it demonstrates that a lot of things in our society are gendered, including less obvious ones.
The art and printing quality of this comic are equal to the first one, which is to say that they’re very good. I hope that when she has enough strips, Joey Allison Sayers will find a publisher to compile them in a big, fat collection and make her some money. At least it would compensate those health insurance costs.
Notes:
- These comics are sold by the author. ↩
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Sayers is a new bright instant star right out of the box. Which would piss me off except that she’s really good. Damn her.
Oh, don’t worry. You draw far cuter noses than she does.
I love these comics; they are actually really important, though not in a self-conscious way. Funny and touching and way-insightful.