Pride Month Recommendations 2 Lesbian/Bisexual female list

Ok.. on to the next recommendation list. Again, focusing on bisexual female and lesbian leads/major characters, but mostly leads. The first was gay/bi men (aka male/male relationships), this one will be lesbian/bi female (aka female/female relationships), trans*, queer, intersex, and asexual will be next and a final installment with books that just have a lot of everything.

Again I'm putting lesbian and bisexual female characters together for the simple fact of female/female relationships would appeal to similar readers. That's all.

So onto the list shall we?

First up is Harley Quinn. Most of her books will work as there has been a strong subtext that she and Poison Ivy were more than just friends since she first appeared, but it's recently been confirmed in the Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti run that she is in fact bisexual and in a finally happy and healthy relationship with Pamela Isley aka Poison Ivy. It's a wacky fun series and Harley has recently gained a gang of Harleys that is rather diverse and a circus. I honestly haven't read it all, but what I have has been pretty fun and crazy and very Harley. Also worth noting that for Harley is one of the top selling female characters in comics.. so yeah go Harley.

Next up, Catwoman Keeper of the Castle & Catwoman Inherentance  by Genevieve Valentine- this is the Catwoman series where Selina Kyle comes out as bisexual and well she works as mob boss. It's a really fresh and different take on the character where we see Selina trying to balance her desire to help people and also run a mob effectively. Thus far this is the only series to really focus on Selina's bisexuality and she hasn't had a series since this ended. Hopefully the new writer, if she gets another series, will keep this up. Also of note Catwoman Backwards Masking & Catwoman Dies by Will Pfeifer has a story where Selina temporarily retires as Catwoman and Holly Robinson, a young lesbian friend and ally of Selina's steps into the role of Catwoman. Sadly though, Holly doesn't have any real relationships during this period, so it's kind of hard to tell..

Gotham Central Half a Life by Greg Rucka - You can also go for the Gotham Central omnibus, but

money and the fact that it is a ginormous volume may make it difficult to circulate. Either way, this is the issue when Renee Montoya, a latina cop of the Gotham City Police Department, is outed by the villain Two-Face and she has to deal with the fall out. Renee is an awesome character and has struggled through numerous things in her past as a recovering alcoholic. Her coming out was difficult for her and could be helpful for anyone facing a rough coming out. Renee is also revealed later to be an ex-girlfriend of Kate Kane, Batwoman which just adds to her though... we're still not clear how that relationship ended since there are 2 conflicting stories. Either way, Renee eventually becomes The Question after the original Question dies and she has a few trades that are unfortunately out of print. The sad part is that Renee is such a great character, but all the Question stories revolve around the same thing, this item called the Crime Bible which Kate is mentioned in and so it kind of becomes a little boring and repetitive as Renee is solely focused on that.

Wonder Woman Year One by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott - This kind of coincides with The Lies, but this one specifically centers around Diana's early years. Rucka openly has stated that Diana and Amazons are queer and it was openly stated that Diana had female paramours before Steve came to the island. Add in that Etta Candy and Barbara Minerva, two supporting characters, are flirting on a number of pages.. I would recommend this. Grant Morrison's Wonder Woman Earth One also has a lot of lesbian subtext and out and out background all female orgies, but there is some hardcore fat shaming going on and the story is all over the place.. It's definitely not a book for everyone.

America vol. 1 by Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones has just started. The trade will be out in October it looks like. Honestly, I hated this book with a passion of a thousand burning suns. The dialogue is terrible, the direction of the first issue is all over the place and there is no really good direction here, but a lot of people seem to be enjoying it, so I'm adding it. It does have a Latina queer character who was raised by two moms and she does have a girlfriend for like half a second in the first issue. I also want to say.. I REALLY love this character. She's been brash, cool and just fun in all of her other appearances and I was just so let down by this book because it's NOT the America Chavez I know and love and the story, while it has promise, America going to college to better herself, is all over the place.

Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise and Echo - Terry Moore has pretty much gotten a reputation for writing women and especially queer women well. Strangers in Paradise is a rather long comic dealing with love triangles and absurd situations and Echo is a superhero fare. Basically Echo stars Julie Martin, a photographer who is still dealing with her recent divorce and gets a high tech battle suit. The series progresses as Julie tries to deal with the suit and not get killed or taken by the government. Over the course of the series, Julie re-evaluates her relationships with men and realizes she actually likes women (or maybe likes women as well. it's kinda hard to gauge) and decides to pursue a relationship with women instead.

So that's all for the moment. Believe me, that's no where NEAR all of the books out there and it doesn't include countless others with lesbian or bisexual female characters that are more side characters in another story or stuff that is just out of print and impossible to get or the anthologies that maybe only have one or two stories with female/female relationships. I just wanted to highlight some with leads that are currently in or interested in female/female relationships. but already the list is kind of long.


Update: I completely forgot one.. and I should be flogged cause it's one of my favorites.

Mother Panic vol 1: A Work in Progress by Jody Houser and Tommy lee Edwards - This volume comes out later on this month. Also let me say straight off the bat this is not an all ages book and it may not be a perfect book for everyone. Violet Page was just another young rich girl born in the seedy town of Gotham until her dad tried to sell her

into sex slavery to one of his other friends on a hunting trip and Violet had an accident with a gun and he died. After that, however, her mother, who never seemed very sane to begin with, seemed to lose it completely and her older brother was put in charge of everything. He hated Violet for causing his father's death and threw her into a brutal elite boarding school that trained and modified Violet over the course of several years. She emerges a hard and driven woman, out to take down everyone involved with the school and her father's life. And she hides this all behind the facade of a bored rich girl who plays with anyone who seems interesting and will distract her for a little while, boy or girl. Along the way she gains a group of allies including a lesbian doctor, a gay male nurse who saw too much and now takes care of her mother, another former pupil at the boarding school, and her mother, who is surprisingly sharp at times.