Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu
Laura Sackton wrote a beautiful post about this book, The Power of Portals: Seeing My Own Future in Graphic Novels About Queer Elders, so I’ll just quote her here: “The reason I can’t get Kumiko out of my head isn’t because her story is a mirror or a window, although, in different ways, for me, it’s both. Her story, and the stories of the queer elders in these graphic novels, is possibility. Seeing her old body celebrated and honored allows me to imagine my own old body. Seeing queer elders come alive on the page, imperfect and full of regret, still struggling, still afraid of death, still falling in love, dealing with pills and back pain and a world that wants to kill or erase them, watching these funny, weird, loving, messy elders have sex and fight monsters and bask in the luxurious pleasure of a cup of tea — it creates a portal into a queer future, and gives me space to imagine myself there.” I highly recommend reading Laura’s whole post, because it eloquently describes the importance of queer elders being represented in media.
