Pam Harrison has been one busy lesbian since last year, when we introduced you to her and her innovative comic, House of the Muses: The Latter Days of Sappho of Lesbos.
Earlier this year, Harrison received the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant, sponsored in part by Jane’s World creator Paige Braddock. As a result, House of the Muses is now on sale worldwide and has garnered more LGBT fans than ever.
Issue No. 4, “Immortal Lovers,” has just been released and reflects growth in Harrison’s 3D computer graphics technique as well as some interesting new story developments.
Main character Dika, whose journey to Lesbos and experiences at Sappho’s school form the central storyline in House of the Muses, has become lovers with Timas.
But lesbians in ancient Greece had issues, too, and when Dika and Timas have a misunderstanding, Hero is waiting in the wings to “comfort” Dika.
Lesbian drama ensues.
Sappho turns to Aphrodite for help.
And, per the goddess’s instructions, sends Dika to visit the Priestesses of Kybele, where we meet Selene, House of the Muses’ first transgender character.
I asked Pam what prompted her to include the MTF Kybele tribe. She said:
Selene is a creation, a secondary character to the storyline. I have a number of transgender friends, so there was some personal motive in introducing her. She and her sisters were born in my imagination as I was reading about the building of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. The original earth goddess religions were falling out of favor during those days, and having no examples from research, no available famous personages who weren’t somewhere else at the time, I created these.
Pam said she turned to Laura Seabrook, a transgender comic creator, for guidance:
I interviewed Laura Seabrook of Australia a couple of years ago when I found her work, Tales of the Galli. She is transgender herself, a modern day worshipper of Kybele, and her comic series is about the worshippers of Kybele in later Roman times. She gave me numerous links and a wealth of research material to follow, which in the end had to be condensed down to two or three pages in House of the Muses #4. Dika is going to depend on Selene for advice and help in later issues, and so more of their story will be told.
I was not too enamored of House of the Muses when I read it last fall. I found the 3D graphics distracting despite the intriguing story. But “Immortal Lovers” made me go back and catch up on the series. Although I am still not a huge fan of the technique, images like this are hard to resist.
You can read the whole series online at the House of the Muses website and can order hard copies at online vendors worldwide.
Take a look at the story and let us know what you think.
