Nowa Fantastyka 11/2020

[leahandillyana]

Nowa Fantastyka is Poland's oldest fantasy and science fiction (and honestly any genre as long as it it not strictly realistic)magazine, published without interruptions since 1982. It was in Nowa Fantastyka that the Witcher debuted in. This year's November's issue is dedicated fully to LGBT themes in speculative fiction (sadly, only in Europe and America). The cover is a fanart by Kasia Babis featuring various queer and queer-coded fictional characters, including world's favourite harlequin.

A bit of trivia - the rainbow bag the reader character is wearing became popular in Poland as symbol of allyship in 2019. It also paints the target on the wearer, as they are frequently attacked both verbally and physically.The tagline says "With fantasy* you are never alone!"
*"fantastyka" being both the name of the magazine and speculative fiction genre in Polish
(Personally, I feel grumpy that the magazine doubled its price in last decade, but that's just me)

Comments

[donnblake]

I can name... about half these characters? Looks like Jadzia Dax, Lestat, Harley Quinn, Xena, and Ursula.

Oh, and that *looks* like Merlin on the far left, what with the wizard hat and all. I never really thought of Merlin as LGBT- the only romantic pairing I associate with him is his ill-fated relationship with Nimue.

(I've heard that the BBC Merlin show had him pretty strongly queer coded, though I haven't watched it myself, but wasn't he all young and gawky in that, not old and beardy?)

[lilacsigil]

I'm presuming that's Dumbledore. Plus Frank N Furter at the back in pearls. Maybe Dorian from Dragon Age on the right?

[cainofdreaming]

And Ciri on the bottom left.

[donnblake]

Dumbledore! This makes a lot of sense. (I don't know why but I always picture Dumbledore in purple robes. Possibly to differentiate him from Merlin!) And you're probably right about Frank N Furter, too- I'd missed the pearl necklace.

[icon_uk]

And Ursula included because her appearance was based on Divine, the drag queen actor and singer.

(Oh, and would you please reduce the size of the image to be no more than 400x300 if you're going to leave it outside a cut.)