“...one of the
most unique and subversive artifacts of pop culture in recent memory.” - Salon.com
"Seldom do comics burst
onto the scene and shatter our worldview by being entirely poignant, raw, and
captivating - but then, most comics aren't Bitch Panet." - Entertainment Weekly
Eisner
Award-nominated writer Kelly Sue DeConnick (Pretty Deadly, Captain
Marvel) and Valentine De Landro (X-Factor) team up to bring you the
premiere volume of Bitch Planet, a deliciously vicious riff on
women-in-prison sci-fi exploitation.
In
a future just a few years down the road in the wrong direction, a woman's
failure to comply with her patriarchal overlords will result in exile to the
meanest penal planet in the galaxy. When the newest crop of fresh femmes arrive,
can they work together to stay alive or will hidden agendas, crooked guards, and
the deadliest sport on (or off!) Earth take them to their
maker?
Though Bitch Planet had been recommended to me by several of my reader friends, I never picked it up. Something about the title, the clear aggressiveness of the premise put me off. Not another book where women are the downtrodden cast-off subjects, I thought. Sometimes I just want to read about what women can do, not what they cannot.
And although Bitch Planet is a patriarchal dystopia on steroids, the characters shine as a bright light. Much of what happens in the book will make you angry; but simultaneously it gives us characters to root for and to love. Encased in a wonderfully dynamic panelling and storytelling, Bitch Planet won me over with its wry humour and intersectional feminism.
If like me you were put off by the cover or the premise, pick it up anyway. This comic is worth looking into.
