If the cover art and the name don’t draw you in immediately, this is not the book for you. But if you are the type of reader drawn to feminist criticism, patriarchal dystopias, and bad-ass women, then buckle-up, Buttercup, because we’re ALL going to “Bitch Planet”. The first volume of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Valentine De Landro's knock-out series is truly a monumental piece of science-fiction that combines the feeling of existential dread, a case study of humanity (think “Blade Runner”) with the absolute satire of an action comic book (somewhere between any Batman title and Alan Moore’s Watchmen). The story introduces our main hero, Kamau Kogo, or Kam for short, as a woman who is very familiar with living life in survival mode. She is given a proposition to start a team of inmates on Bitch Planet for a sport that’s called Megaton, or Duemila, depending on what side of the world you’re from, which takes influence from basketball and rugby. Suffice to say it’s a bloody sport meant to be a bloodbath on TV for the benefit of ratings, to which Kam wants no part of until her fellow inmates convince her they can use the opportunity to escape in order to take revenge of the council of men that put them on prison planet in the first place. Everyone seems to be out on their own, wanting something out of someone else every time the page is turned. The privately owned Bitch Planet, though the owners of the private prison planet prefer it called its legal name of Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, needs the funding. The inmates want revenge and are willing to use each other for this opportunity. On top of this, it is shocking to see the reasons most of these women are sent off planet for readers who don’t live the reality that many women do. Having their bodies policed to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to be born a certain way, and to comply.
Non-compliance comes to play a major theme through this art piece, and by “this art piece”, I mean this entire book. DeConnick and De Landro really showcase how collaborative a comic book is in order to successfully blow their audience away. The writing is barely half of what you see on page. The art is so submersive. De Landro and Robert Wilson IV (on issue #3) take the reins on the visual tour of this alternative world, where women are subjugated and legally indoctrinated with every insecurity and every stereotypical expectation that exists. Too thick, too loud, too aggressive, too confident, too tall, too athletic, too masculine, too much that’s not enough. But for all these women who are “non-compliant” we still get to see on panel how they fight back every day. Characters like Penny just love themselves too much to let anyone bother her. Kam just wants the truth to be acknowledged when she’s falsely accused of murdering another prisoner. Every issue ends with advertisements, in a style that satirizes 1950’s homemade cure-alls and the ones you can find in Golden and Silver Age comics. The artistic throwbacks also contain a few references and hints at how the women of the world are still rebelling against this repressive regime. I find the order form in the corner the best piece because it openly states anything you could’ve bought from these old advertisements is trash. It furthers the epic world building that happens just in the first issue, but the consistently see it throughout the book helps solidify the style our co-creators wanted to go for, which is constant visual callbacks to the 1950’s, like Wilson’s art for Penny’s flashbacks, or the art of ads, as well as the design for the holographic Warden they show the women to provide comfort, but mostly just to remind them of the ideals the council has of the perfectly compliant woman. Seeing her on panel brings about my own memories of seeing old paperback sci-fi books, like The Princess of Mars (no, I did not read a book about a Confederate soldier on Mars. Maybe(?) I’ll get to it, but I’m not promising anything).
Also, shoutout to the color artists, Cris Peter and Matt Hollingsworth (issue #3) for the consistency in skin tone. As a Marvelhead myself, it’s not something I’m used to seeing in a comic book, especially with a switch in creators at times. Not to mention as a fan of film and theatre, lighting is EVERYTHING most times, so the coloring conveys just as much meaning as the art and the words on the page. For example, most of the council and the guards, even outside of the masks they wear, tend to be shrouded in some shadow, suggesting a visual mask, while the surrounding color will still pop as a visual cue, saying this is not someone you need to be trusting right now. And as dark as the themes this book touches on, it is full of vibrant color, offering so much to the life of the story that De Landro and DeConnick tell so well. It’s a hard knock life on Bitch Planet, but it is full of realized characters who must figure out how to exist in a very complicated world.
Give this book a read if you are a feminist. Read this book if you love Black artists. Read this book if you want more comics by women writers. Read this book if you love badass women. Read this book if you are a badass woman. Read this book if you’re not a bad ass woman. Just read this book before we actually build Bitch Planet. Please?
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