Modern feminist sci-fi take on women-in-prison flicks.
Hello! This is amazing!
Set in the not too distant future, there is now a planet that women, and only women, are sent to for non-compliance. Non-compliance is anything from murder, petty theft, adultery, weight, race, etc. Everything about this planet, Bitch Planet, is telling these women that it is their fault for being there, and that their existence at home was not only a threat but a sin, and therefor humanity at large is better off for them being removed from the planet. Chaos ensues and will likely continue on and on.
In just one issue, I am hooked. There is a really awesome essay at the end of the issue about why feminism matters and its connection to Bitch Planet by Danielle Henderson. I now have an extreme amount of adrenaline and find myself once again supremely glad that I was born a woman and living in the time period that I do. Thank you Kelly Sue Deconnick for being an ultimate baller.
Since this series is pretty new still, I wanted to catch up on what has been put out so far, #4 comes out the end of January.
Olive gets partnered with her least favorite person in school for a project and together they find a book in the library about the Cobblepot ghost. The school's north hall has been blocked off and the two girls with the help of Maps and some other delinquent go there in search of the ghost.
Olive's memory is really spotty but when she see's the entrance to the north hall she realizes that she has been there before, and not alone. They find a hole in the floor, and someone or something is in the whole and grabs Olive.
Nothing really crazy has happened, its still mostly about high school drama. I feel like this would be a good recommendation for a teen who isn't really allowed to read violent stories but also wants some suspense.
Classic origin storyline for the blacksploitation character, John Shaft.
This young boxer is headed to the rink, but his boss tells him that because of a deal he has to take a hit and lose this round so that his boss can make some money. Lots of flashbacks to when John was in the army, when he was living on the streets as a younger child getting in fights. John Shaft decides to take things into his own hands because he sits down for nobody. He wins the round and has an amazing fight. Then afterwards he gets beat up by one of his bosses hit-men. The muscle goes easy on him though and tells him that he needs to lay low and not box anymore, come up with another plan for his life.
Pretty good read. Interested to see how far this goes, or if this comic book version of Shaft ends up being a lot like the Shaft from the movies. Mostly with the treatment of women. I'm curious to see if someone would try that in (nearly) 2015, even if it is supposed to be telling the classic story.
Escape from New York is originally a movie, made in 1981 with Kurt Russell as soldier turned rebel, Snake Plissken. The story is set in then-futuristic 1996 where New York City has been turned into a giant prison. There is a plane crash over the city and the President of the United States, although alive, is now in this chaos being held prisoner. Snake gets called in to save the President and this very important tape. Long story short, Snake does his job, saves the day but publicly humiliates the President by switching out the tapes for his live speech with a dummy tape. End scene.
This comic is the sequel to the movie (although there already was a sequel to the movie, called Escape from LA, but I guess everyone is forgetting that detail) So here we find Snake Plissken, getting out of jail for his crime, a few years later, on the run from the government. He meets a crew of satanic freaks who are headed to Florida, which has within the last 6 years, gained freedom from the US, and is now a separate country with no laws or rules, governed by a set of gun-loving twins named Romulus and Remus.
The art is made to look dated, it really feels like you're just watching a continuation of the movie, or reading a sequel comic that was actually made in like 1983 a few years after the original movie. It is outrageously cheesy, very over the top, but that is also what makes it very, very awesome.
Something else that is cool is the type for this comic is the same as it was for the original movie.
Friday Night Lights meets No Country for Old Men. A perfect partnership of small-town-everyone-knows-everyone-romanticism and one-lonely-and-angry-dude-out-for-justice.
An old man returns to his hometown to clean up his deceased fathers house and realizes that things are exactly as they were when he left 40 years ago, but worse. The football coach is leading a crime mob in the county, eating bbq by day, burying bodies under the bleachers by night.
Earl only planned to stay for 2 days to pack everything up but a series of events makes him change his mind. Letting his anger get the best of him, Earl stays in this small messed up town in Alabama to get some answers and try and free the town of the crime that has consumed it the last 40 years.
I think this story is absolutely crazy, and I'm very into it. Almost every other word is a swear word or slang or offensive in some way, and there is a lot of blood and violence, but the way that its written is exciting. The art fits the story so well, it is like these two Jason's were made to work together.
