Scan barcode
A review by jrhartauthor
Bitch Planet, Volume 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue DeConnick
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The Good: With a dystopian earth and a nearby planet where non-compliant women are sent to be corrected and imprisoned, Bitch Planet covers a lot of topics within the patriarchy, fatphobia, and what it means to be "non-compliant." Strikingly relevant in today's world, Bitch Planet forces you to confront the fact that our current world isn't too far off from the horrific moments pictured (after all, our current government is a good picture at how much we hate women as a society). Very well-written, very artful overall, Bitch Planet will smack you in the face with the idea that you have to comply or die, and empower you to choose neither of those options, pushing you to fight back against the systems that hold us down. Bitch Planet is also wonderfully intersectional in the feminist views it presents, while leaving you on edge for the next segment of the story, and wanting a nice little fix. The overall tone is retro despite being futuristic, and the contrast of these things blends beautifully onto each page. It fits right in, tonally, to the amount of tradwives embracing the retro 50s vibes, even as we progress into modernity.
The Bad: Many moments of the story are confusing, and while the authors are right to trust us to be able to piece it together, I wish we got more time with some of the characters that we were met, so we could better understand their perspective, their "non-compliance," and gave us more time to say "wow, this person is relatable in these ways." All in all, if you have any sort of liberal and feminist mindset, you'll support many of these characters even without deep backstory (if they're non-compliant, they're almost certainly in the right), but some of them probably had more story for us to really be able to know, that we weren't given a chance to. This may be by design -- a lot of women die without their full story known irl too -- but it made the story feel jumpy at times. Also, I feel like for a prison planet, the story leaned far more into discussions of feminism than the prison industrial complex, and it could have honestly balanced that better, imo.
The AMAZING: Be sure to pay attention to the background of artwork. There are many times in which you'll see fights, aggression, and conversation beyond what is apparent on the main story of the page, and it's well done in a way that deepens the story without distracting from the main plot.
The "My Bad": I think that this would've fared better had I read it as individual issues of a comic series (which, you can see the divisions of in the book by the title pages and mock classified ads), but strung together in a single-book format, I didn't take enough time to process what had happened in the previous issue to prepare myself for the next one. Even stepping away didn't seem to signal to my brain that these were separate parts of a larger whole when the storyline was this intense, so I think I probably would've rated it higher if I had read it individually (so I did give it an extra .5 for the fact that I didn't pick it up in a different format).
The Bad: Many moments of the story are confusing, and while the authors are right to trust us to be able to piece it together, I wish we got more time with some of the characters that we were met, so we could better understand their perspective, their "non-compliance," and gave us more time to say "wow, this person is relatable in these ways." All in all, if you have any sort of liberal and feminist mindset, you'll support many of these characters even without deep backstory (if they're non-compliant, they're almost certainly in the right), but some of them probably had more story for us to really be able to know, that we weren't given a chance to. This may be by design -- a lot of women die without their full story known irl too -- but it made the story feel jumpy at times. Also, I feel like for a prison planet, the story leaned far more into discussions of feminism than the prison industrial complex, and it could have honestly balanced that better, imo.
The AMAZING: Be sure to pay attention to the background of artwork. There are many times in which you'll see fights, aggression, and conversation beyond what is apparent on the main story of the page, and it's well done in a way that deepens the story without distracting from the main plot.
The "My Bad": I think that this would've fared better had I read it as individual issues of a comic series (which, you can see the divisions of in the book by the title pages and mock classified ads), but strung together in a single-book format, I didn't take enough time to process what had happened in the previous issue to prepare myself for the next one. Even stepping away didn't seem to signal to my brain that these were separate parts of a larger whole when the storyline was this intense, so I think I probably would've rated it higher if I had read it individually (so I did give it an extra .5 for the fact that I didn't pick it up in a different format).