Black Gate

I don’t have as much time to keep up as I like, but even I noticed at 2015 was a great year for science fiction and fantasy comics. Titles like Saga, Monstress, Bitch Planet, Gotham by Midnight, ODY-C, Rat Queens, Pretty Deadly, Rumble, COWL, and many others did not escape my notice.

The editors of SF Signal have also been paying attention, and last week they produced a handy list of the Top 15 Science Fiction Comics of 2015. Frankly, it’s a dynamite list, and there’s something on it for everyone. If you’re curious about all the recent excited talk about comics, this is the place to start. Here’s #6 on the list, Image Comics’ Copperhead, by Jay Faerber and Scott Godlewski.

I’ll admit right up front, that as a long time Firefly fan boy, I have a strong bias in favor of space westerns, but I feel more than justified in including Copperhead in the top half of this list. Even Saga writer Brian K. Vaughan dubbed the comic the best debut of the year.

Copperhead is a fascinating series that blend the best conventions of Westerns and sci-fi without kitsch and without imitating its other successes of the genre. It’s hard to imagine a setup riper for sci-fi flavored action sequences, but where Faerber really shines is in his character development. Unlike Firefly, which follows outlaws, Copperhead focuses on breathing new life into the “arrival of a new Sheriff in town” trope with a protagonist who also happens to be a single mom. She’s a fierce female lead of the kind all too rare in comics with a big heart and an over-protective streak where her son in concerned. Rarely have I seen a science fiction title lavish such care on character development. Each and every one of Faerber’s character, no matter how small, feels fully fleshed out. Finally, let me add that there are “alien hillbillies.”

Read the complete article here.

I can understand scepticism of consciously political art. But I feel it’s often misplaced. If an artist is choosing to create art about politics, it probably means that those politics have a deep power for them. Which in turn is probably because the politics are connected to their emotions, worldview, beliefs — all the things that give art power. A political theme doesn’t elevate a work of art, but good art can illuminate the political. An artist may create consciously political art because politics are their passion. A storyteller may find their politics are the lens through which to present human truth and artistic power.

Which brings me to Bitch Planet, the creation of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Valentine De Landro. Some basic information on the book: it’s an ongoing comic published by Image projected to run at least thirty issues. The first five issues have been collected into a trade paperback, while the sixth came out earlier this month. Individual issues have bonus features including essays, letters pages, and selections of tweets and instagrammed pictures from readers. Cris Peter does the colours and Clayton Cowles the lettering; art for the third issue came from Robert Wilson IV, while Taki Soma handled the sixth. The series has built a devoted fan following and been very well reviewed — and it’s easy to see why.

Bitch Planet is set in a future with interplanetary (presumably interstellar) travel and 3-D holograms and an even greater media saturation than we have today. Patriarchy’s more blatant, an MRA extremist’s idea of utopia (naturally, therefore, everybody else’s dystopia). Women can be arrested for various kinds of “non-compliance” — things like “disrespect” and “emotional manipulation” and being a bad mother and, generally, not acceding to society’s expectations. One character’s crimes include “repeated citations for aesthetic offences, capillary disfigurement and wanton obesity.” The non-compliant criminals are exiled to an off-Earth prison, the eponymous “Bitch Planet.”

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