Review by Joe David ThompsonIf the names Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro weren't enough, was there any chance a comic called Bitch Planet wasn't going to rock?
Bitch Planet is an actual planet, one where women deemed to be "non-compliant" are arrested, tossed on a spaceship, and incarcerated for the rest of their lives. Men on Earth have created a kind of totalitarian gender government that can have offending women shuttled off to this "auxiliary compliance outpost" planet for any reason.
It's a terrific mashup of science fiction and women in prison exploitation films that's described as "Margaret Atwood meets Inglorious
Basterds," which is actually a pretty close comparison. Everything you expect to see is here, from the violent guards, explicit nudity, and the overbearing control in the prison. All this and the hint that all is not what it appears to be in the prison.
DeConnick and De Landro nail the feminist, yet tongue in cheek tone of the book beginning with the cover art and never let up. Bitch Planet is nearly the antithesis to DeConnick's Pretty Deadly, a gorgeous Western fable, but this Eisner nominated writer breathes new life into these genres and makes them relevant again.
Joe David Thompson has been doing media reviews for websites such as Red Carpet Crash and the 405 Music Blog. For any questions or comments for Joe David Thompson, you can email him at jovid52@me.com and follow him on twitter @jovid52