Bitch Planet Triple Feature Volume 1 Trade Review
The Bitch Planet Triple Feature trade includes 15 stories from the Bitch Planet universe. Each story has a different artist and writer team, but the themes are similar to the ones found in all Bitch Planet comics.
My personal Favorite was the last story in the trade. In this story, white women have stolen their fashion and beauty trends from black women. However, these features are only considered ideal on white women,being described with racist terms such as “ratchet” and “hoodrat” when they are seen on the woman who originated them.
Another involves an Asian man and a white man auditioning for a movie. The white man is picked as the lead despite the character being Asian. The directors of the movie even suggest using CGI to make the white man appear Asian. Of course this would never happen in reality, casting a white star for an Asian role.. oh… Ghost in the Shell happened… Tilda Swinton as the Grand Master in Doctor Strange… never mind.
Racial issues aren’t the only ones explored in this trade. Multiple stories
explore a world where it’s like women’s rights never happened and society is
permanently stuck in the 1950s, where a woman’s only job is to be a homemaker,
occasionally having children, and of course, doing whatever her husband wants.
In one story, a grandmother reminisces about how women used to be able to
go to college, get careers of their own, have lives outside of their homes. She ends up
being sent to a “nursing home” by her family. However, this nursing home is worse
than your average nursing home since its actually a prison for non compliant
women.
Another story features a watch called the Biological Clock; a wonderful tool
that lets a woman know when she’s ovulating, gives her tips on how to succeed on
dates, and let her know when she’s had “too much” to eat. The whole goal of the Biological Clock was to help a woman get married before she turned thirty. If women reached thirty and weren’t married yet they or their families had to pay an old maid tax. Of course, a woman could stay single and avoid the old maid tax by being a surrogate. But only if her baby is light skinned. (Can you say yikes?)
I wasn’t a fan of all of the art styles, but I genuinely enjoyed all of the stories.
They’re accessible to anyone (mature audiences only) even if they haven’t read any
of the Bitch Planet comics before since these stories are unconnected. The Bitch
Planet Triple Feature Volume 1 Trade comes out December 13 th 2017 from Image
Comics and collects Bitch Planet Triple Feature #1-5.
