Literally Graphic reviewed Rat queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Review of 'Rat queens' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Needless to say, after my mixed feelings over the first volume it was far too easy to put off reading the second. But after I saw Stjepan was on for a few issues I just had to pick it up, and I'm really glad I did! While this certainly isn't a book for everyone, it's getting a lot closer to all the feminist ideals that it is continuously praised for. And for a yet all male creative team that's pretty cool, although thankfully not completely unheard of.
Possibly the most important development in this comic for me was that we saw a bit more nuance and differentiation between the female characters. Because while the characters put forth in the first volume are (in general) pretty progressive and interesting female characters, they all felt like they had all been painted with the same spastic brush. The men where all rational and …
Needless to say, after my mixed feelings over the first volume it was far too easy to put off reading the second. But after I saw Stjepan was on for a few issues I just had to pick it up, and I'm really glad I did! While this certainly isn't a book for everyone, it's getting a lot closer to all the feminist ideals that it is continuously praised for. And for a yet all male creative team that's pretty cool, although thankfully not completely unheard of.
Possibly the most important development in this comic for me was that we saw a bit more nuance and differentiation between the female characters. Because while the characters put forth in the first volume are (in general) pretty progressive and interesting female characters, they all felt like they had all been painted with the same spastic brush. The men where all rational and the Queens were all crazy reckless. In this second volume, the Queens get into some tiffs, but in a real world sort of way. Friends disagree some times, and they still all come together at the end of the day to kick some wicked butt.
As far as the art went, it might just be my imagination but it did feel a bit toned down even in Upchurch's issues. Not to say the Queen's aren't sexy, they always are, but it felt less pin up. Not to say that all pinup is bad, but the male gaze aspect of it still chafed at my vibe dude. That said, once again this volume saw the comic developing in a hugely positive direction for me! Not only did we get apologetically sexy depictions male characters in this volume, we also got full frontal male nudity from a gender swapped damsel in distress!!!!!!!!! Which is possibly a strange thing to be celebrating, but if you pay any attention at all to the ways in which gender is depicted in comics you know what a big deal this is!
I swear that last point is not the only reason I doubled the stars for this second volume. I was truly surprised by just how big of an improvement this second volume was over the first. It's still a light and silly women kicking ass sort of dealio, but there's no reason that can't be good. In its own M rated for drugs, language, nudity and sex sort of way.
