Bitch planet

So, I read this graphic novel last week during my dinner break, and it's taken me this whole week to figure out how to organize my thoughts. Here we go.

I read volume 1 of Bitch Planet last November, in the scrum of one of the worst elections in American history. I remember watching Donald Trump talk about abortion as if doctors "ripped the baby out, they rip it right out," reading about Mike Pence's beliefs on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ folks, and listening to countless waves of white Republican men yammer about the evils of Planned Parenthood and the evils of people seeking medical help (cough and hundreds of other services) there. Not very Christ-like, any of it.

Between now and then, Trump was elected President, and everything feels pretty fucking awful.

Since his "election" there has been a huge backlash against Trump- by women, by teachers, scientists, librarians, politicians, mothers, grandmothers, children. I remember the pride I felt being among hundreds of thousands of people for the Women's March in Boston. I remember being so proud of my best friend for working at the Museum of Science during the March for Science and leading a show about the largely ignored PoC and women in science throughout history. I also remember cringing at the hundreds of thousands of pink hats and transphobic signs held by protestors, thinking that we can do better than this. I remember feeling, and still feel deeply ashamed that our trans sisters (not just our cis-ters), who were monumental in Stonewall and face some of the biggest threats in society today, were left out of this march.

Reading volume 2 now, not even a year later, is cathartic as all hell. If Volume 1 was the commentary we needed at the time surrounding the election on how to process what the hell was going on, Volume 2 is the fodder to keep us awake and angry, resisting and persisting. The diversity and inclusivity, and the detail in this series is incredible. So much has happened in the world since volume 1 was released, and DeConnick does an incredible job weaving together current events with fiction, although the line feels very blurred in real life. I'll sing Bitch Planet's praises forever, even if my favorite character dies. And that's saying a lot.