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Monday, October 26, 2015

Comic Review: Monstress #1 from Image Comics

Monstress issue #1
Story: Marjorie Liu
Art: Sana Takeda
Cover: Sana Takeda
Publisher: Image Comics
Price: $4.99
Pages: 66
Release: Nov 4th, 2015
Astonishing X-Men and Black Widow writer MARJORIE LIU returns to comics with artist SANA TAKEDA (X-23) for an all-new ONGOING SERIES! Steampunk meets Kaiju in this original fantasy epic for mature readers, as young Maika risks everything to control her psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, placing her in the center of a devastating war between human and otherworldly forces. The adventure begins in a spectacular TRIPLE-SIZED FIRST ISSUE, with SIXTY-SIX pages of story and no ads for this one-time price of 4.99!
This story is about the horrors of war and what becomes of those who survive. The graphic novel is both beautiful and horrifying.

This is what Marjorie Liu has to say about it:

“Monstress is about an outsider, a young woman who belongs nowhere; it is about young women who fight, who tame, who are consumed—and who become monsters in their own right,” said Liu. “I wanted to tell a story that encompasses all these things, and more. A story about women, young and old, picking up the pieces after surviving the horrors of war—and finding a home for themselves in a world that has otherwise exploited them. Set in an alternate history to our own, where immense Cloverfield-like monstrosities have conquered half the planet, and spanning the steppes of a shattered Asia, to the destroyed heart of a fallen Europe, Monstress is an epic adventure of frontiers and empires, and the rise of a young woman warrior, whose power may either doom or redeem the planet.”

Maika is a young Arcanic woman disfigured in the great war five years ago. Her people were consequently enslaved by the Cumaea, a race led by witches. The story starts out with Maika being sold to a wealthy and influential woman. It then alternates between the present and one month before her capture, where we learn of her plans to get revenge for her mother's death as well as all those who died in the war.


Author Liu and artist Takeda don't pull any punches in their steampunk depiction of the war-torn world Maika lives in. The artwork is stunning and in violently graphic detail. At the end, Liu shares the inspiration for this story; the very real events that over 200,000 Japanese woman suffered during and after WWII.

5 "monstrous" Sheep





SharonS

About the Author:
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Marjorie Liu is an attorney and New York Times bestselling author of over seventeen novels. Her comic book work includes X-23, Black Widow, Dark Wolverine, and Astonishing X-Men, for which she was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding media images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Liu received her BA at Lawrence University (2000) and her JD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2003). A guest lecturer at Stonecoast and the Asian American Writers Workshop, she currently teaches a course on comic book writing at MIT — and a seminar on popular fiction at the Voices of Our Nation workshop.

About the Artist:
website
After working as a designer at SEGA, to freelance. Mainly beside to writing in the United States of MARVEL,
game illustrations in Japan, illustrations, and maker of picture books for children.

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