Female Force: Best Sellers

Female Force: Best Sellers
Written and illustrated by:  Multiple
Released by: Bluewater

This comic combines the individual comics for JK Rowling, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer, and Charaline Harris.  Just like the “Women in Media” comic it really doesn’t add anything new, but just combines these comics together with a new cover.  However, it is a chance to highlight four highly successful female writers.  I will give Bluewater credit for introducing this series of biographical comics because by and large they do an excellent job of letting everyday people know more about the subject and they do a decent job of presenting the information.  This comic isn’t really one that I would normally pick up to read, because outside of JK Rowling none of the authors are ones that I read or particularly like.  But…I’m always interested in reading about how people got their starts.

The writing for the most part is pretty solid and does a good job introducing who the writers are and what type of things they accomplished in their life.  I was fairly familiar with JK Rowling’s story, but I had no clue about what Charlaine Harris went through to get where she is and I particularly enjoyed reading about Anne Rice’s life.  I was surprised to read that some fans turned against her because she decided to become Christian and no longer writer about vampires.  The writers clearly present good, interesting biographical information upon the authors–the type of information that fans of the authors will want to know.  I do have a gripe or three that for Rice, Meyer, and Harris they all had a vampire narrating the story.  And for Rowling’s they had, what looks to be a wizard (they never really identify him).  I get that these are the main types of characters that the authors write about, but they could have done something a bit more unique.  In particular since the vampires for Rice and Meyer’s were way too similar.  At least the classic vampire fits Anne Rice’s tales, but it does NOT fit Meyer’s tales at all.  It was just a bit disappointing that they didn’t do something more unique.

The artwork for this issue is…wow, and not in a good way.  The worst of the issues is the artwork for the Stephanie Meyer comic.  The characters are little better than stick figures in some places, people’s faces are triangles, and the proportions of most of the figures are so off that they would have arms that touch the ground while standing up.  It’s that bad.  I mean the only thing that I can say that’s good about it is that the people are at least flesh colors and not some weird creepy yellow or green.  The artwork in the JK Rowling section is little better with oversized heads, features that are so sharp they could cut glass, and weird highlights that make the characters look like they’ve got an internal glow from radiation.  Charalaine Harris’ section is done in a strange country gothic style, seemingly to relate to the Snookie Stackhouse series, but the black lines bleed together creating a weird mish mesh of characters that look like they’re washing away in some places.  The artwork in the Anne Rice section is probably the best, done in a gothic style—this time with sharp, crisp clear lines so you can actually make out who the characters are and what their features look like.  It’s actually not too bad to look at.

Overall the collection presents good information about the authors (even though the artwork is horrible) and is a good way for fans to find out more about their favorite authors.  If you like the authors in the comic I would recommend buying the collection.