Graphic Novel Review... Luchadoras by Peggy Adam

Luchadoras by Peggy Adam, Blank Slate

ACROSS FROM the Rio Grande and along the border is the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a place where women are murdered and too often sexually mutilated. Left dead in their hundreds, no one really asks why, or if they do they often find themselves facing a similar kind of problem. This is not fiction, but a documented fact since the early 90s.

A place of disgraceful misogyny where life is cheap but the brutality perpetuated on females still beggars disbelief. Yet this is the setting Peggy Adam chooses to tell a love story. Although that wasn't how it was sold; more the trials, tribulations and outright despair forced upon the lead character Alma, as after one last beating she flees her boyfriend, a guy who'd like to think himself a tough gangster but in reality is just another cheap thug. She finds kindness in the arms of another, but there is no road to paradise, and her life is still thwart with fear of repercussions. It is a story of survival however.

With more than a passing resemblance to the work of the Hernandez Brothers' Love & Rockets and perhaps even a little Aline Kominsky-Crumb in its cruder art style and sheer honesty from a female perspective, Adams delineates a story that is tragic, educational and emotional; one that wears its social concerns with respect and while sending out a message does so with grace, dignity and warm spirit.

Peggy Adam is a celebrated French comic book artist and illustrator having produced cartoons for a number of newspapers and magazines and applies journalistic methodology to tell a tale of modern fiction based on the real world.

Recommended for mature readers, Luchadoras was chosen as part of the 2007 Sélection Officielle at the Angouléme International Comics Festival

For more information on Luchadoras visit Blank Slate Books

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