Luchadoras by Peggy Adam - Plan B Books graphic novel book group

I've been having a serious geek out during my annual leave this week.  After going to the Forbidden Planet book group I went to the Plan B Books group last night.  It was held in Mono again.  Mono is always a good venue for these things - there is a very low ned count.

The book for discussion was Luchadoras by Peggy Adam.  Peggy Adam is a French comic book creator who has been producing comics since 2000.  Luchadoras is the first of her books to be translated into English.  It was apparently written to raise awareness of the plight of women in the Mexican city of Juarez.  Juarez has a population of 1.5 million and according to wikipedia there was a homicide rate of 229 murders per 100,000 people in 2010.  There is also a high rate of sexual violence against women with 400 murders (described as sexual homicides on wikipedia) and an additional 400 disappearances in the past 10 years.  This occurs on a background of high rates of domestic violence.  Several books have been written on the topic but while several people have been arrested the crimes continue. 

For local comparison in 2002 Glasgow had a homicide rate of 58.7 people per million of population (approx 6 per 100,000) more than twice the level of the other Scottish cities.  If you were to move to Juarez you would 40 times more likely to be murdered.  source

Apparently there are 116.000 abandoned homes in the city  suggesting that approximately 400,000 people have fled the city.  This would suggest to me that it's a bit of a shit place to live.

Additional information about Juarez can be found at the wikipedia page or at a page about the murders.

So Luchadoras is a book with a purpose.  It is meant to make people think about Juarez.  I guess that by way of this book group it has made me think about it a bit more.  However I am not convinced that Peggy Adam has been completely successful in the execution of Luchadoras as I had to do a bit of investigation to learn about Juarez.  Without the book group I am not sure that I would have bothered to do much additional reading beyond what I had gleaned from Sunday newspapers and Radio 4 in the past.

The 96 pages of Luchadoras offer a grim slice of life in Juarez.  It starts with Alma, the main female character speaking to a counsellor about her violent ex-boyfriend.  She is then stabbed in the street by her ex-boyfriend as her sister watches from his car.  A tourist, Alma's new boyfriend also watches from across the street.  I had to read the book twice to pick up on all the aspects of this scene.  The remaining pages continue with an atmosphere of near constant oppressive misery.  There are one or two brief moments of respite in a children's party and in the relationship between Alma and the tourist but generally everything is grim.  This grim atmosphere may be normal if you lived in Juarez.

People had varying opinions on the book.  Some people just didn't like it at all and some people thought it was great.  On a personal level I didn't really like any of the characters in  the book and I thought they  were all bad people.  Every adult character does something unpleasant.  I found the casual violence and personal betrayal a bit alienating.  Despite that I think the book is fairly effective.  It's easy  to read and it lets us clearly observe the lives of these characters.  The art is minimal and at times it is difficult to tell some of the characters apart.  Despite that there is some nice use of visual imagery - vultures and owls watching dead bodies, Alma and the tourist connecting as wrestlers, transitions between scenes.  I think the book probably would have benefited from colour as this would have enhanced the feeling of passing time  but I understand that books like this are produced with a limited budget. 

So Luchadoras is a decent comic book but not my favourite.  It is readable but depressing.  It might make you think.  I handed it to a non-comic book reading friend after the meeting and he read it in 30 minutes delivering the verdict that it was 'alright'.  I would agree.