'Five women from various backgrounds are brought together by fate to fight as allies for their survival. A retired schoolteacher, an Indian who's handy with a bow, a young, immigrant widow from London, a brothel worker who's made off with the till and a fourteen-year-old slave who's been put in a cage. This unlikely band of adventurers must fight off the violence men resort to when caught in greed's ubiquitous grip. They'll do it with arrows, pies, brooms, pots, knitting-needles, and a lethal revolver that becomes even more dangerous in the hands of the sharpest-shooter of them all: a teenager who's been whipped, locked in a cage and freed only to fall victim to pneumonia. These women have got each other's backs and don't take kindly to the worst mankind has to offer.'
Ladies With Guns is a new graphic novel from Europe Comics that takes readers to the wild west to follow the exploits of five women dealing with the evil that men do.
The story begins with Abigail, a teenage slave who is making her way through the countryside trapped inside a steel cage. Dragging and carrying her cage around her as she walks, Abigail has made a desperate bid for freedom, but runs into trouble when a pack of coyotes begin to attack her. Thankfully, help arrives in the form of Kathleen. Kathleen has recently moved to the West from her home in London as she and her husband attempt to build a new life for themselves. However, Kathleen's husband is killed when he's caught up in an accident, and when their caravan comes under attack from Native Americans she flees into the woods, where she finds Abigail.
Kathleen didn't flee the attack unnoticed, however, and is followed by Chumani, a young warrior woman who has followed Kathleen to exact revenge. Kathleen was forced to kill Chumani's brother in order to escape, and Chumani wants revenge. However, the two women put aside their differences in an attempt to help Abigail out of her cage. Unfortunately, the lock proves too hard to break, and so the two women carry Abigail, and the cage, to find help. Abigail falls sick along the journey, and when Kathleen tries to get help in a small town she's almost thrown into jail. Fortunately for her, Daisy, a retired school teacher comes to her aid. Daisy, and runaway sex worker Cassie, go with Kathleen to help Abigail, and the five women are forced to come together to fight for their lives when a posse of men come calling for their blood.
Ladies With Guns is something of a brutal book. The entire premise is about the evils that women are made to live with at the hands of men, and the book doesn't shy away from showing that. The women are hit, stabbed, shot, and beaten as they try to fight off the men who want to reclaim the small, scarred, and hurting slave girl who has already been a victim of abuse and sexual violence. Writer Bocquet Olivier puts the violence front and centre, but never revels in it, never makes it something to look forward to or find joy in. Even when the awful men are being hurt by the women there's no happiness in the act.
What is the source of happiness in this book is seeing these women come together and forming bonds with each other. Chumani, Kathleen, and Abigail are together the longest, and form the biggest bonds. At the start of the book Chumani wants to harm Abigail simply for having defended herself, blaming her for the death of her brother. But, by trying to work together to help Abigail they begin to see that the differences of their people, the animosity between the white invaders and the native people doesn't have to extend to them if they don't want to. A genuine friendship seems to form between them, and soon they begin risking their lives not just for Abigail, but each other too.
Daisy and Cassie are later additions to the story, and whilst we get a good sense of the type of person she is pretty quickly Cassie remains largely something of an enigma by the time the book comes to a close. She seems much more out for herself than the others, was less willing to get her hands dirty to help Abigail for example; but I expect that she will be expanded upon in the next volume, and that my thoughts on her could change.
Speaking of the next volume, I really enjoyed how this part ended, with a huge culmination of things that were building from the very beginning in a huge, brutal showdown that showed that these women are not meant to be messed with. Unfortunately for them, they're now in a position where they can't just claim self defence, that they've just been trying to do the right thing and don't know they've broken laws, as this volume ends with them wanted for multiple counts of murder. It's a great ending to this book, and sets up for some great stuff to come. I'm excited to find out what happens to them next, who could come hunting for the bounty on them, and if they can ever find a safe way to escape from the men pursuing them.
The art for the book is provided by Anlor, who does a great job throughout. All of the environments, from the open plains of the west, to the lush forests, to the old western style buildings all look brilliant and really put you into the setting. It feels like a bold and dynamic film at times, and the choices made for framing and action in the panels make things pop a lot. Speaking of action, Anlor does a fantastic job at making the violence in the book feel violent. There's no moment where it feels like larger than life characters hitting each other to little effect, and every slap, punch, and worse, feels like a huge impact. People get hurt in realistic and brutal ways, and it makes you uncomfortable to watch. Which is perhaps once of the best compliments for a book about the awful nature of violence.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Ladies With Guns when I picked it up, due to the almost exploitative and sensationalist title. But this isn't a story about over-the-top female characters going around shooting things up and being action heroes, it's a story about the violence that women face, the brutality they go through, and five incredibly strong women who stand up and refuse to take any more. This is definitely a series where I'm going to be eagerly looking forward to the next volume.
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