Last week was ComicCon in New York, and more than 100,000 people (supposedly — we didn’t count them) descended on the Javits Center, many of them dressed as Harley Quinn or Wonder Woman or Rey from The Force Awakens. (I guess there were boys there, too.) More power to them all, we say. But we prefer wearing less rather than more, and convention center rules prohibit what New York City law permits in public places, so we picked up our comics — in this case, the first two titles from the brand new Hard Case Crime comics line, PEEPLAND and TRIGGERMAN — and took them out to Central Park for a little outdoor reading time.
Yes, it’s October. So what? It was sunny and warm(ish) and pretty much a perfect day to have your shirt off in the park. So that’s how we enjoyed the tale of a peepshow worker in 1980s Times Square getting involved in murder (by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips), and the tale of a convict sprung from prison in the 1930s to track down debtors for the Mob (by film director Walter Hill). Cool stuff. On an unseasonably warm day.
Will there be another one like it before the winter shuts us in for good? (Or at least for the season.) We’ll keep watching the weather forecast.
If you’d like to join us, drop us a note: toplesspulpfiction@gmail.com. All body-positive women are welcome, whether it’s comic books, plain old prose, or just brisk fall weather that gets you excited…
I know you’re not telling me who she is, but I love this woman with the butterfly tattoo.
That’s a moth. You are correct however in your assessment of her appearance. She’s stunningly beautiful!
Very beautiful
London is now cold enough for nipples to tweak themselves, but I wish you many more unseasonably warm days in New York. 🙂
Awesome! Keep reading comics 😀
Am interested in any more you could tell us about those two graphic novels. Read an article recently in which it suggested they were going back to the hard boiled days in which women were decoration and men were tough. Is that the case? Or are they subtler and more modern than that despite their settings?
Far from it! PEEPLAND was written by Christa Faust (a woman, and a friend of our group), and the main character is a woman who, like Christa was back in the 80s, is a Times Square peepshow booth worker. One of her female co-workers is also a protagonist in the book, although we don’t see much of her yet in Issue 1. And one of the main cops in the book is a woman. There are also well-developed male characters, but no one could describe the women in PEEPLAND as “decoration” (or as anything less than “tough”). TRIGGERMAN, being set back in Prohibition days, is different — but even there it’s not egregious.
Phew. Glad about that. Looking forward to getting hold of these books myself. Ta.
Reminds me that I need to run down and pick up my comics from the local establishment. ;D