Kate Charlesworth

97/2021. Sally Heathcote: Suffragette, by Mary M. Talbot, Kate Charlesworth, and Bryan Talbot, is history presented as historical fiction in comics form. The history is extremely accurate as expected from Mary M. Talbot, who has managed to adopt an even-handed position on the internal struggles of the Women's Social and Political Union while focussing mostly on activities surrounding women based at the main headquarters. There are also twenty pages of notes on historical sources at the end, although reading these is a bonus and not necessary to understand the story.

The novel revolves around a fictional working class Manchester girl who becomes involved with members of the WSPU in 1898, and then works for the WSPU itself after a move to London. The story continues until 1916 but there is a brief framing story taking us as far as 1969. The plot doesn't sacrifice either the protagonist's personal story or the surrounding history and both are fleshed out. The youth of the fictional heroine suggests this might have been partly aimed at a YA audience.

There is a relatively large supporting cast and, due partly to the restrictive fashions of the day in hairstyles and hats, the minor players weren't always well differentiated in the art (although I had a similar problem with the other Kate Charlesworth book I read recently, possibly because she has previously specialised more in cartoons than graphic novels). The visuals are otherwise good, and there are a few nice background touches. I especially appreciated our fictional heroine's prison ID being G45, which I presume is a nod to the imprisoned women being maltreated by G4S to this day.

Another comic worth reading from Mary M. Talbot and team.… (més)

95/2021. Sensible Footwear: a girl's guide, by Kate Charlesworth, is an autobiography of Kate Charlesworth and her perspective on lesbian history from 1950 to 2019 in comics form, with some gay / bi / trans history and biographies included. The history is very focussed on white lesbians and middle class lesbians and their respectability politics (with Jackie Kay as a token non-white / Black British / Scottish lesbian). The art employs various styles and some of them appeal to me more than others but they're all chosen for apparently good reasons, whether it's collage for the history, or girls' own for Kate at school, or the nods to Alice in Sunderland, or etc etc.… (més)

Full review at Little Book Jockey. Even though this is a graphic novel and should be a quick read, I found myself putting it down a lot. I don't know if it was the way some of the story seemed to be piecemealed together or what, but regardless, once I sat down to read it after page 35 I just finished the rest of it easily in one sitting. As for the artwork, I liked how most of the images were black and white with only a few pops of color, like Sally's red hair, the flowers in spring, the purple and green of the suffragette movement, etc.

I watched Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, and Meryl Streep, shortly before finishing this book, and I appreciated the parallels in the graphic novel to the movie. Some of the same events were covered, like the women's speaking to Lloyd George (which the graphic novel did a great job of depicting, having the men turn slowly into large cats while the women became mice, in the style of Maus), the incident with Emily Davison and the king and his horse at the derby, the use of surveillance cameras to watch the suffragettes, and police brutality.

I also liked the inclusion of the issues that arose with the inception of World War I and how that affected the women's suffrage movement. I didn't learn anything new in this book, though. Since I had taken classes in college that covered both WWI and women's suffrage in the literature of the time, including the force-feeding which is something that really stuck with me, reading this was more of a refresher.… (més)

Púrpura, blanco y verde. Tres colores representan a la National Women's Social and Political Union, una liga de mujeres extraordinarias que lucharon por conquistar derechos humanos que en el contexto rígido y clasista de la Inglaterra eduardiana brillaban por su ausencia. Sally Heathcote es una trabajadora doméstica al servicio de Emmeline Pankhurst, una de las fundadoras del movimiento. La proximidad de ese entorno comprometido y militante irá concienciando a la joven en la causa sufragista, que reclama el derecho al voto para las mujeres. La desobediencia civil, la estrategia política, el aprendizaje de la acción directa y la reivindicación a pie de calle van a dictar la trayectoria feminista de Sally, que no dudará en enfocar su vida como una carrera de obstáculos pero también de grandes logros para las generaciones futuras.… (més)