Monday, October 3, 2016

We All Wish for Deadly Force



We All Wish for Deadly Force is a difficult comic, so bear with me as I try to figure it out while typing this.  It starts out with the author, Leela Corman, losing her firstborn daughter in 2011 and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder in Brooklyn.  Then, after a short interlude, it speaks of Leela's life as a foreign-born bellydancer in 2011 Cairo, during the Egyptian Revolution.  The two stories take place at the same time period, but they're both so real.  Which one is the real Leela?

"Can't both of these be true?" Leela (or perhaps Leela's mother, Mimi) asks when Leela's grandmother says that the fish can't be both food and pet.  Perhaps this line on one of the last pages answers my question.  Either way, this is a very angry comic at times, and sometimes it's funny.  The way it contrasts a heavy story about the main character losing her daughter to a lighthearted story about that same character being a bellydancer just rips at the soul.  Retrofit Comics scores again.

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