JOIN CHRISSY WILLIAMS AND SOFIE DODGSON AT GOSH COMICS TONIGHT, 3RD AUGUST, 6-7 PM FOR AN EXCLUSIVE SIGNING! DETAILS BELOW.
Writer: Chrissy Williams / Penciller: Lauren Knight / Colour Artist: Sofie Dodgson / Flatter: Shayne Hannah Cui / Letterer and Designer: Becca Carrey / Editor: Joamette Gil / Image Comics
3rd August 2022
The Pitch: In a world where older women who've been deemed useless to society are abandoned on an island, Golden Rage documents their golden years of making friends, baking dessert, and fighting to the death. Created by writer Chrissy Williams (editor of Die and The Wicked + The Divine), artist Lauren Knight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and colourist Sofie Dodgson (Bitter Root, Tank Girl), this is the first issue of a brand-new five-issue miniseries where Battle Royale meets The Golden Girls.
Ask anyone and they'll tell you: old people are useless. They slow you down when you're walking down the street, ask stupid questions about technology they don't understand in shops, say crappy things and espouse backwards opinions loudly and publicly. They get sick and often. They die, leaving their money to pet charities, rather than to their children who doubtless hate them and are right to so. And older women? Forget about it! They're even worse! They stop being baby-making machines, stop being pretty. Sop being useful. Just ask any man...
Do you see the problem yet?
Part of it is this: Society treats older people like dirt. When it comes to women, that treatment is magnified, largely because of the way we treat women in those years when they are considered viable. One of the worst things we do is pit women against each other. It's right there in magazines, media, and red carpets... who wore it better? Honestly, why do you give a fuck? Because we love the adversarial nature of women. If they're busy hating each other, there's no time for them to hate us, right? When you stop and think about it, it's hostile and weird. In Golden Rage, this competitiveness is given maximum leeway. Women, deemed useless for crimes like going through early menopause (how dare they?) are deposited on an island, where they fight each other to survive. It's a great high concept. A hot-button set of topics, addressed in an entertaining way. Can you ask for anything more from your comics? The other problem – and this is a much bigger one – is that there are way too many guys making decisions for women. Although, interestingly and pleasingly, men are completely absent from this issue. But that doesn't mean that they're not there. Men and the violence that often comes with them are steeped into the book.
Williams puts us in the shoes of the Island's new arrival, Jay. She's been placed there because she's going through menopause in her thirties. Instead of compassion, she's given a remit of violence. Through Williams' excellent writing, we get Jay's fear and confusion as well as the vital characterisation needed to begin fleshing out Jay's newfound 'friends'. Survival becomes the overriding factor in Jay's life. You wonder for how many women this a reality, having to just survive or fight in some way just to exist. Not on an island or anything elaborate, but in day-to-day life. Like the men involving themselves in aspects of women's lives they shouldn't be involved in, the number is 'too many'. Williams’ writing is sparse and unintrusive. There's a natural, organic feel to her storytelling that allows you to go with Jay's emotions as they happen. The other women are well written, hiding more under the surface that will doubtless be revealed later. They intrigue, excite and scare you.
Knight's artwork is hard-edged and punchy. Her panels create a dynamic page. There's an atmospheric, almost fantastical edge to the art, cemented wonderfully by Sofie Dodgson's colours, (along with Shane Hanna Cui's flats), heightening the book’s emotions. Becca Carey's letters portray the voices of women who've found their voice through trauma and surviving trauma as well as those who are still searching. Golden Rage is one of those books you don't see that often, where theme and action are united in a near-perfect execution. Emotionally, the book carries weight but doesn't become over-burdened with it. This is worth sticking with, not just for the mystery of who is putting these women on this island and for what true purpose (I have my own ideas, but I'm keeping to myself), but to see the journey the characters are going on, the destination they're heading to. Hope you'll join me.