Trish Trash #1: Rollergirl of Mars

Mars teenager Patricia “Trish Trash” Nupindju is obsessed with the sport of hover derby; forsaking her responsibilities at home and at school, Trish indentures herself to the local team as an intern, which turns out to be thankless and demanding work. Abel (La Perdida) designs a complex world at the intersection of class (and planetary) exploitation, spectator sports, and xenophobia without allowing the setting to become overly complicated. The layouts of the rectangular panels are fairly conventional, but there’s a striking contrast between the dull red, blues, and browns of Abel’s impoverished and desolate Mars and the vivid colors of the hover derby players’ uniforms. While the focus is on Trish’s attempts to make it as a hover derby player, Abel lays enticing groundwork for the next books in this planned trilogy through Trish’s encounter with a native Martian, references to a powerful company called Arex, and the ethnic diversity of her cast (Trish, who lives with her moisture-farmer tío and tía, has dark brown skin and thick curly hair), which hints at long-lasting implications for the geopolitics of today’s Earth. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)