Woman World

The apocalypse wreaks its havoc gently in this comic chronicle of women’s fortitude. Men worldwide have died out after a mysterious dearth of male births, leaving only women and girls to carry the flame of civilization forward. Ruins litter the landscape, medical advances find no way to produce viable male embryos, and knowledge of a past with men slips steadily away. But Dhaliwal’s snippets of story happen between and beyond those terrifying developments: romances, laughter, and family persist, as well as games of Boggle and love of Twinkies. Emiko, a young girl, worships Kevin James’s Paul Blart movies. The mayor is naked, not as a feminist statement, but to feel “the cool breeze on my underboob.” The simple-but-exuberant line drawing, with characters posing dramatically with bold facial expressions, alternates in black, white, and grays with pages of warm pastels. This comic is defiantly a comedy, albeit a dark one. Women’s creativity, sexuality, and fearlessness are unleashed by Dhaliwal’s end of days. These unlikely heroines are unafraid to meet Armageddon with irreverence as they laugh, love, and raucously live on in this unusual and charming farce. (Sept.)[em] [/em]