Book Review - Faith, Vol 1: Hollywood & Vine

Faith, Vol 1: Hollywood & Vine by Jody Houser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley, I finally got my hands on the Faith comics. I've heard so much about them, I couldn't wait to sit down and read the series!

I can't believe it's taken till 2016 to write and publish a story with a plus-sized female superhero, and one who isn't... wallowing in the misery of her fatness. In this volume, Faith is so much more intent on saving the world and helping people than she is about obsessing over her weight. And I love that about the book and the author. Thank you Jody for writing a happy, fat character - they're shockingly not that rare in real life, but in art, we're too used to fat equalling ugly, unhappy and weight-obsessed.

I also like the nods to pop culture - she's is infatuated with an actor named 'Chris' and 'Chrises' star as superheroes in films in this world too. It's cute, it's funny; more than anything, it feels ridiculously real.

One point, though. The white male characters look way too similar. Off late, all the comics I've read have this flaw - a number of different characters appear to be drawn as duplicates. It's hard to make out the difference between actor Chris, Torque and the clone-like goons. They don't all have to be sooo big and with the same cropped hairdo. We could do with some variety in forms.

Also - need to up the diversity stakes. We need more obvious racially diverse characters, male and female.

It's really important to have a wonderfully healthy-minded plus-sized female character in popular culture. I hope she continues to save the world, make some awesome friends, gets a lovely and loving hot guy for a long, long time.

Here's hoping for more volumes of this series. I love the humour, the meta nods to the entertainment industry, and of course, Faith herself.

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