Rumble Girls

Genre Sci-Fi Publisher NBM Publishing External Links NBM Publishing

Rumble Girls was written and drawn by Leah Hernandez and published by Image Comics from 2000 to 2003. It was also serialized on the website www.rumblegirls.com.

Rumble girls is either set in the future or in an alternate reality. Indeed, one of the premises of the book is a host of worlds, civilized and uncivilized, and technology so advanced that medallion-sized reality-altering devices are common enough to be used in high school pranks. With all of this power at their disposal, the particular universe portrayed by Rumble Girls has the best… TV… ever. While their idea of basic cable is some kind of mutant TV, internet, movie… thing, it's all basically just tabloids and soap operas. But these soap operas take the form of giant robot battles between highly trained, genetically-engineered warrior women.

In addition to these women are the entertainment mega conglomerates and the paparazzi that swarm them. However, despite the fact that these are the parasitic heavies of this story, who lie, cheat, maim and kill to maintain their power, they also happen to be the very people who make the celebrities popular and sign their paychecks. Mrs. Hernandez's unwillingness to reduce them into just good guys and bad guys is mature and broadminded. Even the heroes and heroines of the story have flaws and bring some of their own poison to the situation.

The artwork is a bit rough. At first, I thought this was the mark of an amateur, but I soon had a change of heart. The artist's trademark style shone consistently through a variety of different techniques, like pencil sketches, meticulously brushed splash covers and unique styles for the simulated "video" segments. While it does get difficult to follow during fight scenes, overall, I'd say Leah is a damn good scribbler.

The story has a real human touch, but with the aforementioned soap opera vibe. Mrs. Hernandez has created a bizarre future/alternate reality that is strangely plausible, no doubt due to the great density of detail. Just like walking downtown during lunch rush, the banal humanity and modern technology are so thick as to cause sensory overload. All of this makes the story unfold like a mystery. The characters are just so accustomed to everything that important details are introduced and often not explained until much later, in passing. This is a refreshing style that respects the reader's intelligence and rewards careful and repeated readings.

Dialogue is mostly realistic, although some of it sounds a bit stilted. Of course, dialogue between actual humans is often stilted or overly melodramatic, so this isn't really a barrier. However, spelling and other typographical errors are occasionally a problem.

Mrs. Hernandez has, also, either created or co-opted an alternate alphabet that is used consistently on writings depicted "in-comic", which is a nice, immersive touch. It takes a while to figure it out, but after a while, you can get the hang of it and start looking for messages hidden in the background.

Since many reviewers feel compelled to assign some kind of star, thumb or dong to represent what they thought, I'm giving Rumble Girls 3 giant robots, an autographed photo of Susan Lucci and an issue of Tiger Beat.