Helen Mullane

A depressing tale about bullying that tells us right up front that something bad is going to happen to one of the main characters, so the whole time is spent wondering how awful it is going to be. Well not the whole time, because the menstrual blood repeatedly spread on faces is pretty distracting.

Anyhow, the bullying gets very harrowing and misogynistic and the response from adults is sexist, unhelpful, or outright harmful. And for animal lovers, the cat is killed.

I had mixed feelings about the story, and I wonder if part of that is due to its origin story. Painted is a 2021 revised edition of a digital comic originally published as Warpaint in 2019 by male writer Kev Sherry and female artist Katia Vecchio. For the Humanoids release, according to Vecchio, writer Helen Mullane "joined us as a partner to help us with script changes and have a strong female perspective on the project."* And thus Sherry's name gets sandwiched between those of a couple of women on the cover for marketing purposes.

If you want a good book about menstruation and school protests, I suggest you instead check out Go with the Flow by Karen Schneemann and Lily Williams.

* https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2021/10/interview-preview-helen-mullane-kev-sh...… (mere)