{"id":32471,"date":"2025-03-21T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T09:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32471"},"modified":"2025-03-18T17:19:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T17:19:20","slug":"dolltopia-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/03\/21\/dolltopia-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolltopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Abby Denson<\/strong> (Green Candy Press)
\nISBN: 978-1-931160-70-4 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

Not everybody is comfortable with whom they are and most of us don\u2019t like to be assumed one thing when we\u2019re another. Lulu\/IPPY Award winner Abby Denson is a magically subversive cartoonist and journalist with such disparate notches in her belt as graphic novel Tough Love: High School Confidential<\/strong> (relating the Coming Out story of two suburban teens), lifestyle bibles Cool Tokyo Guide<\/strong>, Cool Japan Guide<\/strong> and The City Sweet Tooth<\/strong>: a culinary cartoon column about the New York desserts scene for L Magazine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

An educator (teaching at Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, Eugene Lang College at The New School, Sophia University, Tokyo), her script credits run from Scooby Doo<\/strong> and Power Puff Girls<\/strong> to Spider-Man <\/strong>via Sabrina The Teenage Witch<\/strong>, Josie and the Pussycats<\/strong>, Disney Adventures<\/strong> and The Simpsons<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This entrancing shocking pink parable is an edgy, deceptively naivist fairy tale about gender, place and identity: making telling points in a clandestinely gentle manner via a swingeing attack and dissection of conformity…<\/p>\n

Kitty Ballerina<\/em> is a doll who escapes from The Factory, refusing to be what her makers tell her to be. During her escape she meets Army Jim<\/em>, another maverick toy who refuses to conform. Together they make their way to the Promised Land of Dolltopia, where you can wear and look like and be whatever you want. With the comradeship and assistance of the cat Mr. M<\/em>, fashion Divas Candy X<\/em> and Candy O<\/em> and slightly off-kilter, self-taught \u201cplastic surgeon\u201d the Doctor<\/em>, the renegades make themselves at home and truly free…
\n\"\"
\nHowever, freedom demands effort, vigilance and sacrifice. Some such recently emancipated individuals seem to crave their previous cultural indenture, and raids to liberate more dolls suffer when the apathetic conformists refuse to cast off their social shackles. However, the real threat comes when humans threaten to take away and destroy the hard-won oasis of security these disappointed rebels have strived so long and hard to win…<\/p>\n

Charming and cleverly controversial, if perhaps a little heavy-handed at times (sometimes you need fireworks and two-by-fours just to get a mule\u2019s attention!), this eclectic black, pink & white tome – complete with cut-out-&-dress paper dolls – is a winning and culturally crucial addition to the world of adult cartooning and the bigger one you can read it in. You\u2019d be an idiot not to take a good long look – but of course you don\u2019t have to be what I say you are…
\n\u00a9 Abby Denson. All right reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Abby Denson (Green Candy Press) ISBN: 978-1-931160-70-4 (TPB\/Digital edition) Not everybody is comfortable with whom they are and most of us don\u2019t like to be assumed one thing when we\u2019re another. Lulu\/IPPY Award winner Abby Denson is a magically subversive cartoonist and journalist with such disparate notches in her belt as graphic novel Tough … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Dolltopia”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,239,102,299,216,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-drama","category-fantasy","category-feminism-sexual-politics","category-lifestyle","category-young-adult"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8rJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32472,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32471\/revisions\/32472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}