Redlands Ends Its First Arc With a Dark, Cathartic Finale

Writer: Jordie Bellaire / Artist: Vanessa R. Del Rey / Image Comics Finding ourselves at Sparkletown is enough to twist even the strongest stomachs when you open Redlands #6. We revisit Nancy, a 16-year old at the time and involuntarily working at the brothel where her father left her. The scene is appropriately cringeworthy, enough so that you get a small taste of the pain, fear, and anger any woman must have felt working there. The issue as a whole captures not only the trauma of forced sex work, but a small glimpse of the experience that most women have experienced to some degree throughout their lives, treated as a thing less than human. Fast forward to present day and we follow Nancy, now living as Bridget who loaned Nancy her body, back at Sparkletown to revisit old demons. She’s looking for answers, and straight from the jump you feel fear that this might be a losing quest for Nancy to find peace, or a revenge mission where she finds some — at least a bit — through catharsis. Sadness or anger, those are the options. Thankfully, Redlands veers where it has since its first issue when the series began last year, and takes the road toward anger.

Another emotional powerhouse of an issue, Redlands #6 captures the anger you feel for Nancy and turns it into our dark fantasy for justice, a retribution paid through anger and a catharsis of long-suppressed emotion. Artistically, the panel layout takes new form at the issue’s climax, and rarely seen diagonal panels track Nancy …