Loud: Stories to Make Your Voice Heard

by Anna Cercignano, Eleonora Antonioni, Maurizia Rubino

"No one can do it for you, but you don't have to do it alone."

Big names in Italian comics gathered in a unique and powerful anthology to say enough to gender-based violence.

Ellie, Sabrina, Rose, Laura, Liz, Camilla. Their stories touch us deeply because they happened and they happen to us too, to our sisters, friends, neighbors.

Sometimes we don't even realize it, we minimize it, we don't have the tools to understand, react, talk about it out loud. And that's exactly why this book was born: to break the silence and fill it in our stories and our words, to ensure that situations like this never happen again.

Gender-based violence takes many forms, from subtle manipulation to outright physical abuse, and it knows no boundaries. Loud: Stories to Make Your Voice Heard is a powerful anthology curated by a feminist collective of Italian comics creators working in solidarity to unite, support, and empower others in the fight against toxic masculinity, both in the comics industry and beyond.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Young Adult, Mental Health, Graphic Novels Comics, Anthologies

184 pages, Paperback

First published July 9, 2024

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthologies can be a real grabbag of quality, and for some reason anthologies highlighting social issues doubly so. Not so with this wonderful collection. Most stories are moving, and the art in general is really high quality. A few stories are maybe a bit too on the nose, but they're never bad stories.

Recommended.

(Thanks to Dark Horse Books for providing me with a review copy through Edelweiss)

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loud is an Italian feminist comics anthology that tells nine different stories about gender-based violence. Some of the stories are really strong, but a lot of it was a little underwhelming or even problematic. I've read a decent bit of feminist comics, so I guess to some extent I feel like a lot of what this one says has been said before, and sometimes better.

The art is honestly pretty consistent throughout. There's obviously some that I liked more than others in that regard, but there weren't any weak entrants, and I really enjoyed some of the art in particular. A couple of the stories really spoke to me. "Text Me When You Get Home" by Maurizia Rubino shows the journey of one woman walking home at night and how uncomfortable the entire walk is because of her legitimate fears of violence, and her friend's request to let them know she was safe on arrival. It really captures the tension in a way I appreciated a lot. "Two in One" by Francesca Torre and La Tram is a decent story that gives us the excellent line "No one can do it for you, but you don't have to do it alone." Several of the stories gave me a lot of feelings in a mostly good, such as "Baby Face," "Sabrina," "Careful," and "Listen to Me." I liked that many of the stories stress solidarity and community, including that men need to support the women in their lives who have been harmed.

My biggest issues with the book are, I think, that I didn't really love how it dealt with queerness or fatphobia. There's only one story with queer characters, "The Right Thing" by Lucia Biagi, and it was honestly pretty problematic. It involves a character being outed without their consent by being filmed without their consent and they try to make everything okay in the end, but it really does not go nearly far enough in addressing how messed up this is. There's a story, "Under Pressure" by Davide Costa and Elisa2B, that addresses the toxic masculinity that men are pressured with and how that impacts women, and it addresses that homophobia is weaponised as a tool of the patriarchy, but it also doesn't go far enough. "The Yellow Hoodie" by Vega Guerrieri and Caterina Ferrante addresses fatphobia, from sources as varied as internet comments to your own mother, but honestly, a lot of the tone of the graphic novel is that community heals and there's hope for the future, but this story really doesn't feel like that. The only story where fatphobia was the focus was just so hopeless.

There was stuff I liked here a lot, including stuff I would recommend if I could suggest it independent of the collection, but there was just enough that I thought was problematic that I would have a hard time recommending the whole thing.

[Niina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarjakuva-antologia käsittelee todella rankkoja teemoja: parisuhdeväkivaltaa, hyväksikäyttöä, läskifobiaa, toksista maskuliinisuutta... Sarjisten tyyli vaihtelee voimakkaasti ja osa oli täysin erilaisia kuin mitä yleensä luen. Joissakin tarinoissa loppu jää täysin auki ja toisissa se on jopa toiveikas. Eniten kolahti varmaan ilta-aikaan tehdyn kotiinpaluun kuvaus, kuinka tarinan naishahmo pelkää joutuvansa väkivallan uhriksi.

[lesneczytanko · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zostały poruszone ważne i ciężkie kwestie, natomiast przez to, że jest ich tak dużo, żadna nie została pogłębioną.

[Jack Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, this graphic novel was kind of a let down. The actual rating I would give this is more like 3 but because there was some really good art in sections I’m giving it a four so artists can still be compensated and recognized for their efforts.
That all said, starting with the cover- it is incredibly misleading. The cover has a whole set of diverse folks featured. But none of these folks are actually apart of any of the stories. In terms of the actual content, it’s a lot more homogeneous in terms of diversity, including various experiences of fem identities.
Along those lines, I found this in a LGBTQ section at a bookstore, and holy yikes I would not describe this as having any healthy LGBTQIA+ representation. In fact, the one story that features any Queer references at all, is honestly really terrible. It could be due to the fact that this a collection of works from Italy (where gay marriage still isn’t legal- yikes). And it shows.
Lastly, it could also be due to translating the stories from Italian to English, but a lot of the dialogue felt a lot like Trauma P**n.
This collection had SO much potential and fell short on several marks. There are so many diverse fem experiences. And this collection unfortunately didn’t include diverse BIPOC fem experiences, trans-fem, or non-binary experiences of femininity. It felt very much like a collection born of Second Wave Feminism.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat uneven comics anthology, on the theme of gender based violence. Enough of these stories are powerful and well written to make this worth reading overall, but there are also a few that simply observe sexism, rape culture, and slut shaming without with what feels like a shrug. Perhaps the biggest offender is the story where a girl is outed against her will by a friend who films her being intimate with another girl, with the extremely unsatisfying ending of having the friend delete the video and apologize. It just felt like the gravity of the situation was glossed over to have a tidy ending. Other stories engage more honestly with the subject matter: a teen girl leaving an abusive relationship, a woman walking home alone at night, a boy simply listening and being an ally and support to a girl who has been assaulted. There's also a story about toxic masculinity that felt out of place in this book. We spend almost the entire story in the head of a young man with a constant loop of manosphere podcast drivel, and it's a depressing place to be. While the message that toxic masculinity harms men is a worthwile one, I'm not sure it belonged in this particular collection.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good short stories revolving around violence towards women, slut shaming, self harm, things of that nature. There are a couple of odd things that may be cultural since these are Italian creators. One story has a girl smoking at her desk in high school and no one thinks twice about it and another has a guy walk into a classroom standing right next to a teacher while he very crudely makes fun of a student out loud in front of the whole class. No one bats an eye in either instance which would be almost immediate suspension at the least in the U.S. Who knows, maybe something was just lost in translation. The stories are otherwise very powerful.

[Regalia Lenzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Część opowiadań jest za krótka, by przedstawiany problem był ważny, a nie fanaberyjny. Dialogi ssą. Normalni ludzie tak nie mówią, serio, nawet, jak chcą wejść w rozmowie na level psychologa.

Historia z ubiorem/wyglądem bardziej trafia do młodzieży. Ja już mam bardzo głęboko, co sobie ludzie o mnie myślą. Historia z wędrówką nocą jest o przewrażliwionej lasce, która wszystkich/wszystko postrzega jako zagrożenie. Że też jej nerwica nie zeżarła.

No i powiedzmy sobie szczeże - nie zawsze rozmowa i to mityczne siostrzeństwo kobiet (którego, nawiasem mówiąc, nigdy nie uraczyłam) zadziała. Czasem po prostu musisz odpuścić, albo trzasnąć kogoś po mordzie. No i są jeszcze organy ścigania.

[Elizabeth Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology of stories allows its women creators to give voice to their lived experiences with various forms of violence, de-legitimation, and discrimination – and in that, I think it is successful. As with any anthology, I enjoyed some entries more than others – some for the art, some for the story. Overall, though, I thought they were well done.

However, I see this book tagged as LGBTQ+, and only one story, “The Right Thing,” explicitly deals with LGBTQ+ content. That’s not a problem, as that’s not the book’s only focus, but more just a FYI.

[Aapo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kokoelma sarjakuvanovelleja italialaisilta tekijöiltä, kokoavana aiheena naisten kokema väkivalta tai ainakin sen uhka. Kaikissa tarinoissa on kuitenkin toiveita herättävä lopetus, mikä onneksi keventää lukukokemusta.

Kaikin tavoin taitavasti tehtyä sarjakuvaa ja eri tekijöiden erilaiset tyylit antavat kirjaan mukavaa vaihtelua. Jostain syystä en kuitenkaan sen enempää innostunut tästä. Aihe on tärkeä ja siihen tarjotaan monta erilaista näkökulmaa, mutta silti agendavetoisuus vähän hiertää.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the short stories. Each one having its own unique story. The art was amazing in all of them. I love that it hit on all kinds of topics from slut shaming, to self harm, to empowering women. Overall a really good read!

[Kim Cabanting · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each story felt a page or two short, but otherwise very good.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Like most comic anthologies, some of the stories are better than others. I liked most of the art.

[Ina Cla · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[𓆩♡𓆪]

Faktiskt mkt fin!!

[Mrs. Tea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! That was so powerful! I just wanted to keep reading, I feel like I still needed more tho, what happened after?

[Javier Campos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pensaba que iba a ser una obra woke lastimera pero presenta en cambio historias muy reales de maltrato a la mujer realmente conmovedoras

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I related to this book so incredibly much its definitely in my cart on amazon

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavy stories.
Too close.
😣😵😫

[Domiczek_06 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Powieść graficzna jest zbiorem kilku historii poruszających ważne tematy. Jednak ze względu na ich mnogość, żadna z nich nie jest wystarczająco pogłębiona.