A nerve-racking thriller from crime writer Christa Faust and blockbuster artist Mike Deodato Jr. (The Resistance, Infinity Wars). When her teenaged daughter goes missing under mysterious circumstances, suburban soccer mom April Walters embarks on a harrowing mission to find her; a journey that takes her through the underbelly of her suburban community and sets her on a collision course with a massive crime syndicate and its lethal matriarch. Tested to her limits and beyond, April discovers that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.
When a dumpy housewife’s teenage daughter goes missing, this mother will do whatever it takes to get her back. Even take on drug dealers. It's a cool story but could have been executed better. Lee Loughridge's colors are too dark and muddy obscuring the art.
Man, this book is pretty awesome. Faust wrote another AWA book, Redemption, and this is by far the better of those two. Unlike that story, which starts strong and finishes with a bit of a whimper, Bad Mother starts strong and just gets better as the mystery and tension build to a riveting climax that frankly has no right to be as amazing as it ends up being.
Bad Mother follows April Walters, a soccer mom whose teenage daughter goes missing under bizarre circumstances. The story takes the tired mom trope and gives it a brand new life. If I was pitching this in an elevator, I would call it a Breaking Bad-ish tale about a mother instead, and with elements of Taken sprinkled in. The art by Mike Deodato Jr. is a perfect fit for the script as well, and I really think this is Deodato’s best book ever along with Not All Robots.
I’d really recommend this and any AWA books to any comic fans since they are super cheap at $9.99 a pop.
This was a pleasant surprise. Came into this book with zero expectations and it ended up being pretty dope. The story follows a mother who is having a shitty day. Her husband left out of the country, her son made plans with his friends so he doesn’t want to hang with mom, her daughter came home with a black eye and the grocery store was robbed while she was getting groceries. Then to top it off, her daughter gets kidnapped. Dammit man, what a day. But this mom has no quit in her and she is not going to stop until she finds her daughter. She gets very clever with her planning and how she tracked her daughter down. Cool concept and great execution. Definitely worth checking out.
Picture it. Modern day suburbia. April Walters is a put upon housewife. Her kids have little use for her and April's life seems to be an endless series of soul-wrenching loads of laundry and car rides to various activities for her kids.
But when her daughter disappears, April starts searching for her. What she finds invests this crime thriller with a serious dramatic heft as April turns from a put upon woman to a mom who will do anything to save her daughter from criminals out to end her life and/or worse.
This was originally published as five individual comic books and through the first four issues, it was quite a decent read as we see the evolution of April as she tracks her daughter and those who took her. Watching her evolve from a mom that's always late picking her son up to someone who uses the internet to learn how to make a bomb provides some great reading.
The fifth and final chapter of the story was fine in most respects but I was left wanting at the way things just kind of went back to normal. Maybe it was a desire to see what happens next or I just felt the resolution wasn't to my liking but it did end up affecting my overall enjoyment of the story.
Still, the story by Christa Faust with art from Mike Deodato, Jr. draws the reader in and makes you glad to see a story focused on a woman who becomes a badass my necessity rather than design.
This book follows a traditional soccer mom type. She worries about her weight, her marriage, her teenage daughter, other mothers and their opinions and other people's perceptions of her suburban life. Her relationship with her daughter, Taylor, is strained, as is many mother/daughter relationships and when Taylor comes home one night covered in cuts from being hit by her boyfriend April sees red and goes over to his house. Only to find him dead. When she returns home, Taylor is nowhere to be found. This leads April into a ring of organised crime. Police being paid off to turn their backs, human trafficking, drugs, fraud, everything you can name, April discovers it all underneath her nose. When she finds the woman who has taken her daughter, April vows that it won't end well for either of them.
I liked this story, it was interesting in many places and I liked April's character. I did find Taylor a bit too dramatic for me, making her password and all on her phone "ihateyoumom:|" seemed a bit much, even for a 16 year old. But overall, I liked it.
Take a little john wick, a little Taken, and a little breaking bad and mix it in a pot and you get this...in the best way possible.
After her daughter goes missing April decides to take matters into her own hands since the police are doing jack shit to find out what happened to her. So this is like a mystery thriller mixed with some home alone making your own traps type shit. Funny enough it reminds me a lot of Nobody, a movie that just came out, but with a soccer mom twist.
The art is solid but moody and sometimes a bit too dark. I also think the last issue wrapped up a bit too quick at times.
But besides those two things I REALLY enjoyed this. The dialogue was fast and fun, the pacing was near perfect, and the brutal deaths worked real well. Bad Mother is a great comic that works well for fans of thrillers and semi-ridiculous premises. Check it out! Awa rarely misses.
One of those comics that feels like a pitch deck for an even better movie or tv show. Such a solid hook, with much fertile ground to explore as both a crime thriller and a dark comedy. But the characters feel like archetypes, the dialogue is hit or miss, and the art is absolutely hideous. It often looks like traced bad cg, though the end papers make no confessions in this regard. But the seed of greatness is present. Somebody cast this right and shoot it.
Nice twist on the parent-rescuing-child pulp revenge tale. Original take, and really enhanced by some sublime artwork. But the artwork covers some shortcomings that are more apparent in retrospect, including a greediness for escalation that undercuts some of the tension build. But a fun read nonetheless!
Great character work from Christa Faust and great art work from Mike Deodato, Jr. combine to deliver a cool and tense take on a suburban mum breaking bad to save her daughter. This book hooked me in from the first page and held me to the end. Top notch work all around.
Bien, me ha gustado. Redondeo a cuatro estrellas porque la premisa y la protagonista me ha encantado. Me llamó la atención este título por la escritora, Christa Faust. Tiene un libro editado por ES POP que me llama la atención pero me encontré con este cómic y como estaba en KU decidí probar. Tengo que leer más de Faust, pero ya.
Aún habiéndome gustado todo lo que he comentado, este volumen se me ha quedado un poco corto en desarrollo. Para mi gusto, no hay el suficiente trasfondo, sobre todo al principio. De hecho, por momentos me parecía que me había perdido algo. Por eso creo que esta historia es un poco superficial. Ahora, el arte: bien, a veces me gustaba, otras no tanto. Los cuerpos masculinos, por ejemplo, muy de superhéroe, no sé si me explico. Dibujados con unos hombros exagerados y totalmente desproporcionados. Como la historia es tan "ordinaria", por lo menos los personajes lo son (siendo como es la protagonista una madre normal y corriente), me sacaba un poco de la historia. También notaba el diseño de personajes un poco rígido. Es que me parecían muñecos de acción. Otros detalles me han gustado, por ejemplo el diseño de las viñetas y cómo las han usado en el desarrollo de la acción. Es un aspecto que me suele ganar cuando es original o diferente a lo que se suele hacer en novela gráfica.
Está traducida al español aunque yo he leído la edición original en inglés porque está en Kindle Unlimited y la edición traducida ni siquiera está en digital. Así que...
Second read. Enjoyed it even more the second time. Just loved the mom and the simple, unquestioning fierceness in defense of her child. Would be a good Netflix series.
Original review Quick and brutal noir. Main character is a mom with a middle-age spread that doesn't fit in her jeans anymore whose daughter needs saving. She goes from doing laundry to kicking ass in the flick of a knife. The artwork is upper-tier comic book style — it fit the mood perfectly. Reminded me of "Lady Killer, Vol. 1" but I liked this better because I understood the lead character's motivation.
P.S. I also liked the author's hard crime novels featuring a porn star as the main character: Money Shot and Choke Hold. After Bad Mother, I'm looking forward to her new comic Hit Me.
Reading this was delightful and I think it was mostly because I know my mom would do the exact same for me. My own mom is a more type B personality but she’ll go full kung fu mama bear on anyone’s ass if she needs to, no word of a lie, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I just felt such a strong connection to April because I could see so much of my own mom in her.
For once we have a perfectly paced and plotted single volume series with Bad Mother. Nothing felt shorted or rushed by the time we finished. All the characters that we were introduced to got good closure, nobody felt left out or like their arc was incomplete. So often I want more with a miniseries but this was perfect as it is. If the author wanted to build on this history and these characters they could or they could just leave this as the perfect one and done it is. Either way, I 10/10 recommend.
Tested to her limits and beyond, April Walters discovers that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned. She would do literally anything and everything to get her missing daughter back.
Watson’s Review: Holy squirrel chase. This book had as much action as my sister chasing a rabbit through the yard. As mom read me this, I learned that bad means good (the English language is so weird). It’s great to see how far a mom will go to protect their child. My mom protects me from all kinds of things... like door ways and slick floors. If you want a well drawn and written action book, this is the one for you. Paws up: no dogs were hurt in this book Paws down: there were no dogs in this book. 🐾
Throw John Wick, Liam Neeson from taken, and a soccer mom into a blender, and you have the main character in this story. It was a lot of fun, and I blazed through it.
Sometimes the artwork gets in the way of a good story. That is certainly the case here, since I can't tell some of these characters apart. I'm also used to a little thing called introduction that helps me know who the characters are, at least by name. The main character's full name is revealed only in the second half of the story and I don't remember seeing the bad guy's name anywhere. Then again, this was written by a woman, so that might be it. Just joking. The story is pretty fun. It's one of those female empowerment trips with some drugs, human trafficking and murder sprinkled on top. A fast and fun read if you don't mind the unlikely scenario that a soccer mom faces a criminal organization by herself.
April Walters is miserable. She has been gaining weight, then she barely survives an armed robbery at her local store. Midlife crisis aside, she is rightfully worried when her daughter Taylor comes home beaten up. She suspects her boyfriend Chase who turns up dead. But then his body goes missing, so the police don't believe her story. It's time to put aside the tears and get to work. And boy, does she do the work! Soccer mom, indeed!
April es una de esas mujeres invisibles. Sus hijos no la ven. Su marido no la ve. Ni siquiera unos asaltantes en busca de una rehén la ven. Es una entre miles de anodinas mujeres citadinas intentando, sin conseguirlo, entrar en unos Jeans en oferta en los probadores de Walmart. Pero, si la miras de cerca, verás a una guerrera.
BAD MOTHER trata sobre una... madre. Una que no tiene superpoderes. Ni es policia retirada. Ni exmarine. Tampoco tiene un misterioso pasado como estudiante de artes marciales. Es una ama de casa, de mediana edad, con un poquito de sobrepeso, y lo único parecido a un superpoder que tiene es ser invisible. Para su familia y para la sociedad. Sin embargo, a pesar de ello, es una de las personas más decididas y poderosas que podrían conocer.
Well, i'm a father, but i supposed my wife, our even myt mother, would do the same thing our girl April did on this one.
A great book by Christa Faust and a ridiculous art by my man, Mike Deodato. Really, every page is just gorgeous. April is just a normal person, living in a normal house, in a normal city in the EUA. But, she's a mom. And after her daughter being kidnapped, she just step up to rescue her, as the police will not. Great pace, great story, action packed, with some nice scenes envolving April's decisions. Some stuff, i believe, it was hard to believe a normal person would learn to do so fast a couple of things she did it, but nothing that would took this book's best qualities away. Great reading.
While this and the Fourth Man are the more basic of the AWA books it is still a really good read with incredible art and a lot of heart. As Joe Bob Briggs would say "Have we seen a parent revenge story before? Yes, but have you seen one with a homemade explosive device made with a battle action Incredible Hulk doll? I think not!" There's a lot of little clever sequences like this flawlessly drawn by Mike Deodato (who seems to be the house artist for AWA) who gives it the amazing exploitation movies from the 70s. For a fun good time action comic without capes I highly recommend Bad Mother! And all the other AWA books. They're really putting out some of the best Independent books right now giving Image a run for its money.
Titulo: Bad mother Autor: Christa Faust, Mike Deodato Año publicado: 2021 Motivo de lectura: - Lectura / Relectura: Lectura Fisico / Electronico: Electronico Mi edicion: - Idioma: Español Puntuacion: 1.5/5
Realmente una perdida de tiempo. La ilustracion es bastante meh/generica, ahora el gran problema que le encuentro a este comic es la historia. Todo ocurre como si te estuvieran contando algo que ya sabes, es por esto que hay tantas lagunas/falta de informacion. Demasiada incoherencia, por lo que no logro captar mi atencion, una lastima!
This is basically the film "Taken" but stars a regular single mother instead of an aging CIA agent. Bad Mother even reads like a film pitch, so I kind of wonder why the rather generic template is used here. Nonetheless, it's pretty entertaining throughout. The underlying tension is pretty well developed with the villains being pretty compelling and the mystery unfolding in a rather complex enough fashion. I'm not a fan of Deodato's layouts, but he can definitely draw some great action. This is a fun time for the most part, so if you're looking for a shlocky revenge thriller, this is exactly that.
This reads super fast, and I was sucked in after only a few pages. The first 10-20 pages is any parent’s life. Then it moves at breakneck speed to a pretty sweet conclusion.
It is a bit strange, because our protagonist doesn’t really go through much culture shock. She never really seems cognizant of the gravity of the shit that is happening or the lives she is taking. And she never really does. But it was still a hell of a fun, quick read.
I really wasn’t sure what I was going to make of this one, but I’m glad I gave it a shot. The storyline kind of reminds me of these crappy matinee movies aimed at housewives with titles like "A Mother's Love" or something similarly twee, but with an R-rating, but in a good way. It also features some really nicely grounded artwork which complements the story perfectly. Overall, I’d definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a comic book outside of the normal genres.
I picked this on the last day of Feb to clear 10K pages read for the month. This little book packed A LOT of story! I wonder if I'd like this better as a movie - a medium I understand much better than graphic novels. There were places where the story seemed to jump, and I was confused. Maybe that's something in graphic novels? Overall OK.
I didn’t know what to expect going in, but I really liked the time I spent reading this. April is one bad-ass mom (as the title would suggest) and she just wants what’s best for her kids. I’m really glad I picked this up!
not as god as Redemption but still good. Great art, great writing. Plot and characterizations a little weak, but still, I burned through it in one sitting. Great narrative drive. Four stars because not 10/10. I give it 9.4/10.