Marisa Acocella (Cancer Vixen) imagines a boisterous convention of female goddesses, heroes and saints in her illuminating graphic novel The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother. Acocella's avatar comes face to face with God the Mother--clad in a sparkling pantsuit and metallic blue ankle boots--who presides over a pageant of compelling women from fable and history. "Everything you've been taught is wrong," she tells Acocella. The Bible, says God the Mother, written by men about men, "is not exactly a testament to the unrivaled awesomeness of our divine feminine power!" This statement is the overture for a surprising cast of characters who introduce Acocella to feminine power figures across the ages.
"The law of creation is a law of balance," Acocella is told. She meets a multitude of largely forgotten early female divinities. The West African creator goddess Mawu and the biblical Eve--who brought down paradise through her desire for knowledge--are exemplars of women who rebelled against the male God and became a "scapegoat of humanity." The feminine figures in these pages, representing a range of shapes and ethnicities, are shaded and cloaked in vastly different ways and yet, perhaps intentionally, look like they're all somehow related. The women have a modern sensibility when speaking, as when Green Tara, Mother of all Buddhism, explains, "Buddhahood is gender inclusive.... I wear rainbow leggings for a reason."
Full-page illustrations and multiple panels explode with color and action, smoothly coordinating visual and textual information. For example, when God the Mother points out female symbolism present in church architecture, she announces, "as far as keeping women out of the church, we're in the church," and readers won't look at cathedral arches the same way ever again. The shameless irreverence in these pages is not so much for religion and history--although it's that, too--as it is an abundance of joy these women have in finding their voice on these pages. "You say you want a shevolution?" the Blessed Mother Mary asks rhetorically (with a wink at the Beatles).
Readers will scour the illustrations for small visual treats and refer to the comprehensive bibliography when they meet unfamiliar figures. Acocella's modern illustrations with an eye toward classic comic tropes are wonderfully suited for this fierce work, perfect for fans of Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Alison Bechdel. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.
Shelf Talker: This graphic novel is an irreverent and thoroughly modern retelling of history by female divinities throughout the ages.