Redlands and Witches

For this week I read Redlands by Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Ray. I first want to address that it was really refreshing to have a witch story not take place in Salem because it feels like every single witch story takes place there. It was really cool to see how the change of location in what we usually think of as "American Witches" and how that impacted how they act and use their magic. These comics scream woman empowerment, literally having it start with them taking over a town run by men. However, I'm not 100% sure if its portrayed as a good thing because they constantly are killing innocent people ion the town for their witchcraft, which is counterproductive to what I think the authors want to portray which is positive women empowerment. The women use their power in the towns government, being leaders of the police dept. and detectives so they can lie about things happening in the town. It is good to show women in such a place of power but its not portrayed in a good way, almost equating women in power to lying and murder which is already something old men worry about when the topic of women in power comes into play.
I do think the story is really cool, however, and would like to continue reading it as more issues come out. I think there are a lot of really interesting concepts in the comic and there can be a lot of cool stuff done with witches that isn't often played upon. One of these things is witches of color, which is very very rarely shown in any media about witches so it's really refreshing to see that in this comic series. Overall, I think the story can definitely lead to a lot of original stuff that hasn't been seen before in the portrayal of witches and definitely am going to keep up with the series.