Many thanks to Netgalley, Diamond Book Distributors, and the author, for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Trapped in Zarkass follows the story of 2 women from Gaia (the new earth) a scientist and an ex con on a government mission with their own personal agenda's on the side. The earth at this time is supposed to have won the fight against patriarchy and completely woman dominated with no real gender roles anymore. But unfortunately that's not the message I got from the book. This graphic novel tell the story of colonization of a new planet of 'uncivilized savages', a TERM WE HAVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE (please do read sarcasm as my subtext, because unlike this book I would like to make this clear). The women in the story are just female in expression carrying out exactly what have men have done all through out eons.

This can be read as a mockery or as a warning of what men say will happen if women rule the world. The art was very male-gazery and so was the plot, the conversations and the subtext.

This was definitely not my cup of tea and I would rather never read a story like this.

Y'know, I feel like this was a bait and switch. The description of this graphic novel promised a futuristic world in which "gender definitions are gone". It should have been a red flag when that was immediately followed up with "[gender] references practically banned".

The cover also should have been a red flag. I'm not a prude and am all for women being empowered and comfortable in their skin. But, unfortunately, this is only done through the male gaze in this work.

The adaptation of Wul's 1959 work promised "to fold in modern themes of LGBT equality, environmentalism, colonialism, and more". Perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part, but these themes were certainly not added in any way that seemed supportive, knowledgeable, or thoughtful.

Trapped in Zarkass was enjoyable comics fantasy with some interesting implications for readers to consider. An entertaining and well-designed book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Magnetic Press for the arc!
I had high hopes for this supposedly gender-bent, alien planet-exploration graphic novel. Allegedly this story is about two Earth spies sent to the planet Zarkass with "secret" reasons for being there. The art is pretty cool but all of the insults and jokes and whatever are basically misogynistic comments about the female body and sexuality. Also, there's a lot of semi- and full nudity when it's super unnecessary. The characters were extremely sexualized and as a woman, I could tell that men wrote this.

Anyways, the plot was super confusing and as a whole, I really didn't care about anything that happened so it was tough to get through.

There was a war between men and women on Earth, and men were eradicated (how that actually came about is glossed over). Does the book have much to say about sex and gender? Nope. The women just behave like male gendered would. Still not entirely sure why the whole men-eridication thing was added.

Ah, but maybe it is at least funny? Not to me, and I don't mean like in a pearl necklace clutching way, I just never laughed.

And it's strangely wordy, making the whole thing a bit of a slog to get through.

So, in general: no.

3/𝟱

Colonizers, but make them female and ‘them’. Let them keep their nasty attitude towards new cultures and be dismissive, rude and obnoxious to beings they find inferior. 🤔

Yeah… not sure how I felt about this one. 😬

🌱THE EXCELLENT
~ Great art
~ New world and distinct characters and monsters

Two women are sent on an almost suicide mission to a colony of MIB cockroach like beings. Here, they go through a series of challenges with their guides, their main goal, dreams of a dead god, an uprising and an invasion of another alien race before it all goes upside down. The women must outwit various layers of the foreign society to gather the materials their government needs to fight the new aliens and retain power over their colony - that is, unless the red god has other plans.

✨𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

🌱THE MEH
~ The storyline 😬 - not sure if these females were to be macho men or rough female females? Or macho they? Idk, it was weird.
~ The whole colonizer, looking down on the people being killed and robbed was a no for me
~ 🤦 we of course have the dreaded yt saviour 🙄 it seems of of their own wasn’t worthy enough
~ Even in a book like this some nasty/harmful stereotypes still abound 🙄 ugh


♡🌱 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 ;)

I am glad I was given a copy but the story is hard to follow. The artwork was ok but I didn’t really enjoy the story. This one simply didn’t work for me.

i was expecting a sci fi story exploring gender and got a massively sexist, colonial nightmare. which i guess isn’t all that surprising, from an author who says in the interview at the end that he established “a world where women were omnipresent, having taken absolute power over men. This adds a COMICAL point of view for the reader” like, listen, this was garbage. if all you’re here for is drawing naked women—with absolutely NO concept of how impractical any of those naked and near naked action scenes are—then fine. but don’t advertise the story with the line “gender definitions are gone” when they are CLEARLY everywhere.

i really loved the art in this book !! the story wasn’t by far my favourite but it still was enjoyable. i’d recommend this to those who want a quick and fun read :)

First up, thank you to the publisher/Netgalley for allowing me to read this one!
This one sounded quite interesting, not sure how I felt about the gender stuff but I was curious to see how that would work nonetheless.
However.. from the start I was just utterly confused about many things. The plot. The relationships between the characters. How mean one of them was. How I kept wondering when that "gender definitions are gone, references practically banned" thing would come into play. And I am just tired of GNs or manga in which characters just seem to have constantly bad luck and keep getting in trouble. It can be quite funny, when done right. But that was not the case here.
Sadly, not for me.

Trapped on Zarkass (by Yann, Stefan Wul, Didier Cassegrain)

I would love to know how close this adaptation is to Stefan Wul’s original. Whether the dialogue is representative of what Wul intended, or whether great liberties were taken by those adapting it to a graphic format. It may be a case that the translation adds its own angle on the proceedings of course, and without being familiar with Wul’s original work it would be impossible to say. According to its notes (at the end of the book) the main difference is the changing of the male characters to female ones (creating the gender commentary that the descriptions focus on). These were specifically added, according to the authors, as comedy, and not as a serious critique.

Trapped on Zarkass is a parody of all that it presents in its current description, and as such it’s going to offend a great many readers who are expecting something very different from the book. Thankfully - for me - I was not one of these readers. I read purely as someone who enjoys graphic novels and particularly enjoys those that contain horror or science fiction, so the gender politics it promised was of little interest to me, while not being a specifically negative issue for me either.

The story follows two women, a scientist and an ex-con, who are travelling across a jungle planet ostensibly to catalogue the flora and fauna, but who are really tracking down a crashed alien craft that their government can use in its war against a secretive alien foe.

The art of the book is lovely, with dense and colourful backgrounds and appealing characters that are drawn in that slightly angular style that reminds me of the work of Ian Gibson in places (of Ballad of Halo Jones fame). The script is littered with witticisms and casual obscenity that brought on more than the occasional laugh.

It’s the book’s humour that is going to make or break it to any particular reader. If you wish to read it because the description tweaks any moral sensibilities then you should avoid this book, and I do mean that in large blinking capital letters. On the other hand if the description leads to a more wry response from you, or it’s simply a subject you have no thoughts about at all, then you’ll possibly enjoy this book a great deal.

Ideally the distributors should take a long look at the way they describe works such as this. The vast majority of people who would enjoy this book would be - I think - put off by the description, and those attracted to the book because of it are not likely to like it at all. Which is a lose/lose for everyone.

Bait and Switch

If you just picked this up and started to read it without looking at any blurbs or descriptions or reviews, it would come across as a well drawn, rather imaginative, buddy/adventurer sort of tale featuring two hot, semi-clad, pulchritudinous heroines finding lots of ways to get undressed in the jungle. And for that sort of book, it actually does a very good job, and is wittier and better plotted and executed than most similar efforts.

However, this novel isn't presented that way up front. Rather, according to blurbs and promos it's supposed to be about characters who are beyond gender, and sort of trans and fluid, albeit in a vaguely unexplained way. That would be interesting and groundbreaking. In practice, though, while I'm no expert, I think that just substituting "ovaries" for "balls" and "vulva" for "dick" in the crude comments and curses doesn't make for a convincing post-gender society. It's actually almost hyper-gendered. If anything, this confused mishmash is more insulting to the mislead trans-supportive reader than would be a straight up naked hottie adventure.

First I want to say Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for adding Trapped on Zarkass to their read now section.

The synopsis of this graphic novel sounded amazing, take on the couple/buddy cop, gender definitions are no longer in practice and their stuck on a alien planet.
The concept and artwork are both unique, and unfortunately that's where my praise ends for this novel.

While the main selling point of this story is gender definitions aren't in practice the way the characters are drawn and addressed and the way the story is written contradicts that
Everytime I thought the story was getting better it too a dive whether that was in plot or character design.
Our leads were always in danger, but that danger leads to their clothes being removed and you see these hyper feminine leads (in a world where gender doesn't matter) even in the concept art at the very end.

In short, this was a graphic novel that I wanted so badly to enjoy but couldn't. I actually wanted to DNF its but held out hope of it getting better.
I'm sure this is meant for someone and they'll love it, but that someone isn't me.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for a copy of this book.

The premise to Trapped On Zarkass seems like something I'd be interested in, as well as the cover. But it was sadly hard to get into.

It is described as gender not being important, yet it was drawn and written in a way that contradicts that. Clothes were scarce and foul language was rampant.

I wanted to like this graphic novel and I'm sure others will, but it just wasn't for me. If the description of the book fit better, I may have enjoyed it more.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

TRAPPED ON ZARKASS by Yann, Stefan Wul, and Didier Cassegrain is an adult sci-fi graphic novel that honestly borders on erotica. The story revolves around Larry and Marcel, who are agents sent to another planet named Zarkass on a mission. Their mission is to cover the flora and fauna of the alient planet. According to the description, "they are there to find and examine the mysterious wreckage of an alien vessel that has the government concerned."

Overall, TRAPPED ON ZARKASS is a sci-fi graphic novel that I really wanted to enjoy, but I just couldn't. Although the book claims that gender definitions are gone, the two main characters are depicted as voluptuous women who can't keep their clothes on. I just could not go above 1 star, because there were so many unnecessary nude or topless scenes which had absolutely nothing to do with the plot. The entire plot felt very male gaze-y, and I would be very surprised if there were any female creators working on it. If you're intrigued by the description, you can check out this book when it comes out in October.

3/10.
Trapped on Zarkass is an adult graphic novel set in 3001 about two agents, Marcel and Louis, from Earth who are sent to the planet Zarkass to investigate new triangle spaceships that are posing a threat to Earth's colony. Marcel agreed to join because she was told that her prison sentence would be shortened from 10 years to immediate release, and Louis agreed because her daughter was born with a chronic illness that may be able to be cured with a specimen from the planet.
I rated this book so poorly because I have a few issues with it. My main issue is that it is not the way it is advertised at all in terms of gender. The description says, "gender definitions are gone, references practically banned", and the publisher notes says, "Set in a future where gender is fluid and trans is the un-asked and assumed norm." However, this is not the case at all in the book. Men have been overthrown and the Earth has become a matriarchal society, and gender is referenced a lot, specifically in terms of insults. "She-monkey" "Girly-man" "fatherfucker" "bloody vulva", and that's not even all of it. Also, a lot of references to womenhood have to do with biology, making it seem like trans women aren't really a thing in this matriarchal society despite the publishers note saying trans is the assumed norm. This is further backed up at the end of the book when **spoilers** at the end of the book Vanessa is seeing Louis for the first time in a while and Marcel tells her that her pommy is a man now simply because she has balls due to having her body morphed into the kings, but she is still conscious in there and has never wanted to identify as a man. The narrative and the vocab used feels transphobic.
My other issue is that I just didn't like the book. I didn't think it was funny, the plot wasn't interesting to me, and I don't think the characters developed at all.
The best thing about the book is the artwork.