Won’t Back Down

Award–winning Robbins (Flapper Queens) edits a far-ranging anthology of short comics on reproductive rights, organized as a response to the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade and the ensuing expansion of abortion restrictions across the U.S. Drawn in a variety of styles and reflecting a diversity of experiences, some contributions recount personal abortion stories with tenderness and strength, and others summon feminist superheroes to combat dystopian Handmaid’s Tale-like societies. Some skewer conservative political actors of the present day in op-ed cartoons, while others reimagine the historical experience of those without access to contraception and the use of homeopathic birth control long before medical means were legal. The best contributions are reflective, even ruminative, and the contemporary political cartoons are painfully on-the-nose. However, the collection is ultimately uneven, and the included future-facing fantasy scenarios fail, in the limited space allotted, to capture the pathos and pain of a world without access to reproductive choices.