Female Force: Gabrielle Giffords
Written by CW Cooke
Pencils by Nick Justus
Colors by C.J. Ruiz
Letters & Inks by Warren Montgomery
Cover by Joe Phillips
Bluewater Productions
Release date: January 31, 2012
Price: $3.99 (print); $1.99 (ebook)

The story of Gabrielle Giffords is one of triumph over adversity. On January 8, 2011, the Arizona Representative was shot in the head while giving a public speech in her home state. Though she survived the attack, Giffords faced many hurdles in her recovery and continues to face them even now.

Female Force: Gabrielle Giffords is a new 32-page full-color biographical comic book from Bluewater Productions that details the Congresswomen’s life from her many academic achievements, to her time as a business woman and state politician, and later as a member of Congress. We learn a little about her childhood and also about her relationship with husband, NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. Of course, great attention is given to the shooting and Giffords’s subsequent efforts to recover from her extensive injuries.

While I read a lot about Giffords right after the shooting, I really learned a lot about her from this comic book, which is part of Bluewater’s “Female Force” series, a line of comics that highlights the lives of famous strong women – and Giffords certainly is strong. This is a woman who many thought would not survive her injuries (as I recall, the press had reported that she had died). She’s had to have numerous surgeries on her brain, including those to remove parts of her brain and then later to replace those parts — and she’s had to relearn to walk and talk. Her story is nothing short of miraculous.

Writer CW Cooke does a fantastic job on this biography and by end, I was nearly in tears. Female Force: Gabrielle Giffords is for anyone interested in Giffords’s extraordinary life both before and after the shooting. Whereas before I mostly knew about her married life and her long road to recovery, I now know a lot about her political platforms and achievements from this comic. While there is the trauma of the shooting in the comic, it’s very tastefully done, so I think it would be safe for children to read and is a suitable way for them to learn about an inspiring political feature who managed to overcome great adversity.

You can read the issue right now on the Kindle (text-to-speech is enable). Or, if you want the print version, you can pre-order a copy online or check your local comic book shop.