A Brief Book Review of “Woman World” by Aminder Dhaliwal
After reading Michael Findlay’s wonderful book The Value of Art (2014) and feeling inspired to see more visual art in person, I walked into the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle one afternoon, it being next to my office. Currently in the museum on the third floor is a work by renowned American feminist artist Judy Chicago from 2004. On capitalized, black lettering on two poster-sized white tapestries are the words, “What If Women Ruled the World.” The words are all the more provocative and captivating by the images they frame. I’d describe those images, but you should just see it for yourself.
The entire work and those words and images were fresh in my mind when I later went into a bookstore and stumbled upon this lovely book Woman World (2018) by Aminder Dhaliwal, a Canadian-born cartoonist living in Los Angeles. Woman World is a hilarious, thoughtful, and engaging graphic novel about a post-apocalyptic world in which men no longer exist and are a fading memory and women rule the world. While the topics covered in the many vignettes within the book aren’t always light, they are explored with aplomb and the pages are filled with jokes while tackling many contemporary and universal issues of womanhood. Dhaliwal is a talented artist and the vast majority of her visual and written punchlines and ideas land well. A fun, stimulating book.