Tidalwave Productions 2020
Written & Illustrated by Joe Paradise
Stormy Daniels, film star and director, rose from the strip clubs of Baton Rouge to the top of the lucrative adult film industry. She's also a savvy media mogul and entrepreneur, turning her brand into a worldwide phenomenon while empowering women to stand up for themselves and defy those who would marginalise them. Catapulted into the mainstream as the spicy centre of a hush-money scandal involving President Donald Trump, Stormy has weathered threats, lawsuits, and politically motivated arrests by steadfastly refusing to back down in her demand to hold the president responsible for his actions. Containing new pages, a new ending, and bonus images, this graphic novel retelling of her rise to fame is edited by Stormy and contains a foreword she wrote, proving you should never underestimate her. New cover by famed comic book artist Dave Ryan.
Regardless of what you think of the occupant of the White House or of this amazing woman this is something that makes me smile, laugh and shake my head. This time around there are changes and Stormy herself was involved in the editing process so there’s a lot here that is much factually accurate. At least from her side of things, including but not limited to her interactions with him. While this is far from being an actual biography, she has her own novel out for that and I highly recommend it, it is some pure campy fun that’s done in a way we know what’s going on. I mean the man’s behaviour in public, caught on camera, sound any and all of that are public record at this point. As is Stormy’s relationship with him.
What I really like here is seeing things go from look it’s Trump to Enter Stormy. How she entered his life and what she did from there these are the things that I find interesting. You can try to discount her because she’s an Adult Entertainer but she’s fierce, shrewd and a hell of a lot smarter than most anyone realises. That comes across here in some interesting ways. Joe really knocks it out of the part here with the story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information. Yes it’s a form of Satire ringed with the truth which makes it more unique than folks understand but it also shows us that through the character development we see she’s nobody’s fool. It is a nice translation to be able to write in ways that portray folks strength through this form of storytelling.
The interiors here are kind of crazy. It is actually a pretty nice blend of theme park caricature artist and comic book style art. It is extremely easy to see Joe’s influences with his work and the fact that we see the subtle context of Donalt’s hair, hands, eyebrows and that piece of his neck that looks like a vagina show a whimsy through the attention to detail. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a really good, solid, strong eye for storytelling.
I love Stormy’s contribution to the issue here as it’s just a hoot to see her throwing her full support behind the book. Also if this is what we can expect out of this format of storytelling I personally would love to see what could be done with a serious comic done on her. She’s a fascinating woman and I would love to learn more about her. Stayed tuned too because she is also going to be starring in the forthcoming Space Force comic.