Prison Island: A Graphic Memoir by Colleen Frakes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
There were three main problems with this book.
1. It kinda jumps around to different times and events, which makes it hard to get in the mindset of how cool and weird it is to live on a prison island. There was a nice sequence about how hard it is to get a pizza, which is a true struggle in the best of times, and I wish more of the book had been like that, and that the timelines were better separated or the story was more linear or something.
2. Again, like the Wonder Woman book I just read, the thing on the cover doesn’t happen in the book. I’m like, 90% sure. The cover image makes it seem like the prison is going to play a much bigger part, but it barely has anything to do with the story, honestly. Points off for that!
3. Finally, island prison is not on Pete’s List of Best Prisons. Sorry, Island Prison, but you need to get in line behind several others:
Face/Off Magnet Boot Prison
Yes, the prison that had built-in, weird movie screens with pictures of deer on them, which seemed kinda almost like they were supposed to make prisoners crazier. Plus, magnetic boots. What better way to stop a riot than just forcing all inmates to wear magnet boots? Bonus, the prison was totally an offshore oil rig or something, which was a nice reveal, but ultimately pointless because it seems like the only thing it takes to swim to shore is to no longer be wearing magnet boots, which is what needs to happen so you can get to the top of the prison anyway. Pretty decent prison, but only because you can’t smell it. A prison where the prisoners are wearing metal shoes 24/7? That place reeks of feet, at best.
Lockout’s Space Jail
You know, it seems to me that a jail in space would totally work. I mean, what are you gonna do? Tunnel out? Swim? The big hitch is that the cost of shipping a person to space is like millions. So until they invent that space elevator doohickie, which I still don’t understand at all, Space Jail is out. Not to mention that, based on most other films I’ve seen, the chance of space jail being taken over by aliens, leprechauns, Jason X’s, or the chances of the prison traveling through a hellmouth, are pretty high. I guess I’m a lefty, but I think prisoners probably have the right to not be stalked and killed by supernatural horrors.
Demolition Man’s Cryo-Prison
Mostly, my questions with this one have to do with why the inmates have to be naked, and also why their ice blocks are just hanging out in the open room. Why not put them in tall, cylindrical freezers or something? Freezing technology hasn’t developed to the point where the prisoners could wear little shorts? Or be in opaque ice?
Escape Plan’s Glass Boxes
The best feature of Escape Plan’s prison was having Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the same movie. Okay, also, the weird glass box prison was pretty great. And the sunlight torture room that hurt people because it was really super bright(?) Oh, and the reveal that the prison is on a barge that’s just driving around in the ocean, which means they’re in international waters and can do whatever they want(?) And then the Jesus guy from The Passion movie gets blown up. It’s really a movie that should be a lot better than it was. I don’t know what happened, but I was pretty drunk for the first half.
Escape From New York’s…uh, New York
This is a prison island done right. Sorry, Prison Island: A Graphic Memoir, but if your prison island doesn’t contain Isaac Hayes in a limo equipped with a chandelier, OR a fight to the death with baseball bats with nails in them, I ain’t interested.