Girl Comics UPDATED
Allan Harvey is quietly producing one of the most entertaining nostalgia blogs EVAH. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of comics, and a great sense of humor. If you enjoy classic comics – especially ones with scenes that make you go HUNH? – you will want to bookmark Gorilladaze.
Allan often features mainstream comic industry attempts to produce work of interest to the fairer sex. Check out this gem from DC Comics, with art by the lovely Liz Berube!
Whenever I want beauty advice, I turn to comic books. Yep.
Romance Comics are always a great way to get the gals rushing to the bookstore!
And in this classic, Jerry Lewis meets Wonder Woman.
Then Brawnhilde, the most, er, homely Amazon you’ve ever seen, arrives with news that Diana’s mom, Queen Hippolyta has been kidnapped by the evil Zodor. Jerry is still feeling sick, and so gulps down a potion indicated by Bratwurst — but it’s the wrong one, and Jerry finds himself impervious to pain!
Diana reliases that with her mother gone, Paradise Island needs a new leader: Jerry!!
Seriously.
“My hero!” cries Brawnhilde, her head awhirl with little hearts.
Hours of wacky fun for the whole family. You will love Gorilladaze.
EDIT: Crikey, how could I forget The Art of Kissing? The whole thing makes me throw up a little in my mouth, so artful kissers beware my pucker.
Speaking of Wonder Woman, Sarah Beach, who has contributed several guest blogs on this site, posted this interesting essay on The Problem with Wonder Woman.
She’s “a babe,” a confident woman, beautiful and bold. And yet, Wonder Woman remains difficult to peg. That is, perhaps, part of her enduring power to fascinate us. We try to sort her out, to figure what makes her tick, because we don’t really want to deal with someone as completely committed to truth and justice as the Amazon princess is. She’s not some wild woman who needs taming, nor some insecure heroine who needs coaching.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Thanks for the plug!
Wonder Woman is one of the very few modern comics that I still collect. I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of the character as such (though I do love the mad Bob Kanigher stuff (Wonder Tot!), the great Mike Sekowsky “Emma Peel” run, and early George Perez), but I’ve been enjoying Gail Simone’s writing. As long as she’s on it, I’ll keep buying.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
girl straddling cucumber=win! Way to get crap past the radar XD!
December 30th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Me too, thanks for the plug!
Colleen… what? You don’t like “artful kissers”?
Or is it just the nit-picking analysis there?
Allan, I agree – I really enjoy what Gail has been doing on WW.
December 30th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Arlnee! Yes! I saw that too and thought “Whoa!”
December 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
@ Arlnee: No wonder that chick has that odd look on her face.
I spend half my time re-reading the comics I enjoyed as a kid thinking to myself, “Whoa, I completely missed all the pervy subtext the first go ’round!”
Lest we forget, it was DC Comics which brought us the woman-hating one eyed monster!
http://adistantsoil.com/2009/01/18/world-without-men/
December 31st, 2009 at 12:01 am
actually, while I’m at it, the line about “And yet, Wonder Woman remains difficult to peg” was funny too… just sayin XD
Bartender, I’d like an entendre please. Make it a double…
December 31st, 2009 at 12:33 am
OMG!!! LULZ!!!!
December 31st, 2009 at 1:41 am
Fun post. I’ve been collecting romance comics on and off for a bout a decade now. Somebody else beat me to the book I was considering writing, but I have noticed that there’s a much more aggressive, violent and occasionally homoerotic not-so-subtle subtext in the pre-code romance books. Heavy film noir influences in some of these….
Not that the fun of the post-code books isn’t worthwhile too, especially the late 60s and early 70s books! I don’t think Liz Berube’s art ever appeared in mainstream comics other than the romance books. There’s a nice entry on her here:
http://sequentialcrush.blogspot.com/2009/10/artist-spotlight-elizabeth-berube.html
December 31st, 2009 at 4:27 am
stuff like this makes me want to vomit. guess that’s why i prefered GiJoe to My Little Pony…
December 31st, 2009 at 9:44 am
@ bodefan: Great link! Thanks!!!
@ Mamid: Never a romance fan myself, but sometimes the art was good. I bet you’d like Marvel Romance Redux comics. Old books with new dialogue. Wacky hijinks ensue. Get the ones written by Kyle Baker and Keith Giffen. Screaming funny.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Arlnee: I TOTALLY missed that line slipping past my self-censor. My subconscious is very tricksy (and since I had commented on why we have a hard time mixing WW and romance….).
Heh.
December 31st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
The romance comics are incredibly daft, and I’d hesitate to seriously recommend many of them, but there is the occasional gem. And the art, while often workmanlike, generally features solid storytelling of the kind that really ought to be studied.