Comics I Bought: May 15, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

True Story Swear To God - 11

Walking Dead - 49

Red Sonja She-Devil With a Sword Volume 3 (HC)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Good Girls" Issues 1-6 by Carol Lay

Here is another series that has been sitting on my shelf for a long while. All except one issue. "Good Girls" number one came out in 1987 but number six didn't hit the stands until 1991. Somehow during that time I managed to pick up every issue as it came out except for number three. I've kept my eye out for that issue ever since and hadn't re-read any of the others. Why re-read a story with a missing part? Last month I finally tracked down issue number three and decided to read the whole thing for the first time in 16-20 years.

"Good Girls" starts out split between two different stories. The first is about a woman who gets a job writing a lonely hearts column at a sleazy tabloid newspaper. This job and her coworkers hijinks are the start of a couple of weird adventures for her including meeting a mother and son duo who think they are super heroes. Some fun stuff but this character is abandoned after a three page story in issue four.

The second story line in the book involves a woman (Irene) who was orphaned when her family was on vacation in Africa. She was raised by a tribe that modifies their women's faces and so as our lead character grew up her face was modified in that fashion. She has a plate in her lip, a weird round nose, and bumps on her cheeks and forehead. She is then motivated to leave the tribe so she finds here way back to the USA where she discovers she is the heir to a billion dollar business. Also she's an ugly outcast in the USA.

This is one weird story. It starts out kind of straight forward as Irene tries to adjust to her new life but soon we get a blind boyfriend, an artificial floating island of outcasts, a con man, an new friend who has her neck stretched by rings, and a new enemy who is a woman with three breasts. And some nudity to show off said breasts.

The second is definitely the stronger of the two tales as it gets more attention and development in the final two issues. Overall the artwork is pretty good for all six issues. The women are generally more interestingly drawn than the men but the storytelling is solid. After waiting fifteen years to read the whole thing all together it was a good read. Clearly in the first few issues Carol Lay was searching for what she wanted the book to be but as the billionaire Irene story progressed it got tighter and more interesting. I like it but that is no big surprise since I like it when I read it way back.

If you're looking for something different than your usual comic book tale track this series down. It might take a little work because even in this day and age not everything is easily available. Just most things.