In her just-published study of the mythic female icons of American culture — Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors, I.B. Tauris 2010 - Jennifer K. Stuller explores the power of pop culture superwomen from Barbarella to Nancy Drew and beyond. But for Stuller, and for contemporary American culture, it all began with Wonder Woman. Stuller recently chatted with ITCH about the Amazon Princess, the icon of feminine icons. Stuller blows a breath of fresh air into recent Wonder Woman conversations, scattering the bondage obsessions and reminding us of the appeal of feminine power and the power of example that we find in this great American hero.

You mention in your book’s introduction that you watched the Wonder Woman television show as a little girl. When did you begin reading Wonder Woman comic books, and what did you think of the woman in the comics?

Though I grew up with the Wonder Woman television series, played “Wonder Woman” with my sister as a child, and always considered the Amazon Princess a champion, I never really knew that she had originated in the comics nearly 40 years before I was exposed to her until I was an adult.

I’d read some comics as a kid – mostly the Archies at eye level at the drugstore. But it just didn’t click that Wonder Woman was a character in a comic book – even though I’d watched her alongside Superman and Batman in the animated series, Super Friends, and knew they’d been in comics.

The first copy of a Wonder Woman comic I can remember buying was purchased well into my adulthood. One of the initial ones I picked up was the infamous “Women’s Lib Issue” (don’t get me started on THAT . . .). Since then I’ve read specific arcs or issues in order to look at particular cultural themes and so what I think of the woman in the comics depends on which incarnation of Diana I’m reading. For example, I love the independence, self-confidence, and rallying abilities of William Moulton Marston’s Wonder Woman, but I also adore that Gail Simone has infused the character with a wonderful combination of warmth, compassion and ass-kickery.

What is Wonder Woman’s unique skill or power?

Her unique powers – beyond her physical Amazonian strength – are the abilities to inspire and to encourage people to believe in themselves. She teaches courage, compassion, and sometimes even practical physical skills, to girls, boys, women, and men. She shows the way to redemption, agency, and collaboration. Her power is that she is truly an example of how to make a difference that is beneficial to both the individual as well as the greater good.

What was the impact of Marston’s Wonder Woman on young girls of the 1940s and 1950s?

Well, she quite notably impacted a generation of girls who grew up to become second wave feminists in the 1960s and 1970s. As writer and activist, Gloria Steinem, has said, many of the founding editors of the feminist publication Ms. magazine were empowered by Wonder Woman in their childhoods. When they placed Wonder Woman on the inaugural cover of their magazine – and adopted her as a representative of feminist values – they forever sealed her status as a symbol of female empowerment.

How has Wonder Woman influenced your sense of femininity?

Ooooo. Interesting question! I’m usually asked how Wonder Woman has influenced my sense of feminism. I’ve never really considered how she’d influenced my femininity.

I’d say that in re-watching series episodes and reading the comics, that Wonder Woman has helped me embrace my femininity, both my grrrlness and my girliness. When I was a child she taught me that girls can be powerful – a lesson I carry with me to this day and hope to impart to women younger than me. As an adult, I’ve learned from her that femininity itself can be powerful, not as a weapon, but as a source.

Over 1,000 WASPs (Woman Air Force Service Pilots) were just awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor – 66 years after their courageous service in WWII. How do you think the Wonder Woman of the 1940s would have felt about that?

I think that as a sister pilot she’d be thrilled. Though I know she’d be disappointed it took so damn long for these brave women adventurers to be recognized!

How can Wonder Woman inspire us today?

Wonder Woman is a recognizable symbol of strength all around the world. People see her, read her stories, or watch her in action, and are inspired to believe “I can be a wonder.” Her core vales will always be of import to humanity and we can learn these ways of being from her.

— beth

John Hicklenton was a recently deceased UK artist afflicted with MS who nonetheless became a popular illustrator on 2000AD‘s venerable Judge Dredd as well as other features. You can check out his work over at Joe Bloke’s Grantbridge Street in a color story that ran in Judge Dredd Megazine.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/03/judge-dredd-black-widow-by-john-wagner.html

Every week over at the Fabuleous Fifties, there’s a fun post spotlighting the old advertising comic strips that used to sneak into the Sunday funnies alongside Joe Palooka, Li’l Abner and Mary Worth. This week’s outing presents cigarette ad strips!

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2010/03/recommended-by-80-of-all-ad-agencies.html

Speaking of advertising comic strips, that’s the announced subject of the first book from the newly formed Fantagraphics imprint headed by the eminent comics historian, Rick Marshall. We here at I.T.C.H. congratulate Rick and can’t wait to see what he comes out with over the next few years.

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/letters/25079/

Finally today, something a little more lighthearted as Bully looks at the Golden Age Sub-Mariner and the unexpected but consistent tendency for Bill Everett’s classic strip to veer off into some pretty wacky territory!

http://bullyscomics.blogspot.com/2010/03/eh-what-hecklets-make-some-more-fun-at.html

From time to time we spotlight one worthy individual blog. Today, that blog is Sam Henderson’s Magic Whistle. Henderson is an illustrator who has worked for everyone from Screw to Nickelodeon with a stopover as an early storyboard director for Spongebob! He’s run lots of interesting stuff at his blog but a favorite topic is humor magazines. Here a few links we recommend.

Pussycat artist Jim Mooney was the perfect artist to utilize for a parody of Barbarella and that’s exactly what the Grade Z 1970′s Mad imitation Blast did. Sam’s run a lot from the forgotten Blast and here’s that spoof, Boobarella.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2009/11/blast-2-3-of-4.html

Another find from Sam was Shaft, a 1950′s college humor magazine from which the Magic Whistle has run a number of excerpts from a number of different issues.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2009/08/shaft-november-1954.html

Edward R. Murrow’s Person to Person TV series was spoofed by Stan Lee and artist Joe Maneely in Snafu, one of several Atlas imitations of Mad published in the 1950′s.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2009/07/snafu.html

Finally, here’s Neal Adams with a spoof of underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau from a seventies issue of Harpoon, a singularly unfunny knock-off of National Lampoon.

http://themagicwhistle.blogspot.com/2009/12/harpoon-3-3-of-5.html

For more rare and odd humor mag excerpts along with some regular comics-related stuff and Sam’s own art, check out Sam Henderson’s Magic Whistle daily! We do.

Wacky Wonder Woman, show us your tats!

Consider this post more of a public service:

I’m not sure if the offer of getting the “big dick” is still valid, but it just goes to show you that some kids’ periodicals have been appealing to innate male insecurity for decades!

Nothing spices up a blog like controversy, so here comes a blockbuster!

It’s been debated for years exactly who created the Amazing Spider-Man. Smiling Stan Lee certainly deserves much of the credit, but most would agree not all the credit.

Sturdy Steve Ditko had a hand in Spidey’s creation, since he drew the first adventure. But do we give Steve 50% of the credit as co-creator?

It was Jack “King” Kirby who drew the cover to Amazing Fantasy 15, along with a few discarded pages of a story before Ditko landed the assignment. So how much credit do we give Jack? 33 1/3%?

Then again, there’s the story of how Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created a character called the Silver Spider and that Jack brought the spider concept to Stan. That makes Joe and Jack at least co-creators, along with Stan and Steve. The list of co-creators has grown to four making each man 25% responsible for Spider-Man. And where does that leave Artie Simek?

Well, I can settle this controversy once and for all. Let’s give 100% of the credit to a woman by the name of Bessie Smith. The consummate blues woman, Bessie sang “Spider Man Blues” in 1928, long before super-hero comic books even existed, never mind the four-color adventures of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

There! It’s settled. Bessie Smith created Spider Man and Stan Lee added the hyphen. Now let’s move on to debate whether Siegel and Shuster created Superman, or whether Friedrich Nietzsche deserves all the credit.

To hear Bessie Smith’s original Spider Man, click the link below.

Spider Man Blues - Bessie Smith

The Milt Gross revival continues unabated. Check out Comicrazys today for a couple of Gross stories from Giggle Comics as well as a neat little recommendation of that new book you might have heard about (still available elsewhere on this page).

http://comicrazys.com/2010/03/21/the-complete-milt-gross-comic-books-and-life-story/

In 1966 it seems like everybody tried being a superhero, even legendary Riverdale slacker, Jughead! Here he is as Captain Hero (along with Superteen and Pureheart the Powerful) from over at Mail It To Team-Up!

http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2010/03/tales-from-dollar-bin-jughead-as.html

Nowhere near as light in mood, here’s a genuinely creative but creepy tale of John Lennon by Dutch Disney cartoonist Dick Matena from a 1982 issue of Heavy Metal and shared this morning over at Easily Mused.

http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2010/03/dick-matenas-life-in-day.html

Finally today, “The Disturbed Digestions of Doctor Dibworthy,” a very brief but nearly perfect 1980′s 2000AD tale from the future Watchmen team of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Clever, funny, thought-provoking and damn good sci-fi for only three pages!

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/03/disturbed-digestions-of-doctor.html

Many amateur cartoonists got their first taste of being in print by illustrating their school yearbooks from Boody Rogers to Milton Caniff. But here’s a switch: I imagine William Randolph Hearst was a big donor to the University of California and that it was he who drafted his A-List cartoonists to cartoon what have to be the greatest yearbook illustrations of all time. Billy DeBeck (with a little dig at Hearst in the corner of his illustration), Sidney Smith with an Andy Gump, Swinnerton with Little Jimmy, another DeBeck, this time with Spark Plug and Barney Google. Uncle Walt and Skeezix by Frank King, Fay King (no relation that I know of-hm, never thought about that till just now). That’s Fay herself in the background as she often drew herself, BEFORE Segar’s Olive Oyl! And we end with a couple of George McManus’ including a nice Rosie in the swim. There’s more cartoons in the yearbook, but these are the very best, I think. Now lets all applaud these old skool cartoonists and throw our mortar board caps in the air with a shout-let’s hear it for the Blue and Gold! Enjoy…

— C. Yoe (in the funny papers)

Our presentation of Florence Anne Claxton’s comic novel, The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights, concludes.

In last Monday’s installment, our heroine takes her seat in Parliament, presents before it Bills, and is promptly tossed out. Rejecting suit by a widower (who has six children), she next pursues a career as an artist, followed by becoming a medical doctor.

We pick up our story as yet another suitor appears…

The marriage to Brigham Young and the “it was all a dream” ending, is a bit disappointing, I must admit. One can only speculate about how much the ending reflected the author’s opinions, versus compromises perhaps necessary for publication.

But still, in a time when most cartoons made fun of Woman’s Rights (it became the plural Women’s Rights in the next century), Adventures of a Woman stands out not only as an overall pro-Rights, but also the only long-form sequential comic story addressing the subject, in addition to being one of the few 19th century sequential comic books by a woman.

The Adventures of a Woman in Search of Her Rights, is cited in a number feminist literature and art history texts, but as far as I’ve been able to determine, this is the first complete re-presentation of the work (versus talking about it, and occasionally showing just a panel or a page).

In addition to her cartooning and illustrations, which appeared in such publications as the Illustrated London News and the earlier issues of Judy magazine, Claxton is known for her paintings satirizing the Pre-Raphaelites. For an example, click on the below link to the Victoria & Albert Museum’s image of Claxton’s The Choice of Paris: An Idyll.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionCartoons “Women’s History Month”

When I was a kid, one of the few funny animal comics I read was Al Fago’s Atomic Mouse. Long gone by that point, I would pick up back issues of Charlton’s long-running Mighty Mouse knock-off for a nickel at Keith’s Carry-Out in Covington, Kentucky! Here’s issue 22 for you to sample this morning (which has nothing to do with this later Neal Adams drawing of the character!).

http://www.bigblogcomics.com/2010/03/atomic-mouse-no-22-june-1957.html

Another title that I really enjoyed as a kid was Blackhawk of which my barber had a bunch of coverless late Quality issues that I would sometimes wander in to read even when I didn’t need a haircut! They weren’t as old or as well-drawn as this story from a 1952 issue of Blackhawk by Reed Crandall but they got me hooked on the title!

http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2010/03/number-704-hell-divers-few-weeks-ago-in.html

Hah! Here’s a link to Craig himself who provided the Beat with his Top Ten Vital Reasons Why Cartoonist Milt Gross is Important. If you’ve been paying attention this week, you’ve probably heard a leeeetle bit about Milt Gross. If you just glossed over it, read this and then order Craig’s book on Gross from elsewhere on this very page.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2010/03/17/top-ten-vital-reasons-why-cartoonist-milt-gross-is-important/

Finally today, a brief look at DC’s rather half-hearted tribute to veteran comics writer Bill Finger on his death in 1974. Finger toiled in the industry more or less anonymously for three decades in spite of having been the unacknowledged co-creator of Batman as well as co-creator of Green Lantern. He even wrote a couple of scripts for the Batman TV series of the mid-sixties.

http://www.thefifthbranch.com/gorilladaze/?p=1065