SERIOCOMIC (32)

By: Miranda Mellis
August 7, 2019

One in a weekly series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels.

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RED SONJA & BÊLIT

Picture Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword and Bêlit: Pirate Queen, their long hair, red and black respectively, ever waving in strong winds like flags signifying not nation, but voyage; not territory, but nomadism; not hearth and home, but lines of flight. They sail on a churning ocean in an unknowable time and place that in my child mind, as yet un-cognizant of territories much beyond the street we lived on, might have been a million years ago or a hundred. The writers of these comics at once mystified and planted seeds of curiosity about ancient civilizations — the name Bêlit is Akkadian, an extinct Sumerian language of Akkad, the first empire of Mesopotamia. It means lady and goddess. Sonja, cognate of the Greek Sophia, refers to wisdom and skill.

My itinerary as a girl was theirs: fantasy; adventure. They too lived in a monstrous time and place. They battled, resisted death, hurled their bodies into the fray of their causes, had sword-fights on the high seas. I sent away for Sea-Monkeys with my allowance.

Stories are the spiritual life of childhood. We were atheists. Comic serials were our chapter and verse. On the weekend lolling around, turning page after thin, inked-up page in front of a rusted red trunk full of comics beside my siblings, my awkward, allergic, and reluctant kid body disappeared. Immobilized, as if dead or asleep, inhabited by imaginary others, we shared dream worlds. Notwithstanding chain-mail underwear is dubious warrior garb at best (early adopters of athleisure, they were as prepared to belly dance as slay their enemies) from Red Sonja and Bêlit (not to mention Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, Wonder Woman, Kittyhawk, and of course cosmos-rending Storm) I imbibed a tincture of female bad-ass, perennial tonic of girlhood.

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SERIOCOMIC: Mimi Lipson on LITTLE LULU | Sara Ryan on AMPHIGOREY | Gary Panter on THE NUT BROS./THE SQUIRREL CAGE | Gordon Dahlquist on POGO | Robert Wringham on VIZ | Matthew De Abaitua on CAPTAIN BRITAIN | Jessamyn West on FUN HOME | Bradley Peterson on HELLBOY | Stephanie Burt on KITTY PRYDE RETURNS | Jenny Davidson on OOR WULLIE | Luc Sante on MARSUPILAMI | Susan Roe on BLOOM COUNTY | Marilyn Berlin Snell on CHARLES ADDAMS | Deb Chachra on ARKHAM ASYLUM | Judith Zissman on ERNIE POOK’S COMEEK | Alexandra Lange on BETTY (ARCHIE) | Catherine Newman on VERONICA (ARCHIE) | Josh Glenn on SPIRE CHRISTIAN COMICS | Adam McGovern on THE CREW | William Nericcio on ERRATA STIGMATA | Chelsey Johnson on DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR | Sherri Wasserman on TANK GIRL | Tom Nealon on MEGATON MAN | Erin M. Routson on THE WEDDING OF SCOTT SUMMERS & JEAN GREY | Douglas Wolk on FRANK IN THE RIVER | Annie Nocenti on DICK TRACY | James Parker on 2000 AD | Adrienne Crew on NUTS | Vanessa Berry on MEAT CAKE | John Holbo on WITZEND | Michael Campochiaro on SPIDER-WOMAN | Miranda Mellis on RED SONJA & BÊLIT | Michael Grasso on THE NEW MUTANTS | Ty Burr on BINKY BROWN | Bishakh Som on AMAR CHITRA KATHA | Mark Kingwell on CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED | Brian Berger on JIMBO | Kenya (Robinson) on AGENT 355 | Seth on THE ETERNALS ANNUAL | Susannah Breslin on SLASHER | Lisa Kahlden on JACK CHICK TRACTS | Mandy Keifetz on KRAZY KAT | Tom Devlin on DUM-DUM POSSE READER | Eric Reynolds on ACTION COMICS #460 | Rick Pinchera on EIGHTBALL #16 | Juan Recondo on DAYTRIPPER | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on ROZ CHAST | J.E. Anckorn on HALO JONES | Deborah Wassertzug on GREAT POP THINGS | Peggy Nelson on MAD MOVIE SATIRES | Holly Interlandi on ANGEL SANCTUARY | Karen Green on THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER COMICS.

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

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Categories

Comics, Enthusiasms