Beware the Bad Girls!

In the '40s, the infancy of this thing called comics, GIs and other adults were reading comics too and some publishers catered to their more prurient interests by publishing "good girl" titles - essentially comics built around heroines who were often suggestively drawn and posed.  It was all fairly innocent and fun, though Dr. Frederick Wertham had a few nasty things to infer about such art in his notorious screed Seduction of the Innocent.

The trend pretty much died out, though there were certainly plenty of super ladies and romance comic heroines to tease us along.

And then came the '90s a.k.a. "The Dark Age" or, as I like to call it, "The Bad Girl Years."

It was almost as if the industry finally remembered that their key demographic were horny geek boys in their mid to late teens and thus were were treated to an onslaught of amped up violence and, fortunately, amped-up t&a.

This era belonged to its new heroines:

Lady Death




Purgatori




Razor




Chastity



and many more

And even the mainstream publishers didn't escape the trend, suddenly forcing our old favorites into new shapes, as if the Wonder Women and Supergirls had all recently visited the same plastic surgeon and went thong shopping en masse.  Yes, it was all pretty base and calculated, but we got some rampant sexiness in our comics for awhile and for that I salute the Bad Girl Years!

Pieces of Flare

Now, I know not many of you will know of or care about this obscure heroine, but I've always had a soft spot for her.  Why?  Well, mainly because Flare was one of the first "mainstream" comics titles that I ran across (outside of Vampirella, that is - and don't worry, we'll get around to Vampi too) that occasionally featured its heroine starkers on a fairly sporadic basis.  This was waaay back in 1990 when I was an impressionable 14 year-old and I started adding the young lady's adventures to my pull list.

Here are some glimpses of Flare from a series of back-up stories (you can find them in Flare: First Edition 1-3) illustrated by the awesome Mark Beachum of future mainstream comics fame and a few raunchier appearances in the pages of Penthouse Comix:

For those of you completely unfamiliar with her, here's the Wikipedia rundown:

Flare is a female character published by Heroic Publications. The character was originally created by Stacy Thain for a superhero role-playing game called Champions.  She appeared in the six-issue run of the Champions comic published by Eclipse Comics, then appeared in several of her own books as well as the League of Champions, all published by Heroic. A comic strip is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

It was revealed that Flare was one of four children that were raised by a group of former Nazi scientists located in Brazil and connected with an international group of criminals known as DEMON. The four of them were aged and given unique abilities by the scientists, who hoped to use them as a new group of perfect humans.

Flare's known siblings consist of a sister, Olga, who also became a superheroine under the name Sparkplug; a brother Philip who became the head of the group DEMON, but was eventually defeated by Flare and killed by the woman known as Malice; and another brother named Tomas.

But it wasn't just the occasional nudity that Flare had going for it, there were also the very kinky subplots.  It's acknowledged fairly early on in her series that she and her Champions teammate Lady Arcana have a romantic relationship (never graphically shown, but here's a sample below).

Both of these are from Flare #37

Who doesn't love a little superheroine girl-on-girl action?  While not strictly gay (there've been dalliances with the satyr Pan and Zeus himself, plus she has a steady beau on the police force), it was still an eye-opener to see a superheroine engage in frank displays of sapphic affection.  

But wait, there's MORE!  While no one would accuse the writers of Flare's adventures over the years of genius in any form, they did dabble in some truly non-mainstream subject matter, including the long-running thread of Flare/Teresa's, er, complicated relationship with her lab-grown, shape-shifting "brother" Philip.

Kinky!  And certainly not something you're likely to run across in Teen Titans (unless something's really changed since I stopped reading it).

What's surprising to me (and it goes for FemForce over at AC Comics as well) is that Flare is still limping along today as an ongoing title from the folks at Heroic Publications.  From what I gather, it's more of the same grade-d superheroics and soap operatics, bolstered by plenty of reprints from the olden days.  The only thing that's raised my eyebrows of late was the recent crossover of Flare with the webcomic Spying with Lana.

This was no doubt spurred by the fact that Lana's artist and creator, Sean Harrington, has been doing some covers and spot art for Heroic Publications' titles.  As Lana is a very adult (as in late-nite cable adult) action/comedy romp, it was only fitting that her crossover with Flare should raise the temperature on a very cold title.  For example:

Now sadly, as you can see, the actual sex is just a dream the bad guy is having and, yes, it "cuts away" just when it's getting good, but, still, maybe the success of this one-shot will lead to more.  Regardless, it's refreshing to see that Heroic Publications is free enough with their character to loan her out for some grownup playtime.

Jean-Claude Forest and Barbarella

Just as I had to give a shout-out to Joe Shuster's sideline fetish art, I offer another classic creator for posterity. Yes, there have been comics artists who have given us much more explicit work, but they owe a lot to Jean-Claude Forest who gave us one of the world's first true erotic heroines: Barbarella.

Created for the French publication V-Magazine in 1962, Barbarella was a fresh take on what was (at the time) a stale genre - the space opera.  In true European fashion, Forest's heroine was free spirited, often nude and very open to all forms of sexuality.  Getting a head start on the free love movement of the late '60s, Barbarella was an instant icon of joyful, trippy sensuality.

Here are just a sampling of Forest's creation in the altogether.  Enjoy!

p.s.: Beware the US releases (most out-of-print) of Barbarella's graphic novels as they, in many instances, have censored the nudity.  The scans I have here are from a lovely, full color German edition.

AC Comics and FemForce: A Brief Introduction

Now some of you will not have heard of FemForce or the long, strange trip that has been the AC Comics story. But for lovers of tease, "good girl" art, and unabashed t&a comics, they're a must.

Essentially, back in 1969, a gent by the name of Bill Black - a talented artist and a lover of the Golden Age of comics - started his own comics publishing company called Paragon Publications. His initial offerings were composed of reprints of public domain comics from the '40s and '50s featuring long forgotten superhero and Western characters, along with his own original stories using these old characters.

But Bill had a unique way of presenting the sexy, formerly chaste heroines of yesteryear.

Phantom Lady (before she was bought up by DC and Black had to alter her into Blue Bulleteer and, eventually, Nightveil) in Fem Fantastique #1

Black Cat, also before legal problems caused Black to recreate her as She-Cat

Phantom Lady and Black Cat work out their differences in Bizarre Thrills #1

Ms. Victory, soon to be a founding member of FemForce, defeating her archnemesis Lady Luger in Bizarre Thrills #1

Issuing more titles as well as mail-order portfolios of his good girl treatment of superheroines, his little company grew. In 1982 they were, briefly, known as AmeriComics before settling on AC Comics in 1985.

The title that really made their name, however, was FemForce which began publication in 1985. It was the first all-female supergroup and its members have included Ms. Victory (a genuine golden age heroine not created by Black), She-Cat (the aforementioned reworking of Black Cat), Nightveil (ditto the former Phantom Lady), Tara (a jungle girl created by Black based on the golden age models of Rima, Sheena, and Nyoka), Synn (a psychedelic superchick originated by Black), and others over the years.

Relevant to our interests, however, is the long history of tantalizing art involving the heroines of AC Comics. For sheer nudity and kinkiness, though, your best bet is to find those early 1970s issues of Fem Fantastique, StarFemmes and the single issue of Bizarre Thrills. In those days, I think Black was working under the radar and enjoying himself more. Later, as his company grew in profile, he scaled back such overt sexuality and FemForce remains a fun superhero book with occasional sexy poses and underwear/bikini shots.

Over the years, AC Comics has given us a lot of material to - "ahem" - work with and I will do follow-ups from time to time to focus on their characters. Until then, I highly recommend a trip to their site. Pick up a few back issues while you're at it!

AC Comics

Lois Gone Wild!

Aaaaannd right off the bat I'm cheating. Not just because these aren't my scans (all credit to the original scanners), but, technically, these aren't pictures of Lois Lane.

What they are however, are long hidden works of fetish art by Joe Shuster, one half of the creative team that gave us Superman. Since Joe and his buddy Jerry Siegel basically launched American comics with their creation, I thought it would be only fitting to start off my blog with these images from the more adult side of Mr. Shuster's talents.

I think you'll agree, given the limitations of Shuster's style, that it's easy enough to see Lois Lane in a whole new light. Enjoy a couple of more pics:

These pics and many more can be found in the book “Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster” by Craig Yoe.

What This Thing Is About

Greetings, true believers, I am Uatu and I welcome you to The Heroine Watcher. A blog about many things ... okay, you got me, it's really about one thing - one very specific thing.

Naked super chicks.

Ah, but I can get more specific than that. I'm not talking about the "rule 34" stuff where fans of varying talents churn out their 98th picture of Power Girl's boobs, I seek to display, illuminate and share those instances across comics history of officially sanctioned heroine naughtiness.

For me there's nothing more enticing than when a character's own publisher (or, in some cases, original creator) pimps out their lady characters for the public's salacious appetites. This could be anything from a provocative swimsuit to a tasteful nude scene to full on 1970s-wakketta-wakketa-sex.

Now, some of the characters I'll discuss here won't surprise anyone as their entire existence will have been based on some form of eroticism, but others will hopefully be a true discovery for you, my like-minded friends.

What I'm here to do is to offer select views of some amazing character art but, be forewarned, I will NOT offer download links to full issue scans, so don't ask.  Sorry.  But I'll make sure, whenever possible, to include specific issue information so that the intrigued can snatch up back issues for themselves.

Let's get this show on the road, shall we?