The Johnny Bacardi Show

The mighty Tom Spurgeon put up another enjoyable Five for Friday last Friday evening, and I was able to form enough coherent thoughts together to participate. The topic was "Name Five Comics You Like Where -- Clearly, So That A Fifth Grader Could See It -- The Lead Character Is Female. And Name the Comic, Not The Character!"

Problem is, as so often is the case, when Sunday morning rolled around and everyone's responses were posted, I was gobsmacked (as our English friends like to say, or so Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, etc. likes to tell us) at the female lead characters that I have loved in the past but I just didn't think of. One of the most egregious omissions I made was BAMBI, of AND HER PINK GUN and REPRINT COLLECTIONS SADLY AND STUPIDLY CANCELLED fame, so I thought I should at least make mention of it here as penance. Boy, I wish I could read the other chapters in the story- I know that these are serialized in some sort of manga publication over in Nippon...but I don't really have access to them, plus I'm not sure if they would be translated, etc. I'm sure those of you who are wise to the ways of manga could enlighten me.

Others which I have been a fan of in the past, but forgot because, well, the FFF solicit gets posted (or at least it's when I see it on my Google Reader) on Friday evening and I only get about maybe three hours to think about it (the gears of my mind are rusty, y'see) before the deadline, are Chance Falconer of Leave it to Chance; Halo Jones; Why I Hate Saturn; Dame Darcy's Meat Cake, featuring her Strega Pez, Girl the Friend, Perfidia and Hindrance (great names there for the Siamese twin sisters), Effluvia the Mermaid, and Richard Dirt characters; Alison Dare, and how could I forget Brubaker, Cooke, Pfiefer, Woods, and the Lopezes' Catwoman? And Black Orchid, even though I liked her before Gaiman got his hands on her? My omission of Evil Eye's Peculia makes me smack my forehead, too. DC's post-film, pre-TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer knockoff Scarlett was kind of a guilty pleasure of mine back in the day, as well. Jingle Belle, f'r gosh sakes, as well as Mutant, Texas: The Adventures of Sheriff Ida Red was one which occurred to me but I forgot it before I sent the email. I also considered Love and Rockets, as many respondents did, but Maggie and Hopey and Penny Century and Luba and so many of the other great feminine characters in that book are just part of a big cast in those books so I didn't name that particular title.

Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. I'm not not proud of the ones I did cite, so it's all good I guess. Big Bambi panel taken from here.