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If you do know them, it might because of the famous t**nage feminist comic Princeless, which stars a princess girl, who rather than get saved
by a man or boys, shows herself to be a self-sufficient fighter in every way. There's actually a brief scene where she appears in a Wonder Woman-type
costume. (I have the first TPB..it was literally like $3 at a local Half Price Books). But otherwise than that, you're not going to find peril or anything in that comic. It's all self-empowering girl power. Which is fine for younger girls to get their inspiration. They can always dress sexy and cosplay later on in life.
ActionLab also has some other titles it's been pushing in its Free Comic Day promo pamphlets, like Monster Dojo and Puppet Master. But you shouldn't think that ActionLab (unlike some companies, Marvel cough cough) has pigeonholed itself into 24-7 progressivist mode. In fact, it has two titles which are solidly sexy and titillating in almost every possible way. Both have kind of a 90s bad girl throwback flavor to them. And I like how these books always have on their covers these fake "adult content" warning stickers that are kind of a spoof on the PMRC stickers of old.
These two titles were NOT on sale on the shelves in my local specialty store. Possibly because: 1) the mostly female employees of the store are probably not interested in these kinds of objectified characters and I see them standing behind the counter reading progressive books like Lumberjanes and Jonesy? or 2) possibly because Actionlab is an underexposed company with not much shelf power, and nobody knows about any of their many titles except for Princeless? Not sure which. Anyway, I had to find out about these two titles online, and then special order them through that store. Luckily they were nice about it.
One is more of a horror/magic book, Zombie Tramp, about Janey, a stripper who gets killed by her boss, then is so filled with rage against her former abusers that she comes back to life (so I guess there is a bit of feminist revenge mode there) as a zombie. She meets a friend, Zula, who gives her a Necronomicon book of spells.
Over a few issues, she becomes competent in the use of many spells and is essentially now a powerful zombie sorceress and mistress of the dead (one of the charms brings a corpse army back to life). She also has the power to transform herself from human appearance to superzombie and back again. And she still goes on tears of killing revenge, basically enticing men with her body and seeing if they'll assault her - if they do, she kills them in gruesome fashion, even 20,000 feet in the air on a plane. There was an initial mini-series in 2013 and then she got her own run starting in 2014. Janey is up to issue #27 as of this month, so there must be a sizeable audience for this! (So much for all comic readers being SJWs, huh?) So far, there are 6 TPBs of the second volume run..I might eventually order some.
Get the idea?
The other comic is supposed to be a straight-up 90s bad-girl spoof called Vampblade (obviously a portmanteau parody of Vampirella/Witchblade..although there was also a 90s bad-girl book called Vampi...). This involves Katie Carva, a comic book store employee.
One day, the store gets invaded by mafia types who are looking to collect from the store owner. To stop them, Katie removes a couple of blades from the store wall that she thinks are replicas, but they turn out to be real magical blades that transform her into her 90s bad-girl comicbook heroine
idol, Vampblade, who wears a supersexy costume. Soon, she finds out that her real purpose is to kill invisible vampire aliens who are taking over many of the people in her town. The weird thing is, only she can see these aliens, who are shaped like penis sticking out of people's mouths. When she kills the alien "penis", the victim survives and recovers. So overall, she is seen by the populace as a menace who is attacking nothing that they can see. Plus, she finds out that the blades have given her a compulsion to kill the aliens and she can't stop herself - the blades must be "fed". Also the way she transforms is pretty cool: she grabs the blades out of thin air and "vomits" her costume out, and it forms around her in a tight black getup, complete with attached bondage chains. It's a very BDSM look that would not be out of place at any Fetishcon (who will play Vampblade first in a C4S video??).
She then encounters various menaces - both alien-related and not - and eventually runs across Zombi Tramp (with whom she also has a crossover miniseries that makes fun of the tropes of all the usual comic book crossover miniseries! Among other things, they switch bodies like it's Freaky Friday). It's definitely a bit of a meta-commentary. In the latest available issue (#9) Katie backtracks a bit from the over-the-top hotness by adopting what she considers slightly more modest attire: first she tries out a Wonder Woman looking outfit (see below) and then settles on one that looks more like Deadpool ("Vamp-pool"). I hope, however, that she goes back to the original Vampblade costume. Guess we'll see. Anyway..this comic is recomended if you like this sort of sexy action girl scenario with lots of killing and slicing, much like many of the 90s books. I ordered two of the TPBs and they should be coming in next week.
Here's a few examples..including one of the sexiest transformations in recent memory. If you can get your comic nerd girlfriend to do something like this in real life - or if you are a woman who has the confidence to pull off something like this - either way, I applaud you!
Crossover madness:
Thanks for posting about these series. I'll have to look around at my local shop.
