If you’re a fan of Wonder Woman, Angel, Lightning Lass, Saturn Girl, Storm, Super-Girl, Batwoman, and dozens of other superheroines, this book is for you. Author Mike Madrid goes decade by decade exploring the changing roles of women with special powers. As a cultural history, The Supergirls explores the evolving characters of women within the comic book genre. This encyclopedic volume is the only one I know of that focuses on female superheroes exclusively. My only quibble about The Supergirls centers on the lack of color graphics Madrid could have used to illustrate his data. But, perhaps that would have made the book unreasonably expensive (I paid about $10 for this trade paperback edition). Madrid packs plenty of information and humor in this breezy history. GRADE: A-
Oh, yes the lack of color seems a shame. Comics are all about color, aren’t they? Looks great though. I was a huge fan of Wonder Woman and the entire Justice League of America. If I had only kept those comics.
Perhaps the small press couldn’t get permission to reprint the color graphics of the Supergirls, Patti. It’s a shame the book can’t illustrate what it’s talking about. But, it’s a wonderful history despite the missing pictures.
Hi George-Thanks for the review. You are correct, getting the rights to reproduce artwork from the big publishers would have been cost prohibitive at this point for a small press such as ours. I do have a supplement on my website that shows images of the characters that I discuss in the book.
Thanks again
Mike Madrid
http://tinyurl.com/ya7xaaq
I loved your book, Mike! I hope this is the first of many more. Thanks for the link!