Overview

“Mike Madrid is doing God’s work. . . . mak[ing] accessible a lost, heady land of female adventure.” —ComicsAlliance Between the covers of Vixens, Vamps & Vipers, fans will rediscover the original bad girls of comics—as fierce and full of surprises as they were when the comic book industry was born. From murderous Madame Doom to He-She, dubbed by io9 as “the most unsung comic book villain ever,” Mike Madrid resurrects twenty-two glorious evildoers in fully reproduced comics and explores the ways they both transcend and become ensnared in a web of cultural stereotypes. Among the deadly femme fatales, ruthless jungle queens, devious secret agents, double-dealing criminal masterminds, and gender-bending con artists are some of the very first women of color in comics. These women may have been overlooked in the annals of history, but—like their superheroine counterparts in Divas, Dames & Daredevils—their influence, on popular culture and the archenemies that thrill us today, is unmistakable. Mike Madrid is the author of Divas, Dames & Daredevils, a ComicsAlliance and ComicsBlend Best Book of the Year, and The Supergirls, an NPR “Best Book To Share With Your Friends” and American Library Association Amelia Bloomer Project Notable Book. A San Francisco native and lifelong fan of comic books and popular culture, Madrid also appears in the documentary Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines.

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9781935259275

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Select Praise for Mike Madrid These 'lost' [characters] are now found--to the delight of comic book lovers everywhere. --STAN LEE Lovers of comics and strong women everywhere thank you, Mike Madrid! --TRINA ROBBINS, author of Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013 Madrid's meticulous and passionate research provides a window into a seemingly lost herstory of patriotism, bravery, and progressive ways of thinking about female agency and adventure. --JENNIFER K. STULLER, author of Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology Mike Madrid is doing God's work. . . . mak[ing] accessible a lost, heady land of female adventure. -- ComicsAlliance [Madrid's] engaging, conversational language is as readable as the truly dazzling comics. He has endeavored to unearth the forgotten, and what he found is ultimately unforgettable. -- BUST Magazine Sharp and lively . . . [Madrid] clearly loves this stuff. And he's enough of a historian to be able to trace the ways in which the portrayal of sirens and supergirls has echoed society's ever-changing feelings about women and sex. -- Entertainment Weekly Exciting and fraught with danger . . . Madrid presents the cream of a very ripe crop of empowered comic book [characters] and introduces them quite eloquently. -- Library Journal Provide[s] fantastic documentation of how many female characters were created during this era--some with surprisingly progressive personalities and stories to boot . . . Wholly enjoyable. -- Publishers Weekly Serious and astute . . . elaborating on history and establishing the zeitgeist perfectly . . . Highly recommended for comics fans and historians alike, these 'rarely anthologized' stories are excellent for giving girls of any age positive comic book role models to look up to. -- PopMatters As the mother of several daughters, I'm always on the lookout for books w

Author Information

"Mike Madrid is the author of Divas, Dames & Daredevils: Lost Heroines of Golden Age Comics, Vixens, Vamps & Vipers: Lost Villianesses of Golden Age Comics, and The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines, an NPR ""Best Book To Share With Your Friends"" and American Library Association Amelia Bloomer Project Notable Book. A San Francisco native and lifelong fan of comic books and popular culture, Madrid also appears in the documentary Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines and is the illustrator of Lily the Silent: The History of Arcadia. Foreword contributor William Kuskin , Ph.D., who has been described by Denver's Westword as ""kind of like Professor X of the X-Men, teaching his young mutants how to wield their superpowers,"" is Professor, Faculty Associate, and Chair of English at the University of Colorado Boulder."

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