The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines by Mike Madrid

My post earlier this week on what famous person I would want to be made me think of this book which I read last week, so here's the review.

I really loved this book. It gave a great overview of the place that women have held in comics over the last 70 years. The author writes in a very personable style that makes the book easy to read and enjoy. For each decade since comics have been popular, the author addresses the changes occurring for women in the society and how these changes were reflected or not reflected in comic books. There are also chapters devoted to specific characters or even arch-types within the comic book industry.

My biggest problem now is that I want to go out and read all of these comics he talks about and some of them just aren't available. The only negative thing I will say is while it would be completely inappropriate to have a book on female superheros without devoting a chapter to Wonder Woman; the author also covers parts of Wonder Woman's background in other chapters so by the time you get to that chapter, you do kind of feel like "okay I read alot of this already." But stick it out because it's totally worth it to get to the chapters on the superheroes of today. Otherwise this is a great read for any girl that's into comics and graphic novels or anyone who want's to see how womens issues are reflected in different types of media.

This post will eventually be cross-posted at Reviews for You