R.I.P. Trina Robbins

(Communist dinner table panel from the adaptation of the 1927 novel "Red Love" by Alexandra Kollantai, serialized in Renegade Romance #1-2, 1987.)

by BK Munn

This Trina Robbins dinner table panel sums up every meal my wife and I ever share! R.I.P. Trina Robbins (1938-2024). The great feminist cartoonist and historian broke through into the pantheon with her underground classic It Ain't Me Babe and created the first comic featuring an "out" lesbian in "Sandy Comes Out" in Wimmen's Comix #1. She designed the character Vampirella and was the first woman to draw Wonder Woman for DC Comics. She was such a revolutionary she was actually featured in the first verse of Joni Mitchell's "Ladies of the Canyon." She was a fashion designer, an editor, a muse, a leader, and organizer. Trina herself was a tireless and groundbreaking researcher and comics historian, responsible for a seemingly endless series of history books that studied and popularized the careers of women in comics dating back to the 1800s. She was an amazing spirit and had a legendary life! Rest in Power, Trina!

As a preteen kid, I first encountered her through a page in Les Daniels' history book Comix (found in the Public Library) which reprinted a collaborative comic with her then-partner Kim Deitch announcing the birth of their daughter. One of Trina's panels on that page depicted a who's who of famous women superheroes, alongside Trina's own creation, the half-woman/half-cat Panthera, who tantalizingly went about topless. The first whole comics story I read was her adaptation of Sax Rohmer's "Dope" in the pages of Eclipse Monthly circa 1983. I've collected her comics ever since as well as her history books which have made an immeasurable impact on my understanding of comics history and my knowledge of women cartoonists, and one of the pillars of my own ongoing Comics Canon project. 

Comics in Film: Super Gal in "Ensign Pulver" (1964)

 

Comics in Film: Super Gal nose art in "Ensign Pulver" (1964).

by BK Munn

The character of Supergirl, the cousin of Superman, was first introduced in Action Comics #252 in May, 1959, but it is unknown if this image is intended as a reference to the comic book character or is just an ironic gender flip of Superman typical of the humour exhibited by the artists who painted plane fuselages during World War II. If an intended reference, the image is an anachronism, since Ensign Pulver is set in the 1940s. In the film, a sequel to the 1955 John Ford-directed film Mister Roberts, a planeload of nurses lands on a Pacific atoll and become wound up in the redemption arc of the title character, heroically helping him perform an important operation. (The sequel retains the same characters but replaces all the actors. Jack Lemmon won the Oscar for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the original, but he's replaced here by relative unknown Robert Walker Jr.) There was a comic book adaptation of Ensign Pulver, published by Dell in 1964, but I'm unsure if the "Super Gal" art was reproduced there.