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Feb 2, 2017

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 708: Vanity #1, June 1984

http://www.comics.org/issue/38799/

This morning, as I was explaining some superhero costume tropes to my class, I mentioned the ever-classy "boob window." Vanity, our title character up there, is a prime example.This explanation was in response to a discussion of Erik Larsen's horrendous tweet about women and practical outfits in comics. Another excellent comics creator is outed as sexist POS. Pity.

This is a weird comic. I can only find 3 appearances for the character. Two are her own series, and one is in Pacific Presents #3. An interesting premise. She's got science fiction tech but exists in contemporary times, and is apparently a time-displaced cave person. That's literally all I can get from it. Will Meugniot's art is quite lovely, and Vanity and her cohorts are rendered expertly. It's nice to see, on the first page, that the male characters also evince "boob window." At least the comic is equal opportunity as far as the amount of flesh it bares. Vanity it obviously inspired by old science fiction exploitation films, with a healthy dash of pin-up girl thrown in. She's part spy, part superhero, part sex symbol, and I'm curious to know how the story ends up. Well, if it ends up, I guess. The GCD says it "was" an ongoing series, but I'm not sure we can say that two issues is ongoing. More like aborted. And, as with many series from this era, I'm sure it simply disappeared with no explanation.

Pity.

Onward.

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