Spaceage Daydream: Lady Robotika

July 22nd, 2010

I do not hide the fact that I am a Jane Wiedlin fanboy. She’s cute, she’s funny, she’s geeky, she’s friendly. And when I was younger, so much younger than today, I thought the Go-Go’s were incredibly cool. (Well, I still think that.) She’s been heavily promoting her new comic, Lady Robotika, for months now. (And not quite so heavily promoting it for the past couple of years.) The first issue finally came out last week (co-written by Jane and Bill Morrison, with art by Bill, Tone Rodriguez and Dan Davis), and I bought it mostly to support this awesome lady, but also because it sounded like a pretty cool comic. I’ll admit, though, that I was a little nervous that the comic would turn out to be…well, kind of lame. I mean, I thought Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park would be cool, and boy, was it not!

I’m happy to say I had nothing to worry about. Lady Robotika is many things, but lame isn’t one of them. Is it corny? Yup. Is it goofy? A little bit, yeah. It’s also well-paced, lighthearted fun, with lots of snappy dialogue and amusing pop culture references. As far as science fiction goes, it’s no Blade Runner, but it is kind of The Last Starfighter meets Barbarella, which is very OK with me! I read too many serious comics these days. Having something as cheerfully fun as Lady Robotika helps balance things out.

My only concern now is: how many people out there are fans of SF & superhero comics featuring lighthearted, angst-free adventure stories? I hope there are a good number, because I’d like Lady Robotika to continue with healthy sales. And can we have some more comics that are this much fun? Please?