Oh, Jane Wiedlin, what don't you do? Clothing designer, cute girl guitarist in the Go-Go's, public fetishist, reality television personality and now a writer of funnybooks. One might think that a lady with such a variety of interests might not do any of them well but, if Wiedlin's flagging, it's not here. Sure, it's easy to dismiss Lady Robotika as a vanity project since it stars, well, punk rock sweetheart Jane Wiedlin, but it manages to rise above dreary possibilities and reach the stars, both in terms of quality and storyline. It's easy to imagine this being a “safe” project but, thankfully, Weidlin & Company (Truly, it seems to take a village. Or a co-writer and two artists.) manage to avoid the pitfalls that can all too easily lure superstars and ghostwriters alike in situations like this and let it all hang out.

 

Lady Robotika is a dream of a comic, really, since it starts in a curious dreamscape where Jane Wiedlin's superheroine/rock-star is rescuing a handsome gentleman about to be in a great deal of distress from under the watchful eye of some bored working-girl prison guards who are re-enacting a conversation I swear I had a million times in my copyshop days, minus the bondage gear and prison duty but including the crabby boss. From there, the comic expands into hilarious pop culture references (I'd like a twitter app for Alpha Centauri, if anyone out there could make that happen. You'd have to be way out there, obviously, but I've got time.) and sly self-deprecating cracks from our heroine herself. Throw in a plot with some aliens, and a few winks in the directions of Wiedlin's well-publicized kinks and career, and you've got yourself a comic book.

 

The art is pretty standard for this type of book, but the utilization of the dark end of the color spectrum manages to push the book firmly into a deliciously camp territory. There's an excellently executed moment where a vintage car is being held in an alien tractor beam that made my nerd heart skip a beat in glee. Speaking of nerd hearts going a-flutter, Bill Morrison began his career in the herd of animators for Disney, where his credits included the iconic poster for the movie version of The Little Mermaid. He later worked on The Simpsons and Futurama before eventually finding his way to Bongo Comics, home of the million comics based on these Matt Groening projects. Tone Rodriguez has also worked for Bongo Comics in recent years, in addition to his more recent stint as artist on Shadowhawk. Despite this, Lady Robotika manages to look both normal and interesting and nothing like what you would imagine from these résumés, which I suspect might be a good thing.

 

Ultimately, Lady Robotika is a fabulous campy romp and I'm definitely going to pick up future issues. There are some references to the aforementioned well-publicized kinks so I'm not sure if it's one for the kiddies, but I'm going to recommend this to everyone over the age of about 15. Jane Wiedlin's got the beat and all you can do is read along. | Erin Jameson