vidagirl.com

What defines a Good Girl? Try a perfect silhouette, expressive features, barely-there clothes, and the ability to kick major ass.

In Ron Goulart’s Good Girl Art, the comics historian gives us the lowdown on the beginnings of the Good Girl in comics, a genre which began in the 1930’s. The phrase “good girl art” was actually coined not because these women were do-gooders, it was simply that they were drawn good, meaning beautiful. Some of these good girls found themselves in peril or were just plain eye candy, but others like Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, the Black Cat, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and Catwoman jumped off the pages, creating comic book heroines that were sexy sirens who took care of business.

Good Girl Art features over 200 glorious illustrations by artists Frank Cho, Matt Baker, Adam Hughes, and Joe Chiodo, to name a few. And, this fall look for Goulart’s Good Girl Art Around The World where you’ll find the European Good Girl counterparts and their version of what it means to be good. Good Girl Art Around The World is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. The scheduled date of release is September 20, 2008. Be sure to pick up Good Girl Art as well.

On a side note, one of the first known appearances of a Latina Good Girl was made during the Golden Age of Comics in 1942 in Fight Comics Issue #19, published by Fiction House. Rita Farrar, whose alter ego was known as “Señorita Rio”, was a Latina film star who was recruited by the U.S. Secret Service to aide in the war effort, going on to become an agent. The character appeared in over 50 stories between 1942 - 1951 officially ending her run with Fight Comics Issue #71. AC Comics slightly revamped the character under the name “Rio Rita”, during the 1950’s. They would once again reintroduce the character in 1984. In this modernized version, her granddaughter, of the same name, picks up where her grandmother left off.