R. Crumb may have fantasies of voyages down sewer pipes and S. Clay Wilson may draw visions of lesbian pirate battles, but neither of them would have ever thought up the legend of Speed Queen. She is a creation of Trina Robbins, an underground comicperson who happens to be female. Like most of the women who draw freaky funnies, she's concerned with the problems of being female—and the result is the hip, 70's an-Leialohaswer to Wonder Woman—the adventures of an assortment of gutsy, tall and Trina-faced heroines who don't take no shit from any mere male!….

Subject matter in the women's comix ranges from sexuality problems like pregnancy and lesbianism to women trying to educate men in new lifestyles to the speculative fantasies of Trina, whose women (the astronaut Speed Queen, the black hooker Fox, Amazons, feminists and lesbians) are all tall, beautiful, articulate...