Yeah!

The idea was a bit strange from the beginning: two legendary creators known for their adult slice-of-life portrayals%E2%80%94Bagge (Hate) and Hernandez (Love and Rockets)%E2%80%94teaming up on an all ages, lighthearted, girl-friendly color comic for DC's WildStorm imprint back in 1999. Fantagraphics makes a much more sensible home for the two, even if this collection drops the color, losing the work some of its energy yet keeping the imagination and crazy-funny cartooning. Yeah! is a pop band hugely popular elsewhere in the galaxy, but a failure on Earth. The inspirations for Krazy, Honey, and Woo-Woo are obvious: Josie and the Pussycats and their adventures in space. The motives, as laid out in a new introduction by Bagge, are admirable, but the intended readers, preteen girls, are even less likely to find the series in this format than they were when it ran in single issues 12 years ago. Fans of either creator, though, will appreciate the little-known project for what it was and enjoy the creative goofiness, best shown in the band's school-days origin story.%C2%A0A minor but highly enjoyable effort from two masters. (June)