Glitz-2-Go

For almost 40 years, from Women’s Comix to the Nation, underground comics pioneer Noomin has shared painfully hilarious episodes from the life of DiDi Glitz, who’s partly her alter ego, but mostly a dreadful example of what a woman who’s not hip or self-aware can do to herself. Occasionally exploiting but usually exploited, DiDi is enthusiastically tasteless and (barely) sensitive enough to realize that there’s something missing in her life. Pursuing cheap sex as the only intimacy she can imagine, she’s usually wearing stiletto heels and fishnet stockings, with a blonde beehive wig jammed on her head. DiDi’s “successes” turn out to be only briefly satisfying, though, and Noomin’s faux-primitive, b&w art stresses how ugly and vulgar her lovers are. Still, despite wrinkles and rejections, she never gives up, and her grandiose antics are as amusing as they are pathetic. Containing all of DiDi’s stories and a selection of Noomin’s other art, this collection is valuable in itself and as an important comment on women’s issues. (Feb.)