Page 45 Review by Stephen
56-page all-female jam-packed anthology (apricot, raspberry and plum) on the theme of dressing up, but do hold your horses for these laydeez do comics like nobody else and I wouldn't expect anything straightforward. Jeremy 'Dennis' Day, for example, is away with the fairies, dressing paper dolls with her sister while being plagued by demands from the imaginary Little Folk to update wardrobes too:
"By comparison, the little people were ugly, thread-bare, hopelessly outmoded. Bad clothes, rubbish shoes, musty, fusty and dull as November dishwater."
"November dishwater" - one artfully placed word makes all the difference. Her sister suggests Sindy Clothes. "I tried that," replies Jeremy, "They said they don't do hand-me-downs." Jeremy had been labouring away on a Dorset farm and her self-image and body were suffering as a result, and I guess this is the story of how she first discovered glamour in more ways than one. I just knew that her pages in NELSON would feature her trademark blue hair!
Ellen Lindna falls in love with the sari, and Kripa Joshi tells a seemingly traditional fairy tale with words while her pictures portray an altogether more modern affair, but the two dovetail so neatly I smiled throughout. Patrice Aggs' Three Graces are far from divine in a chaotic, half-hour photo-shoot delineated with the sort of crisp, delicate lines you're more likely to find in a European album. Tanya Meditzky, on the other hand… well, it's Tanya MILKKITTEN Meditzky, isn't it? It's a close-up commentary as if filmed for TV about a key moment in British history on 5th November 2003 as Prince William and Kate Middleton share a plate of fish, chips and peas, and turn it into a military campaign waged with knives, forks, and quick, coy glances. There's even a map of their manoeuvres so that historians can follow their advances and retreats across the battered plate before Kate lets loose with a blitzkrieg assault which secures her immediate victory and, potentially, the royal throne.
Finally for now, WHORES OF MENSA founding member Mardou weighs in with a mischief-ridden guide to the prospects of finding a beau amongst the collectors at a comicbook convention who might still be in 'Mint Condition':
"There's no shortage of interesting folk to draw. I mean - take this guy! He's got his little "wish list"! Hey, buddy how 'bout putting me on that list, heh heh!"
Really?! There's an interview, reviews of books that they love and far, far more as our Strumpets dress to impress, shop 'til they shop and regale us with their undoubted expertise… after a fashion.
"This head-band is cute."
"I think that's a tube top…"
