Five Crazy Women follows The Rescuers sequentially, but it’s got more in common with Mystery Date, the book before that. Both deal with that thorny topic of relationships, especially as they are complicated by sex. It’s the world’s most fruitful subject for art, because there are infinite combinations to explore and built-in reader interest. Especially when it comes to Jaeger’s lifestyle — he avoids the games most civilized people play and the facades they operate under. As the book opens, […]

Agatha Heterodyne is still figuring out how to get out of the Airship City in this third book in the series by Phil & Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Monster Engine. She’s now got a helper, an annoying talking cat. Before that, though, she and Gilgamesh are getting friendlier. He’s asked her to help in his private lab, where he can show off (he was a child genius! he created a mechanical orchestra! that plays music that […]

Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City follows the first volume by Phil & Kaja Foglio with the addition of color. Agatha has been kidnapped to the Baron’s blimp, where her gifts are as yet unknown. She’s thought just to be a bargaining chip, the floozy of a man with the real talents, although the Baron’s son Gilgamesh suspects otherwise. I love the many women who populate this world. There’s such a variety of personality (even if they all do have […]