Jane's World Omnibus vol.1; A Hardcore REview *SPOILERS*

So I just finished reading the first omnibus of Jane's World, an ongoing collected comic strip by Paige Braddock. Jane's World is hilarious comic strip about Jane Wyatt, a gay journalist and her group of friends. Think Seinfeld, except full of lesbians. Yes, Jane's World is a GLBT comic. And it's damn good too. I first heard of Ms. Braddock back at APE Con 2008. As when I was there she was one of the featured guests. This past San Diego Comic Con, I attended two GLBT comic book panels. One entitled, "Writing Queer, creating effective GLBT characters," and the other, "Gays in Comics: Year 23." This year has been pretty much a landmark in gay comics, as many characters, both new and long standing have either revealed themselves to be gay, or their sexuality has become more prevalent in their stories. Even Archie Comics has a new gay character, Kevin. Things have become a little more accessible to the GLBT community, and their friends and family. Conversely, the Westboro Baptist Church, you know the God Hates Fags people, protested Comic Con International. From what I hear, it's because comic books and Hollywood support and tolerate the homosexuals, and their impure lifestyle.
So back to Jane's World. Jane is a neurotic, blond who kind of watches life pass her by. I say that, cause I think she's a really accessible character whether you're gay or straight or even if you don't label yourself. She spends her time obsessing over relationships past and the girl who just smiled at her at the corner coffee shop. And then there's her circle of friends. First her roommate Ethan, who could best be described as a confrontational phobic, slob who's kind of the same vein as Jane. Both spend their time wondering "what if?" instead of going out and getting stuff done. In the middle of the volume, Jane decides she's gonna write a novel, but an never seem to get past that pesky opening line before she loses interest. She's a poster child and spokesperson for Generation X. You know the kids who took Ritalin and Prozac and never got fully acclimated to the world. And not for lack of trying. Cause well, we never really tried. It was more for lack of motivation to try.
Early on, Jane meets her arch nemesis, Chelle. A narcissistic, and bullying woman who looks an awful lot like Trinity from the Matrix. She wears her sunglasses all the time. And is mostly seen wearing a black wife beater and black pants that I can only assume are leather. Chelle puts a strain on Jane's relationship with her coworker Archie, who much like Jane, never seems to do any actual work when he's on the clock.
Enter Jane's close circle of friends, who include Dorothy or Dot as Jane calls her, and a whole bunch of other people who I cannot for the life of me remember. Damn Chemo! So Jane and her ex, Sarah I believe, go on a canoe trip with another couple, who are friends, and somehow, as you will see, Chelle somehow tags along, thus ruining Jane's passive attempt to re-establish her lost relationship. And even though Chelle plays spoiler to Jane at about every goddamn turn you can imagine, Jane is still a pretty plucky gal.
Then there's "Shallow Breast Guy," another cartoonist contemporary of Paige Braddock's who seemingly takes over the Jane's World strip at very inappropriate time, giving all of the mostly female cast huge knockers and very monosyllabic lesbian porn diatribes about "getting it on." And then the characters point out that they are indeed in a comic strip and cannot understand how this "Shallow Breast Guy" keeps taking control of the comic. They never even acknowledge Paige. In their world, I think it's supposed to be an anonymous creator of some sort.
Hijinks ensue, such as Jane getting a dog named Rusty and a hamster. The hamster breaks outta his cage and bolts into Ethan's room. To which Jane calls Dot at work and asks for help in searching for the little rodent. Jane dresses in full scuba gear and ties a rope to her waist, while Dot is her anchor woman. Should Jane tug on the rope, Dot has to reel in Jane from the depths of spookiness that is Ethan's room. I believe this happens twice, before the hamster runs out of the room himself. During the process Jane frees the cable guy who has been trapped in Ethan's room for the better part of a decade.
Oh and then there's the incident where Jane and Dixie, a very big haired woman from near Graceland get abducted by aliens. And during the attempted escape, Jane turns Dixie into a monkey. Jane then takes monkey Dixie home where she eventually turns back into big haired human Dixie. And it all ties together cause Dot, Dixie and Talia, who was Jane's marching band mate in college turns up, and they all know each other and had relations in the past.
All in all I would highly recommend Jane's World to anyone wanting a humorous tale or epic proportions, that doesn't really go anywhere. And I say that only in the sense that by the end of the first omnibus things have come full circle, yet doesn't really seem like they ever left the front door. And that's totally not a bad thing. In an industry dominated by 'roided out guys in spandex and capes and masks who claim to be anything but gay, there is a small stable of comics that holds true to their intended audience and creators. And in this day and age it is so easy to get swept up in the fracas that it would seem common place. However, Paige Braddock does a great job with the humor department. Jane's World is a fantastic read, that you will breeze through and then be sad that you're finished. So you'll order the next volume from your dealer. And at just $20 for the first several volumes combined into one phone book sized edition is a hell of a good deal. Take a chance and try something new. You'd be surprised how pertinent this book probably is to your life.
As you may or may not know, instead of stars, or a letter grade, I review all of these projects on a notable hardcore moments in professional wrestling history. And Jane's World is most certainly deserving of, in keeping with the characters and GLBT theme of this review, the first ever lesbian kiss in wrestling history. I feel like I have used this moment before, but fuck it. All of the other "lesbian" moments were just that, no real moments. They were purely for shock and value. And they did neither. The year was 1995, if I remember correctly. Tommy Dreamer had just stolen Beulah McGillicutty away from Raven, when she revealed in an in ring interview with Joey Styles and Stevie Richards that she was pregnant. Only weeks later, Shane Douglas, made it public that Beulah had been cheating on Dreamer with someone else. Dreamer confronted Douglas in the ring, to which Douglas revealed further that Beulah not only had been cheating on him, but SHE WAS NOT PREGNANT! Infuriated, Dreamer ordered to know who he was. To which Douglas laughed, "Oh it's not a him Tommy Dreamer. It's not a him at all!" In a flash five foot nothing, Kimona Wanna Laya grabs the mic and shreiks, "It's ME!" Beulah and Kimona go at it in the ring, which ends with Tommy grabbing both women by the hair and yanking them apart. Douglas walks up to Tommy and asks him, "What are you gonna do now?" And in typical ECW over the top, hardcore-ishness, Tommy exclaims, "I'll take 'em both. I'm hardcore!" And a new kind of three way dance begins. This angle got ECW kicked off of every affiliate network that carried the syndicated programming. Who knew that seven years later Eric Bischoff would return to wrestling and bring about something like HLA, Hot Lesbian Action into the ring in WWE. And now WWE has a PG, all ages type of format that would never allow for that type of in ring shenanigans. Kudos to ECW for being pioneers in more ways than just violence and typical tits and ass type angles.