JUDO CHOP! That is the sort of cheesiness I
expect when I’m told I will be reading a comic entitled Judo Girl.
Something along the lines of Hong Kong Phooey, the
Hanna-Barbera animated show. Though both main characters of Hong
Kong Phooey and Judo Girl are fly seventies martial
artists, that is all they have in common. Judo Girl does not
take advantage of the humor that could be used with such a title.
Judo Girl is
about Diana, aka Judo Girl, who after being frozen for forty years
is back to kick some serious butt. But much has changed over time.
Her brother, Judo Boy, is now a cyborg and many of the old
superheroes and supervillians have teamed up to join The Revolution.
Judo Girl has a choice to make about how she is going to adapt to
the 21st century. Will she continue to be the nunchuck
whacking superheroine or blend in with the rest of society? Then
there is option C, the question of what the U.S. government wants
with her.
At the beginning of Judo Girl I was a bit
confused. The cover said it was the “first kickin’ issue” of Judo
Girl but I felt like I was being tossed in midstream. In this
issue we find out that Judo Girl, her brother, and their archnemisis
were frozen for forty years, but it is never revealed why or how
they became unfrozen. I’m sure the writers didn’t want to answer
every question in this first issue, but I feel there were too many
going on at once for readers to get a firm footing in this new
world.
I never thought I’d complain about this, but the
choice in font was awful. The comic is a simple read, if you can
decipher the words. I spent minutes on pages re-reading sentences
over and over again because H’s looked like M’s and so forth.
As for the art, I was also a bit disappointed.
The only other Blue Water Comic I have read would be Nanny and
Hank and the style in that book is off the wall and different.
As an independent comic I expect the artwork to try and be more
original. Instead, I felt this to be a softer version of Top Cow’s
style. The drawings were not bad; nevertheless like the rest of the
comic they did not fulfill my expectations.
I’m willing to give Judo Girl a second
chance. Nothing, besides the font, was glaringly awful. But I do
feel if you have someone that has been frozen for four decades they
should be acting more like it, humorously or not. In this case the
tone the writers have chosen is more serious. I’m not saying there
are no jokes in the comic, I just feel that they fall flat and are
not the core of the comic, as I would wish them to be. Either way,
when reading the second issue of Judo Girl I plan on going in
without any preconceived notions of what the issue should bring.
