Good Girls is a 1987

1987 in comics

- Year overall :* Independent publishers continue to enter the comics arena, including Amazing, CFW Enterprises, Imperial Comics, Matrix Graphic Series, New Comics Group, and Rebel Studios...

–1991

1991 in comics

-January:* Checkmate is canceled by DC Comics with issue #33.* El Diablo vol. 2 is canceled by DC with issue #16.* Count Duckula is canceled by the Marvel Comics imprint Star Comics with issue #15....

 six-issue comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 limited series

Limited series

A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....

. It was created by Carol Lay

Carol Lay

Carol Lay is the author of a weekly comic strip, Way Lay, which first appeared in 1992 and which runs in the LA Weekly and Salon. It is also printed in daily and weekly newspapers as far afield as Hong Kong and Norway. Lay has been drawing professionally for over 25 years.-Biography:Lay was born...

 and published by Fantagraphics and then Rip Off Press

Rip Off Press

Rip Off Press, Inc. is a seminal publishing company that specializes in adult-themed literature and graphic novels, mostly in a specific comic book format known as underground comix.-Overview:...

. The series parodies romance comics.

History

The comic book started with another strip, "Ms Lonelyhearts", which progressively disappeared. The second featured Irene Van de Kamp, an heiress who grew up in an African tribe who puts face markings and a disk in her lower lip. She meets an assortment of weird characters while trying to find romance and avoid people who are only after her money.
Carol Lay gives an account of how the character started in her preface to the collection. It is a combination of a picture of three Ubangi women in Hustler

Hustler

Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...

magazine, DC romance comic Heart Throbs

Heart Throbs

Heart Throbs was a romance comic published by Quality Comics and DC Comics from 1949 to 1972. Quality published the book from 1949–1957, when it was acquired by DC. Most issues featured a number of short comics stories, as well advice columns, text pieces, and filler...

and Western Publishing

Western Publishing

Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company was a Racine, Wisconsin firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Western Publishing also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products as Golden Books Family Entertainment...

 Donald Duck

Donald Duck

Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...

 and Uncle Scrooge

Uncle Scrooge

Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...

 comics that prompted her to create the character. She used her as filler in Good Girls #1 but eventually Irene took over. (The influence of Tarzan

Tarzan

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

 is also evident in the origin of the character.)

Reception

In Amazing Heroes

Amazing Heroes

Amazing Heroes was a magazine about the comic book medium published by Fantagraphics Books from 1981 to 1992. Unlike its companion title, The Comics Journal, Amazing Heroes was a hobbyist magazine rather than an analytical journal....

#145 (July 15, 1988), Alan Moore

Alan Moore

Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...

 gave a list of ten recommendations for current comics and about "Good Girls" he said:

"GOOD GIRLS is another one that I shall certainly be checking out. I don't know why I find Carol Lay's stuff so wonderful and fascinating, but there's something about it that really tickles me. It might just be the quirky sensibilities of the stories, or the fact that her style is so reminiscent of traditional romance comics in places that the oddness of it looks all the more appealing in context. There's something about it which I find very, very charming."

The sixth issue contained letters of appreciation by Scott McCloud

Scott McCloud

Scott McCloud is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium...

 and Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge is an American cartoonist. He is the creator of Buddy Bradley, Hate, Neat Stuff, Martini Baton, and Sweatshop, Apocalypse Nerd and Other Lives. His stories often use black humor and exaggerated cartooning to dramatize the reduced expectations of middle-class American youth...

.

Jaime Hernandez

Jaime Hernandez

Jaime Hernandez is the co-creator of the black & white independent comic book Love and Rockets .-Early life:...

 has stated, "I've been a fan of Carol Lay's ever since The Pep Girls, and Irene has always been one of my favorite characters."

Collected editions

A collection of the strips called Goodnight, Irene: The Collected Stories of Irene Van De Kamp was published in June 2007 by Last Gasp

Last Gasp

Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...

(ISBN 0867196599) with two new stories.