I read the comics in the newspaper, the "funnies" as it were. There are some good ones from the past ("Little Nemo", "Calvin and Hobbes", "The Far Side", "For Better or For Worse") and some good ones that are currently running ("Get Fuzzy", "Dilbert", "Zits", "F Minus"), and I could write a whole lot of crap about the ones I like and the ones I particularly loathe ("Mallard Fillmore" for one, and I find myself agreeing with Christian Slater in Heathers when he goes after "Family Circus").
Here, though, I only wanted bring to attention "Tina's Groove". This strip features a single and independent working server named Tina, and her world. It has it's moments, most of which are witty and incisive and truthful about working in the restaurant industry.
The thing that gets me, if you don't have the strip in your paper, is that Tina bares a close resemblance to Betty Boop, except for her eyebrows.
Tina's eyebrows are perpetually stuck in the exasperated/stressed out phase, the opposite of the "angry V" eyebrow look. They're very expressive, and while the strip is supposedly glorifying the independent working woman, they make her look sadly overwhelmed most of the time. It doesn't really have much bearing over the quality of the strip, as it does things that no other comic strip would do, like have a day devoted to women's flatulence, which is a strength.
It just makes me think. It's a comic strip written by a lady for the ladies, and the hero looks constantly stressed out, even when she smiles. I know the world is stressful for the ladies...that's got to be the point.
Tina retains her groove in the face of this hard and stressful patriarchal society, a society that also happens to be one of the most open and free for women on this planet.
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