Like many of my age, I discovered Bettie Page when Dave Stevens used her as the model for The Rocketeer's girlfriend Betty Page. Stevens then created a revival of Bettie Page which gave her royalties. There were several comics from Dark Horse in the 90s some with art by Stevens and others by Jim Silke. Other comics of a more salacious nature. Needless to say Bettie Page has a significant pop culture presence so a new comic isn't a surprise. The idea that she was a secret agent in the 50s is in an interesting idea.
This miniseries has eight issues (and a six issue story in Playboy) all written by David Avallone with different artists. Issues 1-3 have art by Colton Wortley, with Esau Figueroa and Bane Wade sharing the duties for the last five issues. Joseph Michael Lisner did the art for the Playboy story (which can be found here. Lisner provided covers for all the issues.
The eight issues are split into three parts. Issues 1-4 cover the events leading to Bettie's recruitment. Issue 5 covers training and a small mission that pays homage to 50s drive in moves and issues 6-8 is the mission in Cannes. Personally, I would have gotten to the spy stuff sooner.
Issue 1 was a little confusing it starts with Bettie at a photoshoot in New York. The FBI raids the shoot and Bettie escapes down the fire escape. At the bottom of the escape, just standing in the street is Rick Chaplain. Chaplain helps her down and offers her a job. A job in Los Angeles, where he proceeds to drive her. I live in Australia but I know that LA and New York are a long way apart.
The whole set up seems off and a really bad way to get to her to Los Angeles. I mean there wasn't even the opportunity for her to pack, Bettie is seen driving in the outfit she was wearing at the photoshoot. Lucky it was the start of the shoot.
In LA, Bettie gets the lead role in a sci movie "Invasion of the Space Commies" while working as an assistant for Chaplain. Seriously, the story could have started with Bettie in LA for auditions. Hell she could have met Chaplain on the plane and it would have made more sense than what we got.
The story could have been tighter but it was far from the most disappointing part of the story. Bettie Page Queen of the Pin-Ups this was a story begging for 'good girl' style art. The Dark Horse stories had Dave Stevens and Jim Silke artwork.
And Dynamite delivers for the covers with Joseph Michael Lisner doing all eight issues and Scott Chandler on variants. Issue one had twenty odd variants including photo covers with and one by Terry Dodson homaging Dave Stevens.
If only the interior art matched these covers, I found Colton Worley's art to be muddy. It looked like he was using photo references but it didn't work, In issues 1 and 2 Worley inked his own work but issue 3 had Esau Figueroa inking but the inking only made the effect worse:
Figueroa drew issues 4, 6-8 with Bane Wade drawing issue 5 and inking issue 4. I found the art did not improve with the changes in artist. Dynamite as I mentioned did a six page stand alone with Lisner on art for Playboy magazine, which co-incidentally was the memorial issue for Hugh Hefner. Lisner's artwork was the only one I liked. I'm not sure why the artists changed but I did not realise that the change had taken place until I was writing this.
This was an interesting idea, that could have been awesome. I was on board, this hit my sweet spot. Bettie Page, spy hell yeah. The art was my biggest problem, the muddy interior art drew me away from the story - look I can appreciate different styles but certain styles work better for different characters and stories. Any story on Bettie Page cries out for strong good girl art, people reading it based on the name are expecting a book about a pin up queen. The covers promised us this and the interior failed to deliver.
I was so critical of the art that until I started to reread issue 1, I had not really noticed some of the story flaws. If you spend half your story getting her to be a spy it is too long and then spend an issue on a side story (a cool and interesting diversion into the 50s giant creature features) not having her spy I'm going to feel a little cheated. The set up did tie into the spying in the last three issues but the whole thing could have been handled better.
I would not recommend this comic.
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