Posted in: Comics, Fantagraphics | Tagged: Bitchy Bitch, Roberta Gregory

Exclusive Excerpt And Commentary By Roberta Gregory From Bitchy!

Exclusive Excerpt and Commentary by Roberta Gregory from the complete, chronological Bitchy!

I loved Robert Gregory's Bitchy Bitchy. The character was the lead of the Naughty Bits comic book, which was published in the nineties, a time when Fantagraphics and Drawn And Quarterly published a number of slice-of-life/semi-autobiographical comics that seemed to be full of men being angry that not enough women would sleep with them. And then there was Bitchy Bitchy with Midge McCracken telling us exactly why they wouldn't, and then doing it anyway.

And now we are getting a full collection of the forty Naughty Bits comics published between 1991 and 2004, as BITCHY!: The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken, which, the PR tells me, "remains the longest-running solo comic title by a woman creator" and will be rearranged here for the first time in chronological order, with the stories of Young Bitchy and Old Bitchy put in their respective place. Roberta Gregory writes an introduction, looking back at the work that was finished over twenty years ago, as well as an all-new afterword by comics critic Helen Chazen. It will be published on the 21st of April. And Bleeding Cool has an "exclusive excerpt" – if it can really be exclusive, as it was published decades ago, but it does come with commentary, which is brand new.

"Midge's story unfolds, age by age, era by era, not necessarily in the order in which they were created," says cartoonist Roberta Gregory in her introduction. "It's an epic. Continuity was not my first thought as I churned out issue after issue… [but] these stories do seem to add up to a comprehensive narrative of sorts. And, our deeply flawed Midge does gain insight and achieve some measure of enlightenment in her journey through these pages. Sort of."

"On one of her rare vacations, Midge abandons her negativity long enough to anticipate meeting a 'nice guy' and 'getting laid' 1990s style, but after one drink too many she ends up with 'Kenney.' When he shows up uninvited at her apartment, it all hits the fan. I was tabling at a comics convention back in the 1990s and a woman picked up one of my comic books and turned to what is now page 300 and showed to her male companion, saying, 'Read this!' She was not smiling. Incidentally, Midge has not seen the last of Kenney."

I do remember reading this as a teenager who had just left home, making my way in the world but vowing never to be a Kenney… I do hope I succeeded. It might have been a good thing for certain figures in the manosphere to have read it as well… here's that page.

"The weighty tome in your hand tells the story of Bitchy Bitch's life so far as we know it, an unending cavalcade of frustrations from youth to womanhood," says Helen Chazen in her afterword. "But this collected life story of Bitchy Bitch was never told in the pages of Naughty Bits — we are reading it for the first time now… Not only through arrangement but the very act of compilation, the story of Midge McCracken is changed forever, simply because it is, in fact, a story. It's a story of a girl who grows up to be a woman, challenged from the start by the violent sexual and social contradictions of heteronormative life… This is Bitchy's life, and now, in this collected form, it is Bitchy's life story."

Bitchy! The Exasperating Existence of Midge McCracken by Roberta Gregory
One of the most influential, feminist comics series ― the riotous "Bitchy Bitch" stories by pioneering cartoonist Roberta Gregory ― is now in one definitive collection. Midge McCracken is the abrasive, self-destructive pessimist every office has. Not to mince words, she's a bitch: bitter, mistrustful, racist, and completely unfiltered in her words and thoughts. But she comes by it honestly, growing up with hateful, racist parents, suffering sexual abuse as an adolescent, experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, etc. Did we mention that this is a comedy? Roberta Gregory's unflinching sense of humor is the engine driving Bitchy! This mammoth tome collects Gregory's "Bitchy Bitch" stories, presenting a life from childhood into middle age, following the character through multiple decades. Along the way, Gregory's wider cast of characters are introduced, notably Bitchy's suffering and insufferable coworkers: the obnoxiously cheerful Sylvia (who never met a problem that positive vibes won't cure); the upwardly mobile and power-hungry Pam (aka Bitchy's boss); the intolerant, God-fearing Marcie; her hapless friend-with-benefits, Kenny; and many more. In 1976, Roberta Gregory released Dynamite Damsels ― the first underground solo comic created and self-published by a woman. After contributing regularly to the influential anthologies Wimmen's Comix and Gay Comix throughout the 1980s, she launched Naughty Bits in 1991 while working as a production artist at her publisher, Fantagraphics. It became the longest-running solo alternative comic book series by a female cartoonist, coming to an end in 2004 after an influential and pioneering 14-year, 40-issue run. The Bitchy Bitch stories remain the pinnacle of a historic career, and a highwater mark in comics and graphic novels over the past 40 years. Black-and-white illustrations throughout

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