My boyfriend was going through his collection of zines and pulled out two issues of Sarah Dyer‘s Mad Planet. He didn’t like when I said “These are mine now.”
Mostly, it’s full of interviews with obscure ’90s bands, but the spirit is awesome. And while it’s not the focus, there are comics. There are Action Girl paper dolls (it’s sad that I no longer work in the office at a time when no one is around because I’d totally make copies of these and cut them out), some comics by Evan Dorkin (of course!) and some of the only Adrian Tomine comics I’ve read that I actually liked (why he can’t do stuff like that now, I don’t know).
The whole thing is really cute and I’m happy that I came across these. (And I’m going to say that unless you had a friend who liked zines and comics in the ’90s, you probably won’t.)
Sarah Dyer went on, of course, to do Action Girl (which needs to be collected right now) and she’s written for the cartoons Superman Adventures, Batman Beyond and Space Ghost Coast to Coast (usually along with Dorkin). The children’s TV show Yo Gabba Gabba! features a character called Super Martian Robot Girl that was created by Dyer and Dorkin (Here’s a clip of it on Jezebel). And if you read her blog, you can see she’s quite busy.
I’d love for Dyer to make comics again and I hope one day she will. Until then, I’ll just enjoy these two issues of Mad Planet and everything else she’s done.
