Lester in trouble with a girl. Artist: Brett Blevins.

THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS

Original medium: Comic books
Published by: Eternity Comics
First Appeared: 1987
Creators: Will Jacobs, Gerard Jones (writers) and Tim Hamilton (artist)
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The trouble with Girls, in the 1980s-90s comic book of that title, wasn't even remotely the same as that in the 1969 Elvis Presley movie with that name. In fact the Girls of the comic book didn't even have the same body type as those of the movie. In the comic, Lester …

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… Girls's trouble was that his life as an action hero didn't bear much resemblance to the quiet, ordinary existence he longed for.

Lester didn't have the super powers that so frequently form a prerequisite to the action-filled, adventurous life that suits most comic book heroes. But his mesomorphic good looks and penchant for attracting terrorists, super villains and CIA agents, redundancy noted, as well as lots of money, fame and beautiful women, were quite enough to drive an action/adventure parody series, even without them.

Eternity Comics was part of a small cluster of minor publishers that also included Aircel (Men in Black) and Arrow (Tales from the Aniverse), formed in the wake of the success of Teenate Mutant Ninja Turtles. Aircel published The Trouble with Girls #1 with a cover date of August, 1987. It was written by Will Jacobs (Crying Freeman) and Gerard Jones (El Diablo), and illustrated by Tim Hamilton (Catalyst: Agent of Change). It ran until 1988, a total of 14 issues.

Comico (Grendel) began publishing it with Vol. 2 #1 dated February, 1989. Then it went back to the original cluster of publishers when Malibu, another part of it, picked up Comico's series with its fifth issue. Malibu (which later created a superhero universe by appropriating public-domain Centaur characters, such as The Arrow and Fantoman) continued to publish it until #23, which had a cover date in 1991. They also re-published the first six issues of the orignal series as two graphic novels in 1988. Eternity capped off the series with a Christmas Special in December, 1991.

Two years later, Marvel got into the act by publishing The Trouble with Girls: Night of the Lizard as a four-issue limited series under its creator-owned Epic imprint (Captain Confederacy). Jacobs and Jones returned to the character, but Hamilton was replaced with Brett Blevins (Crystar) and Al Williamson (Secret Agent Corrigan).

For over a decade, the Epic series stood as the last word on The Trouble with Girls. Then Checker Books (Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend) brought him back into print in 2006. Checker's graphic novel edition reprints the first six issues of the Comico/Malibu comic book.

— DDM

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Text ©2009 Donald D. Markstein. Art © Will Jacobs, Gerard Jones and Tim Hamilton.