Cad: A Handbook for Heels - Charles Schneider
The Collector - John Fowels
Halle the Hooters Girl - Wright, Pearl, & McCall
If I'm so Famous, How Come Nobody's Ever Heard of Me? - Jewel Shepard
Invasion of the B-Girls - Jewel Shepard
The Scream Queen's Survival Guide - Meredith O'Hayre
Cad: A Handbook for Heels - Charles Schneider
(Review coming soon)
The Collector - John Fowels
(Review coming soon)
Halle the Hooters Girl - Wright, Pearl, & McCall
Halle the Hooters Girl was a short-lived comic book character that was the brainchild of entrepreneur Susy Johnson. Unfortunately, the buxom blonde chicken wing-serving heroine was so short lived, you're looking at the cover of the one and only issue.
It seemed that Cabbage Comics used the Hooters name, image, etc., without permission from Hooters, Inc., despite the fact that they stated in the issue that they did. So, after being threatened with a lawsuit, Cabbage Comics pulled the plug on Halle. I have no idea why the two parties didn't work out a deal, since it could have been a real win-win situation, but they didn't and the following are some panels and a rundown on the one any only adventure of Halle and company from the January 1998 debut and final issue.
The story introduces the reader to Halle, the "star" Hooters Girl at the restaurant she works at, her bitchy arch rival Mona, simple-minded but sweet Jill, and their boss Connie. Halle, Mona and Jill are sent to deliver a large order to the local Air Force Base. En route, their van is struck by a septic tanker truck and raw sewage is spilt into the girls' van. The trio of ladies come out of it with no serious injuries but for some unknown reason, the mess from the truck, coupled with perhaps the sauce from the chicken wings Halle was munching on at the time of the accident, gives her super powers. (The first indication of this is when she was able to withstand the high-pressure force of the water from the fire hose while being washed down after the accident.)
Since this was the first and only issue, I'm merely assuming the sauce-sewage mixture is what gave Halle her powers since it was only she who was eating the wings at the time and it was only she who got super powers. It also wasn't clearly defined exactly what super powers Halle possessed, but besides being able to withstand a high-pressure water blast, she's able to transform herself (apparently unwittingly) into a crime-fighting diva when she senses trouble who uses a chrome-plated nut cracker as deftly as Captain America uses his shield. She's also quite handy with assault weapons and chicken wings.
The bad guys here are a terrorist group who call themselves the "Mike Ditka Liberation Army" and have somehow made their was onto the Air Force Base to nab its plutonium to carry out their master plan to change the NFL back to the days the Rams were still in Los Angeles, the Cardinals were still in St. Louis, etc. Halle, after being transformed into her superheroine incarnation Halle thwarts the terrorist's actions with the help of the aforementioned nut cracker, her fellow Hooters Girls, Mona and Jill. Oh, and an Uzi she lifted off one of her fallen foes.
Halle was based on actual Hooters Girl Janine Vollmer, who worked for the chain from 1993-1999. She now works as a makeup artist and is still involved with Hooters, often working behind the scenes on promotional shoots. The comic book can still be obtained from various sources fairly reasonably. Of course, copies signed by Janine fetch a much higher price.
If I'm so Famous, How Come Nobody's Ever Heard of Me? - Jewel Shepard
B-movie queen Jewel Shepard, who starred in such classics as Hollywood Hot
Tubs and Return of the Living Dead, tells all about how she got there, why she left it to go work as a waitress in a rural Montana town, and why she came back to it.
(Review coming soon)
Invasion of the B-Girls - Jewel Shepard
(Review coming soon)
The Scream Queen's Survival Guide - Meredith O'Hayre
Humorous "guide" on how to come out alive if one ever finds herself (or himself, I suppose) in a situation similar to those seen in some of the most popular horror flicks. Anyone who yells what to do and what not to do to the target of the killer in a slasher movie (à la Maureen Evans in Scream 2: "Bitch, hang up the phone and *69 his ass!") will enjoy this read very much.
Author Meredith O'Hayre's advice given in this book covers such areas as wardrobe (Ladies should avoid dressing as sluts because, besides making them a magnet for psychotic serial killers, it increases their chances of having a boob pop out while they're running from one), locations to avoid ( Ladies; stay out of the woods, especially at night. Henry David Thoreau may have felt there was no better place to be but you could end up as a slasher's shish kabob.), and dating. (Ladies; stay clear of a guy who's a little too close to his mother, even if she's dead .... uh, especially if she's dead.)
There were a few areas where I differed on Meredith's beliefs, such as where she says that all zombies need to be sliced, diced, and burned to be eliminated (It was just the "Return of the .." zombie movie zombies where that was necessary. All the "standard" Romero-type undead can be put down with a simple bullet to the brain.), but all-in-all, if you plan on buying a home that may be haunted, going on a road trip to Main, or taking a job as a cemetery groundskeeper, this is the book to read first.
