Heröine‘s bold front cover channels the punk vibe of the late nineteen-seventies. The female ‘cover girl’, standing with her hands on her hips in a superhero pose, wears fishnets and a little black dress with holes cut out under the arms. Her hair stands up in two peaks on her head like bat ears or devil horns. Bold pink, yellow, purple and turquoise stripes create a lurid riot of colour to offset the black line drawing and bold futura font of the masthead.

Suzy Varty was part of the comics collective at the Birmingahm Arts Lab, an experimental arts centre which ran from 1968-1982. The underground comix scene had been flourishing in the UK since the late sixties but it was dominated by men and often featured images that objectified and degraded women. Varty had been active in the women’s movement as well as the Birmingham arts scene and developed Heröine as a way to counter the prevailing misogyny and sexism of the underground comics.

Suzy Varty told us that the comics collective at the Arts Lab Press suggested that she produce a women’s comic:

‘There weren’t too many women working in comics in those days, but I somehow found enough material for this one-off comic, and all submissions were included. I did all the layout, design and darkroom work and stood over our litho machine whilst the printer grappled with the colours I had specified.

Ar:Zak was an imprint of Arts Lab Press and was set up to publish and distribute radical, alternative comics. According to Maggie Gray,

‘Ar:Zak didn’t just publish its own titles, like Streetcomix (first issued as a free insert in Street Poems magazine), or its members’ comics, like Emerson’s Zomix Comix and The Adventures of Mr Spoonbiscuit, but it also offered its services to others, printing David Noon’s Moon Comix and Mike Matthews’ Napalm Kiss, and thus supporting a wider UK alternative comics scene. Ar:Zak sold many such comics by mail order alongside its own titles’.

Suzy Varty sold the anthology at the last Women’s Liberation Conference which was held in Birmingham in 1978.

Varty had previously put together the women’s Art magazine, Mama.

Stephen Fox, ‘Heroine‘ at Underground Comix Connection https://comixjoint.com/heroine.html

Maggie Gray, ‘UK Underground Comix: Ar:Zak, the Birmingham Arts Lab, and Streetcomix #4 (3 of 3) https://henryjenkins.org/blog/2020/2/15/uk-underground-comix-arzak-the-birmingham-arts-lab-and-streetcomix-4-3-of-3-by-maggie-gray?

Anna McKie, ‘Kerpow! How women used the boy’s own world of comic books to further the cause’, the Guardian, 17 May 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/she-said/2014/may/17/kerpow-how-women-used-the-boys-own-world-of-comic-books-to-further-the-cause