Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls...except then Professor Utonium accidentally threw in some Chemical X with the rest of the ingredients and thus, the Power Puff Girls were born! The cult favourite Cartoon Network series with magical girl anime stylings, a sharp sense of humour and kicking soundtrack returned this year thanks to a new comic book series published by IDW. The comic retains the stylised artwork of the series, alongside the similar wit and really much too clever writing for a book that is mostly menaced by a hyper-intelligent monkey with an exposed brain called Mojo Jojo, hoping to appeal to the same audience it did when it was on TV: not only the hip older crowd who grew up with it, but also the young kids attracted to the cartoony look (not to mention the Cartoon Network branding). So then who was Mimi Yoon's variant cover for the sixth issue for? Perverts. Really gross perverts. The little girls (who are meant to be, like, middle-schoolers at the oldest) are depicted as older, sexualised figures who nonetheless retain their infantalised big eyes, outfits and hairdos. Yeesh. After an outcry Cartoon Networks licensing division confirmed they would be pulling Yoons cover.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
