TROTS AND BONNIE.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: COMICS

Shary Flenniken began her career with a brief stint in underground comix in San Francisco before earning a coveted regular slot in National Lampoon, from the early '70s to the early '90s, for her comics about a pubescent girl named Bonnie, her talking dog, Trots, and their pals. It seems hard to believe these appeared in an over-the-counter national magazine (even one with a rep for edgy naughtiness). They portrayed with wildness, honesty, and humor this "dangerous time in a young woman's life...with a complete lack of adult-world moralizing or editorial restraint," writes cartoonist Emily Flake in her introduction to Trots and Bonnie, a new book collection of Flenniken's old strips.

Flenniken gives heft to the comics through sharp ironic feminism. When Trots writes porn...