And thus begins what I can guess without even googling are a thousand racy fanfics. But it's also the premise, more or less, of cartoonist Dave Kiersh's thoughtful, funny minicomic Amazons, which he's now posted online in its entirety on his new site Teenage Archive. The strip imagines what life would be like if these pulchritudinous paragons of fierce femininity were to attend high school, navigating the uncharted waters of jocks, nerds, preps, angry teachers, uncaring administrators, and unyielding dress codes.

Kiersh's About Me blurb on Teenage Archive reads "Afterschool specials and the American dream," and that pretty much nails what his comics are like: Whimsical yet melancholy explorations of teenage lust, boredom, romance, and desire to escape -- and adult desire to return. Amazons is more of a goof than his usual stuff, but underneath the silliness is something true about the way dudes idealize beautiful women and the sense of unattainable freedom and fulfillment these fantasy figures represent. Read it in tandem with Kate Beaton, Carly Monardo, and Meredith Gran's "Strong Female Characters" for a very different but I think complementary take on the power such images have.