I have thrown myself full-bore into the writing of my Encyclopedia of Themes in Science Fiction and Fantasy entries for Gary Westfahl. I'm one of those folks who'll research to infinity and back rather than write unless a deadline is staring me square in the face. As my entries are due June 1, I figure that counts as a looming deadline. Last night was devoted to getting a good portion of my Wonder Woman TV series entry hammered into shape. As I feared, keeping the article under the word limit is going to be the biggest challenge. I finished the intro, relating Wonder Woman's comic book origins to that of her television counterpart, realizing that this alone could easily blow past the word limit and still leave out many pertinent facts. And I haven't actually started talking about the TV series yet, nor Lynda Carter, nor the awful Cathy Lee Crosby pilot, nor the campy series abandoned by the producers of the Batman show from the '60s.
The research has been fun, and has turned up some rather unexpected facts, such as the fact William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator and the inventor of the polygraph, had a live-in lover rooming with him and his wife. In the 1940s. Marston had two children by each of the women, and the fact they all got along is underscored by the fact that the mothers named their daughters after each other.
If you're looking for good reference books on Wonder Woman, the two best ones to track down are Scott Beatty's Wonder Woman: The Ultimate Guide to the Amazon Princess which focuses exclusively on the comics continuity aspect of Princess Diana of Themyscira, and Les Daniels' Wonder Woman: The Complete History, which covers everything--and I mean everything--else about the amazing Amazon.
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