Diane DiMassa is best known as the creator of the controversial and widely popular comic-zine Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. She is also the illustrator of a number of books, including Kathy Acker's Pussycat Fever (1995), Kate Bornstein's My Gender Workbook (1998), and Anne Fausto-Sterling's Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (2000).
In 1991 when DiMassa was in drug and alcohol recovery programs, she began drawing HotHead Paisan as a form of therapy. DiMassa's therapist instructed her to use artwork as a medium for dealing with her anger, and as a result the comic character, Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, was born.
DiMassa never intended to publish her journal sketches of Hothead, but her then partner, Stacey Sheehan, suggested that DiMassa market HotHead in the form of a comic-zine. Published by DiMassa's newly created Giant Ass Publishing, issue number one of HotHead Paisan made its way into lesbian and feminist bookstores across North America in 1991 and became an instant best-seller.
As an underground cartoon character, Hothead attracted an audience of lesbians, bisexuals, and straight women throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and England. Published quarterly from 1991 to 1996, DiMassa's comic-zine consistently sold out.
DiMassa's graphic depiction of violence (for example, in issue number eleven Hothead pulls a rapist's spine out of his ass) is often criticized as obscene, and issue number seven was seized at the Canadian border and labeled "hate literature" by Canada Customs.
The popularity of Hothead resulted in the publication of two book-length collections of the comic-zine from Cleis Press: Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist in 1993 (9 zines plus 20 new pages) and The Revenge of Hothead Paisan in 1995 (9 zines plus 30 new pages). The subsequent popularity of these collections resulted in their recent republication in a single volume, The Complete Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist (Cleis Press, 1999, all 21 zines).
In response to the cult status of Hothead Paisan, the candy manufacturer True Confections asked DiMassa to design a line of Hothead candy bars. "Hothead's Homicical Lesbian Terrorist Booster Bar" and "The Femme Dyke Bitch Bar" are bestsellers.
DiMassa currently lives in Westport, Connecticut.
