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If you were one of those girls who stashed copies of Adrian Tomine's "Optic Nerve" in her high school locker, or if you loved watching the animated disaffected youth of the TV show "Daria," take heart. You're not alone. If Web sites like Girls Read Comics are any indication, women enjoy comics and cartoons as much as guys do.

And even though a lot of representations of women in comics are pretty sexist, women can still find some great characters out there. Illustrators and animators -- like Joe Sacco, author of Palestine, and Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis -- consistently create compelling and dynamic narratives.

Below, our favorite animated and drawn guys and girls (including some familiar comic book faces). ComicCon is calling ...

Top Ten Coolest Cartoon Characters

    10. Daria, sarcastic star of her eponymous MTV series. In the 90s, Daria was the coolest girl in high school and she wasn't even real. She had the glasses, the prickly demeanor, and the fashion sense to totally run the radio station in college and intimidate the crap out of freshman.

    MTV

    9. Dilton Doiley, "Archie" comics. Archie's milquetoast, Moose has one brain cell, Jughead's a misogynist with an obsessive eating disorder. In short, Dilton is the only crushable man of the lot.

    Archie Entertainment

    8. Shuichi Saito, uber-emo boyfriend to Kirie Goshima in "Uzumaki." When Shuichi and Kirie's town becomes haunted by a mesmerizing pattern--the hypnotic and evil spiral--he saves Kirie from a spirit caught in her hair. He mopes a lot, but he has your back on a bad hair day.

    isoshu.com

    7. Nasser Ali Khan of "Chicken with Plums."
    The suicidal tar player (it's a musical instrument) is actually in love with his instrument -- and not the drunk American Apparel models it can get him.

    ivyparis.typepad.com

    6. John Arbuckle, the annoying dude who interrupted Garfield's naps. He plays the accordion and owns the world's most confounding animals. Somehow, the contradiction is endearing. Plus, you just know you could send him to Rite Aid to get Midol and he'd be back in ten minutes flat.

    Paws, Inc.

    5. Ogami Itto, Lone Wolf of Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's 70s samurai epic, Lone Wolf and Cub. When Ogami, the Shogun's executioner, finds his family slaughtered in retribution for one of his assassinations, he takes his surviving infant son on a quest for vengeance. In a stroller. Say what you want about exposing children to violence, but no one can accuse Ogami of being an absentee father.

    Futabasha Publications Inc.

    4. Daniel Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl, the voice of reason in Alan Moore's "The Watchmen." Killer costume. And he could give you a spin in Archie, his owlship.

    Warner Bros.

    3. Baby Cakes, the bald, rhyme spitting, 30-year-old star of Brad Neely's web series of the same name. He writes odes to public parks, raps about the Brain Fuckler, and could take you to the best D&D games in town.

    Brad Neely / superdeluxe.com

    2. Maggie and Hopey of Jaime Hernandez's seminal 80s alterna comic, Love and Rockets. Maggie travels the world fixing rocket ships while her best friend and sometimes-lover Hopey is deeply entrenched in the East LA Chicano punk community. Hot.

    Jamie Hernandez, Fantagraphic Books

    1. Yorick Brown, the last dude on earth in "Y: The Last Man." He was the last man on earth and proved himself to be both a gentleman and a sex machine under the right circumstances. Also, he had a monkey named Ampersand. A grammar nerd and hot? Check and check.

    DC Comics / Vertigo