SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 1) UPI - A state appeals court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a lesbian who helped raise a child born to her lover had no custody rights when the relationship broke up. The Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District refused to enforce a parenting contract between the two women and said Kerry Blume could terminate her ex-girlfriend's visiting privileges. The decision upheld a lower court ruling dismissing Georgia Prescott's lawsuit seeking to legally establish her status as a parent and seeking damages for emotional distress. Prescott and Blume acted as parents of the girl, who was conceived by artificial insemination and born in 1985, until their breakup in 1990. Prescott sued after her visitation privileges were curtailed and Blume decided to move from Sonoma County. The appeals court said that since Prescott had never tried to adopt the child and the contract was unclear about her status, the only legal parent the child had was her natural mother. Prescott's attorney, Karen Callahan, said the decision made her angry because the court failed to honor the contract between the women and refused to recognize the changing nature of families. Callahan said Georgia's role in raising Blume's daughter was "just as significant as any other parental bond with a child." But Blume's attorney, Carol Amyx, said the decision "was to be expected" because biological ties took precedence over less formal relationships. "Somebody who's not a parent is not a parent, even if she functioned as a parent figure," Amyx said. "The court is saying that we're still going to decide parentage by using biological factors, not whether you associated with the child's mother." NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Filled with anger and fighting a long addiction to drugs, Diane DiMassa created a comic-book character to vent her rage and put her artistic ability to use. So was born Hothead Paisan, also known as Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, who uses guns, grenades, guillotines and just about anything else that can be used as a weapon to avenge any and every perceived wrong against women. "The way I operate -- it's eat my dust!!! The problem is gone," the wild-eyed, foul-mouthed, caffeine-crazed Hothead tells a friend who urges her to take a more educated approach. In the three years since the minicomic book first appeared, Hothead Paisan has become a hit among lesbians across the country. It also has begun attracting a growing number of straight and male readers, judging from the mix of fan mail DiMassa receives each week. A trade paperback containing enlarged versions of the first nine issues of the quarterly comic book, plus some additional work, just went to a second 5,000-copy run. The first printing sold out in about seven weeks, remarkable for a small press. "She's totally original. Nobody else is like Hothead Paisan," said Felice Newman, publisher at Cleis Press in Pittsburgh, which went to DiMassa with the idea of doing a book. Hothead and her comic sidekick, a cat named Chicken, even have been the subject of a scholarly critique, appearing this month in a journal, New York Folklore. "It's a wonderful appropriation of a popular culture form by a marginalized group that really has historically lacked the means of openly communicating (their) frustrations and angers and fears," said Dana Heller, an assistant professor of American literature and gender studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and author of the study. "It doesn't mean lesbians are all of a sudden going to whip out knives and start mutilating people. It's part of a long tradition of the image of the woman warrior." For DiMassa, 34, who is much calmer than her comic creation but just as biting in her criticism of a male-dominated world, drawing Hothead Paisan the Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist has been a form of exorcism. But she said, "I'm not any less angry about the injustices of the world." Why all the violence? "I am this upset, and I owe it to myself to get it out," she said. "Otherwise, those feelings sit in there and fester. They don't go away. "The last thing I want women to do is buy a gun and kill whoever is bothering them." In Hothead's world, the injustices include a society that pushes women to pursue a single ideal of womanhood and beauty, and TV programming and advertising that reinforce stereotypes. "Being something other than this specific image that the media is constantly pushing makes you feel invisible," DiMassa said. Targets of Hothead's wrath include leering men, sneering men, gawking men, men who think they are superior to women, men who commit violence against women, and male doctors who complain of "those troublesome female parts." "I don't know how anybody can stand anything," Hothead shrieks in one episode. In the first issue, published in 1991, Hothead shoots a woman-hater in the back and uses an ax to chop off the sexual organ of a man who tells her: "You just ain't had da right one yet!!" And that's all just on the first page. In other issues, Hothead goes on a rampage in a supermarket, using a shotgun to blast away at all the beauty aides and feminine hygiene products, and pushes a giant billboard featuring a scantily clad woman off a building and onto a group of male advertising executives admiring their work. Even as Hothead carries out her revenge, DiMassa adds numerous touches of humor in her detailed drawings. Underneath an "Employees Only" sign on the swinging doors at the back of the supermarket is another sign that reads: "Like who wants to go back there anyway." "I love when you stare at a panel for five minutes and have something to look at," DiMassa said. DiMassa began doodling as a youngster, drawing her inspiration from Mad magazine. "I was always the kid in school having her cartoons confiscated," she said. At age 13, she began experimenting with marijuana and it was all downhill from there. "It progressed, just like they said it would," she said. "I know some people create well under the influence, but I was not one of them." She also couldn't keep a job; she figures she went through at least 60 of them. She stopped abusing alcohol and drugs at the age of 27, and has been sober since. Alcohol, drugs and even cigarettes are banned from the pages of her comics. DiMassa began drawing Hothead as part of her therapy. At the urging of her companion and fellow recovering addict, Stacy Sheehan, the couple formed their own company to publish the minicomics. Now, there's also a souvenir line of Hothead T-shirts, buttons, rubber stamps and postcards. Without Sheehan, Hothead Paisan would have remained in her private journals, DiMassa said. Operating their company out of their home, where they have converted a walk-in closet into an office, DiMassa and Sheehan are hoping to turn their first profit this year. Most of the business to date has been generated by word of mouth. "Once more people learn about Hothead, I think she will have a broader appeal than to just gay people," says Heller. "It's in the classic tradition of the Western ... the wonderful fantasy of the little guy who wins in the end." ------ EDITOR'S NOTE: Subscriptions ($14 a year) info can be be obtained by writing: P.O. Box 214, New Haven, Conn. 06502.