By M.J. FINE
Courier-Post Staff

Margaret Cho's not the best female comedian. Don't call her the best Asian-American comedian, either. Or, for that matter, the best hip-hop-loving, singer/songwriter-adoring, self-described "super-goth" comedian. She'll have you know she's just the best, period.

If that sounds like she has a high opinion of herself, well, good. That's the point. But she wasn't always so self-confident.

"I wasn't a particularly good student and I wasn't popular," Cho says on the phone from her Glendale, Calif., home during a four-day lull in her Revolution Tour, which stops in Philadelphia on Thursday. "I was pretty invisible - or I thought I was - and performing gave me a way to be able to define myself."

Dropping out of high school to play comedy clubs didn't immediately turn her into the fabulous creature she is now. Nor did her short-lived sitcom, All-American Girl, which literally made her sick. Dieting to please network executives, she wound up in the hospital with anorexia and kidney failure.

She has no plans to return to acting.

"I love doing what I do," she says. "That's my joy and my business."

Comedian walks the walk

For Cho, 34, the talking cure is the only cure. She works through her self-image issues onstage, boosting her fans' spirits along with her own. She walks the walk offstage, too, not only assuring young audiences that they're worthy, but also giving positive reinforcement to the successful people who make the world a little better.

Take Ani DiFranco, the uncompromising singer/songwriter/label boss whose Righteous Babe Records mixes business and politics, pain and pleasure, folk and jazz.

"I love Ani DiFranco," Cho says. "I write her love letters every now and again because she's so inspiring to me."

Take Princess Superstar, whose "Bad Babysitter" is simpatico with Cho's funniest and foulest routines, but adds a radio-friendly chorus. Cho recently interviewed her for Rockrgrl magazine.

"I just wanted to explain to her, like, what it means to just not have to qualify gender or race before a person's job title," Cho says. "Like, people will always say, `Oh, she's the best female rapper, she's the best white female rapper.' But she's the best rapper. She's the best MC there is. And I wholeheartedly think that and believe that. . . . That sort of really discounts people and makes them less than what they really are."

If Cho comes off as a big music fan, that's because she is. The title of her last one-woman show, Notorious C.H.O., was a nod to raunchy rapper Lil' Kim's Notorious K.I.M. album. (Biggie Smalls may have come up with the conceit, but Kim made it as platinum as her wig.)

Cho agrees with the adage that comedians want to be rock stars and rock stars want to be comedians, but the connection is deeper than that. It's rooted in the rhythm, she says.

"I think that what I do is more like a melodic storytelling as opposed to jokes, but still, there's a rhythm involved."

But there's another reason more of her friends are musicians than comedians.

"I think comics are really jealous, and we're all so jealous of each other's success and/or failure," Cho says.

People try to pit female comedians against each other, as though the world is big enough for Bill Maher and Dennis Miller, but not Janeane Garofalo and Sarah Silverman. Cho's not having it.

"I have a lot of solidarity with the women, and a lot of the gay comics," she says. (Opening for her on the Revolution Tour is Bruce Daniels, whose act explores being black and gay.)

Although she cites Richard Pryor as her biggest influence, and speaks of Spalding Gray and Eric Bogosian with the same reverence she gives to Sandra Bernhardt, she has less-than-fraternal feelings for most men in her field.

"There is a natural tendency for male comics to dismiss female comics in general," says Cho, who is engaged to marry a man in June, after the tour ends.

Cho's stand-up act evolves

With "the joy of bodily functions" a staple of her set, Cho continues to cross the boundaries of good taste.

"I don't have an internal censor," she says.

Revolution's evolution is evident in its focus on current events.

Where the material on previous tours was relatively static, Cho says her current set "has to change daily because of the way that the show's very political, and the war is on."

Cho notes that she supports the troops fighting in Iraq - people she knows and loves are among their ranks - but that doesn't negate her misgivings about the war.

"It's such a really difficult situation because the sons and daughters of Washington are not the people that are actually fighting," she says, pointing out that just one of the 535 members of Congress has a child facing action. (Sen. Tim Johnson, a Democrat from South Dakota, has a son serving in the Army's 101st Airborne Division.)

It's a class issue, she says.

"The truth is that the people that are dying are not from these upper echelons of society," Cho says. Meanwhile, "we're not dealing with what's really important here, things like education and health care and the state of welfare, unemployment, the economy (have been neglected) because we've been distracted by this smoke screen of fear regarding the war."

Local man draws Cho as Che

One clue to the tour's political bent is its logo, a stylized illustration of Cho that takes its cue from the iconic image of Cuban revolutionary leader Che Guevara. It's clever and fierce, and Voorhees artist Rob Kelly designed it.

Kelly, who calls Cho "hysterically funny," sent the comedian a picture he'd drawn of her for a magazine.

"Her manager contacted me and said that they really love the illustration, and would I be interested in doing a T-shirt design for them?" Kelly says.

The idea for Cho as Che came from the comic's camp, but Kelly put his own spin on it. One thing led to another, and his work found its way onto all of the tour art, from T-shirts to print ads. (Visit Kelly's Web site at www.namtab.com.)

One holdover from Cho's previous shows - actually, two familiar faces - is her Korean-immigrant parents. Her hilarious impression of her mother has always been part of her act, and Mommy and Daddy were fan favorites in the Notorious C.H.O. concert film, beaming proudly even through their daughter's naughtiest bits. Cho says they'll be part of the Revolution Tour film and the separate documentary she's making under the working title Belle Du Tour.

So the Revolution, if not televised, will be well-documented on film. Cho won't say what it'll look like, but she knows what it will be.

"We can defend ourselves and not have to rise above it because we're a minority, not have to walk away with dignity because why should we bother," she says.

"I would rather sink down to whoever's level. If I am being attacked for either my sexuality or my race, whatever, I will defend myself by any means necessary. And, you know, that has been a remarkably freeing thing. The best weapon I have is to act crazy, because then people just don't know what to do and they will think again before attacking another."

Don't be fooled by her polite voice and her commitment to patience, honesty, compassion and tolerance. Her inner warrior is blazing a trail for self-esteem, and those values are her weapons.

"In a sense, my gender, my race, my activism puts me in a warrior stance constantly," Cho says. "If you are somebody like me, if you are a minority, then you're always going to be fighting."

Even at her most revolutionary, she rejects pre-emptive strikes. But in retaliation, all bets are off.

"The most important thing is we make ourselves feel better," she says. "And if that requires us hurting others because they've hurt us first, there's no problem in that, I think."