BETTY BOOP: THE COMIC STRIP CONTINUED...

Here's Another Month's Betty Boop Sunday strips for your edification and entertainment...

...from early 1935!

We Hope You've Enjoyed Our Look Into Betty's Past!

Boop! the Musical!

...is Playing in Chicago NOW Through Christmas Eve!

Photo: Mark Seliger

...starring gorgeous Broadway veteran Jasmine Amy Rogers as the embodiment of Betty!

Catch It Before It Hits Broadway

(Where Tix are Even MORE Expensive!)

BETTY BOOP: THE COMIC STRIP

Boop! the Musical Opened Last Night...

...and to celebrate, here's the first few strips from her first strip (which premiered November 25th, 1934) through New Year's Eve, 1934, illustrated by Bud Counihan!

More Boop Next Monday!

Boop! the Musical!

...is Playing in Chicago NOW!

Photo: Mark Seliger

...starring gorgeous Broadway veteran Jasmine Amy Rogers as the embodiment of Betty!

Catch It Before It Hits Broadway

(Where Tix are Even MORE Expensive!)

PRESENTING...BETTY BOOP...sorta!

In 1930, Betty Boop began branching out from animated cartoons to other media...sorta!

From Photoplay, April 1932

As you can see from this clip, Helen never actually played Betty, who was based on her appearance and performances...which were apparently based on those of an earlier Black child performer, Baby Esther!

When King Features Syndicate's negotiations with Betty Boop's owner, Fleischer Studios for a newspaper strip stalled, Helen's agent suggested doing a strip about the "Boop-Boop-a-Doop Girl: Helen Kane"!

Here's the (almost) complete 11-week run...

We take a pause in our presentation because the strip published on October 31 contains racial stereotypes common to the media of the era.

If you wish to see it, please click

HERE.

Now, back to our presentation...

This was the final Boop-Boop-a-Doop strip since King Features and Fleischer Brothers came to terms and work on a licensed Betty Boop strip was now under way!

You'll aee that strip on November 20!

But next week...

...A long-lost one-shot comic by three famous comic pros who are also among Betty's greatest fans!

Please Support Heroines!

Visit Amazon and Buy...

Fleischer Story: featuring Betty Boop!
by Leslie Carbarga
Paid Link

FRIDAY FOSTER "Meet Friday Foster"

Fifty years ago, history was made...

...on January 18, 1970, Friday Foster became the FIRST mainstream syndicated comic strip to star a Black woman as the title character.
Here's the first seven up until now never-reprinted Sunday strips...

(Jackie Ormes' earlier Torchy Brown was, unfortunately, only published in black-owned newspapers which had relatively-limited circulation.)
Friday Foster was also the FIRST mainstream comic strip to star a Black title character, male OR female!
(The humor strip Quincy by Ted Shearer debuted later in 1970!)

Writer Jim Lawrence was no stranger to newspaper adventure strips, having previously written Captain Easy and Joe Palooka.
After his stint on Friday, he scripted a revived Buck Rogers comic strip based on the 1980 tv series!
And, he penned a 1970s paperback novel series, Dark Angel, about a Black female private eye!

Artist Jorge Longaron had done a number of comic strips in Europe, but was unknown in America. Friday was his Stateside strip debut.

The series was a combination of adventure, soap-opera, and social commentary, about former fashion model-turned-photographer's assistant (and later professional photographer and model) Friday Foster.
Supporting characters included photographer Shawn North (her boss and later business partner) and millionare playboy/romantic interest Blake Tarr.
The strip lasted until late 1974, with some of the final sequences illustrated by DC Comics legend Dick Giordano and a then up-and-comer named Howard Chaykin (American Flagg, The Shadow)!

Besides the strip, there was a one-shot comic book in 1972, and a feature film in 1975 (a year after the strip was canceled) starring action-movie goddess Pam Grier as Friday, Thalmus Rasulala as Blake Tarr, Yaphet Kotto as Detective Colt Hawkins, plus Eartha Kitt, Jim Backus, Godfrey Cambridge, and in one of his earliest roles, Carl Weathers, as an un-named assassin!
While there was a soundtrack album, curiously, I've never seen a novelization (and, in the '70s, they did novelizations of movies that weren't even released in the US, just shown overseas)!

If you're looking for a cool gift for the Black History aficionado or grrrl hero fan in your life, you can't go wrong with either

Black Women in Sequence

which includes both a cover and info about Friday Foster or the upcoming Friday Foster book!

As soon as it's listed on Amazon, I'll post a link!