Showing posts with label Friday Foster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friday Foster. Show all posts

Thursday, February 11, 2010

ComicBookMovie.com...Not All I Hoped It Would Be!

I had previously plugged ComicBookMovie.com's fansites here.
It seemed like an ideal place for me to post historical articles and other goodies on a variety of subjects in a fannish way, including The Green Hornet, SuperHeroines, and Golden Age Heroes.
But, I'm afraid I have to change my mind.

I had posted several articles adapted from my blog entries for Green Hornet: Year One, Blue Bolt, Nature Boy, Air Man & RocketMan, and Friday Foster.
Audience response had been good, with a number of positive comments and "thumbs up"!
With great enthusiasm, I was preparing a number of pieces, going above the scope of what I had originally planned to do!

I logged on and was about to post the first of my Fantastic Femmes entries (Zoe Saldana!) on the Heroines fansite I created, when I noticed that my previous articles had...disappeared!
The site has some technical glitches, particularly in the "Articles" section. (I posted articles as "Features" because of their historical content, but they kept reclassifying as "News".) So I thought it was just a glitch that could be corrected, and the stories reloaded.

Not quite.

When I emailed the webmaster, I was told that the articles had been deleted...with no explanation or notification.
If I hadn't checked, I wouldn't have realized that they were gone!

I've communicated via e-mail with Jim Littler, who runs the site.
He sounds like a cool guy, doing his best under extremely trying circumstances, so this is in no way a put-down of him.
The problem, according to Jim, was that one of several new website editors deleted the articles without bothering to contact me with any questions he may have had.
Apparently, ComicBookMovies.com has no in-house log-on/tracking procedures for changes, nor any way to recover deleted material.
(Jim asked the editors and none of them has acknowledged doing the deletions.)

Sadly, I've decided that, until such matters can be corrected, I'll just post picture galleries into the three sites I have up, and won't be adding any more sites (I had planned several more for specific characters.)

While I will try to include info in the pic galleries, I could have done a lot more with the features, but I can't justify the time involved if things will just be deleted.

However, if you're comfortable with working within those parameters, feel free to join the community and participate.
It is fun, and a very responsive audience is there!

Tomorrow: back to business as usual with Design of the Week!
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The FIRST Black Comic Strip Heroine: Friday Foster

On January 18, 1970, Friday Foster became the FIRST mainstream syndicated comic strip to star a Black woman as the title character.
(Jackie Ormes' legendary Torchy Brown was, unfortunately, limited to black-owned newspapers which had relatively-limited circulation.)
It 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 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 woman 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) 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 a Friday Foster mug, bag, shirt or other goodie from Atomic Kommie Comics™!

Note: only the comics graphic at top is available on products from us. The poster isn't.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Design of the Week--Friday Foster (and Coupon)

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...

She was the FIRST Black character to have her own national comic strip!

There was even a movie about her starring action film star Pam Grier!

Now you can have the retro-style Friday Foster collectibles they never made during her too-brief 1970s run by clicking HERE!

AND DON'T FORGET...
Atomic Kommie Comics™
FREE Shipping*
on any orders $40 and up
TWO DAYS REMAINING: October 22 – October 23, 2009
Use Coupon code: SHIP4FREE at CheckOut
*Free Economy or Standard shipping for CafePress.com purchases of $40 or more, excluding shipping charges and applicable sales tax. Delivery address must be within the United States and cannot be a PO Box. All orders will be Economy shipping unless the order is not eligible for Economy shipping (e.g., order exceeds Economy weight restrictions). Coupon code must be entered at check out. Promotion starts on October 21, 2009, at 12:00 a.m. (PST) and ends on October 23, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. (PST). Cannot be combined with any other CafePress.com coupons or promotions and this offer may change, be modified or cancelled at anytime without notice.
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Monday, August 3, 2009

Does Your Daughter Need a SuperHeroine?

That's what Peggy Orenstein asks in a recent Sunday NY Times article.
While searching for a fantasy role model for her 6-year old daughter, she bemoans the fact that today's super women are "more mammary than muscle", and that (except for Wonder Woman), most are just female variations of more-popular heroes (SuperGirl, BatGirl & BatWoman, Spider-Girl, She-Hulk, etc.)

Luckily for Ms. Ornstein, we have an alternative for her...cool clothing & collectibles featuring empowered heroines who aren't femme versions of established heroes, and aren't built like inflatable adult toys...
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Fantastic Femmes--Pam Grier

Note: this page has been updated with NEW info HERE!
From her first featured role in The Big Doll House, Pam Grier was THE female action star of the 1970s, dominating the blaxplotation genre along with appearances in several horror flix.
Honing her acting skills, she moved to drama and comedy film & tv work, including multi-episode arcs on Crime Story and Miami Vice and as a regular on Linc's.
She's a cancer survivor, and a regular on The L Word.
And one of my favorite actresses of all time! ;-)
Genre credits include...
Smallville (Amanda Waller)
Back in the Day (Mrs. Cooper)
Justice League "A Knight of Shadows" (My'ria'h)
Night Visions "Switch"
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (Flura Nash aka Mom)
Feast of All Saints (Suzette Lermontant)
Bones (Pearl)
Strange Frequency
Ghosts of Mars (Commander Helena Braddock)
Pinky & the Brain "Inherit the Wheeze"
Escape from LA (Hershe Las Palmas)
Bill & Ted"s Bogus Journey (Ms Wardroe)
Class of 1999 (Ms Connors)
Mars Attacks! (Louise Williams)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Dust Witch)
Monsters "Hostile Takeover"
Friday Foster (Friday Foster)
Scream, Blacula, Scream! (Lisa)
Twilight People (Ayesa, the Panther Woman)
Other actresses to play Amanda Waller include...
Angela Bassett in Green Lantern.
CCH Pounder in Justice League Unlimited / Batman Beyond and Superman-Batman: Public Enemies
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