''Friday Foster'' is an American newspaper
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
, created and written by
Jim Lawrence and illustrated by
Jorge Longarón. It ran from January 18, 1970, to February 17, 1974
and was notable for featuring one of the first African-American women as the title character in a comic strip.
Jackie Ormes
Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) was an American cartoonist. She is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist and creator of the ''Torchy Brown'' comic strip and the ''Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger'' panel.
Early life and ...
' ''Torchy Brown'' predated it, although it saw a more limited release in the Afro-American newspaper ''
Pittsburgh Courier
The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States.
It was acqu ...
''.
History
Jim Lawrence had been the writer of the London ''
Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...
'' comic strip, James Bond, when he became interested in creating a comic about a black character. Spanish cartoonist
Jorge Longarón was chosen as the illustrator, and the strip was syndicated by the
Chicago Tribune Syndicate
Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media S ...
. The comic focused on the glamorous life of its title character, a former fashion model who became an assistant to a top fashion photographer, as described by comics historian Dave Karlen:
A 1970 issue of ''
Jet'' reported on the debut of Friday Foster. The magazine stated that writer Lawrence lived in
Summit, New Jersey
Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...
and illustrator Langron lived in Spain. The two communicated via postal mail and telephone calls.
[Journalism - Black Career Girl Comic Strip Debuts in Cleveland, ''Jet'', page 19, February 12, 1970]
Artist
Frank Springer
Frank Springer (December 6, 1929 – April 2, 2009) was an American comics artist best known for Marvel Comics' '' Dazzler'' and '' Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.''. As well, in collaboration with writer Michael O'Donoghue, Springer created one o ...
did a small amount of uncredited work on the strip, recalling in the mid-2000s, "I knew the writer, who lived here in New Jersey, ...
ndI got a call a couple of times from Lawrence who said they hadn't gotten the material through from Spain" and asked Springer to fill in. "I guess over the years I did two Sunday pages, maybe three."
[Springer in ]
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1974. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium.Evanier, Mark"Wh ...
published a single issue of a ''Friday Foster'' comic book (October 1972), written by
and illustrated by
Jack Sparling
John Edmond Sparling (June 21, 1916 – February 15, 1997), was a Canadian comics artist.
Biography
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Sparling moved to the United States as a child. He received his early arts training at the Arts and Crafts Club in New ...
.
In 1975, ''Friday Foster'' was adapted into a
blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...
feature film of the same name, starring
Pam Grier
Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star (although, there are some who dispute that claim and believe Cheng Pei-pei actually holds that distin ...
.
In September 2019, the Friday Foster character appeared in a ''
Dick Tracy
''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the ''Detroit Mirror'', and it ...
'' story drawn by
Andrew Pepoy
Andrew Pepoy (born 1969) is an American comic book writer and artist.
Career
Pepoy began working as a professional artist while still in college at Loyola University Chicago.
He has worked on a large variety of comics, including ''Superman'', ''S ...
.
Further reading
* ''The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen: Awesome Female Characters from Comic Book History'' by Hope Nicholson, Quirk Books (2017)
See also
* ''
Friday Foster (film)
''Friday Foster'' is a 1975 American blaxploitation film written and directed by Arthur Marks and starring Pam Grier in the title role. Yaphet Kotto, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers and Carl Weathers co-starred. It is an adaptation of the 1970-74 ...
''
References
Foster, Friday
American comic strips
Drama comics
Adventure comics
1970 comics debuts
1974 comics endings
Comics about women
Foster, Friday
American comics adapted into films
Foster, Friday
Foster, Friday
Foster, Friday
Foster, Friday
Comic strips formerly syndicated by Tribune Content Agency
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