From one of their MAN FROM UNCLE backup strips...
a DIACHRONIC study of the IMAGE of the POWERFUL FEMALE in POPULAR (and maybe other) CULTURES
Thursday, May 18, 2023
VOODA
The short-lived jungle queen "Vooda" had a schizophenic origin. First, she started out as a reworked version of the unsuccessful heroine of the comic SOUTH SEA GIRL, given the name "El'Nee"in VOODOO #2 (1952), though the South Seas setting seems to been abandoned for an African one.
Then, when the Comics Code came in, Ajax-Farrell couldn't keep using the name VOODOO on one of their horror-anthologies, and so for three issues, which probably served to burn off inventory, the comic changed to VOODA in 1955, which became the new name of El'Nee. FWIW, Vooda was a little more of a fighter than either of the earlier versions, though attentive readers will notice in the second page below that Vooda was clearly clutching a knife that got erased to please Code restrictions. Her opponent's club also disappears in one panel and re-appears in the next.
Monday, May 15, 2023
CONNIE AND RUPY
The forgettable boxing strip "Kayo Ward" starts off a story in PEP #9 with what may just be a symbolic image of conflict between hero's girlfriend "Connie" and "Rupy Levez" (a lame parody of film-star Lupe Velez).
No boxing gloves in the story proper, but at least there's one punchout.
Friday, May 5, 2023
LILY BELLE
I'm not going to explain why the Southern belle named Lily bounces a book off her daddy's dome, but it's in ANDY COMICS #21 (1948), featuring art by Archie-penciler Al Hartley.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
MISS BIKINI LUV
To the extent that even old-timers remember Charlton Comic's humor comic GO-GO-- a title so square that it made DC's contemporaneous TEEN TITANS look like the height of hipness-- those ancients probably just remember the book's cover-featured attempt at sex appeal, dumb blonde "Bikini Luv." Not a tuff girl at all, she dabbled just once in judo for the sake of a movie role.