Dare You Meet--the Domino Lady?

Saucy Romantic Adventures was a "spicy pulp" magazine, a genre that typically featured semi-pornographic short stories.
For several months in 1936, SRA also featured one of pulp's' first heroines...
College-educated socialite Ellen Patrick decided to avenge her District Attorney father's murder by donning a domino mask and a backless black dress to battle evil men!
Thus disguised as The Domino Lady, she distracted and entranced opponents (or at the very least led them to underestimate her) allowing her to outwit them.
When subtlety failed, she had a .45 pistol and a syringe of knockout drug to get her point across.
She stole from her enemies, donating most of the cash to charity (after deducting expenses), and left a calling card with the phrase "Compliments of the Domino Lady" attached to her bound victims awaiting police pick-up.

Since her short run in 1936, The Domino Lady has become the stuff of pop culture legend.
Her pulp stories were reprinted in various limited-run magazines in the 70s and 80s, and recently, both a hardcover and trade paperback reprinted the complete series under a new cover and interior illos by comics legend Jim Steranko!
And an anthology of new text stories as well as a comics mini-series recently hit the racks.

We at Atomic Kommie Comics™ inititally wanted to include her in our Heroines™ section, but decided she fit better into the Menacing Maidens™ department of Seduction of the Innocent™, where our somewhat-naughty stuff goes...

Combine one of the new Domino Lady books with one of our kool kollectibles to make a fantastic gift set on Valentine's Day or birthday present for a loved one!
They'll thank you for it!

Jennifer Beals (Rockwell/Dixon)

Her first major role (Alex in FlashDance) made Jennifer Beals a star!
After more than 50 roles in films and tv, she again become a household name due to her performance as Bette in The L Word!
In between, Jennifer's done everything from low-budget indies to big-budget studio projects, including lots of genre work.
Now she's back on series tv in the police procedural Chicago Code!
I'll be watching...and drooling.
Trivia:
Turned down the role of Dana Scully in X-Files, after being recommended by fellow Yale classmate David Duchovny!
Turned down the role of Apollonia in Purple Rain.

Genre appearances include...
Chicago Code (Teresa Colvin)
Book of Eli (Claudia)
Troubled Waters (Jennifer Beck)
Law & Order "Charity Case"
Grudge 2 [2006] (Trish Kimble)
Out of Line (Jenny Capitanas)
Big House aka Being Brewster (Lorraine Brewster)
Turbulence II: Fear of Flying (Jessica)
The Hunger [1999] "...and She Laughed"
Spree (Xinia Kelly)
Prophecy II (Valerie Rosales)
Devil in a Blue Dress (Daphne Monet)
Outer Limits [1997] "Bodies of Evidence"
Dead on Sight (Rebecca Darcy)
Terror Stalks the Class Reunion (Virginia)
Club Extinction aka Dr M (Sonja Vogler)
Gamble (Lady Olivia Candioni)
Vampire's Kiss (Rachel)
Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre "Cinderella"
The Bride (Eva)

Check out...
Jennifer-Beals.Com (FanSite)

Other actresses to play Eva aka Bride of the Frankenstein Monster aka Prima aka Monster's Mate include...

Helena Bonham Carter in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Jane Seymour in Frankenstein: the True Story
Dalila de Lazzaro in Andy Warhol's Flesh for Frankenstein
Susan Denberg in Frankenstein Created Woman
Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein
Other actresses to play Cinderella include...
There are over 50!  If you wanna know, Check the Internet Movie DataBase HERE.

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!)

Prolific 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 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) 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 unnamed 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.