Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Connie and Anna

The last couple of Gorillas Riding Dinosaur columns have focused on some very cool Action Girls.

Connie: Captives of the Space Pirates; Master of the Jovian Moons

One of the highlights of 2009 for me was spending some time with Flash Gordon comics by both Alex Raymond and Al Williamson. Until I get my hands on Volume 3 of Checker’s Raymond reprints though, I’m done with that. Fortunately, Pacific Comics Club has been reprinting Harold and Frank Godwin’s Connie and that’s filling the void nicely.

Connie may not have a spectacular name, but the strips reprinted here are very much in the style of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. According to Don Markstein’s Toonopedia, Connie Kurridge (rhymes with Courage) began her comics career in 1929 as an adventuring aviator. Wikipedia quotes The World Encyclopedia of Comics as saying that Connie eventually went on to become a reporter and start her own detective agency. And of course, she also went to space, which is where this particular volume picks up her story.
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Anne Freaks, Vol. 3

“Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.”
– Michael Corleone

I know how you feel, Godfather. I enjoyed the second volume of Anne Freaks, but it suddenly became a very different series than the one promised in Volume One. A rapid invasion of new characters took the focus off of Anna, Yuri, and Mitsuba and the psychological drama that had been developing between them. Sure, new dramas were coming into play, but I missed the tense, claustrophobic world inhabited by the main three characters. It bothered me as I was reading it, but by the end of that volume I thought I’d gotten past it. I obviously hadn’t though, because after I bought the third volume it sat on my bookshelf for a while before I finally decided to give it a try. I’d lost the excitement and figured that this might be the last one for me. But then I read it.
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1 comment:

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

This is the first time I have been jealous of you for you 'livin the dream'. Those Flash gordon Strips were some of the greatest things I read as a kid. I had two hardcover collections that I practically wore out. One was a Peanuts treasury and the second was a collection of those early Williamson and Raymond strips. Old time creators are the best.

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