Interesting book. I learnt one or two things from it but nothing mind blowing, unfortunately. The author does have a way with words, which I appreciate.

I found this much more interesting as a historical item than an actual story line,but considering I had never heard of Friday Foster before and it is so significant in the history of comic strips, I am glad to have had the opportunity.

Essa coletânea é preciosa, principalmente para quem gosta ou peswuisa o Cinema Blaxplotation. Além do resgate das aventuras de Friday Foster ainda temos um livro repleto de informacoes sobre omprocesso criativo e editorial da graphic novel ao longo dos anos.

Para aproveitar a leitura devemos deixar de lado a problematica de ser uma personagem afroamericana escrita por um homem branco e focar em seu contexto de criação. O texto é divertido, leve, as ilustrações muito belas. Nao apenas um quadrinho, mas tambem um registro histórico.

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This collection is precious, especially for those who like or research Blaxplotation Cinema. Besides the rescue of Friday Foster's adventures we also have a book full of information about the creative and editorial process of the graphic novel over the years.

To enjoy the reading we should leave aside the problems of being an African-American character written by a white man and focus on the context of its creation. The text is fun, light, the illustrations very beautiful. Not only a comic book, but also a historical record.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

An archive of comics from a different age. Leaving aside the 21t-century problematics of an African American female protagonist written by a White male author (who sports an amazing beard!), the structure of this soap opera strip belongs to a different age. The plots are breezy and quickly disposed of (probably a necessity for a comic strip that only came once a week on Sundays) and the social issues and trends (Harlem! Hippies! International intrigue!) are there more for set decoration than social commentary. But while the plots are lightweight, there is a breezy fun in reading about the talented, good hearted Friday, and as a record of an era when syndicated soap strips were widespread in newspapers, this is a worthy volume.

The Friday Foster comic strip ran in the early 70s, and is about a photographers assistant that becomes a model that has adventures all over the world, and helps people.

The collects all the Sunday strips. But it doesn't just collect them, which would be pretty cool, but also comments about what things were going on, and annotates the strips, so that we undestand the context of things happening.

All collections of comic strips are greatly appreciated. Friday Foster is unique in that it was the first Black female protagonist in a comic strip, according to this book, although Torchy Brown was earlier strip that had a Black female protagonist, but was not as widely distributed, so not as well known. Torchy was also drawn by a Black female cartoonist, while Friday Foster was both written and drawn by white men.


<em> Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

This is a very well put together series of comic strips about Friday Foster. Not only does it have many of the comic strips, but interviews with the writers and additional information about the series as well. It was cool to take a peek into comic strips from the past, but also just be able to sink into some good comics. I had never picked up this 1970s gem, but it's well worth the read if you have the chance to pick it up.

Three out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Friday Foster: The Sunday Strips by Jim Lawrence is a great graphic novel with an African American protagonist from the creator of James Bond. This book includes 300 pages of the original comic strips and commentary by specialists. When I read that this was the first comic strip to feature an African American protagonist, I knew that I needed to read this piece of history for myself. The story revolves a camera bunny turned fashion model named Friday Foster who gets involved in a series of scandals and hijinks. All of the storylines are clean and newspaper appropriate.

My favorite storyline in this collection involves Chinese American characters. As a person of Chinese descent, I was very curious to see how these characters would be depicted in a newspaper in the 1970's. The storyline involves a photographer wanting to shoot a Chinese American model named Petal Ling for his new line. Friday tries to hunt down Petal and is threatened by the Chinatown gang, the Red Dragons. It turns out Petal's boyfriend is a member. In a display of toxic masculinity, he cuts off Petal's hair, trying to prevent other men from finding her attractive. To see how this storyline ends, you'll have to get the book.

Overall, Friday Foster is a lot of fun and an amazing throwback to the 1970's. Some might say that the Chinatown storyline is problematic, but taking into account when it was written, I found it to be great fun. I was surprised and pleased to see my culture represented in this book, which isn't always the case. One highlight of this book is the colorful and classic art style. There are plenty of shocked faces with wide eyes and sparks when faces get slapped. The hair and fashion are also undeniably and authentically 70's. If you're intrigued by the synopsis, or if you're a fan of classic comic strips, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in November!

This is truly a gem. Any collector of comic books/graphic novels and blaxploitation memorabilia will cherish this book. Although Friday Foster was ahead of my time, I am a huge fan of blaxploitation films and will be adding this to my collection of films and posters. The history and knowledge shared in the interviews with the illustrator Jorge Longaron provide some behind the curtain insight. I loved the draft sketches, letters and the essay on Jim Lawrence. The movie may have been considered a flop but I loved it and enjoyed this book.

Read this through Netgalley, and it is difficult to tell what the quality of the final printed version will be, but the galley color was murky and pixelated, I suspect because it was a low-rez galley. That said, I’m grateful that the publisher has collected this iconic, beautifully drawn, and exciting comic strip series. Yes, it is a product of its times. The historic material and information provided are helpful.

A collection of comics from the 1970's all sprung together. Cant wait to watch the movie with Pam Grier. Interesting concept. I wish they would do this with all the old comic strips from the news papers.

Friday Foster was a new character to me – an early '70s photographer's assistant and fashion snapper, with her syndicated comic strip running for roughly four years, to varying success. The whole shebang starts with Friday having to juggle several people who know the truth about a couple she's shot at a nightclub – some want the picture to be seen by others, others want to get rid of it – before the first genre-themed story has Friday and her boss having to protect an allegedly dead Welsh rock star. A rushed ending to that and it's on to snapping some architecture, when a rare bird gets to be centre of attention. Next it's a conniving heiress – and it's all a peculiar mishmash of things people hardly thought to put in a comic like this – mostly because they would never be at home there.

Not being the expert the whole thing did seem slightly unusually structured. As opposed to, say, Modesty Blaise, where the daily strips carry the story while the weekend episode has to be disposable, due to some syndicated publishers wanting to print something else (or have a day off), this book collects all the full-page colour Sunday strips, while all the rest of the output had to be filler, progressing the plot as little as possible. Some times they clearly couldn't help themselves, and jumped ahead, meaning a bit of a jarring transition or gap in what's seen here – such as Friday suddenly hooking up with the rare bird's intended purchaser's lawyer. Other things of note are generally to the bad, too – the risible 'hep cat dawg y'dig' of the script when it tries to capture the local argot, and a lot of the time the lack of agency for 'the gal Friday'.

Now, the end matter (and there is a heck of a lot of bonus material here, from the children of the author being interviewed to badly-produced copies of pertinent letters to the publishers and even the designer of the official collectible doll) has a dissertation state Friday had agency. I disagree – but that's not because she's a particularly weak character, as it's more to do with the fact all the plots stumble every block into place, or conclude in too snappy a fashion for anyone to have been seen to have done anything. The first time race becomes a proper subject, when a specific Oriental model is sought, Friday has some very sharp words to say, which is great – but it's her gaffer who puts everything right.

All this leads me to the opinion that this was quite fun to sample, but the material doesn't stand up to such laudation. This book is going to be manna from heaven for some, especially those who were there first time around, or who have an academic interest in proto-blaxploitation texts, but I don't see many new fans coming on board this time round.

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

A pleasant trip down memory lane. Thank you for this compilation and the background history of this comic and others. Bravo!!