Greetings from the Webcomic World

[JGray]

Hello, everyone! My name is J Gray and I am a webcomic creator. I am the creator/writer of Mysteries of the Arcana, a tarot-inspired, LGBT friendly fantasy adventure. I am also the presenter of the Golden Dames Project which presents positive examples of empowered female characters and creators from the golden age of comics in webcomic format with commentary on the characters, creators, comic titles, and publishers. Our first spotlight, the second Betty Bates story, is almost done and we'll be presenting the first Futura story starting Friday.

Needless to say, without this site, the Golden Dames Project wouldn't be possible so I wanted to pop up here and say hello and thank you.

[Yoc]

Hi J,
Welcome to the site.  Sounds like a great idea for a project there!
Chesler, one of our current Small Publisher Spotlight subjects featured female lead characters earlier and more than most publishers out there.

Good luck with everything,
-Yoc

[JGray]

Yoc, thanks for the suggestion. I added a few Chesler characters to my research list. I do appreciate the tip!

[narfstar]

I am a fan of Black Orchid in Topps Comics

[JGray]

Cool! I've added Black Orchid to my research list.

[Yoc]

There is a Black Orchid archive in our Archives and Collections section here -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=14648

There are several other female characters that are focused on there as well -
Firehair, Futura, Fantomah who you might find particularly unusual, Lady Luck, Lady Satan, Madam Satan, Madam Zero, Miss America, the recently added Pat Patriot and my own work on Phantom Lady - one of the most notorious female crime fighter characters of the Golden Age.  Others are there as well.
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=962

Good luck,
-Yoc

[JGray]

Those are all excellent suggestions. Honestly, it is amazing how much great stuff there is. I could run Betty Bates and Futura alone seven days a week and still not run out of material.

In fact, I'm finishing up Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law's second story tomorrow. I skipped the first because, sadly, all the scans I found of her first story were rather blurry. Starting Friday I'll run Futura's first appearance. After that comes Torchy Brown. I'm still deciding on my fourth spotlight. So far my choices have been espionage thriller followed by science fiction story followed by slice of life comedy. I think superhero is the logical next genre choice but I'm torn between the Woman in Red, for historical reasons, and Black Cat because I'd like to lead up to the team-up story where she commands a band of heroes against the invasion of LA by the Axis powers.

[Yoc]

Hi J,
Fantomah (Fiction House) predates Wonder Woman as the first 'female superhero' though when you read the stories she's dang ruthless!

Another that might interest you in Quality's Sally O'Neil starting in National Comics #1 and was in for the full run of 75 books.  She's pretty popular among some on the site.  She would have had an archive long ago if we had all the missing books.

-Yoc

[JGray]

Yep! Fantomah and Sally O'Neil are also on my list already. Great suggestions though!

[Yoc]

Both are personal favourites along with Phantom Lady.
Happy to help.

[larrytalbot]

Don't forget Invisible Scarlet O'Neil by Russell Stamm (1940s-50s)

[JGray]

I love Scarlet and haven't forgotten her. She too is on the list along with Ella Cinders, Sis Sez, the Pussy Cat Princess, the Mad Goddess, Patty O'Day, Lala Palooza, the Woman in Red, Jill Trent and many others. I also want to spotlight the work of creators like Tarpe Mills, Ramona Paternaude, Toni Blum and Ruth Roche. I post three days a week so it takes about two weeks to finish each spotlight.

For the record, what I have done so far:

Post 1: Page 1 of Betty Bates, Lady-in-Law from Hit Comics #5. Also, general commentary on Betty Bates.
Post 2: Page 2 of Betty Bates. Also commentary on the difficulty of determining who to credit for golden age comic work and a brief biography on Bob Powell.
Post 3: Page 3 of Betty Bates. Also a biography of Nick Cardy.
Post 4: Page 4 of Betty Bates. Also a commentary on the anthology nature of books in the golden age and on Hit Comics in specific.
Post 5: Final page of Betty Bates. Also a brief history of the Quality Comics group.

Part of my goal is to not only showcase the comics themselves but to give a little bit of history to the readers as well. Time will tell if the Golden Dames Project will work as a webcomic series.

[Yoc]

Hi J,
I just caught up with all you posts there.  A very good start though the text was small for my old eyes.  I had to increase the size with my browser.
The question of what DC 'owns' of Quality has been around a long time.  Did they buy the trademarks and the copyright on past issues?  From what has been said at the LOC to one DCM member, copyrights were rarely included in a sale.  Why pay extra for old stories that have no value?

[JGray]

Sorry about that. If you ever want I can post my commentary text here in a bigger size?

My own research backs that up. There's no sign anyone renewed the copyright on those old comics, much less DC. But without seeing the contract we don't know if the characters were bought by name or issue by issue or... well, it gets confusing. I certainly wouldn't want to try creating a new Betty Bates comic even though there's no sign DC actually owns her. Just them THINKING they own her would make for an expensive legal fight.

[Yoc]

Hi J,
No problem with your replies here.  I was talking about your posts on the The Golden Dames Project being on the small size.
This getting old sucks.  

I'm guessing you've been reading Alter-Ego for their amazing GA comic coverage right?  An amazing source of information.

We've been walking that scary path about 'is it PD or not' from day one.  Some books like the pre-DC era More Fun comics appear to be PD but do we want to risk the wrath of DC?  And what about Motion Picture Funnies Weekly?  Was it actually published and  does that effect if it's PD or not?  Lots of questions like this out there.  *sigh*

GL on your future posts!
-Yoc