Time-Travel Challenge: Dazzler To Flapper

With the Time-Travel Challenge, I take a comic book character who typified the trends of a particular decade, and relocate them to another era... with appropriate alterations.

Chawunky suggested I do this with 70's disco queen Dazzler; Scipio suggested I move her to the 20's and call her Flapper. Well, they really didn't have proper comic books in the 20's. But they sure as hell had comic strips!

From the book "Pioneering Women In Comic Strips" by Robbie Jerrison, published on Earth-36-24-36:

According to her friends and family, Claire Chrismont was a woman of few words. Despite -- or perhaps because of that -- her comic strip "Flapper" was a masterpiece of energy and pacing, with lean, snappy dialogue that only intruded upon the lovingly-delineated artwork when absolutely necessary.

The title character, Alison Blaire, was a shapely, roller-skating madcap with aspirations to a singing career. She was also fond of wearing spangles and sequins, which gave Chrismont the opportunity to decorate panels with dozens of "glitter lines" -- tiny starbursts which surrounded the character like a halo.

In 1926, the year of Flapper's debut, the newspapers were already filled with similar strips, such as Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner, Tillie the Toiler, Fritzi Ritz, and Mazie the Model. Where Chrismont's strip excelled, however, was in its supporting characters. While other comic strip flappers dealt with antagonists who were EITHER comic OR villainous, Alison Blaire was confronted on a daily basis by powerful oddballs who were a combination of both. And although they looked relatively normal, on an emotional level they gave the misfits of Dick Tracy's rogues gallery a run for their money.

Three of these were introduced in the strip's very first year, and they would be fixtures in "Flapper" for decades. There was Victor Von Doom, an eastern European playboy more in love with his own dueling scar than he would ever be with Alison. There was Bruce Banner, a meek, spindly radio show director with a non-verbal "split personality" that granted him the strength to overturn cars and bend lamp posts in half. And most memorably, there was the career-devouring gossip columnist Gail Atticus, whose inexplicable hatred for Alison was equalled only by her fondness for gigantic hats.

Beginning in the 30's, "Flapper" was handed off to a succession of female cartoonists, including Dee Falco, Fanny Dingeroth, and Midge Shooter, By 1958, its popularity had waned, and syndicate editors merged it with "Longshot," a dying strip about a three-fingered jockey. The new strip, Mex-Babies, found the two disparate characters running an orphanage in Tiajuana. It folded after three months.

Jeremy has the entire run of Dazzler in his collection. I'll pause here while you finish laughing. Done? Great. Anyhow, it made research a snap! As for the look, I just put her in a sparkly frock and changed the face paint to a mask-on-a-stick.

Whaddaya think?