With a “Boop-boop-a-doop” Betty Boop returns to comic books in a new series via Dynamite.
Announced today ahead of SDCC, Dynamite will publish a new ongoing “Betty Boop” series. This new series, written by Roger Langridge with art by Gisèle Lagacé, will find Betty working at the Oop-A-Doop Club and fighting off ghosts. Dynamite acquired the license last year but until now they had only published collections of the original comic strips. “Betty Boop” #1 will have four different covers, including one by Howard Chaykin. These are the first original stories featuring the character in 30 years.
Betty Boop was created by Max Fleischer in the 1930’s as a cartoon character. She existed in a world that wasn’t too different than the one that existed. It was a world full of jazz and hardship as The Great Depression took over most of the 1930’s. She has a long history in American pop culture thanks to all the merchandise her image appears on and she’s probably the most famous sex symbol in animation history.
Writer Roger Langridge had this to say about the series:
“I remember seeing old Max Fleischer Betty Boop cartoons on TV when I was a kid and being fascinated by their decidedly non-Disney viewpoint. They existed in a seedy, fallen world, full of speakeasies, ghastly monsters from nightmares, sexual tension, and lots of hot, hot jazz – heady, exotic stuff to a kid in suburban New Zealand in the 1970s. It must have left a strong impression, because it’s a world I’ve tried to recreate in my own comics a number of times over the years, most particularly in my own creator-owned series ‘Fred the Clown’ – so it’s genuinely exciting to be able to go right to the source, writing the real deal. And I’m particularly pleased that we’ve got a woman cartoonist drawing this major female icon, in the form of the very talented Gisèle Lagacé; Betty Boop, as was common at the time, was created as a male’s fantasy idea of a woman, so I think it’s important in this day and age to have a female point-of-view right at the creative coalface.”
I’m interested to see how this turns out because Betty is definitely a character of her time. Giving her new stories that don’t feel out of touch will not be an easy feat but Dynamite has proven that they can be successful in regards to licensed comics. At the very least, I will be able to buy that gorgeous Chaykin cover. “Betty Boop” #1 will be in August’s previews book with an unknown October release date.
