Flappers

Christopher Miller December 13, 2009 Cute, skinny and scantily clad, flappers gave the rough-and-tumble funnies a much-needed sexual charge.

By the 1920s, the slapstick violence that makes early comics so funny and scary had given way to strips about pretty girls. Everyone wanted to draw them. Even unlikely strips like Barney Google found pretexts for including hotties and cuties, most often in the form of flappers, as the mass media of the age—already showing a penchant for instant labelling of new subcultures—called the saucy, fun-loving young women whose unconventional approach to dress and sex first came to media attention during World War I. Blondie started out as a flapper (Dagwood was just one of her many beaux …

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Winter

ISSUE 42 Winter 2011

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Getting Plowed

    by Selena Ross In this exclusive investigative report from Montreal, Maisonneuve exposes the bid-rigging, violence and sabotage at the heart of an unlikely racket: snow removal.
  • In the House of the Lord

    by Andrea Bennett The Jackson Avenue Housing Co-operative and the religious battle raging in one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods.
  • After Jack

    by Nick Taylor-Vaisey Last May, Jack Layton led the NDP to the greatest victory in party history. Now that he's gone, will the party be able to maintain its momentum?
  • [see full issue contents]