This is the cover to Time Magazine from July 14, 1947. You can clearly see it's cover feature is on Eva Perón, wife of Argentine President Juan Perón. The "Argentinian rainbow" mention on the cover is in reference to her so-called "Rainbow Tour" where she spent several months meeting with leaders in Europe building goodwill in the wake of her husband's 1946 election. So why am I bringing this up?

1947 also happens to be the year that Orrin Evans first published All-Negro Comics, the first comic book entirely by Black creators. He had intended it to be an ongoing series, however, it's generally believed that suppliers refused to sell paper to him once they realized he was Black. I say "generally believed" because I've heard that story repeated many times and it seems quite plausible, but I've never seen an actual source cited for that.

I mean, sure -- 1947? That's still eight years before the Montgomery Bus Boycott and seventeen years before the Civil Rights Act. Obviously racism was pretty rampant in 1947. But what did people -- well, white men in publishing at any rate -- actually think of a comic book by and for Black people? That's actually why I've got this specific magazine cover. This issue includes a notice about All-Negro Comics being published...

Ace Harlem to the Rescue
What does a striker on the picket line think about? Orrin Cromwell Evans thought about comic strips. Evans was one of the Newspaper Guildsmen whose strike against J. David Stern's Philadelphia Record ended in the Record's collapse (TIME, Feb. 10). He was the only Negro reporter on the staff. As he walked the picket line, he thought hard about a complaint frequently heard among his people: Negroes are usually ridiculed and their way of life distorted in comics drawn by white men.

When the Record died, Guildsman Evans took his idea to Harry Saylor, who had been the Record's editor. Saylor was enthusiastic.

This week Evans and his partners (Saylor and three other Record men) brought out All-Negro Comics, a 48-page, 15¢ monthly, the first to be drawn by Negro artists and peopled entirely by Negro characters. Its star: "Ace Harlem," a Dick Tracy-like detective. The villains were a couple of zoot-suited, jive-talking Negro muggers, whose presence in anyone else's comics might have brought up complaints of racial "distortion." Since it was all in the family, Evans thought no Negro readers would mind.

Setting aside some of the specific language of the time, the tone of that last paragraph seems slightly condescending to me. Calling out the villains in a way that calls attention to the stereotype but then dismissing it as okay because it's "all in the family" strikes me as hand-waving away the significance of the Evans' achievement. Like, "Yes, it's the first, but it's just for those people so it doesn't really matter." Maybe I'm reading more into than is intended though.

The 75th anniversary edition of the comic that was published a couple years ago includes an excellent piece by Qiana Whitted* in which she, among other things, extrapolates on some other angles of that Time summary, noting how Black creators at the time were wrestling with portraying Black characters that explifies their Blackness without (at best) reducing them to caricatures or (at worst) adding a kind of validation to the already-existing racial stereotypes. For example, the muggers of that story in question are not only indeed wearing zoot suits, but that they're wearing them is part of the plot itself! So it's not just the unnamed person at Time who thought it would be somehow funny to point out the characters' clothing choice or anything.

Regardless of whether or not there's any condescension intended, what I can point out is that, despite being 1947, there's no aggressively racist viewpoint on display. It's very much not a case of "who do these people think they are" or anything like that. The overall tone is casual, a short human interest type of piece. I certainly don't want to downplay whatever racism Evans faced on a no-doubt daily basis, but there was at least one other publisher at the time who didn't hate what he was doing.

* Technically, it's an abbreviated form of a piece from her book, Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of Comics. I had pulled out the 75th anniversary All-Negro Comics while I was writing this post since it easiest copy of the book within reach, saw Whitted's piece and included mention of it here, before realizing that's not where I had originally read it! Go get that! It was nominated for an Eisner Award!

My thought for today's post was going to be presenting the first Black character shown in what's now known as the Marvel Universe. Basically, I wanted to see how early Black people were integrated into Marvel's comics after Fantastic Four #1. Not necessarily a named character like Robbie Robertson or Black Panther, but just any random background character with darker skin.

So I pulled out my Marvel Masterworks and started flipping through, and came across this gent in Fantastic Four #8. He's a prison inmate trying to escape, but it'd be somebody.

As I started going through some other back issues -- namely The Hulk #1-4 which I don't have in the Masterworks format -- the thought occurred to me that the FF issue was actually a reprint and might not faithfully depict the original colors. So I dug up a copy of FF #8 and, lo and behold...

Besides no one of color being depicted here, you can see that almost none of the original color choices were used.

But, now here's the really interesting bit: check out the colored version that's available through comiXology today...

Brighter and more vibrant, but essentially the same colors as the original.

It's no surprise that these older comics would need to be recolored for today. The original separations, I'm sure, were treated more disposably than the original art. But it would appear that, in their initial high-quality presentation of the material, someone at Marvel opted to make the comics more inclusive than they really were. That's more than the stylistic choice of a blue background versus a yellow one, that was a deliberate choice where somebody said, "Hey, we should be more race conscious -- make one of those guys Black."

On the one hand, I can appreciate that they were trying to be more inclusive in 1987 when the Masterworks book first came out. As minimal an effort as this was. But what that also does is change the historical record so that it misrepresents where Marvel was at socially in 1962. It makes the company look more progressive than it was. The truth is, as of FF #8, Marvel was not thinking about equal rights or showing people that didn't look like anyone in their offices.

A lot of these little seemingly minor changes can really skew how people perceive and understand the world around them. For years, I was told that Rosa Parks didn't give up her seat because she was tired. She was indeed tired, but not physically. She was tired of being treated like a second class citizen and was fairly active in the civil rights movement. That seemingly minor change of phrasing puts a whole different spin on her actions -- it was no longer an weary act of exhaustion, but a deliberate motivated act of challenging the status quo.

But does this single panel in a single comic (well, technically two panels; a Black guy shows up in one other in the Masterworks book) equate at any level with Parks refusing to give up her seat? Of course not. The significance of this one comic pales in comparison. But with enough little changes like that, and you can present an entirely different Marvel than what actually existed. In fact, that's precisely why so many people criticize Stan Lee -- he's presented a skewed version of what happened in so many ways that it's culminated in a sort of cult of personality based around a character of himself that doesn't actually exist. Which, in turn, is why he's so often given sole credit for creating Spider-Man or the X-Men or the Fantastic Four. And that credit is money. With the movies doing as well as they've been, that's a LOT of money.

Does the alteration of a background character's skin color have that kind of impact? Probably not. But it's still a distortion of the record. "Was colorist Stan Goldberg really that progressive?" "Was Lee really pushing for more diversity that early?"

I'm glad that the comiXology version seems to be more in line with the original coloring. Kudos to whoever made that decision. But in this Golden Age of Reprints, keep in mind that you're seeing a reproduction of history which may have been distorted to make someone look different than they really were/are.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Tommy Traveler
https://ift.tt/N8dw2UY

Kleefeld on Comics: Morrie Turner Circa 1990
https://ift.tt/yqgAM4h

Kleefeld on Comics: Where Is Ted Shearer
https://ift.tt/pqXSIeR

Kleefeld on Comics: Tim Jackson's Friends Are for Signing
https://ift.tt/IgF5arf

Kleefeld on Comics: Who Was Jackie Ormes?
https://ift.tt/LjoZYC5

Jackie Ormes was a newspaper cartoonist from the late 1930s until the early 1950s, and has been cited the first female African American cartoonist. She actually became more widely known for her Patty-Jo dolls, but those were a direct outgrowth of ger Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger comic, which ran from 1945 to 1956. I believe it was the popularity of her dolls that led to her making an appearance on Kukla, Fran and Ollie. (I can't confirm that, however; I have yet to be able to find that particular episode. Can anyone here provide an air date, or direct me to a copy?)

More than just being a comic creator, though, Ormes was active in the civil rights community. She wasn't an activist in the same sense that Martin Luther King, Jr. was or, for that matter, anyone whose names typically show up in civil rights histories. But through her comics, she always provided strong, black female protagonists and frequently depicted social injustices in her storylines. Often in complex ways. Some of her later Torchy in Heartbeats comics tackled how environmental issues often had a disproportionate impact on lower classes and how the lower classes were disproportionally black. It should come as little surprise, then, that her work was largely ignored or dismissed by the William Randolph Hearsts of the industry, and left almost exclusively to smaller, African American newspapers.

Nancy Goldstein's 2008 biography of Ormes is well worth a read. I could quibble a bit with some of the art (not Ormes' work; some of the scanning seems to be at far too low a resolution) and it's not organized how I would ideally like to see it, but it's a very solid piece of work and does a good job representing a largely ignored, but incredibly talented, comic creator.

I'm pretty sure Ormes wasn't out to change the world with her comics. She seemed to just do her thing, and people appreciated it. She just had things she wanted to say and used her comics as an outlet for them. She didn't care what conventional wisdom said -- that black comic characters had to fit to a specific stereotype or were only saleable to a minority of the population -- but she went out and just did what she thought was right. If she was a leader, it was largely by example. I have a huge amount of respect for that.

My plan for today was to take a look at Friends Are for Signing by Tim Jackson. I did take an American Sign Language course back when I was maybe 13 or 14 and I originally got this comic through that. Although I lost/got rid of my original copy at some point, I picked up another copy a couple years ago. I thought it was cool to use comics as a vehicle for teaching something inherently visual like sign language, but since I no longer had my original copy, I didn't realize until just a few years ago that the author of that book was also the same man who researched and wrote Pioneering Cartoonists of Color. But when I went to check on some details about Jackson just now, I learned that he passed away in late November.

The comic is about a group of friends in high school. Vix notices a new cute guy, but when she goes to introduce herself, he ignores her. We soon learn, though, that he's deaf and likely just didn't hear her at all. In order to be able to talk with him, she signs up for an after-school sign language class, as do her friends as a means of support and general interest. Most of the book then takes place in the subsequent classes as the students are instructed in sign language, with some additional time outside of class as they practice with one another.

Vix does ultimately introduce herself to the "cute guy." (Who is deaf, but is better at lip reading that sign language.) They hit it off and, after spending time with his other deaf friends, Vix ponders the notion of feeling like a minority when she's among them since her sign language skills are so much more rudimentary and slower than everyone else's.

I always liked that there was a relatable story here, first and foremost. It's not especially complex, but as a teen myself when I first read it, it was easily identifiable even though I knew of no one with any sort of hearing disability. It's a simple notion of wanting to meet someone (with the implied idea of potentially dating them) but being nervous about it, and having your friends simultaneously encourage and mock you about it. But that was easily something that I think many young teens face. (Jackson was only 23 when he first wrote this, so I'm sure that period of his life was still pretty fresh in his memory.)

There's also no unnecessary pretense about the education angle about it. The characters themselves are learning sign language in a formal class setting, so that there are very basic instructions on how to sign the alphabet and common phrases doesn't feel shoehorned in. It's very directly part of the narrative. Even though it's an almost-too-obvious solution, it works and is very effective here.

What else I appreciated was that the notion at the end about being a minority within a select group. What particularly makes that stand out here is that Vix's friend group is very diverse racially. Her best friend is Chinese, and their mutual friend that gets them enrolled in the class is Black. But that it's given any attention at all is within the context of the sign language class itself. The characters are not so much defined racially, but simply that one of the lessons is on countries and continents. That Vix doesn't feel like a minority among them -- despite being the only white person -- but feels that among a group of deaf people suggests some reflection on the part of the reader.

The book is only 32 pages, so it obviously can't cover a whole lot. I definitely recall this being a supplement to the class I was taking and very much not a substitute for it. As far as I can tell, everything in the book is still valid and it holds up very well. I suppose some of the hairstyles and clothes might be a little out of date, but Jackson's generally drawn everything simply enough that nothing really calls attention to itself.

Friends Are for Signing has been out of print for years, and it's odd enough that you don't see it come up for sale very often. I've never seen it available through a comic retailer of any sort; it's always just independent sellers on ebay or what-have-you. Jackson is probably most widely recognized today for Pioneering Cartoonists of Color, justifiably a more impressive and significant work. But I think of him more directly from Friends Are for Signing, which I recollect pretty much every time I see someone using sign language.

Thanks very much for this, Tim. I am sorry I only had the opportunity to meet you once, and didn't even realize then how long I had been familiar with your work.

My introduction to highly stylized comic strips -- with heavy, almost noir-ish, emphasis on deep shadows -- actually comes via Sesame Street. Like many kids who grew up in the 1970s and later, Sesame Street was a staple television program educating us on a wealth of topics, well beyond the alphabet and basic counting. And the show introduced me, after a fashion, to the work of Ted Shearer.

Shearer was a Jamaican-born, Harlem-raised cartoonist. He sold his first cartoon work as a teenager before entering the army during World War II, serving as an illustrator for Stars and Stripes. He eventually went on to successfully sell his comic strip Quincy to King Features, and the strip debuted in 1970. I don't recall it being printed in our local papers when I was a kid, though, so I didn't actually see Shearer's work until 1978.

In 1976, Shearer's son, John, published a children's book called Billy Jo Jive, Super Private Eye: The Case of the Missing Ten Speed Bike. Ted Shearer provided the illustrations. The book sold well and a sequel was published in 1977, but more significantly, it had already attracted the attention of someone at Children's Television Workshop. It written up as a series of animated shorts, following Ted Shearer's drawing style, and debuted in Sesame Street episode #1186 in late 1978 with a funky Richard C. Sanders score.

Here's a later installment that's pretty indicative of the series...

At some point later, I recall seeing the same style of art in Shearer's comic strip Quincy. Like I said, it wasn't in our local paper, so my best guess is that it was published in some sort of newsletter that was distributed through the school system. I know that's how I first encountered Luann and I think Quincy may have shown up the same way.

Regardless, I know Quincy stood out because of the heavy spotted blacks. It seemed much more "graphic" than any other comic strips I had seen at that point. (This was before Gary Trudeau started getting really creative with his art, and before I had discovered any of the older adventure strips that were more illustrative. Pretty much everything I was exposed to previously was of the Hagar/Blondie/Marmaduke styles of cartooning.) Shearer's strips were significantly more dramatic looking than anything else on the newspaper page at that time.

It was only later that I realized some of the other things he was doing: constantly changing the viewer's perspective, sometimes radically; including often elaborate backgrounds; giving readers a very distinct sense of place... I don't know that I found the jokes that much funnier than anything else I was reading at the time -- a different style of humor, I suppose, but not really more laugh-inducing than anything else -- but the images were visually arresting by comparison to every other cartoonist I was seeing. The characters were both more fluid and more solid than their peers in other strips.

Shearer retired in 1986, and Quincy retired with him. I've noted before how I'd love to see some of Shearer's work republished. As near as I can tell, none of his Quincy material has been collected since 1978, meaning Shearer produced more strips after that collection saw print than before and more than half of his work on that one strip has never been collected in any form. The Billy Jo Jive books are out of print as well. In 2012, John Shearer began work on reviving the Billy Jo Jive property, but eschewing his father's design sensibilities in favor of CGI characters.

It's a pity that such a strong cartoonist is largely forgotten. What makes it doubly-disappointing is that comics syndicates would probably be much more successful overall if they did a better job of mining their back catalogs. There's a lot of great work back there that's being unjustly ignored.

I just came across this interview with Wee Pals creator Morrie Turner from 1990. He's being interviewed by a high school student for a general audience, so they don't get into anything too deep, but it's a rare, lengthy piece with him. I wouldn't be surprised if fewer than 1,000 people have ever seen this particular interview.