Lobo #1

Lobo is somewhat famously the first Black character to headline his own comic book title. It was published by Dell in 1966 (the same year Marvel debuted the Black Panther in Fantastic Four and Lt. Uhura showed up in the new TV show Star Trek) but only lasted two issues. The stories were written by Don Arneson and illustrated by Tony Tallarico. You might be vaguely familiar with Lobo but I suspect you haven't read it. So here are scans of the entire first issue. (Scans come from a series of posts over at Hero Histories.)

A couple of interesting items of note. First, no one in this issue (or the next, as I'm told) references the fact that Lobo is a person of color. He's just written as any other character might be. Second, Arneson is surprisingly judicious with his dialogue; there are a number of panels that are completely wordless. A testement to both Tallarico's storytelling ability, and Arneson's restraint.

Evidently, later on, Arneson and Tallarico couldn't agree on how exactly the character and/or book came together originally, but it would be more than a few years before another Black character headlined his own title. Arneson claimed poor sales were the only reason for the book's discontinuation.

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