Thanks for Joining Us for Black History Month...

...where we presented stories here and on other RetroBlogs starring Black characters...

...stories by Black Creators (some of whom you may not have known were Black)...

...and stories starring Black characters by Black creators!

We hope you've found our presentations both entertaining and educational!
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EC Comics
Race, Shock and Social Protest

Friday Fun FAST WILLIE JACKSON "Jabar in No Way Out"

In the 1970s, there was an Archie-style comic aimed at Black audiences...

...from the publishers of the Golden Legacy series which featured factual stories about Black historical figures!

Though it looks like it, Fast Willie Jackson was not published  by Archie Comics, but by Black-owned publisher Fitzgerald Publications who had previously published the Golden Legacy non-fiction comic series about Black history.

Fast Willie was their entry into the mass-market comics market.

Though not Comics Code-approved, it received newsstand distribution, and sales were climbing for each successive issue.

Unfortunately, it reached break-even only with the seventh (and final) issue, when other matters caused Fitzgerald Publications to cease producing new material for an extended period. When Fitzgerald briefly resumed publishing, Fast Willie was not among the titles.

Written by publisher/editor Bertram Fitzgerald, illustrated by "Gus Lemoine".

Note: There's no record of Gus Lemoine outside of a brief comics career for Archie and Fitzgerald which coincidentally ends with superb Dan DeCarlo mimic Henry Scarpelli leaving his staff position at DC and becoming a full-time staffer at Archie, at which point "Lemoine's" credits disappear.

Most artists in the comics field do other (fine or commercial art) work before and/or after their stint in comics.

There's no trace of Lemoine's work anywhere else.

If anybody can provide a link to his pre/post-comics work or some sort of biography I've missed, I'd be extremely grateful for the info!

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Black Comics
Politics of Race and Representation

Reading Room EERIE "Alien Plague"

With the coronavirus making its' way around the world in record time...

...we thought this never-reprinted tale from Warren's Eerie #31 (1971) was both apropos and ironic!

Obviously, the coronavirus isn't being spread by aliens disguised as paper products...OR IS IT?

Written and illustrated by Billy Graham, who's best-known to mainstream comics fans as the primary artist on the "Panther's Rage" story arc of the 1970s Black Panther strip in Marvel's Jungle Action!

That storyline provided many of the plot elements for the billion-dollar blockbuster Black Panther film!

Graham was part of the Bronze Age (second) wave of comic fanboys-turned-pros which included Jim Starlin, Steve Gerber, Mike Kaluta, Berni Wrightson, Don Newton, Rich Buckler, and George Perez!

He was also one of the large number of Black creatives who entered the industry during the 1970s!

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Epic Collection

Black Panther

Panther's Rage

Wednesday Worlds of Wonder WEIRD FANTASY "Judgement Day"

This 1950s comics tale is considered the gold standard in utilizing a sci-fi motif for social commentary...

...rightfully-so, I must say!

Perhaps it's a tad slow-paced, even pedantic, by today's standards and the pay-off isn't as shocking as you might expect, but this oft-reprinted tale by writer Al Feldstein, artist Joe Orlando and colorist Marie Severin from EC's Weird Fantasy #18 (1953) was quite controversial when it first appeared.
Even when it was reprinted in the Comics Code-approved Incredible Science Fiction #33 (1956), it caused hassles.
The Code wanted Tarlton changed to a White guy!
Publisher Bill Gaines refused!
The Code tried to get EC to, at least, remove the beads of sweat from Tarlton's brow!
Bill Gaines, again, refused!
The Code refused to approve the comic.
Gaines said he didn't care.
As it was, "Judgement Day" was a reprint fill-in for a new story ("An Eye for an Eye") the Code refused to approve, and, since it was EC's last color comic ever, they'd print it without the Code stamp.
The Code gave in and approved the reprint without changes.

No less a personage than Ray Bradbury praised "Judgement Day" effusively in the final letter (among many...except one...that praised the tale) in Cosmic Correspondence...

Public praise from one of the Masters of Science Fiction/Fantasy!

Can't argue with that...

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Judgement Day and Other Stories
Illustrated by Joe Orlando

Fantagraphics' EC Comics Library

Reading Room P.S.MAGAZINE "Gentle Art of Brick Throwing"

There have been numerous articles interpreting the genius of George Herriman..

...and his most famous creation, Krazy Kat, including this rarely-seen tribute by pop culture historian/movie-tv novelization & comics adaptation author/sci-fi writer and co-creator (w/Gil Kane) of Star Hawks, Ron Goulart!

At the time (mid-1960s), Herriman's ethnic identity was unknown to almost everyone except family, who kept it secret.

Would the article have taken a different slant if Goulart and the audience knew the artistic genius they were celebrating was Black?

Consider that the piece appeared in the same issue (P.S. #1 [1966]) as this article by another noted sci-fi author, Alfred Bester, about the difficulties of Black actors/models getting work in print and TV advertising...

It's interesting to note Bester's comments about the absence of non-stereotyped Black roles in old-time radio and 1930s-40s Black actors' lack of training due to industry-wide prejudice.

(Bester, besides writing Golden Age pulp magazine and comic book stories, was a prolific scripter of dramatic radio shows during the period!)

P.S. was an experiment by Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction editor Ed Furman to expand the publisher's line into the general interest market, using the best of then-current humor and sci-fi writers to do both nostalgic and predictive articles...

...including Jean (Christmas Story) Shepherd, Ray (Martian Chronicles) Bradbury,  Issac (too many to list) Asimov, among others.

Furman was willing to push the envelope...

...but the audience just wasn't there, and the title folded after only three issues.

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KRAZY

George Herriman

A Life in Black and White

Monday Madness KRAZY KAT: the Comic Strip with a Secret!

Can you name a popular mainstream newspaper comic strip by a Black creator...that ran in the early 1900s?

Yes, this surreal classic strip...

...was conceived, created, and produced by celebrated cartoonist George Herriman...

...who "passed as white" for his entire life!

As award-winning comics writer/artist designer Chris Ware described in his review for the New York Review of Books of a biography of Herriman...

“Recoiling from photographers and brushing off personal questions with elliptical answers and even occasional fabrications, George or “Garge” or “The Greek” always preferred the focus to be on the multivalent, multifarious, and multicultural characters who populated the inner world he made every day with the scratchings of his pen....

...(Michael) Tisserand confirms what for years was hiding in plain sight in the tangled brush of Coconino County, Arizona, where Krazy Kat is supposedly set: Herriman, of mixed African-American ancestry, spent his entire adult life passing as white.

Imagine if the newspaper and magazine writers of the early 20th century had known that the wildly-successful comic strip writer/artist they were praising was "colored" or "Negro"?
(You'll see an example of one of those articles, done in the 1960s and with a particularly-ironic context, tomorrow!)
Plus, once Herriman's secret ancestry was revealed, it made clear another aspect of the "funny animal" strip which was long-suspected...
I may be in the minority here, but I really think that most if not all readers of Krazy Kat during Herriman’s lifetime would have had a hard time thinking of Krazy as anything but African-American......George Herriman saw the history of America and its future and wrote it in ink as a dream on paper, and it is a dream that is still coming true.
Wow!

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KRAZY

George Herriman

A Life in Black and White

Did You Know that Black Artist Matt Baker co-created the FIRST Graphic Novel???

Before Will Eisner created A Contract with God...
Before Gil Kane created BlackMark...

...there was It Rhymes with Lust!

Written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (combined as "Drake Waller"), illustrated by penciler Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin, the digest-sized 1950 one-shot from St John Publications is pulpish film noir at its' coolest!

Dark Horse Comics (which published a 2007 high-quality reprint available below) explained it thusly...

In 1950, writers Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, both attending college on the G.I. Bill, envisioned a sophisticated, novel-length comic tailored to their peers. Collaborating with comics art master Matt Baker, known for singularly defining the genre of "good girl art" on titles such as Phantom Lady, they crafted a film-noir inspired masterwork of romance, intrigue, and moral relativity. When cynical newspaperman Hal Weber reunites with old flame Rust Masson, he finds the beguiling widow of a mining magnate willing to do anything to undermine the local political machine--her only opponent for total control of Copper City!

We presented the complete original 1950 edition in a summer 2017 blogathon that ran throughout several of our RetroBlogs.
Just follow the embedded links at the end of each chapter and enjoy the whole story!
Buckle up your seatbelts and begin the adventure at True Love Comics Tales...

Note: The thanks of a grateful nation go to Kracalactaka, who found the scans of the 1950 St John first edition in the wilds of the internet, cleaned them up, and made them available!

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It Rhymes with Lust

Deluxe Reprint Edition