Back in 1947, Orrin Evans published a single issue of All-Negro Comics. It was the first comic book whose creators were all African-American. With a cover price of 15¢ (a full nickel more expensive than everything else available at that time) and contents that featured Black characters. Interestingly, it was not the content that prevented a second issue from coming out, but the creators -- Evans couldn't get anyone to sell him the paper to produce a second issue once they learned everyone who worked on the book was Black.

Like nearly all comics of that time, this issue had a variety of features in it. There was action/adventure, long-form comedy, single panel gags, a prose piece... The locales shown ranged from the inner city to the "African Gold Coast" to a rural American farm to an idyllic Greek-style garden. The issue had a little bit of everything.

Only the two adventures stories clearly identify the creators, John Terrell and George J. Evans, Jr. The rest of the pieces are either anonymous or signed with a single, ambiguous name. Of all the creators in the book, Terrell is clearly the one with the most talent. While the illustrations in all the stories are good, his Ace Harlem story is easily the most cohesive and has the strongest plot. It's obvious why it was chosen as the lead feature.

The book seems to be aimed squarely at African-Americans. While that might seem obvious based on the stories, there seems to be no attempt to even consider that anyone else might be interested. Evans expressly notes in the introduction that the Lion Man character, for example, is a deliberate attempt to "give American Negroes a reflection of their natural spirit of adventure and a finer appreciation of their African heritage." And I think that's why it's worth taking a look at.

The book is notable, of course, for the first to be completely created by African-Americans. But in also depicting almost exclusively Black people for an audience of exclusively Black people, it provides something of an insight into what they were wrestling with. That the only two white characters to appear are shown as violent villains trying to impose their will on African land suggests that even though Blacks felt collectively isolated in America (there are no white people shown anywhere else) there were still white men out there trying to impose their rule over Blacks in even the farthest reaches of the globe. That we see primary characters ranging from hard-boiled detectives to African tribesmen to wandering minstrels suggests that African-Americans were still wrestling with who they were now, and how they should fit in to contemporary culture. How far back to their roots should they be looking, or should they instead embrace the cities they now found themselves in? The Civil Rights Movement was still almost a decade off, and there was still seemingly a question of how Blacks should fit in and what role(s) they should play in society.

The original printing is pretty rare, but since it's fallen into public domain, Kari Therrian has an excellent reproduction available. The reprint book is somewhat awkwardly printed on 8½ x 11 paper, allowing a fair amount of extra space on all sides of the art (hence the black border on the cover) but the scans of the original comic are excellent and the printing is pretty good quality. You're not likely to find an original All-Negro Comics but Therrian's reprint is well-worth checking out.

Is'nana is the son of Anansi, the trickster god from the Ashanti people of Ghana. Anansi, though, is a literally legendary figure and Is'nana tries to live up to his father's legacy. No small feat, of course, but he has powers inherited from his father, so he's not exactly without prowess himself! The stories thus far have been an interesting mix of anicent mythologies set against contempory cultures, so it often feels like a blend of superhero and folk tale genres. (It's a little like the Spider-Totems thing that ran in the Spider-Man books in the early 2000s, but with a better understanding and appreciation of the mythologies.)

This latest installment, Is'nana the Were-Spider: Showtime, is something of an interlude piece. (Written by series creator Greg Anderson Elysée with art by Miguel Blanco and Angael Davis-Cooper.) It's set between the first and second volumes and, unlike previous stories, mostly follows Is'nana and his friends on a few (relatively) quiet days off. He initially spies a group of kids breakdancing and becomes enamored with their abilities. He spends the next week learning, and meets up with them again to show off what he's learned. Everyone is impressed and the four change venues a few times before stopping for lunch to make more long-term plans as a group. In the process, though, they're attacked by the police (for being a 'nuisance') and, after a surprising transform-into-a-horde-of-spiders escape, Is'nana gets a quick primer on race relations in the US from his friends. At the end of the day, Is'nana feels obligated to return to his duties, but his new-found friends make sure to let him know he's welcome to join them at any time.

There were several things that impressed me about this book. First, it stands on its own pretty well. You don't need to have read any of the previous Is'nana stories to follow along. I find that noteworthy because I see a lot of creators working on their own titles frequently seeming to forget that, assuming everyone buying every issue after the first has read them all already. Further, any of the catch-up/back-story types of elements that are present here flow pretty naturally from the story; there's not a big exposition dump to catch new readers up to speed. Second, while I enjoyed the previous stories, this one did a fair amount to round out Is'nana as a character. It shows a side we haven't really seen yet, and drops some solid character-building.

Third, I think this is the first comic I've read that's depicted a main character with vitiligo. What's more, it's never mentioned. Krimsin's friends just accept him, and Is'nana is shown to be pretty clueless when it comes to skin color, so he doesn't mention it either. Medically, it's considered common, affecting about 1% of the population. And yet this is the first instance I can recall seeing it depicted in a comic. Props to the creative team here (I don't know who initiated it) for the inclusion and, more importantly, how they handled it.

It's a good book. A little atypical for the series, from the perspective of the type of story it is, but it still fits within the Is'nana world pretty easily and does show the basic setup and structure for readers discovering the character for the first time. The notion of learning about and accepting others' cultural backgrounds is a strong theme throughout this issue, and it only starts to get preachy for a panel or two after the police incident. But most of the story revolves around Is'nana getting accustomed to cultural norms like shoes and breakdancing and tattoos and sushi. The series has gotten better with each installment, and if you're curious to check out something Is'nana-related, this is a good bet.

One of the webcomics that I've really enjoyed for the past six-ish years (but I've fallen too far behind of late and I really need to catch up with again -- hence this post) is Ashley Cope's Unsounded. Cope describes it on her site like this...

Daughter of the Lord of Thieves, Sette Frummagem is on a mission, and she'll lie, cheat, and steal to make sure it's a success (she'll lie, cheat, and steal anyway). Condemned to aid her in her rotten endeavours is a rotten corpse who seems oddly talented with the supernatural, and oddly not laying motionless in the dirt.
The road is long and no one is what they seem. Never trust a thief, and never trust anyone who won't let you look into their eyes.

I like the story for several reasons. Not only is the basic art very good, but despite the basic look of "formatted as a graphic novel and presented on the web" she does make some interesting uses of the web format, with occassional animations as well as the "infinite canvas." The story is pretty interesting, as well, with a fairly straight-forward main plot yet with a number of interesting sub-plots. There are lots of solid characters, none of whom really seem to fall into 'standard cliche' range. Cope's also flesh a very solid world -- one that she's evidently been thinking about for decades before she started her comic.

But here's one thing I'd like to bring up today regarding her comic: race. She has characters of different races featured prominently throughout the story, and makes almost no mention of it. Characters interact with one another on as characters, without seemingly any regard for color skin the other has. I can only find one extra-narrative reference to this, in an interview from 2013 in which Cope says, "I wanted a setting that felt a little closer to our own; something seedier, more political, more ugly, with theoretical gods, unproven religion, people of all races, and characters who weren’t bogged down by frivolous… I can only call it design-yness. I don’t want my characters to feel designed, I want them to feel real."

But it's not as if Cope is ignoring bigotry. There's plenty of it in display in the story, but it's shown primarily in the form of class and/or nativity -- where someone is born. So people are still acting like people in that they continue to view others in often stark "us versus them" categories, often based on superficial qualities like birthplace, but pigmentation is irrelevant. What I find interesting about that is that she's able to address bigotry and racism pretty directly with her metaphors almost non-existent. But at the same time, she's showcasing a world in which literal racism -- stereotyping people based on their race at a societal level -- is absent.

And here's the thing: the race issue has zero impact on the story. Whether a character is colored brown or pink or almost white does nothing for the story. And since there are multiple characters with similar pigmentation, none of them represent that race as a whole. Characters are just characters. And some of them happen to be darker/lighter than others.

Man, I wish more creators would write like that.

I mentioned a little over a week ago that I'd finally found a copy of Walt Carr's self-published collection of editorial cartoons, Just Us! I thought I might do a proper review now that I've received and read it.

As you might guess from the title and the selected cartoon for the cover, Just Us! has a lot of cartoons focused on racial disparities in the US. Not exclusively, but it's a definite theme. Carr is pretty open about that, noting in the Foreword (I suppose it's a Foreword? It's written like an Introduction, but he has another bit later that's expressly labeled as an Introduction.) that this book's target audience is African-Americans aged 20-65 with "left-leaning whites and independents with a social conscience" as a secondary audience. He's then broken the book down into sections, collecting comics on a specific topic together: sports, entertainment, crime, etc. While most of the cartoons aren't dated, you can guess about when many of them were made based on the content and context. Most seem to be from around 2015-2019, although I did find at least one that goes back to 2000.

Carr's talent for cartooning is on display throughout the book. He's got a good sense of design and composition, and his cartoons often have a lot of background detail that, while isn't strictly necessary to get his point across, add to the tone and flavor. His crowd scenes in particular are enjoyable to just pause on in order to see what all the people in the background are doing. Additionally, when he's lampooning a specific individual, he does an excellent job rendering them, whether as a caricature or as a more realistic portrait (in the cases of obituary-style pieces).

Interestingly, very little seems to have been done to level-adjust the images. Meaning that, instead of each cartoon coming across in a very definitive black and white, you're able to see when his a pen was running out of ink or when spotted blacks could almost pass for an ink wash because it wasn't applied quite enough for a solid black. Honestly, I can't tell if this was a deliberate stylistic choice or simply that Carr's artwork wasn't cleaned up sufficiently after being scanned in, but I actually kind of like the effect. It might not always present as "clean" as you might normally see in an editorial cartoon, I like that you're able to see Carr's craft more explicitly. Where he applied more pressure or less, where he might've switched from pen to brush, etc. That's one of the reasons I enjoy original comic art -- to see how an image was crafted -- and some of that is on display here.

Carr tackles many of the subjects you'd expect in a book like this. Most of his takes on things aren't surprising and what you'd expect from a Black man from the US in his late 80s, but his expressions of them are generally pretty original. I don't agree with Carr on everything (there were more than a few cartoons with a semi-ranting "these kids today" vibe) but his execution of the ideas was still interesting.

I wish Carr could've gotten wider distribution of his book here. It's a solid collection and easily worth the twenty dollar cover price. As of this writing, there still seems to be a copy left on Amazon. It took me about a year and a half to track down a copy myself; I'd suggest snagging that last one on Amazon so you don't have to spend that long hunting for your copy!

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

Kleefeld on Comics: Still No Lobo Reprints
https://ift.tt/3pmoumW

Kleefeld on Comics: STEM Comic
https://ift.tt/3dkppBQ

Kleefeld on Comics: Leveraging the Past to Move into the Future
https://ift.tt/37ngN9X

Kleefeld on Comics: What's Not So Funny About the Funnies?
https://ift.tt/3s5107A

Kleefeld on Comics: Comics Calendar
https://ift.tt/3s3GeoA

Here are some of the online comics events in the coming weeks. As usual, please check the time zones noted below and adjust to your location as appropriate.

• February 19, 6:00pm CT
  Book Launch for COVID Chronicles: A Comic Anthology
  Jason Chatfield, Sarah Firth, Rob Kirby, Stephanie Nina Pitsirilios, and Kendra Boileau will discuss their book Covid Chronicles: A Comics Anthology. They will be joined in conversation by Matthew Noe.
• February 19, 6:00pm CST
  "From comic strips to serious games" Multimodality Talk
  Dr. Janina Wildfeuer will first give an overview of the diversity and multimodal complexity of the genre of first-aid instructions and point to examples that are particularly challenging for multimodal analysis. Dr. Wildfeuer will then make suggestions how to examine and compare the various artifacts systematically and with methodologically integrative and large-scale empirical investigations.
• February 20, noon PT
  Comic Book Writing Webinar
  Comic writing webinar featuring Paul and Anina Bennet, authors of the Aztec Empire series, Boilerplate and more! Learn comic writing and enter a competition for a chance to write for Spirit Skies!
• February 20-21, 11:00am EST
  Virtuous Con
  Virtuous Con is a truly interactive science fiction (sci-fi) and comic culture virtual convention experience that is focused on bringing independent artists and avid fans together. Virtuous Con fans will get the chance to meet, talk with, and support indie comic book creators, adult and children’s fiction authors, visual artists, graphic novelists, craftsman and women, and creators across the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and everything in between!
• February 22, 7:00pm CST
  'A History of Pop Art: The Most Modern Art' Webinar
  Join New York Adventure Club as they explore the verbal and visual history of Pop Art, and analyze the foundational works and artists — like Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Mel Ramos — that have come to define the modern art style. Led by Arlen Schumer. Registration: $10 US.

• February 25-April 1
  Create @ Web-Comic!
  Learn how to create a cartoon and publish online. For students age 14-17 years old. Contact Alex for more information.
• February 28, 2:00pm ET
  Getting Your Graphic Novel Published!
  Are you a comics creator wanting to break in to the publishing industry? Maria Vicente's webinar teaches you how to turn your book idea from sketches in a notebook to a professional pitch package you’re ready to share with editors and literary agents. Registration: $50 US.
• March 1-22
  FilmScene 101: The Black Image in Comics
  This four week course provides a foundation to critically interpret the Black image in film, animation, and comics. Discussions will focus on the ways the Black image in these forms reflect, comment upon, or distort the diversity of African America and the history of people of African descent. Registration: $20 US.
• March 3, noon CST
  'The Art of Comic Books: Fine Art at Our Fingertips' Webinar
  Join New York Adventure Club as they embark on a fascinating art journey that examines the great artists within the fine art and comic book art worlds, and how similar — or different — their artworks really are. Led by Arlen Schumer. Registration: $10 US.
• March 8-11
  Spring 2021 Twitter Book Discussion
  This year’s text will be Qiana Whitted’s EC Comics: Race, Shock, & Social Protest published by Rutgers University Press as a part of the Comics Culture series and winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work. The conversations will begin with questions crafted by members of the board of the Graduate Student Caucus, but we hope you will bring your own questions, insights, and ideas about the book as well! #GSCBookTalk #WhittedEC
• March 12, 4:00pm CST
  'The Silver Age of Comics: Rise of the Flawed Superhero' Webinar
  Join New York Adventure Club as they explore the Silver Age of comic books, a period between 1956-1970 that introduced hyper-realistic superheroes into real-world settings, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Led by Arlen Schumer. Registration: $10 US.
• March 22, 2:00pm ET
  Art+Feminism Special Guest: MariNaomi
  As a way to highlight underrepresented cartoonists, MariNaomi founded and maintains the Cartoonists of Color, Queer Cartoonists, and Disabled Cartoonists databases. These databases are used by booksellers, librarians, academics, editors, book publishers, event organizers, readers, and more. This event features a conversation between MariNaomi and Caitlin McGurk, Associate Curator and Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
• April 24-25, May 1-2
  DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE ON A DEADLINE: Comics and Graphic Novels Editing Workshop
  Enroll in this workshop to learn comics editing, an important aspect of making comics that is often considered a mystery. Whether you’re working for a publishing company or creating your own comics, editing is a major part of the creative and business process. Learn from legendary editor Danny Fingeroth’s decades of experience and success—and his stumbles, too—how to be the best possible editor you can be in a wide variety of situations. Experience editing decisions and conflicts through in-class and at-home editing challenges. You’ll look at classic published stories, raw scripts, problematic art, where you’ll have the chance to see what you would have done with it—and what ended up in the printed comics! Registration: $699.99 US.

In 1966, Ponchitta Pierce wrote a piece for EEbony about how Blacks were getting shafted out of the comics section of newspapers. To put a little context around this, Malcolm X had been assassinated the previous year, shortly before the Selma to Montgomery marches with Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. The year after this saw publication consisted of race riots in scores of US cities, killing nearly 100 and injuring thousands. King himself would be assassinated less than a year after that. The "What's Not So Funny About the Funnies?" title of the piece seems a lot more pointed in that context, doesn't it?

Bias bans Negroes from popular comics
WHAT WOULD happen if Mr. & Mrs. America turned to the comics one Sunday morning and found a Negro detective working with Dick Tracy, a Negro intern on the staff of Rex Morgan or some Negroes living next door to Blondie? The shock could be fatal. On the other hand, it could be the best thing that ever happened in comicdom.

Negroes, of course, are not alien to the strips. For years Joe Palooka had a trusty valet named Smokey ("a shuffling, servile caricature who spoke perfect stereotype") and Joe could hardly move around the race track without Asbestos. Mush-mouth characters also walked in and out of old-timers like Happy Hooligan. Barney Google and, as late as the 50s, Moon Mullins. No matter where they appeared, how- ever, they all shared one trait: unbelievably big lips and solid black skin ovaled into a stupid looking face. They talked the same language, too, which invariably sounded like, "Boss, all's fwightened 'bout Spahky —he walks lak he wuz lame."

Smokey, Asbestos and their caricatured friends might have aged without ever changing. But in the early 40s, America went through a World War which domestically liberated Negroes from the acceptance (if not the reality) of second-class citizenship. Fighting overseas and working side by side with whites on assembly lines convinced many a Negro he had more to offer than a tradition of laziness, blindly - drawn minstrel features and faithful service.

Once funny, Negroes in the comics became reprehensible. The NAACP told McNaught Syndicate that Smokey was an insult to the American Negro and Joe Palooka woke up one day minus his valet. Other Negroes wondered why they had to be a porter, maid or stable boy to make the strips and many more charged that the Negro always came out on bottom. The storm of protest was so great that the only black characters remaining when it subsided were "natives" like Lothar in Mandrake the Magician, and those found in Tarzan and in the Phantom.

While cartoonists might have thought all the hullabaloo was silly ("Why, Negroes have always been drawn like that"), they could not afford to ignore the indictment. With the demise of Smokey, Negroes — caricatures or otherwise — became noticeably absent from the comic pages.

Any cartoonist who thought that getting rid of the old stereotypes might soothe sensitive souls, soon found out, however, exclusion was not the answer. "They really didn't understand what was bugging us," observes a Negro man. "Instead of rectifying the situation, they just dropped it." Negroes were not asking to be taken out of the strips. They simply wanted the caricatured menials replaced— or at least balanced— by characters with whom they could identify. Domestics, and even soldiers, might have reflected the limited job opportunities once available to Negroes. But changing times had also made room for professionals. Negro lawyers, secretaries, engineers, business executives could be found everywhere, the complaint went, except in the comics.

Few cartoonists can argue.

"Comic characters are a white man's land," admits Alfred Andriola, "father" of Kerry Drake. "Let's face it. You can't deal with race or color in comics. A colored maid or porter brings on a flood of letters. And if we show the Negro as a hero we get angry letters from the South." He quickly adds that negative reactions are not limited to any one area of the country. "All people who are anti-Negro do not live just in the South."

With a gag-a-day strips increasing in popularity, the cartoonists' problems are compounded. Bob Dunn of They'll Do It Every Time and Little Iodine fame loves to exaggerate his characters, "to give them big schnozzes, big feet, big ears." A Negro character drawn in the same tradition might not win laughs from Negroes. "Let's say I put a colored guy in a bar," says Dunn. "I'm not sure I could let myself go. I'd have to be sure he's sweet and nice and not offensive." Currently president of the National Cartoonists Society, Dunn offers another example: "If I draw a lazy-looking white guy lounging around in his underwear, it's all right. But if that same guy happens to be a Negro, there would be letters. Why? Some people would feel I'm saying all colored people lie around the house in their underwear."

Other cartoonists agree: caricatures are meant to make people look and act funny. Negroes, they maintain, have not reached the point where they can laugh at themselves. Explains Sylvan Byck, King Features Syndicate (KFS) comics editor for the past 20 years: "You have a white lawyer and he rums out to be a crook. No one says anything. But if he is a Negro it's no longer funny." Or as Al Capp, creator of Li'l Abner, puts it: "The day we can draw a Negro girl or boy in caricature or a funny situation, the civil rights movement will be over."

Whatever reasons are offered to explain or excuse the relative absence of Negroes in the comics, they all add up to one thing— economics. There are more than 250 different strips and panels syndicated in some 1,700 daily newspapers and read by more than 100 million Americans virtually any day in the year. A top strip can bring a cartoonist $300 to $3,000 or more a week. In an industry where competition stiffens more each year (out of some 1,000 strips submitted to one syndicate in 12 months, only two to three make it) and dying newspapers continue to shrink the market, most cartoonists, syndicates and papers are not anxious to do anything that might offend even one reader.

Said one cartoonist: "If an editor gets one letter complaining about something, it carries more weight than 100 good ones. If one cartoon amuses 100,000 people but offends one, the editors make you change it." For the same reasons a syndicate comics editor candidly asks: "Why should I have to ask a guy to worry about every word he says. There is no advantage to a cartoonist to bring Negro characters in a strip, just the horror of controversy. If I were a cartoonist I wouldn't want to be a crusader, especially if I felt I would lose the strip."

While Negroes — and other ethnic minorities — may he "understandably touchy" about their portrayal in menial or demeaning roles, it is difficult to see why a Negro teacher or other professional might be offensive. He might be a bitter pill for readers unaccustomed to regarding Negroes as anything but servants, answer cartoonists who are not particularly eager to use their "million dollar property" to enlighten them. An even greater drawback, however, is the bad taste which impassioned letters against Smokey left for many cartoonists. Although there is a difference between a valet (who admittedly could annoy Negroes) and an attorney (who realistically could represent one of the many Negroes practicing law in the country) cartoonists are not ready to "open up the wounds" by using a Negro in any capacity.

Successful psychiatrist Dr. Nicholas Dallis recalls the time about 13 years ago when a pretty actress and her maid, "a young colored woman," appeared in Rex Morgan. Although she "was very attractive, spoke well," Dallis, who does the continuity for the strip, was bombarded with letters. "I must have had about 300 of them decrying the fact that I had depicted the Negro as a maid." Dallis. who also docs Judge Parker, adds: "Frankly I was stunned. I hadn't thought about it one way or another. I had innocently used a colored maid in the strip and the reaction was almost frightening." Dallis says he "got scared off" and while he has considered using Negroes in the strips he still hesitates. "I had thought of having a Negro as a desk sergeant in Judge Parker. But I didn't write him into the story because I was concerned about the possible reaction. Some people might complain because he was a sergeant and not a police lieutenant."

Lately he hasn't thought about using any Negro characters. "As the strips run now, the heroes are white and the villains are white, which seems acceptable. As we go along comfortably in our weekly work we're not anxious to get anyone disturbed. If a Negro were depicted as a villain, I'm almost certain he would get a tremendous reaction from Negro readers. And if he is the hero? Well, frankly, I'm not too sure what kind of reaction I would get."

Even if an "integrated strip" is drawn by a Negro cartoonist there is no guarantee of acceptance. Last year, 42-year-old Morrie Turner brought Wee Pals to the comic world. Only nine papers throughout the country have taken it on. The gag-a-day strip focuses on inter- racial relations. Its cast of caricatured 5 to 12 year olds includes Oliver, white, ("He's a little intellectual," Turner explains. "He sort of knows it all. He's a composite of the many people I've known" I ; Connie, also white, who is very aggressive ("If she believes something is right she will punch anyone who disagrees"); and Randy. Negro, who is Oliver's best friend ("He has a passion for words. They fascinate him"). There is also Sybil Wright, a play on civil rights, who is "like all the sweet little Negro girls you ever meet. There's no hatred in her soul at all"; Nipper, who wears a Confederate cap which "shows you how much he knows about race relations"; and George who is very Oriental in spite of his name ("I wanted everyone to be able to identify with him.")

Originally the strip dealt with Negro and white children in a day to day humor situations and at least twice a week touched on race. Now a racial gag is done "only if it's funny." Although Wee Pals only brings in between $3,000 to $4,000 every six months. Turner says he is surprised it has done that well. "Personally I didn't think the mass media was ready for this. I knew eventually it would be possible but not now." He drew it anyway because "it was something I had to do. You might call it self-therapy."

The idea for Wee Pals came about six years ago when Turner heard Charles Schulz talk about Peanuts at a meeting of the Northern California Cartoonists Society. Then a clerk in the Oakland police department. Turner thought the format with all Negro kids would be a good Negro strip. He didn't pursue the idea until one day when he met comedian Dick Gregory. "I was interested in his humor approach and decided to incorporate race with humor."

Turner feels his strip has been rejected by the nearly 100 papers he approached because of its limited appeal. Papers have vetoed Wee Pals for various reasons. "One may already be running a Negro columnist. I guess they figure by accepting one they have made their contribution. Or if a publication has Tuesday supplement, this is all they feel they need do. Some just say, "Well we don't have any problems now, why rock the boat.' "

The cartoonist thought sure the larger cities would pick up Wee Pals. "What they tell you and what the reasons really are for not subscribing are two different things. They say they don't have the space. The real reason is that they don't want to take the chance of offending some of their readers by having a feature with integrated children playing together."

Turner admits he launched his strip with a defeatist attitude. "1 was pretty negative I guess. I sent it to the United Features and told them because of its limited appeal they probably wouldn't be interested. They wrote back and said 1 was absolutely right." Papers which have gambled on Wee Pals, syndicated by Lew Little in San Francisco, include the Oakland Tribune, Philadelphia Bulletin, Detroit News, San Diego Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

The concern that a Negro or any racial overtones in a comic strip will irk someone somehow "sooner or later" has resulted in "cautions" that often border on the ludicrous.

Alfred Andriola cites the time he introduced an "attractive, sophisticated woman" in one of his stories. "She wore chic clothes, large hats, black glasses and created an aura of dark mystery." He wanted to call her "Jett Black," to denote "a jet set character on the seamy side of life." Publishers Newspaper Syndicate, which has Kerry Drake in approximately 200 papers, saw another interpretation. "They said the name might offend Negroes." Andriola protested it was obvious she was not a Negro. "They knew that. But it did not matter. We could not take the chance." So Jett Black became Sable Black which "like most compromises, offended no one and meant nothing either."

At King Features, Negroes in comics are considered such "touchy subjects" that a virtual "hands-off-policy" is maintained. "We have never instructed an artist to use a Negro or ethnic minority, nor not to," states Comics Editor Sylvan Byck. "We're concerned about reactions from all minority groups. Strips which are humorous, satirical or drawn in caricature concentrate on the weakness of people. Members of minority groups are extremely sensitive— and rightly so— to anything holding them up to ridicule. The only people not sensitive are white protestant Americans who are a secure majority." As a result, "we would permit white delinquents in a strip but not Negro ones, although they exist."

Even a name that sounds "too ethnic" is explosive, notes Bill Kavanagh, KFS assistant comics editor and Bringing Up Father writer. "That's why we use descriptive names like Hi Brackett' for a wealthy person, 'Titus Canby' for a tight person and 'Ray Zincane' for a trouble maker."

Editor Byck also believes a comic character cannot survive unless readers relate to it. "If you had a Negro in the role of Brenda Starr I don't think you could syndicate it. It's possible a person could relate to the strip if he were a Negro. But I don't know if a white person could do the same."

For those ready to discount the seriousness or complexity of the racial dilemma faced in comics, cartoonists and editors are quick to offer examples.

When racing expert Ken Kling began drawing Joe and Asbestos back in 1925, there were no complaints even though Asbestos, modeled after famous Negro Jockey Isaac Murphy, sported a black face, rubber lips and certain dialect ("Dis platter should win de final trot.") For years Asbestos never changed although the strip was faithfully fol- lowed by millions looking for horse tips. Then, about three years ago, Kling heard from CORE. "They thought the lips were too exaggerated. They asked me if I would kindly change the features and make Asbestos more human. Overnight Asbestos became a new man. He had already learned a new vocabulary. Now he was lighter, smaller and maybe even handsome. "I made him look like a regular person, less grotesque." Kling, who grew up in Harlem, the son of an Alsatian butcher, insists his original caricature was not intended to be malicious. "When we draw cartoons, we make all kinds of silly caricatures. We don't mean any harm. Cartoonists don't want to make people look bad. We do it for fun— to make people laugh." What was his reaction to CORE? "I wasn't mad. When the strip started, minstrels were popular. I was glad to cooperate in any way I could. I changed him immediately."

Asbestos might have looked bad but he was treated well. Kling remembers the day Cab Calloway came up to him at the track and said: "I like the way you treat that Asbestos. He sleeps in the same places Joe does. He's not mistreated." Kling adds: "I never had Asbestos kicked or thrown out. Even when he gave the boss some losers, Joe didn't curse him out. He was treated like anybody else."

Five years ago Leonard Starr presented Philmore to his On Stage readers as a vocal coach and acts promoter. Everything was normal about Philmorc, except his color — he was Negro.

"My character was very clearly Negro, although there was absolutely no reference to the fact, except visually. I wanted him to be respected as a professional member of the community." About four of the more than 100 papers carrying On Stage cancelled. "It would be hard to prove," Starr notes, "but I figure it was because I used a Negro." He says he received no "anti-letters" although nearly a third of his readers wrote in asking questions about the strip. He also got "some very touching" letters from Negro readers. One doctor in up- state New York wrote, praising the fact that "for the first time a Negro is shown in a respected profession."

Philmore (based on the real Phil Moore, the noted coach and musician) made comic history as the first— and last— Negro to have a sustained title role. At the time it happened, Starr thought it was a natural thing. "I had known Phil for a long time and I often go to him for help when I'm researching material for On Stage. We talked the idea over and agreed the race factor might be a problem." De- spite this. Starr explains, "It was a point of integrity. As it stands, the best-known Negroes outside of the integration leaders are in show business. I felt if I could not show a Negro in New York doing what he normally does I had no reason doing a strip on show business. I mean why do it at all." Would he do it again? "I don't know. I was feeling a little 'gutsier' then. If I had a story that needed a Negro character, I wouldn't hesitate to use one. But I wouldn't force it either."

Negroes are so conditioned to not seeing themselves in the comics in any Favorable light that when they do get in they are apt not to notice it.

Al Capp, one of the most successful cartoonists around, admits: "It makes me so got damn mad when someone comes up and complains that Negroes are not in the strips." In one of his Li'l Abner strips, Capp put Sammy Davis Jr. on a board of directors. Although a Negro was in a "situation of eminent authority," not one of Capp's nearly 80 million readers said a word — except Davis himself who wrote the cartoonist saying he had noticed it. He has also used Godfrey Cambridge and Ralph Bunche in the strip.

With the appearance of a Negro in anything but a menial capacity almost unheard of, readers often overlook the fact, too, that Negro soldiers have been in the strips for so long that their presence is now passe. In fact if it hadn't been for a Negro soldier, American hero Steve Canyon might not be alive today.

Years ago when Milton Caniff was doing Terry and the Pirates, he received a letter from a friend who had attended a lecture in Chicago where publishing magnate Marshall Field III spoke on race relations. Field felt it should be handled without fanfare and as an example, referred to one of Caniff s strips in which Negro GI's had appeared. "I didn't intend to 'ram home' the race issue," Caniff explains. "I had heard that some of the soldiers working on the Burma Road were Negro. And I put them in the strip simply as a matter of fact."

When Caniff wrote Field to thank him for his kind words and Field acknowledged the letter, the cartoonist thought the matter was ended. Then one day a representative of Field's contacted Caniff. "He said Field Enterprises was interested in creating a new strip and would I come and see Mr. Field. I went and we got right down to business." Asked his conditions for doing the strip Caniff could think of only two things: Full ownership and complete editorial control. They agreed to terms and two years later, in 1947, Steve Canyon was born.

If all the Negro characters-minus the stereotypes-that ever made the comics were added up they still would not be enough to counter the charge that Negroes have been sorely neglected in the strips. A change in policy, while forthcoming, has not been strong enough to make a difference. And as far as many readers, cartoonists and editors are concerned, no major breakthrough is in sight.

"It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," observes The Newspaper Comics Council President Charles Kline. "Strips have been done one way for so long that many cartoonists are not searching for anything new. A lot of them are not keeping up with the times."

Walt Kelly, the man behind Pogo, is convinced some cartoonists caricatured Negroes because they didn't know what they look like. "Many of them have never looked at a Negro. They're as incurious about him as a new uniform on a police officer." Consequently it was easier to picture him as a minstrel. Even now, he feels, most cartoonists "can't draw well enough to depict the Negro in any decent way."

For those who might object to a Negro in the comics on an equal footing with whites he offers intermarriage as the eventual remedy. "All animals pick on things not like them. If something's different, they attack it." He continues, "Southern readers are no more prejudiced than those in the North. They're all got damn schizophrenic phonies." The major problem, it seems, is that if a Negro must be in the strips he has to serve a purpose. "They can't accept him there simply as a human being. People are going to live in their dream world long enough to be destroyed by it if they are not careful. I hope they come to grips with reality in time for some good to come out of it."

When the facts are sifted, who can be blamed for not having Negroes in the strips? The cartoonists who draw them? The syndicates who sell them? The newspapers who buy them?

Cartoonists contend they are not autonomous. And the restrictions imposed by "good taste" are not confined to race. They have to be equally careful about violence, religion, politics, crime. "Everybody's business is sacred to him and his wife," one cartoonist argues and another laughs. "Ever notice that married couples, except maybe for the Bumsteads, never sleep in double beds?"

Most "sensitive subjects" can generally be presented in such a way that they will not offend. But no formula has been worked out for getting Negroes, along with other minorities, painlessly into the strips.

"Whatever system they used to get Negroes into television they need to bring it to the cartoonists' attention," says Bob Dunn who admits he's not ready to use Negroes in They'll Do It Every Time and Little Iodine. "I don't think people are ready to accept them. If I draw them like the other characters, I don't know what the reaction would be.

If a cartoonist uses a Negro character he must still pass through the syndicate. Irwin Hasen, who draws Dondi, outlines the procedure. "Let's start from the beginning. First a cartoonist has an idea for a Negro character in a strip, maybe something like TV's I Spy. He works on it for three months or so, draws and throws out, draws again." Meanwhile, Hasen notes, his friends are telling him he's out of his mind and that the strip will never sell. "But he believes in it." After months of work, sweat and blood he takes it to a syndicate.

The heads at the syndicate look the strip over. If they think it's good they present it to the chairman of the board. If the strip is approved, a syndicate could spend $25,000 or more in a year "pushing it like crazy." Salesmen take it on the road for two to three months and try to saturate the country with it.

There is a difference, however, between getting something like I Spy on NBC television and into the strips. A network is stronger than a local station. The network bought the interracial show and a local manager, while he might not like such a program, would generally grin and bear it. In buying strips, individual publishers make the decision. "He has the right of veto on the whole damn thing," explains Milton Caniff. "If he throws it out, the people never get to judge. An editor will think in terms of his readers. Editors and publishers are powerful, damn powerful."

The middle men in the comics industry, the syndicates, are quick to explain that they do not buy strips. "We sell them. We act as agents for the artist (generally on a 50-50 basis). We have to take on what we can sell." Even so, some of the editors are actively seeking strips featuring Negroes.

Hall Syndicate Vice President and Editor W. Robert Walton says he has been trying to find one for some time and that he knows a lot of editors who would welcome it. He wants it to be funny and he doesn't want it to editorialize for or against the Negro. "So many of the strips submitted haven't been funny to begin with. Others, I know, would be objectionable to Negroes."

Harry Gilburt, vice president and sales manager at United Features, notes his syndicate would also "be very happy" to have a strip with Negro characters in it. "If it were good we would try to sell it. We haven't had any strips with Negro characters in the lead or in professional roles simply because they haven't come in."

Newspapers, too, which at one time might have rejected the idea of a strip with Negroes in it are now willing to try one.

New Orleans Item-States and Times-Picayune Executive Editor George Healy says he judges any strip "on its own legs" and adds, "whether or not a Negro is in it wouldn't mean one thing or another. It would have no bearing on the strip."

John Colbum, former managing editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch and now editor and publisher of the Wichita Eagle and Beacon, believes, however, that "the South in some areas would be better inclined to accept such a strip quicker than some areas in the North."

Such faith has yet to be proven. "Some glorious nirvana moment someone will find some way to do it," Alfred Andriola predicts. "The time is not far off. We're learning like we have never before that there is another world. We don't live in just a white man's world."

Milton Caniff admits that 10 years ago he would have said it would take a long time to get Negroes accepted into the strips. "But the world is such a changing kaleidoscope. Any day someone might pop up with the perfect thing."

Until then, would-be Negro comic stars will have to stand in the wings, waiting for the proper cue.