Will Eisner's Spirit was originally included in a newspaper Sunday supplement in the 1940s. Though the supplement had other comics as well (also largely done by Eisner initially) Spirit was easily the most popular feature and the insert was colloquially called "The Spirit Section." Eisner's direct involvement diminished over time as he hired others to ink, write, and eventually draw the strip. It was eventually cancelled in 1952.

Since then, the stories have been reprinted numerous times in various formats and any number of entirely new stories have been created, including a 2008 feature-length movie directed by Frank Miller. But I don't believe the Spirit ever returned to the newspaper page. Until this week when the Spirit flew in to help Dick Tracy with a case! Here are some of this week's strips...

Clearly, this is already more than a cameo, and he looks to be around a little while judging by the dialogue. Joe Staton and Mike Curtis smartly dodge potential racial issues brought up by long-time sidekick Ebony White, replacing him with Sammy Strunk, who was introduced in the 2015 comic book series by Matt Wagner. In a bit of meta-fiction, the Thursday strip knocks both the aforementioned Spirit movie as well as the 1990 Dick Tracy movie from Warren Beatty. We'll have to wait and see where Staton and Curtis take this...

Tooling around on Facebook, a young gent sees a link to an article about Amanda Sinclair, who had gone missing some time earlier. Clicking over to the site, he learns about the "Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women of Canada." The scene cuts to an earlier rally where demonstrators are trying to bring attention to the thousands of Aboriginal women who have gone missing, and there we learn the story of Helen Betty Osborne who was found raped and murdered back in 1971.

Betty wasn't an exceptional student. Having come from a relatively poor family, she had to work hard to keep up with other students, but she dreamt of becoming a teacher and returning to her home village to help others. After visiting a sick friend in the hospital, she found herself walking back to her place alone. She was then kidnapped by a group of drunken frat boy types, beaten, raped, and left for dead in the woods. The unnamed Facebook user is eventually drawn to tears and shares the story link, noting that it's only a start.

The Osborne story is new to me. Between the incident occurring both before I was born and in another country, it's hardly surprising that it never hit my radar before now. I was certainly aware of some of the issues faced by First Nation Canadians, but this was not one of them. The book is clearly written to help counter that and simply raise awareness of the issue more generally. So in that respect, it accomplishes its goal well.

I was not previously familiar with either writer David Alexander Robertson or artist Scott B. Henderson, but they both do a solid job here. I think some aspects might make a little more sense to Canadians (the specific nature of the school system, for example) but only from the sense of background details; everything a completely ignorant reader needs to know is there. The double-framing technique (having a Facebook user recall back to a demonstration where Betty's story is relayed) struck me as a little odd, but not so much that it pulled me out of the narrative.

The book's intent is a modest one. It doesn't propose any solutions, or even suggest actions you can take as the reader beyond sharing these women's stories. That saddens me, not so much because of any lost opportunities, but rather because it implies that the issue is so completely under most people's radar that getting to the point of mere recognition or acknowledgement is seen as an achievement. Hopefully, though, this story touches more people, brings more awareness of the issue, and leads to some positive action.

There are a lot of groups of people out there whose stories aren't be told and/or are ignored because they don't have white privilege at their disposal. Pick up a copy of Betty to help ensure that stops being the case.

• Olivia Snaije speaks with Marcelino Truong about Such a Lovely Little War and Give Peace A Chance, his two volume graphic novel autobiography.
• Jennifer Velez profiles Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez and his latest comic, La Borinqueña, a new Afro-Latina superhero from Puerto Rico.
• John Evans writes a short history of the 1950s' anti-comics campaign, and how the lessons learned there can be applied to social media today.
  

This has been floated around a few times by some different people over the past year, but it bears pulling out again. Robert Crumb drew an encounter between himself and Donald Trump back in Hup #3 circa 1989. It's actually a five-page story, but the last two pages were to "tack on a second ending" which Crumb noted wasn't as realistic. I'm re-posting the first three pages, with the original, more prescient, ending, here.

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

Kleefeld on Comics: On Business: Unloading '90s Comics
http://ift.tt/2hQYrT4

FreakSugar: Fanthropology: “Casual” Fans
http://ift.tt/2i6L6FD

Kleefeld on Comics: On History: The Super Friends
http://ift.tt/2hVE4Es

Kleefeld on Comics: Weekly Comics Links
http://ift.tt/2i0wZT4

FreakSugar: Webcomics Wednesday: Holiday Wishes
http://ift.tt/2hr7ee7

Kleefeld on Comics: On -isms: Somebody, Make Some Bio-Webcomics!
http://ift.tt/2hYNB0j

Kleefeld on Comics: On Strips: Chip Sansom
http://ift.tt/2hynN7M

For whatever reason, I got around to thinking about The Born Loser the other day. I haven't read it regularly in at least two decades now, and when I realized that, it dawned on me that I've probably never read more than a handful of the strips written by Chip Sansom.

Chip's father, Art Sansom, first created the strip back in 1965 after over a decade on the strip Chris Welkin—Planeteer with writer Russ Winterbotham. He did go to school for an art degree, but spent his early career working as an engineer for GE. In any event, once Brutus Thornapple became the titular character of The Born Loser, Art continued working on that strip until his death in 1991.

As with many legacy strips, Chip started helping his father out in the mid-1980s. (Meaning, I would likely have read at least a few years' worth of strips that he had a hand in. How much was Art and how much was Chip seems impossible to determine, though.) I recall the strip always feeling a bit dated. Not that it was necessarily unfunny, but it frequently came across like watching an episode of Leave It To Beaver for the first time. You get the jokes and smile or chuckle a bit, but so much of it is rooted in the culture of its time that it doesn't speak to you very strongly.

As I said, Chip took over completely when his father passed in 1991. I've seen it only sporadically since around 1989/90, but the ones I have seen suggest that Chip remains very true to what Art began. And it strangely still feels rooted to 1965. It kind of works given that part of the strip's conceit is that Brutus is always somewhat out of touch, although the strips I've seen that take place in his office, which also looks to be rooted in the 1960s. I've rarely seen even GE CEO Jeff Immelt in a suit, much less wear one every day to the office. Keeping Brutus himself out of step with society makes sense, but keeping the environment frozen is probably making the strip seem more dated than it is.

But here's the weird thing that struck me: Art worked on the strip from 1965 until 1991, 26 years. From 1991 until today has been 25 years. If you add in whatever work Chip did before 1991 (I've seen some places note he was actually the only one working on it as early as 1989; others say he was writing the strip in 1987 but didn't take over the art chores until 1991) that means Chip has worked on more of the strips than his father ever did! So while he continues to include Art's name in the credits, the strip is really more his than his dad's at this point. Regardless of what you think of the strip's humor or illustrative style or whatever, that tenure is certainly something worthy of crediting. Congrats, Chip!

I've written before on the impact those Golden Legacy comics had on me as a child. They were instrumental in getting me to see history from a viewpoint other than the white-washed, nationalist version we had in our textbooks. And they set the stage for my learning more about racism, sexism, etc. decades later.

Those Golden Legacy comics weren't really activist in any way; they were pretty straight-forward history lessons, just told in a comic form. They covered parts of history that are frequently ignored, and simply added to my overall education. And there are books like that still being produced today. I reviewed Tales of the Talented Tenth: Bessie Stringfield a few weeks ago; John Lewis' March trilogy has gotten gobs of awards and acclaim; I've got biographic comics on everyone from Malcom X to John Mercer Langston (look him up). They're all pretty straight-forward histories, but what they do is legitimize Black history. They point to significant people and events that happened, but weren't covered in your grade school history class. They show readers that there's more to history than George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.

And it's fantastic that different creators are putting these books out. That there are multiple comic biographies of Martin Luther King is just incredible! Kudos to anyone who has done or is doing these!

BUT! Where are the webcomic versions? Where are the biographies of Frederick McKinley Jones? Octavia Butler? Huey Newton? Mae Jemison? You're telling me no one is interested in a biography of Pam Grier!?!

Someone seriously needs to get on this! I think these stories deserve to be told with a high degree of quality, but I also think a mediocre version would do phenomenally well. Plus! PLUS! There's a more than fair chance that the comics would be shared around outside of Black communities, and you'll help enlighten some clueless white folks. Just like those Golden Legacy comics impacted me all those years ago!