Broken Frontier

Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters and archetypes is on display now until June 30, 2007 at the JSU Liberal Arts Gallery, Dollye M.E. Robinson Liberal Arts Building, Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi.

The show, curated by Damian Duffy and Professor John Jennings, is made possible by The Jackson State University Art Department, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Research Board, the UIUC African-American Studies and Research Program, and Eye Trauma Comix. 

Duffy sat down with Broken Frontier for a fascinating, wide-ranging discussion about questions of race and comics.  This week features part one of our discussion, about African-Americans in the industry.

BROKEN FRONTIER: April 15 marked the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African-American player in Major League Baseball.  Is there a comics equivalent of Jackie Robinson, someone African-American comics creators look to as the one who broke the color barrier and paved the way for others?

DAMIAN DUFFY:  I don’t know if there’s exactly a comics version of Jackie Robinson, but there are certainly pioneering African-American cartoonists that I think everyone into comics can look to for inspiration. In his preface to the Other Heroes catalog Dwayne McDuffie says, “The godfather of sequential art, George Herriman, was black and his spiritual progeny are legion.” Although, I guess Herriman was sort of cagey about his race, so there’s a debate as to his true ethnic origins, but I think Tim Jackson puts forth the argument for Herriman being a cartoonist of color really well: http://www.clstoons.com/paoc/herriman.htm

So Herriman, he could be Jackie Robinson. Another Jackie: Jackie Ormes, the first African American female syndicated cartoonist. Cheryl Lynn just started the Ormes Society of black female comic creators (http://www.theormessociety.com), so obviously Ms. Ormes is an inspirational trailblazer.

We had scans of newspaper pages and original art by Ormes in our show:

   

(donated by Nancy J. Goldstein. She’s got a biography of Jackie Ormes coming out from University of Michigan Press in 2008 for folks who want to learn more about the artist.)

E. Sims Campbell, we have an article about him in the catalog by our friend R.C. Harvey. Campbell was the premier cartoonist for Esquire magazine from its first issue until pretty much his death; Campbell even designed their mascot, Esky. So, Campbell’s another cartoonist akin to Jackie Robinson, someone who paved the way for African Americans, but really made an impact on American culture as a whole.

Oliver Harrington is another really inspirational guy, an amazing political cartoonist. But, aside from Herriman, I’m not certain how well known these artists are among the African American comics community, or the comics community in general.

Part of what we’re working on with this art show, and another called Out of Sequence in 2008, is just trying to help make more people more aware of how rich and diverse sequential art history really is.

BF:  It seems as though African-American participation in the comics industry is scarce, judging from the scarcity of comics about black people.  Is this true?  Are there many black executives or editors?

DD:  I’m probably not the best person to ask, in that I’m not completely aware of the full number of African-Americans working as executives or editors. Denys Cowan, Dwyane McDuffie, Aaron McGruder, they’ve all worked in editorial or executive capacities, although more so in television animation than in comics, it seems.

It also depends on which comics industry you’re considering, the direct market or the bookstore trade. The industry’s bigger these days. I honestly can’t say whether diversity in the industry has grown as well. But it looks much more hopeful than it did ten or fifteen years ago, if only because there are more comics, and different comics, being sold in different types of outlets.

If you’re just focusing in on the direct market, whose biggest customer is still that ever- shrinking demographic of white males something like 25-55 who go to the shop every Wednesday for new comics day? I don’t know the full roster of execs and editors at Marvel and DC, but I suspect those demographics mirror the direct market audience at large, where it’s primarily white guys at the reins. 

BF:  Are African-American comics creators also scarce?  Is it more difficult for them to find opportunities to publish than it is for white creators?  Have many African-American creators become sufficiently successful as to support themselves (and their families) with the income from their creations?

DD:  African-American comics creators are far from scarce. We went into Other Heroes expecting to show the work of 15 artists and we ended up with almost 50. And there were still plenty of other creators we just didn’t have room for.

I do think on the whole it probably is more difficult for them to find opportunities to publish than it is for white creators. Like most any other industry in the United States, I’d imagine hiring practices in comics are as affected by racial and gender biases.

Based on a quote I read online from cartoonist Cory Thomas, this is certainly the case in newspaper cartooning. Thomas was talking about how, in order for his strip Watch Your Head to succeed, he had to root for strips by other black artists or featuring other black characters to fail: “Nobody is looking at WYH to replace Luann. Nobody is looking at Housebroken to replace Dilbert. Nobody is looking at Maintaining to replace Peanuts reruns. Instead, we're all put in the ring Gladiator-style to battle for the 'black' spot.” (http://tcj.com/journalista/?p=191). It’s hard to argue with Thomas if you check out your local paper’s Sunday funnies and try to find more than one comic strip featuring black characters.

As I said, African-American comics creators are far from scarce, especially in the realm of independent and self-published comics. A number of these artists (many of whom also appear in Other Heroes) post on the HeroTalk forums on the Museum of Black Superheroes website (http://blacksuperhero.com) and/or attend the annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention at Temple University (http://www.ecbacc.com). The HeroTalk forums and ECBACC are two prominent hubs indicative of the large number of black independent comics creators. I don’t think a large percentage of these creators make an income solely from creating comics, but the percentage of indie comics artists that make their living just from their comics is low anyway. A number of the artists in Other Heroes also work as teachers, designers, commercial illustrators and the like.

But, then again, there are people like Kyle Baker, Lance Tooks, Eric Battle, Jamal Igle, Trevor Von Eeden, working professional comics creators earning money mainly with comics work. Another point I hope we underline with this show is the fact that generalizations can’t encapsulate the many different African-American comics creators out there.

BF:  Is African-American interest in comics growing, or declining?  How can we get black youth more interested in participating in the industry?

DD:  I don’t know what the statistics are, but I know African-American interest in comics is there. I mean, there’s ECBACC, the Blacksuperhero.com forums, an African-American focused comics magazine called UVC (http://uvcmag.com/) just started publishing. Obviously there’s interest.

And I’m sure there are black youth interested in comics, because I’ve met black youth interested in comics. But I think most black youth are interested in the comics that most all American youth is interested in: manga. High school kids I’ve met who draw comics all grew up on Dragonball Z and draw in anime/manga inspired styles.

Manga got the kids with the TV tie ins sure, but also with genre diversity and accessibility, two things most American comics just don’t offer to the young people. So that’s one way to get youth interested in comics.

Also I think if you’re trying to get black youth (or any youth) more interested in comics, just show them good comics. Good comics that tell interesting stories with well-rounded characters you care about. Not just four-color punching machines, not intricate marketing event crossovers, not awkwardly “street” talking stand-ins for demographics, but individual characters, fully realized. And maybe, while you’re at it, try to give the youth something engaging. Nothing more engaging than a story well told with empathetic characters.

Next week: Damian Duffy gives us a sneak peek into the riches of the Other Heroes exhibit.

Damian Duffy is the editor-in-chief and head writer of Eye Trauma Comix. He writes and letters a lot of comics on their website, http://www.eyetrauma.net. He and co-curator John Jennings have a graphic novel called The Hole: Consumer Culture coming out from Front 40 Press in Winter, 2008.

To learn more about Other Heroes and Damian and John’s October 2008 comics art exhibition Out of Sequence, go here: http://www.eyetrauma.net/brain/curation.htm

To see pictures from the Other Heroes exhibition go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/otherheroes/

To learn more about Scholarship America visit http://www.scholarshipamerica.org