Broken Frontier

POLITICAL OP-ED JOURNALIST RON CALLARI BRINGS HIS COMICS CREATION, KIDD MILLENNIUM, TO ROBOT COMICS

KIDD MILLENNIUM is the unofficial heir to R.F. Outcault’s 19th century newspaper comic sensation, THE YELLOW KID.

HISTORY

 

With his jug ears, two buck teeth, beady blue eyes, and yellow nightdress, the Yellow Kid hardly looks like an icon for comic and commercial success, but that’s exactly what he became in late nineteenth-century America. Created by middle-class artist R.F. Outcault, who later went on to draw the even more successful Buster Brown comic strip, the series of images in which the Yellow Kid appeared presented a turn-of-the-century theater of the city, in which class and racial tensions of the new urban, consumerist environment were acted out by a mischievous group of New York City kids from the wrong side of the tracks. READ MORE ABOUT “THE YELLOW KID”

The Yellow Kid has long since passed away, but op-ed journalist Ron Callari believes we once again need YK’s style of off-the-cuff commentary for the next generation.  “On January 1, 2001, kidd emerged as a full-blown character and an ongoing, self-proclaimed spokes-kid for the next generation,” Ron states on the kidd millennium Official Website. “Estimated at 3.9 million American children, societal forecasters believe that this new population group (born post 2000) will eclipse the attention of the boomers, the last major bubble to have moved through the population funnel. Based on that premise, kidd millennium comments, with attitude, on his brave new world from a narcissistic and questioning point of view.”

The Creators

Callari has written freelance for the AlterNet, Baltimore Chronicle, Scoop, and the Sacramento News & Review, and is currently a regular Society and Trends blogger for InventorSpot.com. Donohoe’s award-winning illustrations can be found at Illustration Ireland.