For all the brothers and sisters creating worlds, iconic characters, and being today's griots and vision-makers on the comic page and beyond as well as those characters making an impact in an industry not willing to showcase their power.
Powered and...
What's On Your Mind?
Orrin C. Evans (1902 - 1971) and All-Negro Comics (June 1947)
The story behind the creation of Milestone Media has been told and retold for over 20 years, but the story behind the first comic book written and drawn by Black talent is one worth sharing.
The origins feel just like a typical superhero origin story. Orrin C. Evans was a reporter for many Black-owned newspapers throughout the north, starting with the Philadelphia Tribune and Philadelphia Independent. In the mid-1930s, Mr. Evans was hired by the Philadelphia Record and became one of the first Black journalists at a mainstream widely-circulated newspaper in the country. While there, he wrote several general assignment pieces and caught the eye of the United States Congress with his series about segregation in the military. Written in 1944, Mr. Evans exposed how moronic and hypocritical segregation was in a military that is overseas fighting in a war where they want to restore democracy and make all men equal and free. The article was read in the halls of Congress, and Mr. Evans got many accolades from his peers for his work.
By the end of the war, the Record was faltering and eventually ceased publication. Mr. Evans worked at various Black newspapers and outlets, including the Philadelphia Independent, the Chicago Defender, and The Crisis (the NAACP’s magazine founded by W.E.B. Du Bois) writing about issues that affect the Black community. He wanted to bring some of those positive attitudes and values he wrote about, not to mention a sense of pride to younger readers. Seeing a lack of positive, non-stereotypical Black superheroes in the still-new comic book industry, Mr. Evans felt the need to give the Black community their own champions and heroes they could look up to and be proud of.
That’s when Orrin C. Evans became a comic publisher.
Along with writers Bill Driscoll and Harry T. Saylor, Mr. Evans created a publishing team for this endeavor to create an all-Black comic book featuring Black creators and Black characters. His brother George Evans Jr., John Terrill, and a pair of one-named artists (Cooper and Cravat) were the artists and plotters of the stories in their initial book, All-Negro Comics.
Among the characters introduced in the first issue were the hard-boiled detective Ace Harlem, a hero named Lion Man who was an American-born scientist who protects and guards a mystical mountain which is a source of an element that many kingdoms want their hands on, a cutesy tale entitled Dew Dillies about a pair of wide-eyed childlike pixies. and a pair of humor strips, Sugarfoot and Lil’ Eggie. All of these made their way into the very first issue of All-Negro Comics in June 1947.
Sadly, this was the only issue ever published. The creative teams had strips ready for the next couple of issues, but newsprint distributors (likely pressured by bigger publishers) wouldn’t sell Mr. Evans any more paper to print his books, and he had no other choice but to shutter operations on All-Negro Comics.
Not much is known about the creators of the titles, but Orrin C. Evans returned to newspapers shortly after the end of All-Negro Comics serving as editor of the Chester Times and the Philadelphia Bulletin, director of the Philadelphia Press Association, and an officer of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, and got many more accolades from his peers up to his death in 1971 at the age of 68. The New York Times, in their eulogy, called Mr. Evans “the dean of Black reporters,” but truth be told, he was perhaps the “father of Black comic books.“
Heads up.
A Kickstarter guided by Chris Robinson (Marvel VOICES), Tony Washington, and Deron Bennett has launched for a hardcover and a digital remaster of All-Negro Comics #1 with contributions from several talented scholars and creators who’ll provide insight on the creation of the comic as well as new stories featuring characters introduced in those pages.
Support if you can. Spread the word. Make it a reality.
A lot of people don’t know about this pioneering creator, but he’s a comic creator you should get to know a lot better.
He entered the industry as an art assistant at Holyoke Comics at the age of 12 (!) inking Cat-Man and other titles working alongside creators like Jack Kirby and Will Eisner and attending school with Joe Kubert. Mr. Hollingsworth had many pseudonyms, including A.C. Hollingsworth and Alvin Holly. Often times, creators rarely were credited by name with their work, but the first credited work by Mr. Hollingsworth that’s commonly cited by comic historians was a four-page story, Robot Plane, in Combat Comics #5 back in 1945 (although recent revelations has shown his first credited work, albeit under his Alvin Holly pseudonym, was a short story in Crime Does Not Pay #31 with the cover date January 1944, which means it was probably published in late 1943.
Mr. Hollingsworth worked on various properties throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including Captain Aero, Suicide Smith, Bronze Man, Numa, and The Saint, various anthology books like Young Romance, Police Against Crime, Dark Mysteries, Witchcraft, and Negro Romance, and comics strips like Kandy, Scorchy Smith, and Martin Keel.
He left comics in the mid-1950s and became a professional fine artist with subjects ranging from civil rights and jazz to cityscapes and Jesus Christ to Don Quixote and various abstract subjects . He hosted a ten-part art series on NBC called “You’re Part of the Art” where he showcased his skills and went on lectures throughout the East Coast. From 1980 to about 1998, he was an art instructor teaching a generation his techniques.
To say Mrs. Ormes is an inspirational creator and ahead of her time is an understatement.
Born Zelda Jackson, she was a journalist who was hired as a proofreader of the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the first major and most influential Black newspapers in the country. While at the Courier, Ormes created Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, a story about a teenage singer from Mississippi who realizes her dream to perform at the legendary Cotton Club in Harlem, New York.
After moving to Chicago in 1942, Mrs. Ormes wrote for another influential Black newspaper, the Chicago Defender (ironically a sibling publication to the Pittsburgh Courier since 2003) where she contributed feature stories, a social column, and after the end of the second World War, a one-panel comic strip called Candy (not to be confused with Alvin Hollingsworth’s comic strip Kandy), which was the misadventures of a sharp-witted housemaid who didn’t conform to the stereotypical Mammy archetype of the era but rather shapely, attractive, and realistic, a rarity in any medium.
Mrs. Ormes returned to the Courier in 1947 and created a new one-panel strip that lasted 11 years. Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger chronicled the lives of a pair of sisters, a short, opinionated, sharp-tongue little girl named Patty-Jo and her older, statuesque sister Ginger. Patty-Jo was also the inspiration of a popular doll produced by Terri Lee Dolls and noted for its realistic Black American features as opposed to the Topsy/Mammy dolls of the day. Only produced for two years, the Patty-Jo dolls are collectors items.
1950 brought the reintroduction of Mrs. Ormes’ Torchy Brown, who was no longer a teenage performer but now an independent woman looking for love and a place in this world while taking on issues of the day, particularly civil rights, in a new full-color title, Torchy Brown in Heartbeats. In 1957, Mrs. Ormes retired from comics but continued to create fine art and living a busy social life throughout the Chicago area.
Die-hard DC Comics fans may know Phantom Lady mostly through various crossovers with her team, the Freedom Fighters or her current title, but many don’t know that her iconic look was created by a cartoonist who not only stood out with his beautiful women and tough guys, but also a man who drew one of the first books that are commonly known as a “graphic novel.”
Clarence Matthew Baker was born in North Carolina and raised in Pennsylvania. He went to college at Cooper Union in New York City before getting hired by the legendary comic house Eisner & Iger Studio. a collective of artists and writers who churned out titles for publishers wanting to enter the then-new medium. Baker drew titles for various publishers including Fiction House, Fox, Quality, Charlton, St. John Publications, and Atlas.
Mr. Baker had this flair for drawing the female form. Strong, beautiful, curvy, slightly exaggerated but with a working knowledge of the human anatomy (these ladies actually have a backbone literally and figuratively). In fact, it was this quality that inspired Iger Studio to put him on a revival of Quality’s Phantom Lady from Fox Publications. Mr. Baker redesigned the heroine into the character that has been adapted throughout the decades, including at the character’s current home, DC Comics.
Over the next two decades. Mr. Baker worked on characters like Sky Girl, Canteen Kate, Tiger Girl, Rulah the Tiger Goddess, Glory Forbes, and many other Golden Age heroines. He also drew several romance titles and western anthologies as well as the adaptation of Lorna Doone for the iconic comic series Classic Illustrated
Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller co-wrote a “picture novel” for St. John Publications in 1949. Drake referred to this endeavor as a cross between a comic book and a “book book.” With illustrations by Matt Baker, this “picture novel,” It Rhymes with Lust, was published in 1950 and is considered by many comic historians as the very first graphic novel.
Mr. Baker worked at Atlas (the precursor company to what is now known today as Marvel Comics) in the last years of his life working on anthology series including Tales to Astonish, Strange Tales, and World of Fantasy.
Matt Baker died of heart failure on August 11, 1959 at the rather young age of 37.
One should never confuse him with the fiery evangelist nor the flamboyant professional wrestler of the same name, but if you ever looked at his works, there’s a very good reason many in the industry refer to him as “the Black Jack Kirby,” evoking visual cues from the legendary artist but creating and evolving his own techniques while putting his mark on two of comic’s first Black characters.
Mr. Graham got his start at Warren Publishing, a comic publisher that excelled in horror-themed comic titles, something that was rare in the Comic Code-era titles of the day. After relocating from Philadelphia to New York City, Warren was in a state of flux and renewal, mostly republishing some of their earlier horror books Creepy and Eerie. Mr. Graham was one of the first artists hired by the revived Warren Publishing and eventually became its art director. He was a contributing artist of Warren’s newest title, Vampirella, in 1969 eventually drawing stories in the first dozen episodes before catching the eye of Marvel Comics.
\While at Marvel, he was a part of the creative team behind Marvel’s first book featuring a solo Black comic book character, Luke Cage: Hero For Hire, as an inker, co-plotter, writer, and artist throughout the original series’ run beginning in 1972 until the first issue under its new name, Luke Cage: Power Man. From 1974 until 1976, he penciled the Black Panther stories in Jungle Action, including the covers for the series visualizing Don McGregor’s vision of T'Challa’s growth as a character and cementing his place in the Marvel Universe.
Graham and McGregor also collaborated on a few more projects throughout the 1980s, including seven issues of McGregor’s Eclipse Comics series Sabre.Mr. Graham’s last comics project was the 114th issue of title he co-created, now renamed Power Man and Iron Fist, written by Jim Owsley (Christopher Priest).
I was wondering how many webcomics there were out there with black protagonists (for my own reference). Then I figured plenty of other folks would love to see a list. So heeeeere we go! (Please reblog and add more!)
