Black Garfield

In the 70's Marvel and DC were eager to capitalize on the civil rights movement by introducing a few black superheroes. Of course these characters were most notable not for their powers, but for their blackness. Black Lightning and Black Goliath were basically generic copies of established heroes. Much like Supergirl or BatGirl, they were absurdly obvious attempts to attract another demographic. Comic books aren't known for their subtlety.

Slate.com recently launched what might be called Black Slate (as a matter of fact, it has been called that). TheRoot.com isn't exactly subtle in it's invocation of Alex Haley's famous epic, but the name is hardly Black Racer either. It's pretty good if, like me, you're already a fan of Slate's format. It's obvious they still have more space than content right now, but with this being Black History Month and Obama rising up the charts I guess now is the best time to launch.

So what does this have to do with nerds and/or kids anyway?

A recent article drew my attention to a kind of comic strip act of solidarity that occured yesterday. From the Root article Funny Business On The Funny Pages:

Feb. 4, 2008--Comic strips inked by black cartoonists are about more than just being black. Yet their reach is limited. National syndicates, comics page and newspaper editors rarely allow more than two "black" strips on a funny page at a time.
The situation is so maddening to black cartoonists that ten of them have banded together to stage a "draw-in" of sorts on Feb. 10. Each cartoonist will draw their individual strips with an identical plot.

So, "Candorville"—a strip about culture clashes in the inner city and "Watch Your Head"—a strip about college students—will have different characters, but the same exact storyline.
But will anyone notice? Will anyone care?

"It's probably going to fly over a lot of heads," said "Watch Your Head" creator Cory Thomas, who organized the draw-in. Stephen Bentley, creator of "Herb and Jamaal," said, "Frankly I don't think very much is going to happen the next day, but what I envision is at least the conversation will be there."

In the late 80s familiar strips like "Curtis," created by Ray Billingsely, "Jump Start," by Robb Armstrong and Bentley's "Herb and Jamaal" successfully broke into national syndication. Although they faced the unspoken two-strip maxim then too, there were only a handful of black cartoonists competing on the national stage, so the situation was less obvious.

Then came the boon of "Boondocks," Aaron McGruder's wildy popular strip about two inner-city kids relocated to the suburbs, and with it a new wave of young artists looking to be the next McGruder. The problem now, according to many black cartoonists, is that industry hasn't caught up.

Now, as Stephen Bentley predicted above, I missed this entirely. I'm not quite sure what this was supposed to illuminate. That there aren't enough comic strips with black characters? That seems pretty silly to me when most of the minority characters out there are just as original as Black Lightning. The strips I'm familiar with that have predominately black characters (Herb & Jamal, Jumpstart, Curtis, Wee Pals) are otherwise indistinguishable from Funky Winkerbean or Hi & Lois. That is to say, they all suck. Now if the bulk of "black" comics being produced were innovative like indie favorite The "K" Chronicles or the now defunct The Boondocks*, I could see the point of raising awareness. But the running theme of this organized storyline seemed to be "Our comics are just as good as Beetle Bailey".
Is that something you should be bragging about?

See more about the Cartoonists of Color Draw-In HERE.

*Full disclosure- I never cared much for Boondocks either. While I admired its attempt to try something new, McGruder's execution was static and witless. It worked much better as an animated cartoon.