Black Cartoonists Taking Action; Issue: How They’re Perceived, Purchased




David Astor at Editor & Publisher reports that a group of black cartoonists "plan to take part in a Feb. 10 comics-page action" in order to focus attention on how their comic strips are perceived and purchased. It's an interesting article, if only because it shows some of the fundamentally uncomfortable ways that exist for talking about stuff like this. For example, the term "action" is being used to describe whatever it is that's coming, despite seeming like a generic and maybe even clumsy term, because "protest" has a specific connotation in terms of real-world stakes that perhaps shouldn't be applied here.

At issue is the categorization of strips by black cartoonists as black strips, with resulting limitations both in number of series offered (15 of 200 overall features available, Astor estimates), and in the number of such strips that are offered on any one comics page. The group plans a number of press releases and related material, one assumes to supplement the effort as the strips participating aren't in a ton of papers, as per the action's general point.

This is tough material, and I admire Astor's handling of it. I have no doubt this form of racism exists in an institutional form on the comics page. Still, I don't know that any of the strips done by the cartoonists involved or those whom the intention of the February 10 effort might encompass clearly demand a major general audience. That's a horrible thing to say, I know, and it's only my opinion, but newspaper strip cartooning is rough that way: you can always look at so much uninspired work that does well and think your strip could do better, but it's a whole different world to suggest your work should be doing so. While the kind of action planned can make its point without getting into the prickly issue of appraising certain strips, it's going to remain very easy for an editor to defend how they assemble a page unless it's somehow keeping in check a transcendent work.

(As an aside, 200 features seems ridiculous to me. I'm surprised that any rational decision to run anything can be made when the syndicates are flooding the market like that.)

Participating cartoonists at this point are Darrin Bell, Jerry Craft, Cory Thomas, Stephen Bentley, Charlos Gary, Tim Jackson, Keith Knight and Steve Watkins.

Kudos to the group on selecting a date near the great Ollie Harrington's birthday and emphasizing that point.

an offering from Candorville; if you're surprised that the joke didn't depend on the expression of a specific cultural identity, you may be a target of February's action
 
posted 6:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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