I don’t know much about Black History Month on the basis of my one black ancestor nearly lost in the mists of time and feel wholly not up to the task. But I’ll give it a go in the service of completing 90 diaries for the month of February. It’s after midnight so officially March here in Kentucky, but I’m on California time tonight so it’s unofficially still February. LOL!
So I’ll write about what I do know. And that is cartoons and the cartooning business. As you might expect, like just about every other business, it’s harder to break in if you are a woman or a minority. And it’s a tough enough business already. As I noted whilst discussing cartooning as a woman, in a completely nonscientific poll detailed at Being a cartoonist by the numbers... and the numbers are ugly, almost 50% of responding cartoonists make less than $12,000 per year with their art. While about 51% of responding men list cartooning as their only job, only 16% of women and 12.5% of trans people make their living solely from cartooning. Unfortunately, the survey did not break the responses down by race.
But according to Tim Jackson, the history of black cartoonists stretches back to at least the 1880s, but I bet you never knew that. I certainly didn’t. Check out the review of Tim Jackson’s book at the link. I couldn’t find examples of cartoonists from back then on short notice. But one early noted black cartoon artist was E. Simms Campbell, who began his career in the 1930s. Here’s one of his images:
Please check out the lovely review of his work, some of which is quite sexy! He surely had his scandalous moments at the time. But his work is actually all quite beautiful and intriguing.
Modern black cartoonists of note include Keith Knight of The K Chronicles; one of his images leads this diary. Also Aaron McGruder of The Boondocks; one of his images is below:
The Boondocks is also an animated series, as are a slew of other modern black cartoonists, or animators, as can be seen at the link.
In the interests of intersectionality comes Women Who Draw — a relatively new Web site that aims to provide some exposure for female cartoonists. Their site is searchable by race/ethnicity, location, orientation and religion. For example, the above link takes you to samples of cartoons by artists who are multiracial and LBTQ+.
The only black female nationally syndicated columnist is Barbara Brandon-Croft. Learn about her at AALBC authors; her major series is “Where I’m Coming From,” such as:
So enjoy these images, and please click the links to see many more and consider supporting your favorites! Meanwhile, it’s not too late to catch this week’s episode of Breaking Pawlitics: Protest Private Prison Predation! :-D
Do you note any commonalities in the works of these artists? Do you note any differences compared with white mainstream artists?
Please consider this an open thread for discussion of cartoons, Black History Month, or your current issues!