"Go back to your lily-white world, where you belong!" LOIS LANE #114, September 1971

Despite the romantic triangle cover, Lois Lane focuses on race relations in this September 1971 issue of the long-running "Superman's Girl Friend" DC comic book series. Yes, DC had "Girl Friend" as two words. No all-one-word "girlfriend." She was a friend who was a girl. Right?

Oops. Maybe not! Poor Lois!

Some great panels in LOIS LANE #114, September 1971, which is credited to writer Bob Kanigher, with art by Werner Roth and Vince Colletta (with an assist by Murphy Anderson). It was a sequel to #106 ("I Am Curious (Black)"). My thanks to Bob Buethe for this information! It's copyright 1971 National Periodical Publications, Inc.

But Lois does not go back to her lily-white world! She becomes an activist!

And we get a gallery exhibit of famous black people: Joe Louis, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, W.C. Handy, Jesse Owens, George Washington Carver, Marian Anderson, Frederick Douglass, Jackie Robinson,

And then, some black people that are lesser known: Peter Salem, hero of Bunker Hill;  Daniel Hale Williams, performed first successful open heart surgery; Jim Beckworth, explorer-scout-mountain man - adopted Indian chief; Benjamin Banneker, scientist; Bill Pickett, cowboy; Alexander Pushkin, Russian writer; General Benjamin O. Davis, "first American Negro general;" Ira Aldridge, actor; Alexandre Dumas, writer.

It's interesting to see some names that we now consider as important African American people missing from that list: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Josephine Baker, W.E.B. DuBois, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes ... to name a few.

Here's the story:

 

 

 

 

- Edited from a January 16, 2012 blog entry.

David Kunzle 1936 - 2024

 

Early comics historian and translator David Kunzle has passed away. His scholarly books on "comic strips before comic strips" of the 19th century helped cement the prehistory of sequential art. He added a new chapter in the evolution of the picture narrative and was a truly vital voice in its evolution. I go to his books again and again and always find something new and fascinating -- and funny. 

Antoine Sausverd has posted on Facebook: 

"David Kunzle (1936-2024) died on Monday, January 1, 2024 in Los Angeles. Art historian and professor emeritus at the University of California (Los Angeles), he is the author of numerous seminal works for the study and understanding of 19th-century comic strips."

Paul Gravett, 

"DAVID KUNZLE R.I.P: A PIONEER HISTORIAN OF EARLY COMICS I met David, a fellow Brit, several times, in London when he visited The Cartoon Museum in its first premises, Brussels for a conference at the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée on the origins of comics, and here in this photo on August 6th 2016 in Woking, where he joined me for a summer day to visit the exhibition on British comics I co-curated with Hamish McGillivray at The Lightbox. Another time in London, Cynthia Rose and I dined with him after he'd spent a day researching his last major book on British comics at The British Library. So alive and alert, he was joy to be with and discuss many cultural ideas together. Comics historians owe him so much."

Here's a link to his recent essential books from University Press of Mississippi: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Contributors/K/Kunzle-David

More notices and tributes at The Daily Cartoonist. 

The 2023 "Name a Snowplow" Contest

 

 From my Instagram on late Monday:

"End of day and it’s been snowing all day long. Got at least a foot. Shoveled the porch and a path to the birdfeeder twice. Didn’t make sense to do a big clean up while it was still snowing. Fingers crossed my snowblower fires up tomorrow morning. It’s a lot of snow, dang it. Better cross my toes too."

Tuesday:

"Clearing up. Thank goodness I got the snowblower to start. Got a foot of snow, with another 6 inches coming tomorrow night. Winter is here."

And with more snow, that means more snowplows on the road. And what are the names of these snowplows? In Massachusetts, there was a contest to name them. The Boston Globe has the story:

"When the snow falls, the Snolar Express, Glacier Gobbler, and 10 other student-named snow plows will be ready.⁠
⁠
"The state transportation department announced the winners of the 2023 'Name A Snowplow' contest with submissions from elementary and middle school classrooms across Massachusetts."⁠

Dan O'Neill & The Air Pirates: A Short Film

 

As cartoonist Dan O'Neill says in the opening of this short documentary, "You can't have more fun than drawing pictures and pissing people off."

 

Via Chibson USA:

"This is the untold story of Dan O'Neill and his underground comic collective 'The Air Pirates' which would take on the brass at Disney in a notorious decade-long legal battle over copyright infringement and freedom of speech. Dan O'Neill's battle against Walt Disney Productions would be the longest legal copyright case in history. 

"In 1970, Dan O'Neill founded the underground comics collective, The Air Pirates, to satirize Disney. The group included Bobby London, Shary Flenniken, Gary Hallgren, and Ted Richards. 

"The original Air Pirates were a gang of Mickey Mouse antagonists from the 1930s. Dan O'Neill saw Mickey Mouse as a symbol of conformist hypocrisy in American culture, and therefore a ripe target for satire. 

"Now in 2024, with the cartoon image of the Mouse reaching the public domain, Dan O'Neill finally has the last laugh as drawing a cartoon mouse will no longer be considered a federal crime."

 

What Is Perry, Iowa Known For?

Above: the first Alley Oop Sunday page from September 9, 1934 via The Daily Cartoonist.

The most famous cartoonist to come out of Perry, Iowa was V.T. Hamlin, whose syndicated newspaper comic strip Alley Oop first appeared in 1932. 

Hamlin was, like a lot of young cartoonists, a doodler since he was a little kid. He sketched out Alley Oop at the age of eleven. By the time he was fifteen years old, he was selling his cartoons to the Perry Daily Chief. He drew cartoons for the Perry High School yearbook, The Eclipse, signing them under his nickname "Snick."

He left high school and, lying about his age, enlisted in the army to fight in World War 1. 

He shipped out as part of the Sixth Army's Motor Transport Group, arriving in France where he served with the American Expeditionary Forces in 1918. Recovering from a poison gas attack in France, Hamlin began illustrating the letters of fellow soldiers, and a newspaper man he met in the Army convinced him he could make a living from his art abilities. - Wikipedia

Hamlin returned to Perry and graduating in 1919, attended college at the University of Missouri and then Drake College. After an altercation with an art teacher ("Then the teacher took out my drawing and she stood up with it before the class and announced: 'Now here's a man with a wonderful talent and he wants to waste it on being a cartoonist!'"), he traveled, taking newspaper jobs and other work he could find. In 1926, he married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Stapleton. She would become the model for Oola, the girlfriend of Alley Oop. The Hamlins had a daughter, Theodora, in 1927. They returned to Perry in 1930, where he submitted Alley Oop for syndication. The strip began on December 5, 1932. The strip was successful, and a Sunday version of the feature appeared two years later. The Hamlins  welcomed another child, Jon, in 1936.

Dorothy Hamlin also worked on the strip, creating color roughs and contributing story ideas, including the important plot device of time travel that was introduced April 5, 1939.

Hamlin wrote and drew Alley Oop until his retirement in 1971. When Hamlin retired because of failing eyesight, Dave Graue took over full-time. - Wikipedia

Alley Oop continues with Joey Alison Sayers (writer) and Jonathan Lemon (artist).

 

 

Ten years ago last spring (or 114 years after Hamlin's birth), I traveled to Perry, IA. Fellow cartoonist Dave Carpenter and I taught cartoon classes at Perry Elementary and I also gave a keynote address to the Chamber of Commerce. This was all to celebrate cartooning and cartoonists from Iowa. (I was born in Iowa City, IA, and was thus qualified.)

I was fortunate to stay at the Hotel Puttee's V.T Hamlin room. It's a huge room in a beautiful old hotel, which has a lot of Alley Oop memorabilia. More about that here. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Yesterday, the first day back to school for the second semester, there was a school shooting in Perry.

The Des Moines Register:

Six people were shot at Perry High School on Thursday morning by a 17-year-old who then killed himself.

One of the victims, a sixth grade student, died. Five other victims, including an administrator, were injured.

The shooting happened about 20 minutes before school was supposed to start when students from the adjoining middle school were at the high school for a breakfast program.

 

In this age, when there are threats from some of our politicians as well as the constant accusations on the internet and talk radio, it's a very different time from six or seven generations ago when Hamlin was born. 

We are all in our own worlds of routine and comfort. Mine is a cartoon world, and I always thought of Perry as Hamlin's town. That's not true now. When violence and death come in the early morning hours in a small town -- well, I can't imagine it, but here it is. My heart goes out to Perry, which will now be better known for a shooting than for a cartoonist. I hope that Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst do something meaningful about our lax gun laws. I wish we could go back in time and fix this, but we don't have that Alley Oop time machine, you know.

Steve Brodner: "These politicians denied democracy on Jan. 6. Now, they want your vote."

Steve Brodner writes and draws "These politicians denied democracy on Jan. 6. Now, they want your vote" for the Washington Post. 

"While the violent mob swarmed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, aiming to subvert democracy and keep President Donald Trump in power, another group was already working on the same project inside. In an unsuccessful bid to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, 147 Republicans formally supported objection to counting Joe Biden’s electoral votes.

"Some have already left office. But as many as 117 members of Congress are running for reelection in 2024. Here they are, drawn together; a collection of American politicians engaged in using democracy in order to attain the power to subvert it."

 

This is a tour de force of political cartooning with more caricatures in one place than I've ever seen. It is also, of course, horrifying -- and Steve captures that very well.

Mickey Mouse and What Is Public Domain?

The cover of "Mickey's Big War," an unlicensed (illegal) Japanese manga from 1934 that is in Ryan Holmberg's collection.

 

Comics historian, as well as "sometimes agent and editor" Ryan Holmberg, writes on his Instagram:

"Happy new year! As you may know, certain versions of Mickey Mouse went into the public domain as of yesterday, January 1, 2024. Specifically, the first Mickey films, Steamboat Willie and the silent version of Plane Crazy (both 1928), as well as other iterations of the 1928 Mickey from, say, posters and ads. Not having researched the matter closely, I was under the impression that that was all that passed into the public domain, with all other Mickeys having to wait 95 years after their own creation and publication. But I was reading this informative article today by one Jennifer Jenkins, 'Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle,' on the website of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at (my next-door neighbor) Duke University, and it seems that much more has been liberated, since not everything about Mickey or his cohort is copyrightable. 

"If I’m not mistaken, I am now free to translate and publish my stash of prewar pirate Mickey manga, as long as I don’t advertise it as a Mickey book in a way that would give the impression that it’s a Disney book, and as long as the content doesn’t infringe upon later official Mickey products. That would eliminate anything modeled on the Gottfredson strips, but presumably those too will start entering public domain in 2026, since his Mickey serial commenced in 1930. Complicating things are the presence of other characters, and not just from the Disney universe. But early versions of Minnie, Clarabelle Cow, and Peg-Leg Pete should also now be in the clear, with Horace Horsecollar joining them next year, along with Fleischer’s Popeye and, in 2026, Betty Boop. Am I thinking what you think I’m thinking? Yes! Above: Mickey’s Big War ミッキーの大奮戦, a Norakuro-esque akahon from 1934. I stopped shopping for Mickey manga years ago, since they got expensive. But this one I was able to pick up for a decent price recently, probably because it’s warped and the cover detached. In my line of work, books are just data for scanning, so good enough for me! If anyone has a deeper understanding of ©Mickey, please share your thoughts. In the meantime, I may email Professor Jenkins to inquire about her office hours."

 

Here are some more looks at "Mickey's Big War:"

 

Related:

NPR: 'Steamboat Willie' is now in the public domain. What does that mean for Mickey Mouse?

"Bootsie's Big 50s" by Ollie Harrington

 

 Via Nat Gertler:

Arriving in comic shops in March: BOOTSIE'S BIG '50s, a collection of Ollie Harrington's "Dark Laughter" cartoons from the 1950s, printed large. Tell your favorite comic shop today that you want it -- for smaller stuff like this, preordering basically required, few shops will likely get it for the shelves.

 

 

Ollie Harrington (1912 - 1995) was an American cartoonist who attacked issues of racism in his cartoons. In 2022, he was the subject of a major exhibition at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum:

Throughout his career, Oliver “Ollie” Harrington (1912-1995) used his voice and artistic talents as a cartoonist to attack racial, economic and social injustice with razor-sharp wit and insight. Speaking from the perspective of a cartoonist of color, his commentary chronicles many of the events and issues that defined the 20th century, from segregation and apartheid, to war and poverty. Harrington’s life and career intersected with the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the Black émigré community in Paris after WWII, and communist East Germany. Many of Harrington’s cartoons remain relevant and speak to problems that sadly are still unresolved in contemporary times. 

Starting in the 1930s, Harrington’s work was widely published in the Black Press including the New York Amsterdam News, the Pittsburgh Courier and the People’s Voice.  His long-running series Dark Laughter (later known as Bootsie), cast a satirical, yet affectionate, gaze on Black America through the adventures of an observant African-American “everyman.” 

Harrington was an unapologetic activist and critic of racism and capitalism, who emigrated to Paris in 1952 and, ultimately to Berlin in 1961, in response to concerns about FBI surveillance due to his outspoken criticism of the U.S. government. During World War II, he served as a war correspondent and later worked briefly as the NAACP public relations director. Later in his career, he also published trenchant editorial cartoons in the Daily World and the German satirical publication, Eulenspiegel.  

 

I teach History of Comics and History of Political Cartoons college courses, and we talk about Mr. Harrington's life and work. Here are a few of his cartoons. 

 

The 2022 exhibit was co-curated by Jenny E. Robb and Dr. Kay Clopton. Just a week ago I was told that no other museum or gallery was interested in having the show after is closed at the Billy Ireland. Very sad.