BLACK SOCIA HISTORY : ALL-NEGRO COMICS -WAS A SINGLE ISSUE SMALL-PRESS AMERICAN COMIC BOOK THAT REPRESENTS THE FIRST KNOWN COMICS MAGAZINE WRITTEN AND DRAWN SOLEY BY AFRICAN AMERICAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS :

               BLACK   SOCIAL  HISTORY

               BLACK    SOCIAL   HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                             All-Negro Comics

All-Negro Comics
All-Negro Comics #1 (June 1947). Cover artist unknown. Clockwise from top left: Lion Man, Snake Oil, Sugarfoot, Bubba, Ace Harlem. Center: The Little Dew Dillies
Publication information
Publisher	All-Negro Comics, Inc.
Format	Anthology
Genre
Publication date	1947
Number of issues	1
Main character(s)	Ace Harlem Lion Man
Creative team
Artist(s)	John Terrell George J. Evans Jr.

All-Negro Comics, published in 1947, was a single-issue, small-press American comic book that represents the first known comics magazine written and drawn solely by African-American writers and artists.

Publication history

African-American journalist Orrin Cromwell Evans^[1] (born 1902, Steelton, Pennsylvania; died 1971)^[2] was "the first black writer to cover general assignments for a mainstream white newspaper in the United States" when he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Record.^[2] After the paper's closing, shortly after World War II, Evans partnered with former Record editor Harry T. Saylor,Record sports editor Bill Driscoll and two others^[1] to found the Philadelphia publishing company All-Negro Comics, Inc., with himself as president.^[2] In mid-1947, the company published the only known issue of All-Negro Comics, a 48-page,^[1] standard-sized comic book with a typical glossy color cover and newsprint interior.^[3] It was copyrighted July 15, 1947, with a June 1947 issue date.^[4] Unlike other comic books of the time, it sold for 15 cents rather than 10 cents.^[3]

As writer Tom Christopher described, Evans

...co-created the features in the comic along with the artists, who included his brother, George J. Evans Jr.; two other Philadelphia cartoonists, one of whom was John Terrell,^[5] the other named Cooper; and a Baltimore artist who signed his work Cravat. The cartoonists probably wrote their own scripts, and there was further editorial input by Bill Driscoll.^[2]

The comic's press run and distribution are unknown,^[2] and as one cultural historian notes of the era, "[W]hile there were a few heroic images of blacks created by blacks, such as the Jive Gray comic strip and All-Negro Comics, these images did not circulate outside of pre-civil rights segregated black communities."^[6] The Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, a standard reference, considers the single issue "rare" and notes, "Seldom found in fine or mint condition; many copies have brown pages."^[7]

Time magazine in 1947 called All-Negro Comics "the first to be drawn by Negro artists and peopled entirely by Negro characters." In describing lead feature "Ace Harlem", it said, "The villains were a couple of zoot-suited, jive-talking Negro muggers, whose presence in anyone else's comics might have brought up complaints of racial 'distortion.' Since it was all in the family, Evans thought no Negro readers would mind."^[1]

Contents

"Lion Man" page from All-Negro Comics #1. Art by George J. Evans Jr.

Sources:^[2][8]

• One-page introductory editorial, "All-Negro Comics: Presenting Another First in Negro History"
• "Ace Harlem", a private detective feature drawn by John Terrell
• "The Little Dew Dillies", a children's feature starring cherub-like creatures only babies can see and talk to, drawn by Cooper
• "Ezekiel's Manhunt", a two-page boy's-adventure text story
• "Lion Man", starring a college-educated African American sent by the United Nations on a mission to a uranium deposit on Africa's Gold Coast, where he adopted the mischievous orphan Bubba. Drawn by George J. Evans, Jr. (no relation to the Caucasian comic-book and comic-strip artist George Evans). One modern-day writer said Lion Man "wore the obligatory leotard costume of the comic hero",^[9] though the comic's cover and interior pages depict him in loin cloth.
• "Hep Chicks on Parade", spot-illustration gags with highly stylized women wearing exaggerated fashions, signed "Len"
• "Lil' Eggie", by Terrell, about henpecked husband Egbert and his wife
• "Sugarfoot", a humor feature, drawn by Cravat, starring traveling musicians Sugarfoot and Snake Oil, who try to woo a farmer's daughter. Evans' editorial said the feature's creators hoped "to recapture the almost lost humor of the loveable wandering Negro minstrel of the past."
• "Remember — Crime Doesn't Pay, Kids!", a one-page public service announcement and next-issue promo, with Ace Harlem

Legacy

In 2014, Orrin C. Evans was inducted to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for his work as president of All-Negro Comics