I laughed out loud at this one, perhaps because of the linguistic parallel construction.
More on The Colored Negro Black Comic Book by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon.
Note: in the comic strip tradition all the words in the strip are in capitals, but for readability, I’ve deigned to write in standard English. Also the words that are in bold in the strip are in red in this text.
“Mother Eartha”, a 4 page response to “Mary Worth”
Page 1:
Page 2, Panel 1: Young woman: Oh, Aunt Mother Eartha, my husband has been out of work for months – with no job in sight… Page 2, Panel 2: (Shot of the coffee pot, young woman’s hand pouring java into Eartha’s cup) Young woman: – our unemployment checks stopped coming, the welfare payments are low, our bills keep climbing-
Page 3, Panel 1: Young woman: -my son’s lost heart and is fighting the system – taking dope rioting…. Page 3, Panel 2: Young woman (on sofa, in background): – my daughter’s pregnant again and her husband lost his job- oh – oh –ooh
Page 4
IS MISSING FROM THE BOOK! How does this end? I wish I knew! Anyone near the library at Michigan State University want to tell me how this concludes?
There is no table of contents, or for that matter, pagination, the only reason I know the name of the next story is from the citation at MSU. Of course, page 1 of this story is missing as well.
Page 2:
Page 3, Panel 1: Racy: -Perhaps you suspect someone on your own police force? Sheriff: This boy’s seen too many movies? Page 3, Panel 2 (Sheriff firing gun: Bam Wam Fam Jam
Page 4: (Racy on the ground in a pool of blood, three holes in head and shoulder, word “holes” with arrows pointing to them. Another cop stands at attention.) Sheriff: See that the murderer gets to the morgue…
This is obvious a take on “In the Heat of the Night”, yet another Sidney Poitier movie, but with a…different outcome. Disturbing, believable, but not particularly funny.
Page 2, Panel 1 The crowd: Long live the King of Liberalia! The photographer (in foreground talking to a man in a hat): How magnificent! A black king! Page 2, Panel 2: Man in hat: That’s because Liberarians are a great liberal people!
Page 3, Panel 1: Photographer: Where is the king of Liberalia’s castle? Man in hat: Over yonder kill. Page 3, Panel 2: Photographer sweats up the hill. Page 3, Panel 2: Photographer: !
Page 4: King entering decrepit castle with clotheslines running from crooked turrets to adjoining building and a couple with a baby in clothes with patches.
If you thought taking shots at liberals was a recent activity, think again. A real “gotcha” strip, which I liked all right.
*** “Charcoal Chin”, a 4 page reply to “Charlie Chan”. Was this ever a strip, or just a series of movies?
Page 1:
Page 2, Panel 1: Charcoal (to son)” – And, as it is added in the great proverbs – “We are all blacks…” Page 2, Panel 2: Charcoal (looking at bullet):…we are all Orientals, we are all Eskimos…
Page 3, Panel 1: Charcoal (to son):…we are all Parisians…we are all New Yorkers- Page 3, Panel 2: Page 3, Panel 2: Son: -And, I suppose, Pop – we are all whites? Charcoal: Taxi!
Page 4 Taxi driver gives Chins the raspberry. Logo- Bigot & Redneck Taxi Corp. Rates .45 ½ mile. Charcoal: – To every rule, my son – there is an exception – and, like Confucius say, boy, have you found it!
As I recall, there was a feeling in 1970 that people of color were in the same boat. Don’t think that perception is nearly so true today. The person cited in the first panel was JFK, of course. A number of comic book (and other) people nearly deified the martyred President, maybe not over who he was, but over who he might have become. *** “Blackman and Crow”, a 4-page rendition of “Batman and Robin”
Page 1:
Page 2, Panel 1: Minstrel: ‘Member? [Sings]Wayy down ‘pon the Swa-nee Ri-buh- Crow: Let’s take him, Blackman! Blackman: [hums] Hm-mm Page 2, Panel 2: Minstrel: ‘Member – [Sings] -in mah ol’ Kin-tucky hooome Blackman (smiling, singing): La-de Robin scowls.
Page 3, Panel 1: Blackman and Minstrel [singing]: Oool’ Black Joooe- Page 3, Panel 2: Crow’s hand firing a gun Gun noise: Crack! Ack! Tack! Lack
Page 4: Blackman, Minstrel dead on the floor, four bullet holes in the back wall, which has a framed photo, signed Love, Stepin. Crow: This damn generation gap is something else!! A diminutive Pogo (looking at deceased): My!
This story seemed to be addressing the struggle in the civil rights movement at the time, between the NAACP/Urban League old-line organizations, and the Black Panthers and other more militant groups. The old-timers were still following the model of the late Martin Luther King, while the younger folks believed, “By any means necessary.”
For me, this was one of the most fully realized takes, possibly because of my deep awareness of the Batman mythos.
Page 1: Jughead: Gee, it’s groovy having a new kid in town, Darkie- Darkie: thanks- it’s groovy being here!
Page 2
Page 3, Panel 1: Guys in silhouette. Jughead: Where do you live, Darkie? Page 3, Panel 2: Darky: Just down the block, too.
Page 4: Darky: -Mine’s the one with the white pickets! Jughead (jaw dropping): ! Pickets holding signs that say: Out! Out! Out!
Keep Out!
Live with your own kind
Leave white to white
Don’t let them besmirch our town
The use of the name “Darkie” must have been rather controversial at the time, for it was a term used as an insult to black people.
That said, I laughed out loud at this one, perhaps because of the linguistic parallel construction “White picket fence”/”White pickets”. I also love the word “besmirch” in this context, since it was the pickets who were doing the besmirching. Also, Darkie is quite matter-of-fact about the protest, unlike his new friend.
Compare and contrast, as my old English teacher used to say, Fred’s review of Little Archie.
Marvel can (and probably will) bring back the Fantastic Four, because, as someone who read the four-color items for three decades, almost nothing is permanent in the comic books.
Before the superhero-movie renaissance, a struggling Marvel sold the FF’s film rights (along with those of the X-Men) to 20th Century Fox at terms very favorable to Fox. Fast-forward to now: Fox is rebooting the Fantastic Four film franchise and Marvel gets hardly any money out of the movie, unlike the insane cash it makes on flicks made by its own studio (Avengers, Captain America, and the other titles in that universe) and the Spider-Man franchise (owned by Sony, who cut a good bargain with Marvel a while back)…
So, it would seem, if Marvel cancels the comic book, the movies won’t do as well. If Fox stops making movies, the rights to the movie portrayals revert to Marvel. THEN Marvel can (and probably will) bring back the FF, because, as someone who read the four-color items for three decades, almost nothing is permanent in the comic books.
My only horse in this race is that once upon a time, I edited magazines about the X-Men and the Fantastic Four (and Spider-Man), so I have a historical affection for the characters, though I haven’t read much of them in two decades. As this infographic suggests, the movies of both Marvel and DC are very important.
Maybe they would have stopped this guy, in a darkened room, after a gas canister had been set off, if they were Navy SEALS, or something.
I’ve never been to a midnight, opening night showing of a movie. I’ve gone to premieres, though, and I do know what cinematic anticipation feels like. There’s just something about seeing something before almost anyone else that provides an unusual sense of satisfaction. Your view of the film is not colored by what everyone else says.
If I were to have gone to a recent midnight showing, The Dark Knight Rises would not have been it.
While I’ve seen Batman movies starring Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and even Adam West, I passed on the George Clooney iteration, Batman and Robin, and I just haven’t seen any of the Christian Bale films, Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), or, obviously, the new one.
Of course, the shootings at the opening of TDKR in Aurora, Colorado were awful. I watched a bunch of news shows, trying, and failing, to make sense of it all. That often happens for me with tragedies, from the JFK assassination to 9/11. At some point, I find that I just had to stop. Not incidentally, read what Ken Levine wrote, especially about a movie trailer showing before the film; yikes.
Ideally, this would be an opportunity for people to come together in their common grief. Instead, and all you need to read is a half dozen comments on just about any news site, that devolve into a debate about something divisive and snarky; Thom Wade addresses this. So we need to ban guns. No, everyone should have been packing heat, and they would have stopped this guy, in a darkened room, after a gas canister had been set off; maybe they would have if they were Navy SEALS or something. The shootings are the President’s fault because the alleged shooter was apparently on the dole, and the Obama welfare state encourages crazy behavior; no, I couldn’t follow that one either. It’s a continuation of the attack on Judeo-Christian beliefs; what?
(And don’t get me started on the pre-tragedy Rush Limbaugh’s “connection” between the movie villain Bane, created in 1993, and Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, as some sort of liberal political plot; well, maybe retroactively.)
I think, though, that inappropriate fan response to negative reviews, which forced the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to disable user commentary for the film, is a form of the same maddening mindset I find so disturbing in this country. Some so-called fans threatened violence against movie critics who did not think the movie was a perfect 10, threatening to crash critics’ websites.
My thoughts are with the family and friends of the victims, their community, and indeed, all of us.
The Illegitimacy of a Conservative Supreme Court.
