In Black America; The Missing Black Comic Strip

**Bell** From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is In Black America. We have found also that in working with teachers who are using comic strips in the classroom, that they use comic strips for a variety of skills, for instance teaching sequence.

They can take a comic strip and cut it up and have the children follow a storyline and put it together from those various pieces of the strip being changed around. And so they're able to develop plot line and theme character development, analysis of character that they're able to use through the comic strips. Of course, the editorial comics can do very nicely in analyzing politics and a variety of other thoughts that are taking place in the country. So there are many uses of the comic strip in the classroom. Of course, it's utilized also in many of the school newspapers to get across major points that youngsters are trying to make in their own writings. Mrs. Susan H. Wilson, assistant principal at TC Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Every Sunday morning, we sit down and read our Sunday newspapers. It allows us an opportunity to catch up on world events and to laugh at ourselves.

But something is missing from these newspapers. Who is the missing character? And what is missing on hundreds of pages of comic strips throughout this nation's newspapers? What is missing from our comic pages are black comic strips. Virtually no black cartoonists have entered syndication since the early 1970s. Although the number of supporting black comic characters may have increased somewhat since that time. A review of the major newspapers in the large 50 cities in this country include daily and Sunday editions. There was only one comic strip that featured minority children. That comic strip is carried in only four newspapers. I'm John A. O. Hanson, Jr. This week, the missing comic strip with Mrs. Susan H. Wilson in Black America. We believe that we have a community need to start to let our newspapers know that we want to see those materials in the newspapers.

But Detroit Free Press has responded to pressure from the community, which is starting to ask, why are we not seeing these materials in the newspapers? And I think we have a responsibility to bring to the newspapers the idea that the newspapers will sell with these materials in them. One of the arguments that I have heard against the use of comic strips is that blacks and other minorities will not read these materials. They're not reading them in the newspapers. It's a ridiculous argument. And yet that's one of the excuses that's used. And advertising, of course, is another area. The advertisers are not supporting these kinds of materials being in the newspaper. Again, we have a community need to let the newspapers know that their newspapers will sell and sell even better with the materials that reflect the community. And these materials can reflect issues that concern all of us as parents and teachers in the community.

It's not that a black or multiracial comic strip has to be straight, ethnic comedy. I think that's a concern as well, that it will not reflect the various issues that all people are addressing. And again, the comic strips that we have been utilizing are strips that all people identify with. They are issues about children and children growing up that cut across all of our races. And I think this is something that we need to let the newspapers know. In the early 1970s, Dr. Robert Gill, Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Grand Rapids, Michigan, developed a delightful comic strip entitled Sugar. The comic strip captured the many unique characteristics of multiracial children who could be tender and terrible all at the same time, just like children. Dr. Gill had done extensive research investigating the use of comic strip characters and educational materials to develop positive motivation for success.

He found significant correlation between the use of characters and the positive involvement of children in their instructional programs. Dr. Gill attempted to syndicate his comic strip nationwide, but found little acceptance of a multiracial comic strip by the large syndicates. Consequently, Dr. Gill formed his own syndicate entitled National Features to publish Sugar in a few select newspapers. I recently spoke with Mrs. Susan H. Wilson, Assistant Principal at T.C. William's High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Mrs. Wilson has written a paper on the missing comic strip. My work mainly is with the students who are not succeeding. I found when I was working in the seventh grade level that the students there were coming out of elementary school behind in their achievement levels. And unfortunately, when I worked with them at the senior high school level, they were even further behind. These were students that were counted students early on. I saw that they were able to do a variety of things once we were able to get at what they were interested in doing.

But unfortunately, many of their home situations were very negative. Some of the community problems that were taking place were coming into the schools. And the students were demonstrating positive leadership qualities that they had in very negative ways. And these students were getting into gang situations. And of course, the drugs have become a very serious concern among these children. I was trying to find programs that would help build success principles among the students and turn around the negative patterns into positive patterns. And I felt very strong that these children needed other characters to identify with. I tried to find characters in the comic strips because the kids love the comic strips. They go right to them. And of course, there's a lot of interest there. And I could not find characters, which was why I got back in touch with a man by name of Dr. Robert Gil, who is assistant superintendent of schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I knew that Dr. Gil had done extensive work in the effect of schools movement. And that years ago, he had developed a comic strip called Sugar. That had wonderful characters in it that were multi-racial. I shared some of these characters with the students. I was working with a fellow in love with them. However, I was very surprised to find that this comic strip was not on the comic pages in many of the newspapers in the Washington DC area. In talking with Dr. Gil, I found that the comic strip was being published only in Grand Rapids that over the last 10 years or more since the time he began to publish it, he was not able to break into the major syndicates. In fact, they basically had rejected the strip and indicated that the newspapers would not buy the multi-racial strip. Did they give any reason for the rejection, other than they thought the other publishers wouldn't buy it?

I believe they felt that the strip wouldn't sell and consequently it wouldn't gain support and they would end up losing money. It wasn't going to bring the return that was worth their investment of the advertising dollars in the strip. And consequently, Dr. Gil formed his own syndicate called National Features Syndicate and was able to publish the strip in Grand Rapids. I was very concerned about this because I was not finding any comic strips that we could use with the students and I did a search of the 50 largest cities in the country. I first looked at the census data for these newspapers and for the cities and found that there were large populations of minorities in these cities. And I was very surprised to find that I looked at the newspapers of each one of the 50 largest cities in our country that these newspapers did not reflect the populations within those cities. On an average, how many comic strips are published on a Sunday edition versus what's published during the week?

There are approximately 24 strips in the average of 24 strips published in the Sunday newspapers and there are approximately 25 strips published in the daily newspapers. And I found in my research that of the 50 largest cities, there was one strip that focused on children and that was we pals and that was in four of these newspapers. There was another strip of the Middletons which had multi-racial characters black and white with children in this strip and that was in six of the newspapers. There were two strips that featured Indian characters, although not necessarily children, that was in some of the newspapers. But for the most part, the newspapers in no way reflected the characteristics of the populations that they were serving. I had in fact gone to the Washington Post here in Washington DC because I was very concerned that right within our own community we did not have strips that reflected the children within this community. And I also received a turn down there and trying to get the strip into the Washington Post.

We do have the Middletons in the Washington Post but that's the only strip. Since I have done this research and put it together, I have found a great deal of interest developing in the entire issue. The Detroit Free Press has been very instrumental in investigating this whole situation and bringing it forward so that this is addressed by the entire newspaper industry. The Editor-in-Publisher magazine was very interested in fact they published the article. David Astor has been quite instrumental in the magazine in starting to put articles in that show the kinds of difficulties that artists are finding in getting the materials into the newspapers. He has recently published an article about Dr. Gil and the Sugar Comics trip which has brought quite a bit of interest from the newspapers and Dr. Gil is now being contacted by a number of newspapers. In fact I believe the Detroit Free Press is going to put Sugar into their Sunday newspaper.

And during the research what did you particularly find out about young people and their attraction to comics? Are they learning grammar structure, the use of words, a large vocabulary or they particularly just like to see characters in color? One of the things that Dr. Gil found in his research with elementary children was that they became much more involved in the materials themselves when they were characters utilized they could identify with. So he found that it provided strong motivation for the students to get involved in the reading of material when characters were used to illustrate those materials that they could recognize. We have found also that in working with teachers who are using comic strips in the classroom that they use comic strips for a variety of skills. For instance teaching sequence they can take a comic strip and cut it up and have the children follow a storyline and put it together from those various pieces of the strip being changed around.

And so they're able to develop plot line and theme character development analysis of character that they're able to use through the comic strips. Of course the editorial comics can do very nicely in analyzing politics and a variety of other thoughts that are taking place in the country. So there are many uses of the comic strip in the classroom and of course it's utilized also in many of the school newspapers to get across major points that youngsters are trying to make in their own writings. What concerns me is that by having such a lack of multiracial strips in our newspapers we are not providing models for these children that they even can identify with the newspaper industry itself. We're trying to show students more and more the various opportunities that are available to them in careers. This is a major career that isn't even exposed to them.

Are we somewhat missing the boat or will be behind? We're closely approaching 1990 and according to John Nesbitt book mega trends of the majority of this population in this country will be black and Hispanic. That's right. We need to address those particular demographics in our newspapers as far as stories that are written about the population in the community but also the comic characters. Will there be an issue or address towards if they're not more comic strips illustrated by black artists, more inclusion of minorities and the majority comic strips that we are currently seeing? We hope there will be. One of the concerns that has been expressed regarding the inclusion of minorities in the strips is that if the strip is drawn by a white artist but at times it's difficult for that artist to really understand and be able to reflect some of the humor that might be involved in that type of a comic strip. That's been one of the difficulties some of the white artists have not felt comfortable in drawing black comic strip characters or other characters.

That's why we need to start to bring in the minority artists so that they are part of the community that is producing these materials. We need to bring in Hispanic artists and other artists that are from the other cultures that should be reflected in our newspapers. They need to be a part of the entire process rather than locked out. Our children need to see that their careers open in these fields. Dr. Gil talks about some of the early days when he had his training in art. The doors were totally closed to him in pursuing that field and consequently he's gone about it through another direction and has incorporated that into the whole field of education. But it's a shame that in this country young people do not know that these are careers that are very valuable for them and should be. Dr. Gil has been talking about forming a mentoring program for these young people so that we can start to provide them with the models that are so critical for them in building their career concepts. Are you addressing that particular problem in your area? Are you finding young blacks or Hispanic interested in becoming illustrators and artists?

Absolutely. Many of the students that I worked with were very artistic and wanted to pursue that field. Again, they were finding a hard time getting support and pursuing that if they did not have the money to go on to school, they were really scrambling to find the support and even people that they could talk with who could point them in the right direction. And that's why at this point I'm looking at it within our own community, the development of a business creative and performing arts center for the city of Alexandria where we can bring in the artists and provide the children within our urban area models that they can identify with and can build upon. We have a serious drug problem among some of our young people within the community. These are children that I know are talented. I have materials in my office that they have produced. Some of these children we've already lost and we shouldn't be losing them. And if we have right within our community, right in the heart of the community, the people who can come in and show them what can be done, who can work with them day in and day out, at least provide them with a vision and a dream that they can pursue.

We're going to see some different things happening. So I'm right now going to businesses within the area talking with businesses such as Southland Corporation to see if we can get their support, not only to help us provide a center like this for the kids right in the heart of the city, but also within the stores. Within the community itself, we start to build a positive thinking campaign where children are seeing success principles on their learning materials and their pencils and their tablets and bookmarks and book covers where if they go into the 7-11, they see success principles on their slurpy cups that are constantly encouraging them to be successful in school and to build the kinds of skills that they need to have if they're going to pursue further education. It needs to become a total community effort and we also need to be building up the families because that's another key area that families, the parents, have to have a dream and have to see possibility so that they can in turn pass that on to their children.

If you achieve what you're striving for, do you foresee, as in other cases, if they have one, they won't have two or they're substitute one for the other? Is there room for more than one comic strip, multi-racial comic strip? There has to be. I cannot believe that one out of 25 comic strips in a newspaper reflects the wonderful experiences that are taking place all around us within our communities. When I have studied comedy and the use of comedy, it is to reflect everyday life and reflect the things that we ourselves are laughing at. We've got to start to be able to laugh at some of the things that are happening around us instead of seeing it from other very negative points of view. There has to be room for more than one. We should not, as we're experiencing in some of our newspapers, if we put one black comic strip in and we want to have another multi-racial comic strip going into that newspaper, the other strip comes out.

That is actually happening right now and it shouldn't be. There has to be room for more than one. I was just seeing some of the new items that are coming out from some of the syndicates and we're talking about characters that are make-believe characters, the children cannot identify with. The humor may reflect some of the everyday humor but they're not characters, the children are going to model after. One of the keys in a wonderful program called the Power of Positive Students in which we've seen good success stories of children who are learning to model after positive models. They need to have those positive models and they need to know that that child there can be the child that's reading it. When one puts together a comic strip, does the illustrator also write the dialogue? It can be done two ways. It can be done in which there is one artist who does the drawing and the other artist who does the dialogue in the case of sugar. Dr. Gil is doing both.

To what do you attribute sugar's success in the limited amount of exposure it was? Well, I talked with a young lady who had grown up in the Grand Rapids area. In fact, she was very surprised to find it wasn't in the other comic strips. I think the sugar appeals to many of the issues that we are dealing with right now on issues about independence, issues about what children are experiencing as they go through the trials and tribulations and the changes of growing up. It reflects in a very honest and likable way the kinds of things that we've all gone through one time or another. It also reflects some of the issues of the day and how kids are dealing with that. It's the kind of thing that when my students thought they could identify with, they saw in the characters their little kid brother or themselves or the youngster down the street that they babysit for. In fact, my kids got so excited about they formed the sugar pack and started to develop a whole support system among themselves.

They got their t-shirts with sugar on their front and they put a slogan on the back that's what friends are for and it was a very supportive group among themselves that they could identify with. We've spoken about the majority daily publications. What is the response been from black on newspapers around the country for multi-racial or black comic strips? That's something that we still need to explore and I'm going to be talking with some of the editors that are involved in those newspapers but I haven't had as much contact with them. So that's a new area that we need to look at. Okay. When Dr. Gil understand started this in 1970, there hasn't been a syndicated multi-racial or black comic strip since then. Was he trying to motivate the students in Grand Rapids and hopefully the rest of the country would catch on?

Basically he was trying to develop a likable comic strip and wasn't even focusing so much on the motivation of the children through the comic strip. The comic strip was just a comic strip that he was hoping would be syndicated throughout the nation because it was a likable comic strip. He then did utilize the characters in research with children in the schools to see what effect the youth of those characters would have upon their work in the school. But basically this trip was designed just to be a fun comic strip. Well out the national exposure of a black comic strip, how has your motivational program been going? Well motivational program itself has many concepts that in and of themselves are good. I have found as I've been talking with others who are working in the field that we're looking at how can we get the characters out there without this and exposure in the newspapers. I basically have been talking with the American Newspaper Publishers Association and working with their coordinators who are handling newspaper education programs around the country.

I spoke with their coordinators at Atlanta at their recent national meeting and the coordinators that were in our workshop were very excited about the program. I've been contacted by a number of the coordinators who would like to start to include the comic strip in their newsletters who are going out into the school. And so this is of course another way of starting to expose the characters to the children. But it's very difficult because it does take I think nationwide publicity through the exposure of the characters in the newspapers to start to generate more interest in using those characters in the local schools. Is your effort, a teacher's effort or administrators and school officials behind this effort? The school administrators that I've been working with in Alexandria are very interested in it. I am in charge of the school administrators association and I've had support from the administrators in the school system. I have talked with Mary Futrell who is president of the National Education Association and she was very excited about the concept and thought there was much to offer in the local schools through the use of approaches like this.

So I've had good responses from other administrators who have seen the materials. What are your current duties and responsibilities as assistant principal at TC Williams High School? At TC Williams I have been responsible for student welfare and handling basically discipline with students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades at the school. TC Williams is the only high school within the city of Alexandria right on the outskirts of Washington DC. It's a very urban school with a large population of minority students. We're about 35 percent, 40 percent black students and about 15 percent of students from other countries. And so we have a large population that is bringing a multitude of problems and situations to us. During this coming year I will be working at the junior high school, Francis C. Hammond, junior high school that feeds into TC Williams.

Being an urban educator has conditions, change for the better in the last three or four years or are they what we hear on radio and television? I think we at the high school are finding that students are beginning to mix more than we saw earlier. Of course in the 70s it was a very difficult time and when these schools in Alexandria were just being desegregated and during that time there was a great deal of conflict. So we have found over the years that the students gradually are mixing more in terms of their contacts within the school and within the community. There still are areas of separation and we have great concerns about minority student achievement as many of the urban communities do. Are minority students coming to high school, equipped to do high school level work?

They some are, some are not and this is a great concern which as a total school system we are now addressing. We are finding for instance in our advanced placement programs we have a very small population from our minority students. Although I will say from our black students from some of the other cultures we do still have good representation from some of the Asian countries but unfortunately among our black students we do not have large representation there and that is a great concern. Mrs. Susan H. Wilson has just completed research on the missing black comic strip. Opinions expressed on this program do not reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. Until we meet again for in black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John L. Hansen Jr. please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes.

Longhorn radio network, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin Texas 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn radio network. No black cartoonists have entered syndication since the early 1970s. I'm John L. Hansen Jr. join me this week on in black America.

What concerns me is that by having such a lack of multi-racial strips in our newspapers we are not providing models for these children that they even can identify with the newspaper industry itself. The missing comic strip this week on in black America.