African-American comics history revisited

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the social benefit of African American cartoonists.

Here's a much more thorough overview: Dart Adams' invaluable two-part survey, Black Like Me: The History of Black Comic Book Heroes Through The Ages, 1900-2008. Above, a sample of 1937's landmark Torchy Brown, highlighting the link between fashion and identity:

Jackie Ormes became the first Black female cartoonist to have a syndicated strip when her creation “Torchy Brown” was published throughout Black newspapers by way of the Afro American Continental Features Syndicate via the Pittsburgh Courier. Torchy was a bright, independent Black woman in a world of Black professionals that looked like human beings and spoke like them as well (about damn time!).

And don't forget one of the web's earliest efforts to bring this history to light: Tim Jackson's Pioneering Cartoonists of Color.