the UFO honors Black History Month

[nic carcieri]

Powerman artwork by Jerry "The Franchize" Gaylord

;D

[Nightray2002]

The REAL first Black comic book character featured in his own book was 'Lobo' and it wasn't published by the big companies but by the smaller Dell Publishing.
Before Black Lightning, before Luke Cage, before The Black Panther there was 'LOBO'.

Lobo #1 (Dec. 1965), was actually the first comic book with an African-American star. Created by writer D. J. Arneson and artist Tony Tallarico, it chronicled the Old West adventures of a wealthy, unnamed African-American gunslinger called "Lobo" by the first issue's antagonists. Lobo would leave the calling card of a gold coin imprinted with the images of a wolf and the letter "L" on the foreheads of vanquished criminals, . Cover art by Tony Tallarico. Lobo was a fictional Western comic book hero who was also the comic book medium's first African-American character to headline his own series.

Lobo starred in Dell Comics' little-known but groundbreaking, two-issue series Lobo (Dec. 1965 & Sept. 1966), also listed as Dell Comics #12-438-512 and #12-439-610 in the company's quirky numbering system. Created by writer D. J. Arneson and artist Tony Tallarico, it chronicled the Old West adventures of a wealthy, unnamed African-American gunslinger called "Lobo" by the first issue's antagonists. On the foreheads of vanquished criminals, Lobo would leave the calling card of a gold coin imprinted with the images of a wolf and the letter "L".

Tallarico in a 2006 interview said that he and Dell writer Arneson co-created the character based on an idea and a plot by Tallarico, with Arneson scripting it:

"I had an idea for Lobo. And I approached D.J. Arneson and he brought it in and showed it to [Dell editor-in-chief] Helen Meyer. ... She loved it. She really wanted to do it. Great, so we did it. We did the first issue. And in comics, you start the second issue as they're printing the first one, due to time limitations. All of the sudden, they stopped the wagon. They stopped production on the issue. They discovered that as they were sending out bundles of comics to the distributors, they were being returned unopened. And I couldn't figure out
why. So they sniffed around, scouted around and discovered that many sellers were opposed to Lobo, who was the first black Western hero. That was the end of the book. It sold nothing. They printed 200,000; that was the going print-rate. They sold, oh, 10-15 thousand."

Awards:
On May 19, 2006, Temple University College of Arts and Sciences presented Tallarico its Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Comics and Books Industries, in recognition of his creating the first comic book to star an African-American.

Black comic-book stars:
While Marvel Comics' 1950s predecessor Atlas Comics had published the African tribal-chief feature "Waku, Prince of the Bantu" — the first known mainstream comic-book feature with a Black star, albeit not African-American — it was one of four regular features in each issue of the omnibus title, Jungle Tales (Sept. 1954 - Sept. 1955). Comic books' first known African-American superhero, Marvel's Falcon, was introduced in 1969, but there would be no Black star of his or her own comic until 1972, with Marvel's Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, followed in 1973 by Marvel's Black Panther (an African superhero introduced as a supporting character in a 1966 issue of Fantastic Four) in Jungle Action.

[nic carcieri]

thanks Darrell, great history lesson!

;D

[amnjoker]

Hi, I'm new to this board and I hope I can say this without stepping on any toes, but In the Golden Age there was a comic that starred ACE Harlem, in a comic called All Negro Comics that was published by African American creators. It was printed in the late 40's and only lasted one issue. Ace Harlem was a hard boiled PI.

[robimes]

Hi,

Darrell mentioned "All Negro Comics" in his article that appears in the new issue (#211) of Tetragrammaton Fragments, the UFO newsletter. The cover (and ordering info) can be seen at
groups.yahoo.com/group/unitedfanzineorg

[amnjoker]

I guess I better read that article then, thanks!

[thedoc]

Are the creators still alive? If so I should tell the promoter of the Black Age Expo in Chicago to have them come out for an appearance.
Nice article Darrell as always.

[Darrell Goza]

Since TFrag 211, I've been getting many more articles and images concerning African Americans and Native Africans in comics. The original article I was writing could have easily filled up the entire issue but that would have been more time than I had allotted to pass on the information. There's a whole thriving comic book industry in Africa, and some of you should know about Deepak Chopra's (yes, that one) line of books which are telling the story of Indian mythology. Not the Native American history of ours but of the Middle Eastern section of the world.
There's also a line of 'Negro Romance' comics and as mentioned in the article and also 'Treasure Chest Comics' which featured, among one of its story lines a Black President. This was in a story from the mid 50's.
I hope the small write-up that ran in TFrag 211 got you curious. If not, there's always next year. If so, an excellent source of information on some of the newer stories concerning Black American heroes is at Blacksuperhero.com.
It's not as comprehensive as I'd have liked but it does give you an insiders view of what Black characters are out there as well as information on the creators of these modern tales of Black comic characters.

[Nightray2002]

You're absolutely correct amnjoker. And as Rob mentioned, I did cover it in the UFO Feb. 2010 issue of Tetragrammation Fragments. Here's an excerpt:

All-Negro Comics was America’s first-ever comic book, written, illustrated and published entirely by African-Americans, aimed primarily at African American readers. It carries a cover date of June 1947. No information about the press run or distribution remains, but it is believed that the comic
was distributed outside of the Philadelphia area.
A second issue was planned and the art completed, but when Orrin was ready to publish it he found that his source for newsprint would no longer sell to him, nor would any of the other vendors he contacted.
Getting a book to publication is not an easy feat in any age and even more so ‘back then’, articularly if you’re Black. Still, that issue contained a detective story, an adventure about a African hero in the
‘Tarzan’ tradition, a sex-comedy about two opportunistic tramps and a fairy tale for little children which shows how Blacks viewed ‘charming’ Black characters as opposed to how they were being portrayed.
As an anthology book, it can't claim to be the first book about a featured character. That book would be 'Lobo' by Dell.