Here’s some history that has been forgotten by virtually everyone including comics historians.
In 1942, Jay Jackson, head cartoonist of the historic black newspaper The Chicago Defender, revived the moribund Bungleton Green, the oldest continuously running black comic strip. He turned it into, of all things, a science fiction adventure strip, having his characters travel through time and space. They died at the hands of Nazis, got revived and sent back through time to endure slavery in 1778 America, were whisked into the future of 2043 where America was a colorblind utopia but a new continent full of green people oppressed whites, and finally saw future scientists turn the title character into a super man. Bungleton Green returned to the Chicago of 1945 and fought racism and gangsters preying on the black community. The entire length of the strip was one long condemnation of the way the black community endured endless prejudice and oppression even while they were being asked to help the war effort in the cause of freedom.
Nothing in the Golden Age of comics is remotely comparable to this strip, to my knowledge, especially in the searingly critical denunciation of American racism. Interestingly, Jackson probably learned how to use science-fiction tropes to safely put that criticism into the remove of an alternative future because he was also the first black pulp artist to draw for the science fiction magazines, with four years of illustrations in Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.
I’m proud to announce that I’m the author of the first article to put the pieces of this story together and attempt to call attention to this milestone in American cultural history, not just comics history. It ran in three parts on the Chicago Defender website, with the finale today. It’s free and unpaywalled. I hope that you read it and share the story with others. It’s an amazing story of fantastic adventures. (Sorry. Had to say that.) Please share it with others.
Vintage comic books have been getting me through these times, and I just read a two-part article on how insane newspaper and pulp comics were back in the 40s (by Seanbaby, so plenty of insanity there too).
Compared to Kay McKay, Air Hostessin Part 1 or Dick Colein Part 2, Bungleton Green seems rational and restrained by comparison.
And since “Vintage Racism” was one of the categories that Seambaby used to score the old comics, Jay Jackson was a superhero himself…
Thanks so much for all your research! Can’t wait to finish these… I’ll pass on the good word.
You might also be interested in this brand new book by Ken Quattro. I just got my copy today. Interestingly, he has a section on Jay Jackson but doesn’t realize that Bungleton Green became a superhero, albeit in comic strips not books.
When I was working on my robot book, Robots in American Popular Culture, I searched for every use of the term in all popular media. Putting robot together with comics gave me enough to fill a chapter. And it brought up a reference to Bungleton Green. I hunted it down in an historical black newspaper database. Turned out that Jackson did say that the process of providing superstrength turned Bun into a robot, but it was clear that after that first use he didn’t mean it literally. Bun was no more a robot than Superman. So I put it aside and returned to it when I had more time.
Try the Great Job Internet section of the AV Club? (email address for reader submissions is at the bottom of each article - I sent a submission once a few years ago and they did use it). There’s also The Root but their submissions page only seems to cover pitches for articles.
It’s gji at theonion dot com. I was trying to avoid putting that in my post because I thought posting email addresses might trigger spam filters here or something.