Orrin C Evans

and the story of

All Negro Comics

 

by tom christopher

copyright 2002, revised 2014

An edited version of this article appeared in the Comics Buyers Guide

 

 

When Orrin C. Evans died in 1971 at the age of 68 he was eulogized in the New York Times as ‘the dean of black reporters’. From our vantage point of another quarter century, we can also say he was the father of black comicbooks.

Mr Evans was born in 1902 in Steeleton, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of George J. Evans Sr, and Maude Wilson Evans. Mr Evans Sr was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, his wife was the first black to graduate from the Williamsport Teachers’ College,and the family lived in white neighborhoods. However, despite this stable home life the every day realities of Northern racism were never far from their door. Mr Evans Sr passed for white in order to provide a better living for his family than the menial jobs available to blacks would allow, but this forced him to carry the pretense to the inevitable ends of hiding the darker skinned Orrin in a back room while Maude donned an apron and pretended to be a maid when friends from his work dropped by. On other occasions, his father was not able to acknowledge Orrin at his workplace. Years later Orrin was visibly moved when relating these episodes. As Orrin’s friend, Claude Lewis wrote in 1971 ‘There was no National Association for the Advancement of Colored People back then, there was no Urban League. Like others of his time, Orrin Evans was out there on his own. And what he had to suffer was more than anyone I know could endure’.

Orrin was a strong headed young man, and during the family’s many dinner table discussions on the issues of the day he so often used the phrase don’t tell me in defending his beliefs that his father took to calling him ‘Mister don’t tell me’, and as often as he would drive Orrin to school and wait in the parking lot till he got in the door, just as often would Orrin exit through the rear. Despite the emphasis placed on education in his family Orrin was more interested in the experiences life offered, and he dropped out of school in the eighth grade to pursue his goal of writing.

His first job was on the Sportsman’s Magazine at age 17, and his first real newspaper experience was with the Philadelphia Tribune, the oldest black paper in the country. From there, in the early nineteen-thirties, he decided to break the color barrier and landed a writing position on the Philadelphia Record, becoming the first black writer to cover general assignments for a mainstream white newspaper in the United States. In 1944 at the Record he wrote a series of articles about segregation in the armed services, which were read into the congressional record, and helped end the practice. He won an honorable mention in that year’s Hayword Hale Broun award, but also drew some unwelcome attention. To criticize the government during wartime, even to point out the obvious hypocrisy of segregating troops putting their lives on the line to defend a country where democracy supposedly makes all men equal was considered treasonous by some and he and his family received death threats. His daughter Hope remembers their house being protected in a 24 hour a day vigil by a congregation of Orrin’s friends, both black and white, until the threats subsided.

This was not the only time Orrin was threatened because of his color and position. Once at the Philadelphia Police Precinct at 55th and Pine a police sergeant pulled his revolver and ordered him out of the station, not believing a black man had any legitimate place on the front side of the bars, and the national hero and Nazi sympathizer Charles Lindbergh once held up a press conference during the infamous kidnapping of his son to have Orrin ousted because he was black.

Shortly after the war, the Record was hit by a strike and management decided to shut the paper down rather than settle the labor issues. Orrin was out of a job and looking for something to do. He had always loved cartoons. His daughter Hope, a teacher like her grandmother, mother, and aunt remembers her father reading the comics to her, and particularly enjoying The Katzenjammer Kids and Lil Abner. At work he liked to walk through the art department and watch the staff cartoonists work.

For Orrin to note the lack of black heroes in the popular culture was a singular feat in itself. As Claude Lewis said in a recent interview ‘We weren’t very conscious about being left out, it was just the way things were. We identified with Superman, Batman, Submariner and the rest of them without giving much thought to it. If you’ve never seen a black hero you don’t spend a lot of time wondering where they are. Today you would, but back then, there were no blacks in ads. It just didn’t happen’. Orrin wanted to change all this. He considered himself an urban American born in the twentieth century, fully integrated into the western world. He and his wife were long time supporters of the NAACP and the Urban League. The works of WEB Du Bois spoke more to him than did those of Marcus Garvey. He possessed a library said to be possibly the finest in the black community with volumes not only of Afrocentric interest or white commentaries on what was termed ‘the Negro problem’, but a library that represented his own wide range of interests, and he wanted to produce a comic that would reflect these values.

Like all his other projects Orrin threw himself whole heartedly into his proposed comic. He arraigned a partnership to publish the comic which included Harry T. Saylor, editor at the record, his friend Bill Driscoll, the sports editor, and others. Orrin was determined that the book should be of high moral and educational standards. He co-created the features in the comic along with the artists who included his brother, George J Evans Jr, two other Philadelphia cartoonists, one of whom was John Terrill, the other named Cooper, and a Baltimore artist who signed his work Cravat. The cartoonists probably wrote their own scripts, and there was further editorial input by Bill Driscoll. Hope remembers this as a very happy time for him, and that he was involved in every step of the book’s production, having secured a bullpen/production area in another building.

All Negro Comics # 1 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 he found that his source for newsprint would no longer sell to him, nor would any of the other vendors he contacted. Though Orrin was unyielding in his support of integration and civil rights he was moderate in his methods of achieving these goals. He believed in the general fairness of the system he had been born into. He was not a man given to conspiratorial thinking, but his family remembers that his belief was that there was pressure being placed on the newsprint wholesalers by bigger publishers and distributors who didn’t welcome any intrusions on their established territories.

Race and economics have always been emotionally charged rallying points and from this date we can only look to the model of history and judge for ourselves. Surely the mainstream publishers had an interest in cultivating the black market. Parent’s Magazine published two issues of Negro Heroes, dated Spring 1947 and Summer 1948, featuring reprints from their Calling All Girls, Real Heroes and True Comics. Fawcett published three issues of Negro Romance, the second issue being reprinted by Charlton as Negro Romances number four, dated June through October 1950 and May 1955 respectively, as well as a series of sports hero comics about 1950 that included short runs of books starring Jackie Robinson and Joe Lewis. White companies also designed and distributed tabloid sized inserts of comics and general interest material to be inserted into black newspapers, but All Negro Comics was not only the first comic of original material to be marketed to blacks, it was the only comic book produced by blacks, and the only comic book featuring black characters in lead heroic roles. After this, with the very obvious exception of several anti-racist EC stories, blacks disappeared from comics except for background in the jungle books, where the day was always saved by white jungle kings. Blacks were never seen in street scenes, never anguished over lost romances or romped in teen aged innocence. Probably the next time a black appeared in a comic book was Spiderman 18, November 1964, where a black cop is depicted. There were exceptions to prove the rule: some romance comics with photo covers used occasional pictures of relatively darker girls, but with straight hair and generally caucasian features, and there’s a solitary black on a mid 1950s Charlton cover about the time they reprinted Negro Romances. Gabe Jones of Sgt Fury’s Howling Commandos debuted with a May 1963 cover date, but in true comicbook fashion, the series depicts integration of the armed services at a time when there was none, while comics in general made no mention of a contemporary issue. Blacks were never seen in their true percentage of the population until after this first appearance in Spiderman. The first silver age black hero, the Black Panther was created by Lee and Kirby and debuted in Fantastic Four 52, July 1966. A series of black history comics were released under the general title of Golden Legacy, between 1966 and 1972. There were sixteen issues published with most titles reprinted in 1976, and again in 1983. The last American edition of Classics Illustrated, number 169 was Negro Americans The Early Years published in 1969. The second issue of All Negro was never published.

Orrin Evans returned to the newspaper business. He was an editor at the Chester Times, and later at the Philadelphia Bulletin, where he worked with Claude Lewis who recently said ‘Orrin had many contacts throughout the city of Philadelphia and the region. He knew the people who were running the city and he knew the people who were at the bottom, and he was equally at ease in either community. He was well liked and well versed and that made him a very valuable person in a newsroom’. During his lifetime Mr Evans was featured in articles in Jet and Ebony magazines. He was a director of the Philadelphia Press Association, and an officer of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia. In 1966 he won the Inter Urban League of Pennsylvania Achievement Award. He covered more National Urban League and NAACP conventions than any other reporter and the month before his death he was honored in a resolution at the annual NAACP convention in Minneapolis and a scholarship was created in his name.

At the time of Mr. Evans’ death Claude Lewis wrote what was well known by Orrin’s friends, that perhaps his greatest strenght was that he hadn‘t been left bitter by past experiences, but always believed that the good in humans would prevail.

Orrin C. Evans’ contribution to the comics industry is important to us today not only because he was the first black publisher, but because he was he was an exceptional intellect from outside the field who saw the great potential in comicbooks as a medium for both entertainment and and education, and who had the determination to see his dreams through to reality.

Sources

Interviews Hope Evans Boyd, George J. Evans Jr, Claude Lewis, George Evans

Article Philadelphia Tribune 15 Feb 77, Pg 21: Orrin Evans, A Black Who Refused to Be Bitter.

Entry In Black and White (reference) Pg 306

Obituary NY Times 8 Aug 7, Pg 58

Obituary Philadelphia Bulletin 8 Aug 71

Charles Lindburg reference is from American Swastika by Charles Higham.

Doubleday Publishers,1985. Garden City, NY. Thank you to John Judge

For this reference

 

REVIEW: ALL NEGRO COMICS Number 1

 

ACE HARLEM by John Terrell opens the book. The story begins early one morning in Pop’s Bar-B-Que Shack ‘before the early morning sharp chicks and smooth studs drift in’. Two jive talking zoot suiters enter and kill Pops while robbing the place. The only witness, a beautiful girl, calls the police and Ace Harlem, famed negro detective is sent to investigate. Ace immediately takes in all the clues and is led to the herb store of ‘Doctor’ Ali Ben, who puts him hot on the trail of the thief, who purchased his good luck root from the ﾔdoctor’. The crooks meanwhile have had a falling out and and the more belligerent, Lizard, has killed the other just as Ace comes upon the scene. Lizard runs, and is pursued. During the confrontation at the top of a rickety flight of steps lizard trips and eventually is strangled in his long watch chain, which was the instrument of death in the previous killings. The story is well written with natural dialogue. Mr Terrell’s art is always competent and often quite forceful in the bold Caniff-like style of the day.

The next strip, the DEW DILLIES by Cooper is an odd one. It’s about…well…these pixies, only one is a mermaid and the other is a young boy…well, they’re all young, really, and later there’s a mean one that’s half alligator, called a goolygator. They’re looking for something to eat, but can’t agree on any of their immediate choices, a clam and a duck, because of the interconnectedness of all life, and settle on a fruitarian feast. The story is a little wordy in an old fashioned manner, but the art is very well designed and executed in a classic children’s book style that would’ve fit well into Animal comics.

EZEKIEL’S MANHUNT a two page text story is next. While a typical boy’s adventure story, it is doubtless the first time in a comic book that a sentence like His white teeth shone against his smooth dark brown skin was applied to the clever young hero who outwits the crazed murderer hiding in the old shack.

LION MAN by George J Evans Jr follows. ‘American born, college educated Lion Man is a young scientist, sent by the United Nations to watch over the fearsome ‘magic mountain’ of the African Gold Coast. Within its crater lies the world’s largest deposit of uranium —enough to make an atom bomb that could destroy the world.’ Lion man is joined by a young orphan, Bubba, who’s just big enough to get in the way. This story concerns Doctor Blut Sangro, an evil figure, and his guide, Brossed the beachcomber in what seems to be the first chapter of an ongoing conflict. The characters are well defined and Mr Evans’ art is simple and realistic, looking influenced by early Alex Raymond.

HEP CHICKS ON PARADE, a page of gag cartoons about overly fashionable women signed LEN is next. The artist delivers a lovely example of 1940’s girlie gags

LIL EGGIE a humor feature about a diminutive husband with wife and money woes fills the next page. John Terell, the Ace Harlem artist checks in with a humorous shortie in a lighter style that would easily fit among the better drawn humor strips of the day.

SUGARFOOT by Cravat completes the book. Sugarfoot and his pal Snake Oil are traveling musicians who this first time out are involved in trying to hustle a meal out of an old farmer, and also hustle his beautiful daughter, Ample. Cravat draws in an energetic cartoony style somewhat like Harvey Kurtzman.

An introductory editorial, a public service announcement warning Crime Does Not Pay and encouraging a strong community through church, education and sports round out the issue along with the promise that the second issue would feature stories of Negro Trailblazers and Sports Heroes.

All Negro Comics # 1 is a good read. More thought went into the stories than I can briefly recap. Ace Harlem works as a detective story, the dialog is realistic and the incidentals of the story, the root doctor and the juke box playing ‘Open the Door Richard’ reflect the culture of the creators, as do Sugarfoot and Hep Chicks. Lion Man, a character surprisingly like Lee and Kirby’s Black Panther,is a well thought out concept, born with a secret laboratory and a pesky junior sidekick and ready for some good ol pulpy jungle action. The book reads and looks pretty much the same as a Fox, Iger or Chesler book of the same time period.

OBITUARY

Cartoonist George J. Evans Jr died in late July 1996 at the Howard Hospital in Maryland.

Mr Evans created the first black comic book hero, Lion Man, for his brother Orrin’s ground breaking All Negro Comics, dated June 1947. Because of their relationship it can be assumed that George J Jr was the first cartoonist that Orrin approached to contribute. George co created Lion Man with his brother and wrote and illustrated the first story, told in a simple, well drawn style reminiscent of early Alex Raymond. Lion Man was described as being American born and college educated and, working under the auspices of the United Nations, he is sent to guard a huge uranium deposit in Africa. He had a secret laboratory hidden in the jungle and a pesky zulu orphan named Bubba for a sidekick and comedy relief. ‘It had never been done before. Lion Man was the black jungle king’, George J Jr said in a recent interview, contrasting his creation with previous characters.

George J Evans Jr was the youngest child of George J Evans Sr and Maude Williams, born 13 March 1911. He is survived by his wife, Ruth Evans, his daughter Pat Sullivan,and two grandchildren. He was a life long resident of the Philadelphia area where his family has lived for generations.

(PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT GEORGE EVANS, THE FICTION HOUSE AND EC ARTIST)

POST SCRIPT / UPDATE

It has been brought to my attention that George J Evans was one of several artists to colaborate on the newspaper strip Why Is It? later in his life. Samples can be found at:

http://www.whyisit.us

 

All text copyright tom christopher

All art, trademarks and character/story copyrights

are assigned to Hope Evans, and the Estate of Orrin C Evans

All trademarks and copyrights are 2003, renewed 2014

All rights reserved