What Does It Matter Bun Toons?

ATTENTION:  The rabbit is NOT a Pokemon.  He cannot be caught.

Today’s Bun Toon was the subject of a lengthy, lengthy discussion on my facebook page this week.

What I talk about, I toon about.

While there are folks who MEAN well when they say “All Lives Matter”, they are doing the work of people who want to belittle the black community and silence their cry of alarm.  Whatever you thought you meant by “All Lives Matter”, it’s not coming across as anything but rude jackassery in the face of neighbours who need your help.

If you wouldn’t say it to an ambulance, and you wouldn’t say it to a breast cancer survivor, think about why it’s okay to say it to BLM supports…

Ty The Guy OUT!

---

The history of black characters in comics included some strongly offensive characters in the golden age:

Back in the 40s, The Spirit’s assistant/sidekick “Ebony White” was a character of contrasts:  Besides being a ghastly stereotype visually and verbally, he was a resourceful and brave character.

Marvel’s “Whitewash Jones” (one of the Young Allies Hostages being saved by Bucky and Toro, lower right) was the same sort of offensive visual.  Like Ebony, the character was brave, uneducated and loyal.

In the late 40s, a black journalist named Orrin Cromwell Evans founded “All-Negro Comics” publishing, a venture that lasted only one issue, unfortunately, as he could not get wholesalers to sell him the newsprint he needed to print his books on.

In the late 50s, Dell introduced LOBO, arguably the first mainstream African American comic book hero that wasn’t visually offensive.  Unfortunately, the series didn’t last very long, likely too liberal an idea for the times.

Jackie Johnson, a gunner for Sgt. Rock’s Easy Company, became mainstream comic’s first  continuing character with African heritage in 1960.

Jackie continued to appear as a support character in Sgt. Rock straight through to the 90s, fighting alongside Ice Cream Soldier, Little Sure Shot and Wildman in an integrated platoon that never would have seen action in the real World War II.

Jackie was quickly followed in the early Sixties by Gabe Jones, one of Sgt. Fury’s platoon in the Marvel version of the World War II Sergeant genre.

Ironically, Gabriel Jones and The Young Allies’ Whitewash Jones, were BOTH created by Jack Kirby…who went on to co-create the Black Panther, one of comics coolest heroes ever.

Face Front, true believers!

——————————————————————

(-Thanks to B.C. Holmes and Robert Klarer for the head’s up correction on All-Negro Comics. I’m late, but I correct.)

 

For the last Bun Toon, click here.

For the Bun Toon Archives of years past, click here.

 

 

Joe Kubert Bun Toons. Sigh.

Sgt. Rock…Tarzan…Enemy Ace…Tor…Viking Prince…Hawkman…Punisher…

Joe Kubert.  The last of the Golden Age artists still working at his craft, passed away this week with art yet left to be published on the Before Watchmen comic he’s been inking.

Year after year, his work got bolder, more confident, and more gorgeous with every passing day.  I can’t think of any other artist in any other field who continued to improve as long as he drew breath.   There was never a period of decline.

Now that I’m a teacher of how to make comics, I often think about Joe and the magnificent institution he built known as the Joe Kubert School.  I never went there, but always felt that he taught me a hell of a lot in every conversation I ever had with him.

Thanks for the world you helped make, Mr. Kubert.

Ty the Guy OUT!

Here now, your BONUS Joe Kubert Moments:

The first Joe Kubert artwork I ever saw. This comic belonged to an older brother.

The first Kubert comic I ever owned. I bought this when I was about eight years old, ENTIRELY because of that cover.

————————————————————————————————

For last week’s Bun Toon “Brush with Greatness”, click above.

For every Bun Toon ever, click above.

For a previous blog entry about this very subject, and Mr. Kubert’s advice, click here.

The Convention Sketches Came From My Basement!

A couple of weeks ago, I put together a sketchbook for an open house/gallery show at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop.    (click on Sketchbook by Ty above!)  We printed up a bunch of ’em, and had a dozen or so left over after the event, so we offered up em through our little website here.

Each sketchbook has a first page left intentionally blank, so that I had a space to scribble a doodle and signature and a message for the person getting it at the open house.    I can’t remember what I sketched in those books, as my brain forgets the image as soon as it’s drawn.

But when I did little front-page doodles for the fine folks who ordered copies  through the website, there was a scanner handy.  So I’m posting a bunch of them today.  While you guys are looking at them, I’m busy finishing up a script for Heroes of the North, and designing a giant killer robot for a project I’m doing with a fairly famous pal of mine at a fairly major comic company.  (What a tease I am!)  I’ll keep you posted.

This last sketch below comes with a small story.   On Tuesday I got into a conversation with someone about what is the “right” tool to ink with, and responded with the advice Joe Kubert once said:  “grab anything and use it.  If you need a specific brush or pen,  you’re not making the line, the tool is.”

Within reason, obviously. Kurbert didn't mean for anyone to ink with one of these.

Well, just for the straight up hell of it, I tried inking a sketch with the giant fat marker pictured above.  A really beat up, half dry one, too.  In fact, I searched for the skankiest marker in my studio.  This is what I got.

I wasn’t particularly trying to ape Kubert’s style when I did this, and pulled the Tarzan portrait out of my head, but there’s an eerie hint of Kubert-isms in the final sketch.  I think that’s the secret of Joe’s style.  Ink with the most awful piece of shit tool in your studio, and the constant awareness that you’ll never get a line you’ll like, that you stop looking at each stroke and focus on the whole drawing.

I’m going through the garbage and rescuing all my horrible dead brushes and gnarly markers.  That was fun!    Next sketch I do gets inked with a spray can.  I’ll show Kubert there’s tools you can’t use!

I think we have one or two sketchbooks left.   You’d have to check with my wife by going HERE.

Ty the Guy OUT!

PS:  BIG events at the Toronto Cartoonist Workshop tonight.  I shall speak of them tomorrow.

———————————————————————————–

Here now, a BONUS sketchbook page, left out of the printed collection for space.   I learned to draw the WildCATS: Animated style from back in the 90s…