Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Dec 4, 2014 16:34:25 GMT -6
Cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr., creator of the comic strip Luther, died Nov. 31 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 87. Luther, which ran from 1968 to 1986, was one of the first comic strips to feature a cast of black characters, and like its fellow strips Quincy and Wee Pals, those characters were children. However, Luther had a bit more bite: It was set in a poor, inner-city neighborhood (modeled on the Benning Road area of Washington, D.C.) and featured characters with names like Hardcore (as in hard-core unemployed), Oreo and Lily (who’s white); the title character was named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The characters often discussed racial issues in a blunt way, and one strip sounds as if it could have been written yesterday: Oreo chides Hardcore for being late to school, saying, “You would have been on time if you had run!” Hardcore replies, “I couldn’t, Oreo, there was a cop standing there. And you know what they do when they see us running.”
Brandon grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a porter at Union Station, and studied art at New York University. He served in occupied Germany during World War II and later worked at a number of jobs while drawing cartoons at night, until Luther was picked up by the Long Island, New York, newspaper Newsday. Two years later the Times Mirror corporation bought the paper and syndicated the comic nationwide. Brandon’s daughter Barbara Brandon-Croft is also a cartoonist.
www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/arts/design/brumsic-brandon-jr-creator-of-luther-comic-strip-dies-at-87.html?_r=0
Brumsic Brandon Jr., the creator of “Luther,” one of the first nationally syndicated comic strips to feature a mainly black cast of characters, died on Friday in Cocoa Beach, Fla. He was 87.
The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said Barbara Brandon-Croft, his daughter, who followed her father’s path in 1986 by becoming, by many accounts, the first nationally syndicated female African-American cartoonist.
Mr. Brandon’s gently satirical comic strip, syndicated from 1968 to 1986, chronicled the exploits of Luther, a wide-eyed African-American third grader, and his friends in a ghetto neighborhood not unlike the Benning Road section of northeast Washington, where Mr. Brandon grew up.
It was one of a handful of black-themed comic strips that began appearing in daily newspapers in the United States during the late 1960s, when many publishers began to acknowledge that minority views had been excluded from, among other places, mainstream comics pages.
Like “Wee Pals,” by Morrie Turner, and “Quincy,” by Ted Shearer, which featured multicultural casts in a middle-class milieu, Mr. Brandon’s “Luther” portrayed the racial divide from a child’s perspective.
Photo
"Luther," syndicated from 1968 to 1986, chronicled the exploits of Luther, a wide-eyed African-American third grader. Credit Brumsic Brandon Jr.
Unlike those strips, “Luther” was about a gang of kids who lived in a poor urban neighborhood. They included streetwise characters like Hardcore (as in the hard-core unemployed, his creator once said) and his female counterpart, Mary Frances, sometimes known by her initials; Oreo, whose name is slang for a kind of obsequious striver said to be black on the outside but white on the inside; and Lily, a white regular in the group.
Luther, named for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was the deadpan observer who often gave the comic strip its bite.
“Open housing,” Luther remarked in one strip, starring up at a gaping hole in the ceiling of a run-down apartment.
The same wry perspective informed most of his observations about the perils of growing up black in America — whether the indignities were inflicted by whites, like his never-seen third-grade teacher, “Miss Backlash,” or by fellow blacks, whose most stinging rebuke, by Luther’s account, was to call another black person an Uncle Tom.
Mr. Brandon considered himself less a commentator than a reporter, chronicling a cultural landscape that was largely unfamiliar to white audiences in the early days of “Luther,” before network television started presenting black-themed sitcoms like “Sanford and Son” and “Good Times” in the 1970s.
“My objective, in my comic strip, was to bring to light not only the long-ignored ‘black perspective,’ ” he told Contemporary Authors Online in 2001, “but the many various philosophical postures found therein.”
Some of those perspectives resonate still. In one four-panel strip from the 1970s, Oreo scolds Hardcore for arriving late to school and receiving detention. “You would have been on time if you had run!” she snaps.
“I couldn’t, Oreo, there was a cop standing there,” Hardcore replies, his hands outstretched for sympathy. “And you know what they do when they see us running.”
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Mr. Brandon was born in Washington on April 10, 1927, the second of five children of Brumsic Brandon Sr., a porter at Union Station, and Pearl Brooks Brandon, a homemaker. His early interest in art and cartooning was encouraged by his parents and a high school art teacher. He began submitting cartoon ideas to local newspapers as a teenager.
He studied art at New York University for a short time and then was drafted into the Army and served in occupied Germany for two years after World War II before resettling in New York. With a young family, Mr. Brandon worked days in a variety of jobs through most of the 1950s and ’60s, drawing his cartoons at night.
In 1968 Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, introduced “Luther” to its readers, and to subscribers of a small syndication service it owned. In 1970, when Times Mirror bought Newsday, it began syndicating the strip among hundreds of newspapers across the country.
Mr. Brandon published six “Luther” collections from 1969 to 1976. He also appeared on a local children’s television show on WPIX in New York hosted by Joya Sherrill, a former vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, from 1970 to 1972. As “Mr. B. B.,” he basically played himself on the show, standing at an easel and demonstrating drawing techniques. It was shown in reruns until 1982.
“Luther” ended its syndication in 1986. (That same year, The Detroit Free Press began distributing Ms. Brandon-Croft’s comic strip, “Where I’m Coming From,” which ran until 2005.) Mr. Brandon later wrote a column and drew editorial cartoons for Florida Today, a Gannett newspaper.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Brandon is survived by his wife of 64 years, Rita; another daughter, Linda; and a son, Brumsic Brandon III; as well as three grandchildren, two brothers and a sister.
The family was never sure where the name Brumsic came from, Ms. Brandon-Croft said in an interview. According to one account, it was a bastardization of Brunswick, though she said that was never confirmed. “What’s sure is that my brother decided to be the last Brumsic,” she said. “It’s too hard growing up with a name like that.”
Brumsic Brandon III, she said, named his son Niles.
Brandon grew up in Washington, D.C., the son of a porter at Union Station, and studied art at New York University. He served in occupied Germany during World War II and later worked at a number of jobs while drawing cartoons at night, until Luther was picked up by the Long Island, New York, newspaper Newsday. Two years later the Times Mirror corporation bought the paper and syndicated the comic nationwide. Brandon’s daughter Barbara Brandon-Croft is also a cartoonist.
www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/arts/design/brumsic-brandon-jr-creator-of-luther-comic-strip-dies-at-87.html?_r=0
Brumsic Brandon Jr., the creator of “Luther,” one of the first nationally syndicated comic strips to feature a mainly black cast of characters, died on Friday in Cocoa Beach, Fla. He was 87.
The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said Barbara Brandon-Croft, his daughter, who followed her father’s path in 1986 by becoming, by many accounts, the first nationally syndicated female African-American cartoonist.
Mr. Brandon’s gently satirical comic strip, syndicated from 1968 to 1986, chronicled the exploits of Luther, a wide-eyed African-American third grader, and his friends in a ghetto neighborhood not unlike the Benning Road section of northeast Washington, where Mr. Brandon grew up.
It was one of a handful of black-themed comic strips that began appearing in daily newspapers in the United States during the late 1960s, when many publishers began to acknowledge that minority views had been excluded from, among other places, mainstream comics pages.
Like “Wee Pals,” by Morrie Turner, and “Quincy,” by Ted Shearer, which featured multicultural casts in a middle-class milieu, Mr. Brandon’s “Luther” portrayed the racial divide from a child’s perspective.
Photo
"Luther," syndicated from 1968 to 1986, chronicled the exploits of Luther, a wide-eyed African-American third grader. Credit Brumsic Brandon Jr.
Unlike those strips, “Luther” was about a gang of kids who lived in a poor urban neighborhood. They included streetwise characters like Hardcore (as in the hard-core unemployed, his creator once said) and his female counterpart, Mary Frances, sometimes known by her initials; Oreo, whose name is slang for a kind of obsequious striver said to be black on the outside but white on the inside; and Lily, a white regular in the group.
Luther, named for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was the deadpan observer who often gave the comic strip its bite.
“Open housing,” Luther remarked in one strip, starring up at a gaping hole in the ceiling of a run-down apartment.
The same wry perspective informed most of his observations about the perils of growing up black in America — whether the indignities were inflicted by whites, like his never-seen third-grade teacher, “Miss Backlash,” or by fellow blacks, whose most stinging rebuke, by Luther’s account, was to call another black person an Uncle Tom.
Mr. Brandon considered himself less a commentator than a reporter, chronicling a cultural landscape that was largely unfamiliar to white audiences in the early days of “Luther,” before network television started presenting black-themed sitcoms like “Sanford and Son” and “Good Times” in the 1970s.
“My objective, in my comic strip, was to bring to light not only the long-ignored ‘black perspective,’ ” he told Contemporary Authors Online in 2001, “but the many various philosophical postures found therein.”
Some of those perspectives resonate still. In one four-panel strip from the 1970s, Oreo scolds Hardcore for arriving late to school and receiving detention. “You would have been on time if you had run!” she snaps.
“I couldn’t, Oreo, there was a cop standing there,” Hardcore replies, his hands outstretched for sympathy. “And you know what they do when they see us running.”
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
Mr. Brandon was born in Washington on April 10, 1927, the second of five children of Brumsic Brandon Sr., a porter at Union Station, and Pearl Brooks Brandon, a homemaker. His early interest in art and cartooning was encouraged by his parents and a high school art teacher. He began submitting cartoon ideas to local newspapers as a teenager.
He studied art at New York University for a short time and then was drafted into the Army and served in occupied Germany for two years after World War II before resettling in New York. With a young family, Mr. Brandon worked days in a variety of jobs through most of the 1950s and ’60s, drawing his cartoons at night.
In 1968 Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, introduced “Luther” to its readers, and to subscribers of a small syndication service it owned. In 1970, when Times Mirror bought Newsday, it began syndicating the strip among hundreds of newspapers across the country.
Mr. Brandon published six “Luther” collections from 1969 to 1976. He also appeared on a local children’s television show on WPIX in New York hosted by Joya Sherrill, a former vocalist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, from 1970 to 1972. As “Mr. B. B.,” he basically played himself on the show, standing at an easel and demonstrating drawing techniques. It was shown in reruns until 1982.
“Luther” ended its syndication in 1986. (That same year, The Detroit Free Press began distributing Ms. Brandon-Croft’s comic strip, “Where I’m Coming From,” which ran until 2005.) Mr. Brandon later wrote a column and drew editorial cartoons for Florida Today, a Gannett newspaper.
In addition to his daughter, Mr. Brandon is survived by his wife of 64 years, Rita; another daughter, Linda; and a son, Brumsic Brandon III; as well as three grandchildren, two brothers and a sister.
The family was never sure where the name Brumsic came from, Ms. Brandon-Croft said in an interview. According to one account, it was a bastardization of Brunswick, though she said that was never confirmed. “What’s sure is that my brother decided to be the last Brumsic,” she said. “It’s too hard growing up with a name like that.”
Brumsic Brandon III, she said, named his son Niles.