“Negro America’s Favorite Cartoonist” – that’s what Langston Hughes called Ollie Harrington, whose cartoons and comic strips were a staple of America’s Black newspapers for decades starting in the 1930s. In his single-panel series “Dark Laughter,” Harrington brought out the vibrancy of Harlem life in its day, while serving some cutting looks at the politics of the time.
At the heart of “Dark Laughter” is Bootsie, a cunning, conning, girl-chasing ne’er-do-well who is nonetheless beloved in his Harlem community… if often reluctantly. Bootsie is both the victim of the world’s troubles and a frequent cause of them for others.
Here’s a collection of prime cartoons from the mid-1950s, drawn with the detailed joy that only Ol Harrington (who also worked as Oliver W. Harrington) could bring, finally available to a larger audience.
- Paperback : 155 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1949996352
- ISBN-13 : 978-1949996357
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.5 x 0.35 x 11 inches
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Before Pete Tumlinson drew the early adventures of Marvel’s Kid Colt, Outlaw, he created this wild romp of a strip that was published in papers throughout the United States.
Every comics writer brings their own style to their script, and here you’ll find nine example scripts from writers of comics and graphic novels. See how Mark Waid writes a crime tale, Eric Shanower writes an Age of Bronze script for himself to follow, Bryan Talbot writes one for a fellow artist. You also get Mark Verheiden showing a script for his own superpowered hero The American, The Men In Black creator Lowell Cunningham writing a new concept, Watchmen editor Barbara Randall Kesel writing an all-ages short story, and Professor R. Alan Brooks showing a brief tale from his Burning Metronome series. Most of the scripts are introduced by the writers, like Ryan Estrada telling how he and Kim Hyun Sook co-wrote the script for a chapter of their acclaimed Banned Book Club, or Shaenon Garrity explaining how she uses both script and thumbnails when writing her The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor graphic novel, and more. A great tool for aspiring comics writers and artists alike!
, who provides “unsolicited advice on how not to play bridge.”
Speck is the ultimate altar boy, half holy, half hellion, well-intentioned but oh, so distractible. Some of us remember dealing with him, others of us remember being him.
The great Sergio Aragonés, during the early years of his fifty-plus-and-still-counting career at Mad Magazine, also created this book of cartoons focused on a female sexual predator, a woman who does not let things like appropriateness and consent get in her way.
in print and for Kindle