African Americans and Comic Strips

Name:

Lecturer:

Course:

Date:

African Americans and Comic Strips

The images of African Americans in little magnolia comic strip in the review by Angela Nelson, “African Americans in Comic Strips”, appear to be too stereotypical. This is because they are based on the notion that black fathers do not understand their daughters. In the little magnolia comic strip, the daughter is secretly confiding with the mother that she believes her father does not understand her. Although this is supposed to be humorous, the underlying notion being purported by the comic strip is that black fathers do not get along well with their daughters. There is another instance where the father tends to play a trick on the daughter; the intention is to prove to the mother that the daughter is not intelligent. However, although the daughter disapproves the father’s notion the underlying notion is that black fathers still do not understand their daughters.

The swing papa comic strip by Quinn and Shaw is more realistic than other comics of its kind. The comic strip tells of the lives of a more urbanized black man. The scenes are realistic, because the urbanized and sophisticated black men tend to have an ego, and thus are often chased by the women as opposed to the usual norm where the men are supposed to seduce women. In the comic strip, we find the black man overly composed in the presence of a beautiful young woman. In the comic strip, we find the man being uninterested in the beautiful women and even brushing her off by saying that he has grown accustomed to flattery from attractive girls that it no longer catches his attention. His actions even lead to the woman referring to him as a “gay boy” and offers a ride to the man and in the process takes on a more masculine role. In contrast, this also tends to portray the underlying stereotype that black ladies are mainly masculine and tend to lose their feminism. This is evidenced in the way the young women tends to woe the black man in the comic strip.

Response to Student #1, Jasmine Spratling

Jasmine Spratling’s response on the depiction of African Americans on comic strips is interestingly correct and to the point. Her illustration of the portrayal of black Americans in comic strips having overly enlarged noses and lips is very evident in many comic strips. For instance, in the little magnolia comic strip, the father is drawn having a very large and nose and lips. This reflects on the stereotype that black Americans usually exhibit facial features of having large lips and noses. The dressing of the mother and the child is highly typical and realistic because the mother dresses in a more conservative manner common to most of the African American mothers.

Response to Student #2, Zachery Gase

Zachery Chase is right in his analysis of Mama’s Boyz comic strips. The comic strip is particularly peculiar because it is more of an informative comic strip than the usual comic strips that are based on tragedies, family issues or general humor. The agenda behind the comic strip is informing the public on the various pandemics that plague the community. The issues highlighted in the comic strips include information on Aids and Diabetes. The era depicting the old comics was mainly characterized by issues of racism, oppression and inequality. This indicates that the comics from the 1920’s were mainly realistic since they tend to highlight these issues, especially the ones on racism.