Hello, everybody! I managed to catch only a part of The History Detectives last night, but from what I saw, I thought it would make a good, if short blog.
Back in around 1952 or so, Fawcett Books published Romance Comic Books. To tie in with this trend and capture a whole new audience, a white man named Roy Ald created and wrote "Negro Romance," a series that had runs of 100,000 issues each. But due to poor sales and other pressures of the times, only 3 issues were ever produced. Of special interest was the artist, a young black man named Alvin Hollingsworth, who started working at Fawcett while still in high school. He was a jack-of-all-trades around there, and struck up a friendship with Roy Ald, who gave him the job of drawing Negro Romance.
Alvin Hollingsworth was the first African-American artist to be hired by Fawcett. He left the field of comic books in 1955, and went on to become a reknown painter. His paintings and his life were very integral to the Civil Rights Movement. He also had many showcase displays of his paintings at various museums. He died in 2000.
There was also a bit on journalist Orrin Evans, a white man who created what many consider to be the first black hero in comic books -- "Ace Harlan" (sic?) -- a detective or private eye.
Something I either did not know or long forgot was that in 1932, in the Captain Marvel comics, a black character named Steamboat was introduced. As you can imagine, African-Americans, as well as many white people found this character to be insulting. After years of letters and complaints, Steamboat was dropped from the comic in 1945.
I tell you, The History Detectives has become one of my favorite television shows. I wish I had caught the whole episode. But I guess i can always check it out on the InterNet!
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