Minority Comic Strip Artists Strike

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

From the politics of the primaries to the politics of the funny pages, many of us go the comics section first thing when we get our newspapers. I'll cop to that. If you did that yesterday, you may have noticed something different. This Sunday, a group of minority comic artists banded together to stage a printed sit-in. They were protesting what they see as a bias against comic artists of color.

Cory Thomas, the man behind the comic strip "Watch Your Head," is one of the artists responsible for the action. He's here with us in the studio in Washington. We're also joined by Amy Lago. She's comics editor at Cory's syndication group, The Washington Post Writers Group, and she's here with me too.

Welcome. Thank you for coming.

Ms. AMY LAGO (Syndication Editor): Good morning.

Mr. CORY THOMAS (Comic Strip Artist, "Watch Your Head"): Thanks for having me here.

MARTIN: Cory, let me begin with you. Explain what it is that you were trying to accomplish with your - what did you call it? A draw-in, or what?

Ms. LAGO: I call it a sit-in, but…

Mr. THOMAS: I'll just call it a statement.

MARTIN: A statement. What were you trying to accomplish, and tell us what you did for those who didn't see it?

MR. THOMAS: Okay. What a lot of us has found is that when people look at our cartoons, they don't really see beyond the surface of it. All they see is that they seek your primarily your minority characters or whatever. And they get categorized as just black strips or Asian strips or Latino strips, so that when the process goes through of trying to decide what goes in the paper, a lot of us face the situation where editors say, well, okay. We already have this black strip, or we already have this other strip that we don't need what you're offering.

They don't look beneath the surface to see what are the strips about, what is the sensibility of this strip, what style of humorous it - does it have anything that anyone can relate to. And so, I just kind of made something - made a strip kind of lampooning that fact, and kind of trying to bring that to the attention of people. And we gathered together as many minority cartoonists as we could to kind of play on that fact and bring it to the page.

MARTIN: How did the strip play out? What was the joke, or whatever, for those who didn't see it?

Mr. THOMAS: There was, well, there's a guy in the bench and - a park bench complaining about the newspaper that he's reading, and he's complaining about this minority strip that's in his paper. And it's pretty much - he considers it just a rip-off of "The Boondocks," you know, in his assessment. And he wishes that the comic pages where full of things that everyone can enjoy. But in effect, what he was really saying is that he wishes it was something that he could enjoy, because he can't really appreciate what this strip was trying to offer.

MARTIN: Okay. Amy, do you think that Cory has a point?

Ms. LAGO: Sure. I wouldn't have supported this if I didn't think so. We already know that - we did a survey back in June, and we found out after surveying 1,400 newspapers that only 330 run minority comic strips. So you're talking…

MARTIN: Any minority comic strips.

Ms. LAGO: Right. With lead characters who are minorities or and/or done by minority cartoonists. So we already know that 75 percent of the papers don't even run it. Their pages are white or animals. So there's a bias out there, even if it's not discriminatory. I'm not saying it's discrimination. There is a bias. Part of the bias has to do where there is a lot of old stuff out there. There - you know, we're still running "Peanuts" reruns, and Charles Schulz has been dead, you know - I was his last editor, but even I will admit, newspapers were about news. And running reruns of strips that are 10 and 40 years old are just - it's not news anymore.

MARTIN: Cory, how do you know that the issue is that the editors are - just pigeon hole the strips, or that they just think that their readers like these legacy strips so much that they just don' want to rock their boat?

Mr. THOMAS: I mean, I think it's a combination of the two, because for any new cartoonist trying to get into the newspaper, it's hard. It's a difficult business to get into. So, none of us are trying to say that it should be easy for us, or anything like that. But, all we're saying is that this is kind of an additional hurdle that adds an extra degree of difficulty to us getting into the paper - when it's like we're pitted against each other for like a single spot, or maybe two spots.

MARTIN: There can only be one.

Mr. THOMAS: Pretty much.

MARTIN: You're assume to all have the same thing to say.

Mr. THOMAS: Exactly. When all of us have different things to say. All of us have different - they're as varied as any other white strips that are out there. No one is comparing "Zits" to "Prince Valiant," nobody is comparing "Peanuts" to the - for the "Dick Tracy" or anything. So, all we're saying is, don't compare us to each other unless we're actually alike. Don't have us competing for the same minority spot. Have us compete with the larger pool, and therefore reject us on the basis of that, and I'm willing to accept that.

MARTIN: Amy, you said you supported the action. Does that mean that you could've prevented these strips from being published if you felt that this was not appropriate, or…

Ms. LAGO: Yes, actually. I do. I can tell my cartoonists - we can't print that. Something like this, I wouldn't do that, cause this is Cory's experience, this is what, you know, he's been pitted against. And the only objection I had when the strip came in was that it resembled "Candorville" a lot. The set up, the setting. And when I talked to Cory about it, he said, well yeah, that's the point. And so I said, well, I have to run this by Darren(ph), and that's when this whole thing snowballed and they all got together and talked… Darren and Cory got together and talked to the other cartoonists. Any feedback from editors of some of these papers? (Unintelligible) what they run and don't run?

Ms. LAGO: We haven't had feedback from editors, and we sent them an alert - well ahead of time. We've seen a lot of feedback from readers - a lot of blog feedback.

MARTIN: What do they say?

Ms. LAGO: Some people support it and others… It's like anything, you know? When you try and point an injustice, people will say - there's no injustice, here, quit whining. And other people will say - yeah, there's absolutely an injustice. And my feeling is, let's just make people aware of what's going on and try and see things through other people's eyes - because that's how understanding happens.

MARTIN: I understand, Cory, that you got support from some of your white colleagues on the page - on the comics page - who reached out to you to say, you know, I think you have a point. Were you surprised by that?

Mr. THOMAS: I wasn't surprised by it. I think that anyone that - well, not anyone - but I think people that look at the situation objectively are going to recognize that there's an issue. So…

MARTIN: Yeah, but it's competition. I mean, you add one strip, you generally lose one. I mean, space is the one thing they're generally not making more of.

Mr. THOMAS: I think what I've found, generally among cartoonists, there's a certain degree of good will, a certain sense of fraternity, you know? Even though we're competing for the same places, I think… I've found that people generally have each other's backs, generally speaking. So, it didn't surprise me that much.

MARTIN: There was an historical reason for choosing, yesterday, the stage or… I still want a fun name for what it is. A sit in doesn't do it for me. Write in, draw in, sketch in…

Mr. THOMAS: You could call it a draw in.

MARTIN: Sketch in. Sketch in. So what was the reason you picked yesterday?

Mr. THOMAS: Well, we wanted to do it on a Sunday, and it was the closest that we could find to February 14th, which is the birthday of Oliver Harrington(ph), who's kind of a pioneer of African American cartoonists. So, we just wanted to find a significant date, and that was the closest we could find to his birthday - so…

MARTIN: Amy, the irony is, that because many of these newspapers only carry one strip, you , as a reader - unless you knew about it or read about it - get the visual message that was intended.

Ms. LAGO: That's true. The only good news is that a lot of strips are carrying online now. So if you're an avid reader of the online sites, you will catch it. But, that's the other sad thing, is six percent of the newspapers run two or more. So you're not making quite the affective statement you wanted…

MARTIN: Which is something sometimes, that cartoonists all choose to sit on Christmas, for example, or on Veteran's Day. For example, in recent years, a number of artists have chosen to acknowledge those days by sort of doing a combined - a sort of a theme.

Talk to me, though, about the influence of the online viewing or reading experience. Do you think that opens up more opportunity for more artists to be seen? If you don't if they exist, how do you know to look for them? On the other hand, you know, people experience news and content in all kinds of ways. What do you think?

Ms. LAGO: Yeah, I think online has - it has allowed things to become viral instead of taking slower - taking its time to get across - the message across, we're already hitting the Internet, and people know about it. The newspapers, as you say, don't have as much space. So it is harder for them, whereas online - actually, a lot of newspapers like the Washington Post and Seattle, Houston, they run - additional strips besides what they run on the newspapers.

MARTIN: So, Cory, what do you think, after all is said is done? Do you feel that you made a difference? And do you have any further plans for another sketch in?

Mr. THOMAS: I don't know if we'll be able to tell how big a difference we've made so soon afterwards, but at least the people that have been aware of it, at least it's generated some kind of discussion. And I don't, honestly, expect any kind of great, massive change any time soon. But hopefully, it'll - the discussion will continue throughout the years and maybe help someone further down line, you know, as opposed to us directly. But hopefully, it helps us, too, of course.

MARTIN: Well, tell people a little bit - and we only have about 30 seconds left, but tell people a little bit about "Watch Your Head."

Mr. THOMAS: It's a strip about six friends, six or seven friends going to a university, and it's about them - well, it's a primarily black university. It's about them growing up and going into adulthood and just learning about life and friendship and just the things that they go through.

MARTIN: The things that a lot of people go through. All right.

Mr. THOMAS: Roommates, everything.

Ms. LAGO: Exactly.

MARTIN: Cory Thomas is the creator of a comic strip, "Watch Your Head." He joined us here in our studios in Washington. We were also joined by Amy Lagos. She's comics editor at the Washington Post Writers Group. Thank you both so much for coming in.

Ms. LAGO: You're welcome. Thanks.

Mr. THOMAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.