RESURRECTION IN SEPIA: RE-DISCOVERING THE LIFE AND WORKS OF JACKIE ORMES
By Steve Bunche
The history of American comics art is replete with tales of creative people whose influential work was often marked by the unscrupulous business practices of their employers or their groundbreaking efforts being hampered by the social and political climate of their time, sometimes resulting in careers being shattered outright or relegated to undeserved obscurity.
One such talent was Jackie Ormes (1911-1985), a commercial illustrator and comic strip artist who is notable not only for being the first female African-American cartoonist to break into an industry famous for being a “boy’s club,” but also for her outspoken political sentiments and air of sharply-intelligent, glamorous style.
Helming strips such as From Dixie to Harlem, Torchy Smith, Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger and Candy for various black-oriented publications including The Pittsburgh Courier and The Chicago Defender from the late-1930’s through the 1950’s, Ormes’ work defiantly flew in the face of American society’s perception of blacks in general and women of color in particular by offering a direct, intelligent counterpoint to the myriad mush-mouthed “mammy” types prevalent in media depictions up through the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. While providing readers with the kind of entertainment familiar to comics readers of her day, Ormes filled her work with pointed commentary on race issues, the arms buildup, and environmental concerns, subjects barely addressed in mainstream papers at all, much less by a black woman.
Rarely seen by non-black audiences, Ormes’ body of work has been unearthed and fascinatingly chronicled in author Nancy Goldstein’s Jackie Ormes: The First African-American Woman Cartoonist (Univ. of Michigan, 2008), a volume loaded with biographical/historical information and examples of the artist’s numerous comic strips. Goldstein’s pop culture archaeology yields an illuminating look back at an era where exclusionism, both in terms of ethnicity and gender, were the norm and the work of a creative force like Ormes was not only revolutionary but also a wakeup call to an America too mired in its status quo to accept or understand what was going on within its socially-restrictive confines.
Ahead of her time and a relevant, Inspirational figure today, the legacy or Jackie Ormes bears close consideration and we have Goldstein’s research to thank for rescuing it from obscurity.
Steve Bunche is a writer living in New York City.