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@feenyreadscomics

Name is Feeny. This is a sideblog. Main is feenyxblue. mid 20s. Icon is taken from the current run of Daredevil yes that is Foggy Nelson on a bi flag. Header is made by inkforhumanhands, who is graciously letting me use it.

“why doesn’t anyone in this fictional media see a mental health professional” because therapy scenes are mostly ass. now i’m gonna write someone going to bad therapy and getting worse

Jackie Ormes, the first Black American woman cartoonist

When the 14-year-old Black American boy Emmett Till was lynched in 1955, one cartoonist responded in a single-panel comic. It showed one Black girl telling another: “I don’t want to seem touchy on the subject… but that new little white tea-kettle just whistled at me!”

It may not seem radical today, but penning such a political cartoon was a bold and brave statement for its time — especially for the artist who was behind it. This cartoon was drawn by Jackie Ormes, the first syndicated Black American woman cartoonist to be published in a newspaper. Ormes, who grew up in Pittsburgh, got her first break as cartoonist as a teenager. She started working for the Pittsburgh Courier as a sports reporter, then editor, then cartoonist who penned her first comic, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, in 1937. It followed a Mississippi teen who becomes a famous singer at the famed Harlem jazz club, The Cotton Club.

In 1942, Ormes moved to Chicago, where she drew her most popular cartoon, Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, which followed two sisters who made sharp political commentary on Black American life. 

In 1947, Ormes created the Patty-Jo doll, the first Black doll that wasn’t a mammy doll or a Topsy-Turvy doll. In production for a decade, it was a role model for young black girls. "The doll was a fashionable, beautiful character,“ says Daniel Schulman, who curated one of the dolls into a recent Chicago exhibition. “It had an extraordinary presence and power — they’re collected today and have important place in American doll-making in the U.S.”

In 1950, Ormes drew her final strip, Torchy in Heartbeats, which followed an independent, stylish black woman on the quest for love — who commented on racism in the South. “Torchy was adventurous, we never saw that with an Black American female figure,” says Beauchamp-Byrd. “And remember, this is the 1950s.“ Ormes was the first to portray black women as intellectual and socially-aware in a time when they were depicted in a derogatory way.

One common mistake that erased Ormes from history is mis-crediting Barbara Brandon-Croft as the first nationally syndicated Black American female cartoonist. “I’m just the first mainstream cartoonist, I’m not the first at all,” says Brandon-Croft, who published her cartoons in the Detroit Free Press in the 1990s. “So much of Black history has been ignored, it’s a reminder that Black history shouldn’t just be celebrated in February.”

Underrated 90s anti-hero from the original Marvel 2099 setting was The Public Enemy, whose schtick was that in addition to killing all the usual bad guys he would also just kill random civilians for their inaction in the face of obvious injustice. (This in the context of his parents having been hauled off by eugenics cops while the neighbors just watched.) Hero for our times

The guy was introduced as an antagonist for Punisher 2099, basically as a logical extrapolation of who exactly the buck stops with if you take the Punisher's moral logic to its ultimate conclusion. His first appearance ends with a mob of civilian bystanders finally getting their shit together and beating him to death and he dies happy, considering this a victory

The Origin Story of Rhinoceress

Cindy Shears used to be an ordinary girl until one day, she discovered her superpowers. However, her family were not happy about it so they took her in to be studied by Doctor Kavita Rao. She discovered a DNA variance unique to Cindy and suggested her parents leave Cindy in her care until a cure could be found. Abandoned and locked up, Cindy used her super strength to break out and become the Rhinoceress. While she does engage in some illegal work as a super villain, she also bartends and bounces at the Invisible Light nightclub.

  • Avengers Academy: Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic #34, 2025

Okay, I love her. Especially telling Klaw his vibes are bad, but also the “legally distinct from the x gene”

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