One pioneering comics artist produced another, a daughter who writes about the lives of black women.
by Rich Watson
You may not know the name Barbara Brandon-Croft, but in recent years her cartoon work has gained attention. Her strip Where I’m Coming From strives to tell the truth about black women, their triumphs and struggles, like no other strip has before.
She got her talent from her father, another noteworthy black comics artist.
Black comics
At one point during my years in comics, I wrote an online column devoted to black comic books and strips. This led to my long association with a convention in Philadelphia devoted exclusively to black comics.
I made a number of friends there who I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I like to think I contributed to the notoriety of a few artists as a result. It was a very gratifying period of my time within the larger comics industry.
I learned a great deal, not only about black comics artists such as Kyle Baker, Keith Knight, Jerry Craft and Aaron McGruder, but older ones, such as Brandon-Croft.
Where I’m Coming From
At some point I bought BBC’s collection, first published in 1993, of her strip Where I’m Coming From (as Barbara Brandon). It’s about a group of black women sharing their laughter and pain with each other and the readership, not unlike a Tyler Perry movie.
Originally, WICF ran in the Detroit Free Press beginning in 1989. Two years later, it achieved national syndication, making BBC the first black female cartoonist to reach that goal.
Artistically, WICF draws a comparison to the work of Jules Feiffer, but it’s very much BBC’s own. We don’t see more of the characters than their heads (and occasionally their arms and hands), but each one’s hair is distinctive and individual: straight, curly, dreadlocked, in a variety of styles. If you saw the Chris Rock documentary Good Hair, you know there’s a long, long history associated with black women’s hair, one with political, cultural and sociological implications.
BBC’s characters embody that history well, in a lighthearted fashion. Reading WICF is like sitting in a beauty salon listening to the customers and stylists gossip and rap about life with each other.
It’s a fashion BBC inherited from her father.
Like father, like daughter: Brumsic Brandon Jr.
Brumsic Brandon Jr. was an active cartoonist beginning in the fifties, particularly within the black media. His work commented on the growing civil rights movement.
Following in the footsteps of Morrie Turner, whose strip Wee Pals achieved syndication in 1965, Brandon Jr. debuted a similar strip, Luther, with the Long Island newspaper Newsday, in 1968–the year of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Like Wee Pals, Luther examined race relations from a kids’ perspective. Two years later, a change of newspaper ownership led to national syndication for the strip.
Locally, Brandon Jr. appeared on the seventies children’s show Joya’s Fun School (as “Mr. BB”), drawing cartoons.
He and his wife Rita had three children; Barbara was born in 1958.
Luther ran until Brandon Jr.’s retirement in 1986. He died in 2014.
Brandon-Croft in recent years
Recently, BBC has gained more attention.
Her work has been exhibited in 2020, in New York (with her father), in 2022, at Ohio State University (home of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum), and in 2024 at the University of California-Davis (also with her father).
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Are you familiar with Barbara Brandon-Croft? Leave a comment and let me know!
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