Cartoonists Plan Protest of Racial Grouping in Newspapers

The St. Petersburg Times reports that on Feb. 10, a group of notable black cartoonists will be running variations of the same joke in each of their comic strips in order to shed light on a perceived "lumping together" of cartoonists by ethnicity. With many newspapers looking to shake up their format by making changes to the comics section, many of the creators involved in the protest argue that their strips are only included at the expense of other strips created by people of color. This is due to an unwritten rule in the newspaper industry prohibiting more than a certain number of "ethnic" strips in a single issue, the creators claim.

According to The Times:

"…each of them will draw the same strip featuring their own characters – a joke about how readers and some newspaper editors see their work as interchangeable, simply because of the ethnicity of the characters they draw."

Creators named as participants in the protest include Darrin Bell (Candorville), Charlos Gary (Cafe con Leche and Working It Out), Cory Thomas (Watch Your Head), Stephen Bentley (Herb and Jamaal), Jerry Craft (Mama’s Boyz), Stephen Watkins (Housebroken), editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson and Keith Knight (K-Chronicles).