§ July 30th, 2005 § Filed under racial sensitivity Comments Off on More Racial Sensitivity in Comic Books

This is from an old WWII-era coverless comic I had floating around the house…I believe it’s an issue of
Animal Comics. It’s missing a couple of the interior pages, so all I have is the splash panel of the story (pictured above) and the two panels that follow:

Beyond the Indians getting the short end of the stick —
again — isn’t that a grotesque drawing of a dog? That’s not a funny animal…that’s a
disturbing animal.
§ September 29th, 2004 § Filed under newspaper strips, racial sensitivity Comments Off on More racial sensitivity in comic books.
Big Chief Wahoo #7 (Winter 1943/44?)
Man, early comic books were always sticking it to our Native American friends. Though, given how comics also treated Blacks and Asians, I suppose no one should be terribly surprised. At least in this instance Big Chief Wahoo was the star of the strip, but was still saddled with stereotypical Indian dialogue (“ugh” and “how” and “-um”s).
Lots more information on this remarkably non-politically correct character can be found at the excellent Toonopedia. This comic book is actually a collection of reprints of a comic strip, and as much as I like old strips, I am woefully uninformed regarding them. Therefore, it comes as a surprise to learn in that Toonopedia article that the Big Chief Wahoo strip, which was originally The Great Gusto, eventually became Steve Roper and Mike Nomad!
And, just for the heck of it, here are some Big Chief Wahoo gum packages.