Morrie Turner, a cartoonist who broke the color barrier twice — as the first African-American comic strip artist whose work was widely syndicated in mainstream newspapers, and as the creator of the first syndicated strip with a racially and ethnically mixed cast of characters — died on Saturday in Sacramento. He was 90.
The cause was complications of kidney disease, said David Bellard, a family spokesman.
Mr. Turner’s comic strip “Wee Pals,” featuring childhood playmates who were white, black, Asian, Hispanic and Jewish (joined in later years by a girl in a wheelchair and a deaf girl), was considered subversive in 1965, when a major syndicate first offered it to newspapers.
Only two or three of the hundreds of newspapers in the syndicate picked it up. By early 1968, there were five. But of the many changes that occurred after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that April and the urban uprisings it started, some of the first appeared in the nation’s funny papers.
Thirty newspapers began subscribing to Mr. Turner’s comic strip in the first 30 days after the assassination; within a few months the number had swelled to 100. “Suddenly everybody was interested in me,” he told a public access television interviewer in 2010.
Later in 1968, the black artist Brumsic Brandon Jr. created his comic strip “Luther,” about a 9-year-old boy growing up in the ghetto. It, too, found a wide audience in newspaper syndication.
“You can imagine how I felt,” Mr. Turner said, referring to his newfound popularity. “I mean, I’m benefiting from the assassination of Dr. King, one of my heroes. It was kind of a bittersweet experience.”
Morris Nolten Turner was born in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 11, 1923, the youngest of four children of James and Nora Spears Turner. His father, a Pullman porter, was often away on cross-country railroad trips, and Morris was raised mainly by his mother, a nurse.
She encouraged him to pursue his artistic talent and instilled in him a reverence for a pantheon of black historical figures, including “people most folks never heard of,” he said. (Black women were notably among them, including Naomi Anderson, a suffragist; Mary Elizabeth Bowser, a freed slave who became a Union spy; and Mary McLeod Bethune, an educator and adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.)
Mr. Turner served in the Army Air Corps during World War II as a staff clerk, journalist and illustrator on the newspaper of the 332nd Fighter Group, known as the Tuskegee Airmen. After the war, while working as a clerk for the Oakland police, Mr. Turner sold illustrations and cartoons to industrial publications and national magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Ebony and The Negro Digest.
Charles M. Schulz, the creator of “Peanuts” and a Northern California resident, met Mr. Turner in the early 1960s and became a friend and mentor, said Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.
“They were the same age, they both were in the war — they just clicked,” said Mr. Farago, who has curated shows of both men’s work. In a conversation one day, Mr. Turner lamented the lack of black characters in newspaper comics, and Schulz suggested he try to do one. He also offered to share his contacts in the syndication business.
In the imaginary world Mr. Turner created, a diminutive African-American boy named Nipper, who wears a Confederate cap that always masks the top half of his face, leads a small gaggle of friends, including Jerry, a freckle-faced Jewish boy; Diz, a black child permanently arrayed in dashiki and sunglasses; and Ralph, a white boy who parrots the racist beliefs he hears at home and accepts his friends’ reproofs more or less good-naturedly. Nipper has a dog named General Lee. Mr. Turner told interviewers that while the strip broke racial barriers, he was rarely conscious of the racial identities of his characters. “I just tried to make them say things that kids say to each other,” he said.
His survivors include a son, Morrie Jr., and four grandchildren. His wife, Leatha, died in 1994.
Mr. Turner, who also wrote and illustrated a series of children’s books and appeared as an occasional guest on the television show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” received the National Cartoonists Society’s lifetime achievement award in 2003.
Soon after his strip began appearing widely in newspapers, Mr. Turner received an angry letter from a reader about Nipper and his Confederate hat. “No self-respecting black person would wear such a hat,” the reader said, suggesting that Mr. Turner “get to know some black people.”
“I wrote back and told the person that I happen to know two black people — my mother and my father,” he said in the 2010 interview.
After a good chuckle, the interviewer followed up: “But what was the deal with the Confederate hat?”
Mr. Turner paused, considering the question, then replied, “Forgiveness.”
***
Morris "Morrie" Turner (December 11, 1923 – January 25, 2014) was a black-American syndicated cartoonist, creator of the strip Wee Pals. Turner was the first nationally syndicated African-American cartoonist.[1]
Contents
[hide]Biography[edit]
Raised in Oakland, California, Turner grew up in West Oakland and attended McClymonds High School; in his senior year, he moved to Berkeley to finish his high school years at Berkeley High School.
Turner got his first training in cartooning via the Art Instruction, Inc. home study correspondence course.[citation needed] During World War II his illustrations appeared in the newspaper Stars and Stripes. After the war, while working for the Oakland Police Department, he created the comic strip Baker's Helper.[2]
When Turner began questioning why there were no minorities in cartoons, his mentor, Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts fame, suggested he create one[3] In 1965, the strip Wee Pals became the first comic strip syndicated in the United States to have a cast of diverse ethnicity. Although the strip was only originally carried by five newspapers, after Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968, it was picked up by more than 100 papers.[4] By the early 1970s, Turner's "integrated" comic strip "Wee Pals" was followed on a daily basis by nearly 25,000,000 readers.
In 1970 Turner became a co-chairman of the 1970 White House Conference on Youth.
Turner appeared as a guest on the May 14, 1973, episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, where he showed the host pictures he had drawn of several of his neighbors, as well as presented a clip from his Kid Power animated series, which was airing Saturday mornings on ABC at the time.
During the 1972-73 television season, the monolithic and monoethnic nature of American television began to change, and Morrie Turner and his artistic talent were instrumental in this change. Turner's comic strip became televised in two different ways. The show Kid Power became a popular Saturday morning cartoon that aired throughout the United States. All of Turner's characters were featured, and they were united through the coalition the characters themselves dubbed as "Rainbow Power". During the same season, Wee Pals on the Go was aired by ABC's owned-and-operated station in San Francisco, KGO-TV. This Sunday morning show featured child actors who portrayed the main characters of Turner's comic strip: Nipper, Randy, Sybil, Connie and Oliver. With and through the kids, Turner explored all kinds of venues and activities that were of interest to child viewers of the time, from a candy factory to a train locomotive. After a successful pilot, this project was filmed and aired for an entire television season (also 1972-73). This exposure helped increase Turner's popularity exponentially.[citation needed]
As the comic strip's popularity grew, Turner added characters. He included children of more and more ethnicities, as well as a child with a physical disability. The all-inclusive nature of the comic strip and the relevance to everyday people were part of Turner's formula for success.
During the Vietnam War, Turner and five other members of the National Cartoonist Society traveled to Vietnam, where they spent a month drawing more than 3,000 caricatures of service people.[4]
Turner was impressively knowledgeable about African American history and combined his artistic talent with historical facts to publish books, calendars and other materials that were educational, esthetically pleasing and humorous.
He had the original copy of the book Wee Pals, which was burned in a fire at his home in Berkeley in the late 1980s.[citation needed] The house was later rebuilt.
Turner preferred being called "Morrie" and contributed his talents to concerts by the Bay Area Little Symphony of Oakland, California. He drew pictures to the music and of children in the audience.
On May 25, 2009, Turner visited Westlake Middle School in Oakland to give a lesson to the OASES Comic Book Preachers Class of drawing. Turner collaborated with the class's students to create the book Wee the Kids from Oakland, which gave a chance for students to express their challenges, successes, and pride as youth in Oakland.
Turner died on January 25, 2014, at age 90.[5]
Personal life[edit]
Turner married Letha Mae Harvey on April 6, 1946; they collaborated on the strip Soul Corner.[2] Morrie and Letha had one son, Morrie Jr;[6] Letha died in 1994. Late in life, Turner's companion was Karol Trachtenburg of Sacramento.[4]
Turner was an active member of the Center for Spiritual Awareness, a Science of Mind church in West Sacramento, California.
Tributes[edit]
The Family Circus character of Morrie, a playmate of Billy — and the only recurring black character in the strip — is based on Turner. Family Circus creator Bil Keane created the character in 1967 as a tribute to his close friend.[7]
Awards[edit]
In 2003, the National Cartoonists Society recognized Turner for his work on Wee Pals and others with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award.
Throughout his career, Turner was showered with awards and community distinctions. For example, he received the Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Inter-Group Relations Award from theAnti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith. In 1971, he received the Alameda County (California) Education Association Layman's Annual Award.[8]
In 2000, the Cartoon Art Museum presented Turner with the Sparky Award, named in honor of Charles Schulz.[4]
Turner was honored a number of times at the San Diego Comic-Con: in 1981, he was given an Inkpot Award; and in 2012 he was given the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award.
Bibliography[edit]
Wee Pals collections[edit]
- Wee Pals That "Kid Power" Gang in Rainbow Power (Signet Books, 1968) ASIN B002T6NAOG
- Wee Pals (Signet Books, 1969) ASIN B003ZUKTLW — introduction by Charles M. Schulz
- Kid Power (Signet Books, 1970), ASIN B001IKPRM2
- Nipper (Westminster Press, 1971), ASIN B002IY2XOM
- Nipper's Secret Power (Westminster Press, 1971) ISBN 0-664-32498-3-0325
- Wee Pals: Rainbow Power (Signet Books, 1973) ASIN B000M8UYII
- Wee Pals: Doing Their Thing (Signet Books, 1973) ASIN B00129HWKO
- Wee Pals' Nipper and Nipper's Secret Power (Signet Books, 1974) ASIN B001M5GOOS
- Wee Pals: Book of Knowledge (Signet Books, 1974) ISBN 0451058003
- Wee Pals: Staying Cool (Signet Books, 1974) ISBN 0451060768
- Wee Pals: Funky Tales (New American Library, 1975) ASIN B00072KLVE
- Wee Pals: Welcome to the Club (Rainbow Power Club Books, 1978) ASIN B003VC7JQW
- Choosing a Health Career: Featuring Wee Pals, the Kid Power Gang (Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Health Resources Administration, 1979), ASIN B0006XCLLC
- Wee Pals: A Full-Length Musical Comedy for Children or Young Teenagers (The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1981) ASIN B0006XW1I0
- Wee Pals Make Friends with Music and Musical Instruments: Coloring Book (Stockton Symphony Association, 1982) ASIN B00072YGD8
- Wee Pals, the Kid Power Gang: Thinking Well (Ingham County Health Department, 1983) ASIN B0007259DY
- Wee Pals Doing the Right Thing Coloring Book (Oakland Police Department, 1991) ASIN B0006R4G98
- Explore Black History with Wee Pals (Just us Books, 1998) ISBN 0940975793
- The Kid Power Gang Salutes African-Americans in the Military Past and Present (Conway B. Jones, Jr., 2000), ASIN B0006RSDC4
Willis and his Friends[edit]
- Ser un Hombre (Lear Siegler/Fearon Publishers, 1972) ISBN 0822474271
- Prejudice (Fearon, 1972) ASIN B00071EIOG
- The Vandals (Fearon, 1974) ASIN B0006WJ9JU
Other books[edit]
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Freedom (Ross Simmons, 1967) ASIN B0007HK27W
- Black and White Coloring Book (Troubadour Press, 1969) — written with Letha Turner
- Right On (Signet Books, 1969)
- Getting It All Together (Signet Books, 1972)
- Where's Herbie? A Sickle Cell Anemia Story and Coloring Book (Sickle Cell Anemia Workshop, 1972) ASIN B00BKQ85LE
- Famous Black Americans (Judson Press, 1973) ISBN 0817005919
- Happy Birthday America (Signet Book, 1975) ASIN B000RB1SGM
- All God's Chillun Got Soul (Judson Press, 1980) ISBN 0817008926
- Thinking Well (Wisconsin Clearing House, 1983), ASIN B00072F9E8
- Black History Trivia: Quiz and Game Book (News America Syndicate, 1986) ASIN B000727N5Q
- What About Gangs? Just Say No! (Oakland Police Department, 1994) ASIN B0006R58TA
- Babcock (Scholastic, 1996) — by John Cottonwood and Morrie Turner, ISBN 059022221X
- Mom Come Quick (Wright Pub Co., 1997) — by Joy Crawford and Morrie Turner, ISBN 0965236838
- Super Sistahs: Featuring the Accomplishments of African-American Women Past and Present (Bye Publishing Services, 2005), ISBN 0965673952
*****
Morrie Turner, an Oakland, Calif., native, was the youngest of four children. His father, a Pullman porter, and mother, a devout Christian, instilled in him the faith -- faith in himself, faith in others, faith in his ability to be a comic strip artist. He began drawing cartoons in the fifth grade.
As a young man, he served a stint in the service during World War II, where he drew strips for military newspapers. Following his discharge, he juggled his comic strips with legal publications and work as a police clerk. Finally, in 1964, he wholeheartedly pursued his cartoon aspirations full-time, once again relying on his faith.
One life-changing honor was during the Vietnam War, when Turner was one of six cartoonist asked by the National Cartoonist Society to go Vietnam. Morrie spent 27 days on the front lines and in hospitals, drawing more than 3,000 caricatures of service people.
In 1965, he created the Wee Pals comic strip. It was Morrie's intention to portray a world without prejudice, a world in which people's differences -- race, religion, gender, and physical and mental ability -- are cherished, not scorned.
When Wee Pals was first created, bringing black characters to the comics' pages was by no means an easy task. In 1965, only five major newspapers published the strip. It was not until 1968 -- and the tragic assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. -- that Wee Pals achieved nationwide acceptance. Within three months of King's death, the strip was appearing in over 100 newspapers nationwide.
Since that time, Morrie has written and illustrated many books for children and has received the Anti-Defamation League's Humanitarian award. In 2000, he won the prestigious "Sparky Award," named after famed cartoonist Charles Schultz, creator of "Peanuts." Morrie has received numerous other awards for his comic strip, including the awards from the American Red Cross and the NAACP, the Boys and Girls Club Image Award, the B'Nai Brith Humanitarian Award and California Educators Award.
Morrie was recently the subject of a 30-minute documentary on his life, "Keeping the Faith with Morrie." Produced by Angel Harper, Heaven Sent Productions Inc., the production won Best Direction in the 2001 Christian Film Festival and most recently won Best Documentary in the 2002 Hollywood Black Film Festival.
Today, Morrie continues to work with children in small cartooning programs in the inner city. He was a guest lecturer at numerous California schools, universities and libraries, and continued to reach approximately 25 million readers with his Wee Pals characters.
*****
Morris "Morrie" Turner (December 11, 1923 – January 25, 2014) was an African-American syndicated cartoonist, and the creator of the comic strip Wee Pals. Turner was the first nationally syndicated African-American cartoonist.
Raised in Oakland, California. Turner grew up in West Oakland and attended McClymonds High School. However, in his senior year, he moved to Berkeley to finish his high school years at Berkeley High School.
Turner received his first training in cartooning via the Art Instruction, Inc. home study correspondence course. During World War II, his illustrations appeared in the newspaper Stars and Stripes. After the war, while working for the Oakland Police Department, he created the comic strip Baker's Helper.
In 1970 Turner became a co-chairman of the 1970 White House Conference on Youth.
Turner appeared as a guest on the May 14, 1973 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, where he showed the host pictures he had drawn of several of his neighbors, as well as presented a clip from his Kid Power animated series, which was airing Saturday mornings on ABC at the time.
During the 1972-73 television season, the monolithic and monoethnic nature of American television began to change, and Morrie Turner and his artistic talent were instrumental in this change. Turner's comic strip became televised in two different ways. The show Kid Power became a popular Saturday morning cartoon that aired throughout the United States. All of Turner's characters were featured, and they were united through the coalition the characters themselves dubbed as "Rainbow Power". During the same season, Wee Pals on the Go was aired by ABC's owned and operated station in San Francisco, KGO-TV. This Sunday morning show featured child actors who portrayed the main characters of Turner's comic strip: Nipper, Randy, Sybil, Connie and Oliver. With and through the kids, Turner explored all kinds of venues and activities that were of interest to child viewers of the time, from a candy factory to a train locomotive. After a successful pilot, this project was filmed and aired for an entire television season (also 1972-73). This exposure helped increase Turner's popularity.
As the Wee Pals comic strip's popularity grew, Turner added characters. He included children of more and more ethnicities, as well as a child with a physical disability. The all-inclusive nature of the comic strip and the relevance to everyday people were part of Turner's formula for success.
During the Vietnam War, Turner and five other members of the National Cartoonist Society traveled to Vietnam, where they spent a month drawing more than 3,000 caricatures of service people.
Turner was impressively knowledgeable about African American history and combined his artistic talent with historical facts to publish books, calendars and other materials that were educational, esthetically pleasing and humorous.
Turner preferred being called "Morrie" and contributed his talents to concerts by the Bay Area Little Symphony of Oakland, California. He drew pictures to the music and of the children in the audience.
On May 25, 2009, Turner visited Westlake Middle School in Oakland to give a lesson to the OASES Comic Book Preachers Class of drawing. Turner collaborated with the class's students to create the book Wee the Kids from Oakland, which gave a chance for students to express their challenges, successes, and pride as youth in Oakland.
Turner married Letha Mae Harvey on April 6, 1946. They collaborated on the strip Soul Corner. Morrie and Letha had one son, Morrie Jr. Letha died in 1994. Late in life, Turner's companion was Karol Trachtenburg of Sacramento.
Turner was an active member of the Center for Spiritual Awareness, a Science of Mind church in West Sacramento, California.
The Family Circus character of Morrie, a playmate of Billy — and the only recurring black character in the strip — is based on Turner. Family Circus creator Bil Keane created the character in 1967 as a tribute to his close friend.
In 2003, the National Cartoonists Society recognized Turner for his work on Wee Pals and others with the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award.
Throughout his career, Turner was showered with awards and community distinctions. For example, he received the Brotherhood Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Inter-Group Relations Award from the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith. In 1971, he received the Alameda County (California) Education Association Layman's Annual Award.
In 2000, the Cartoon Art Museum presented Turner with the Sparky Award, named in honor of Charles Schulz.
Turner was honored a number of times at the San Diego Comic-Con. In 1981, he was given an Inkpot Award. In 2012, he was given the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award.
Turner died on January 25, 2014, at age 90.
The works of Morrie Turner include:
Wee Pals collections
- Wee Pals That "Kid Power" Gang in Rainbow Power (Signet Books, 1968)
- Wee Pals (Signet Books, 1969) — introduction by Charles M. Schulz
- Kid Power (Signet Books, 1970)
- Nipper (Westminster Press, 1971)
- Nipper's Secret Power (Westminster Press, 1971)
- Wee Pals: Rainbow Power (Signet Books, 1973)
- Wee Pals: Doing Their Thing (Signet Books, 1973)
- Wee Pals' Nipper and Nipper's Secret Power (Signet Books, 1974)
- Wee Pals: Book of Knowledge (Signet Books, 1974)
- Wee Pals: Staying Cool (Signet Books, 1974)
- Wee Pals: Funky Tales (New American Library, 1975)
- Wee Pals: Welcome to the Club (Rainbow Power Club Books, 1978)
- Choosing a Health Career: Featuring Wee Pals, the Kid Power Gang (Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Health Resources Administration, 1979)
- Wee Pals: A Full-Length Musical Comedy for Children or Young Teenagers (The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1981)
- Wee Pals Make Friends with Music and Musical Instruments: Coloring Book (Stockton Symphony Association, 1982)
- Wee Pals, the Kid Power Gang: Thinking Well (Ingham County Health Department, 1983)
- Wee Pals Doing the Right Thing Coloring Book (Oakland Police Department, 1991)
- Explore Black History with Wee Pals (Just us Books, 1998)
- The Kid Power Gang Salutes African-Americans in the Military Past and Present (Conway B. Jones, Jr., 2000)
Willis and his Friends
- Ser un Hombre (Lear Siegler/Fearon Publishers, 1972)
- Prejudice (Fearon, 1972)
- The Vandals (Fearon, 1974)
Other books
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Freedom (Ross Simmons, 1967)
- Black and White Coloring Book (Troubadour Press, 1969) — written with Letha Turner
- Right On (Signet Books, 1969)
- Getting It All Together (Signet Books, 1972)
- Where's Herbie? A Sickle Cell Anemia Story and Coloring Book (Sickle Cell Anemia Workshop, 1972)
- Famous Black Americans (Judson Press, 1973)
- Happy Birthday America (Signet Book, 1975)
- All God's Chillun Got Soul (Judson Press, 1980)
- Thinking Well (Wisconsin Clearing House, 1983)
- Black History Trivia: Quiz and Game Book (News America Syndicate, 1986)
- What About Gangs? Just Say No! (Oakland Police Department, 1994)
- Babcock (Scholastic, 1996) — by John Cottonwood and Morrie Turner
- Mom Come Quick (Wright Pub Co., 1997) — by Joy Crawford and Morrie Turner
- Super Sistahs: Featuring the Accomplishments of African-American Women Past and Present (Bye Publishing Services, 2005)
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