Barbara Brandon-Croft speaks on pioneering legacy in comics

Video interview with Barbara Brandon-Croft coming soon. Check back shortly to watch this exclusive conversation.

Barbara Brandon-Croft made history as the nation’s first Black woman cartoonist to break into mainstream press with her groundbreaking comic strip “Where I’m Coming From,” which debuted in the Detroit Free Press in 1989. By 1991, Universal Press Syndicate was distributing her work to more than sixty mainstream newspapers internationally, where it continued until 2005.

Brandon-Croft’s art gave voice to Black women’s thoughts, fears, and frustrations in a medium traditionally dominated by white men. Her work featured distinctive characters with unique personalities, creating a window through which readers could understand the Black female experience.

In 2023, Drawn + Quarterly published a compilation of selected strips and the story of her career, “Where I’m Coming From,” which won a National Association of Black Journalist Award for Outstanding Book that same year.

As the daughter of pioneering cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr., creator of “Luther,” Brandon-Croft follows in the footsteps of her father’s legacy. Originals of both her and her father’s work are preserved in the permanent collections of cartoon art at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Columbus, Ohio.

In this exclusive interview, Brandon-Croft discusses her journey, influences, and the crucial role of Black women’s voices in art and social commentary.

What is your superpower?

I’ve been able to record Black women’s history, it’s an ability to give Black women’s voices in a larger scale, and that’s what I’ve been able to do. I didn’t think of it as a superpower, but I realize when I talk to people that it really kind of is. That I’m doing something that makes people feel heard, and that’s kind of an incredible thing to be able to do. When somebody tells me “you’re telling my story,” makes me feel like, wow, I am doing this.

How did your journey as a cartoonist begin? What first drew you to the world of comics?

My dad was a cartoonist, and nationally he was one of the pioneer Black cartoonists. My dad was Brumsic Brandon Jr. He had a comic strip, “Luther.” I grew up immersed in the comic world, and typically people think of that as comic books and superheroes and things like that, but that’s not the kind of comics I grew up with. I grew up with my dad’s comics.

My dad worked from home, and when I was little he used to work in the dining room, which was the center of the house. I grew up on Long Island, Newcastle was a Black community on Long Island, and the dining room was the center of the house, and my dad set up his workstation on the dining room table. We had to take it down for 5 o’clock dinner, but every day that’s where he was working. So I saw it being done.

When he started getting very busy, he did a television show that was on WPIX in New York. He was Mr. Bebe on “Time for Joya,” and he did illustrations for lots of things. He did a daily strip, so he needed help. He gave me and my brother a drawing test, we had to draw one of his characters on a light box, and my brother was awful. I won, my dad was like, “okay.” I kind of grew up working on comics, I would put on what was called the Letratone. So I was trained to be a cartoonist from early on, and I was immersed in comics, so it seemed like a natural progression.

With your dad’s influence, what lessons did you carry into your own work?

My dad’s number one thing that he said many, many times was that a cartoonist’s job, their duty is to observe, interpret, and record, so that’s what I got from him. You just look around, you see what’s going on in the world, you take it in, you think about it, and then you record it, and that ends up being a way of telling history in a more palatable way for people who don’t want to read big history books. If you can go back through some cartoons from the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, all through these times, if it’s done authentically, you can really get a sense of what was going on in the world, and how we, I’m talking from a Black perspective, made it through those times, and it tells a history, it records a history.

“Where I’m Coming From” gave voice to Black women’s thoughts and frustrations in a groundbreaking way. What inspired you to create the strip?

I did not know I was going to be a cartoonist. I ended up trying to figure out what I was going to do when I moved back home and I saw a job for a fashion reporter, and I like fashion, and it said “trainees considered.” So I went in and said I would be a trainee, and I took my portfolio. They needed somebody to write, and they needed somebody who could draw some illustrations for them, I got the gig.

There was a new Black woman’s magazine called “Elan” coming out, and I got a meeting with the editor-in-chief there, Marie Brown. I took my portfolio again. I say “I’ll do anything, I would like to be a part of this,” and she said, “well, you know, you’re kind of funny, you have a sense of humor, you draw, maybe you can come up with a comic for us.” And then it was like, Bing, yeah, I could do that.

Had I not seen my dad in the dining room, and then, later in his studio he built in the basement, had I not seen that? I don’t know if I would have been able to say yes, I can do that. I saw it done. That’s what’s called representation, it was living in my home.

Initially, I just had heads. I never added environments and all that. I just had heads talking heads and talking about stuff. I thought that I would have a different woman every time I did the strip. So hence the “Where I’m Coming From,” this particular woman is coming from this place, and this is what she has to say.

My dad got a letter from Detroit Free Press, mainstream newspaper in Detroit, and they are like “we want our pages to reflect our audience, our readership, do you know of any Black cartoonists?” And of course he knew me. I sent the same exact strips that I created for “Elan” to Detroit Free Press, and they liked it. And they’re like, “you know what? We’re going to do this.”

I knew I needed a syndicate, because then again, I’d seen my dad all his life, he was with Los Angeles Times syndicate. I put together a press kit on my work, and sent it to all these syndicates, and I got rejected by all these syndicates, except for one, Universal Press Syndicate, and one is all you need. They picked me up, I first appeared in Detroit Free Press in 1989, and then I started being syndicated in 1991, and they kept me on until 2005.

What was it like navigating the comic syndication world as the first Black woman cartoonist with a nationally syndicated strip?

All the syndicates, even the one that picked me up, told me that it was going to be a tough sell, because you’re not putting environments in. It looks different than what they’re accustomed to, the size is different. You want to do a weekly, and not a daily and lucky for me, my syndicate feels that the artist needs to make those kind of choices.

I agreed that I could whittle down, instead of 56 different women, each time I talked I’d have a new woman, I whittled it down to 9 women of particular positions or of particular personalities, and that they would all be friends.

I was not the first Black woman in newspapers, I was the first Black woman in the mainstream press, and by mainstream, that is the white press. 30 years before me there was Jackie Ormes, who did a comic strip called “Torchy Brown.” She did several comic strips, she was great. But she was in the Black papers, which distinguishes me. So I crossed the color line, like Jackie Robinson, from the Negro League to the Major League.

The mainstream press and the mainstream syndicates are white men, typically older white men. This is me, if you want to ignore me, that’s on you, but you’re missing out, because, Black women have things to say.

When the strip first got started I got a lot of publicity. Just before they say action, I was sitting there with the interviewer, a white man who, just before they started the interview, he said, “How is this going to work? How are you going to get more than 12 papers,” thinking about only Black cities would be the newspapers that would be interested in picking it up.

It’s interesting to me, too, that there were so many who thought that not enough people would be interested in what Black women had to say, and I take that as a direct insult. It’s like, “Are you kidding me? You’re not interested in what we have to say? You better be.”

Your strip often addressed race, gender, and politics in an unflinching way. Why is it important in art to tell political and cultural stories?

For me, it’s kind of therapy. There’s so much going on right now, and people have spoken to me and said. When I first started doing the strips, I did do a wide range of things—relationships, finances, what’s going on with your finances, just things that were on my mind as in my thirties, at the time, because that’s basically when I was doing the strip, and also political, because that was also on my mind, what was going on in the news.

I find now that I’m not with a syndicate, and I just put it out for myself, because it’s a kind of way for me to get it out of me instead of holding on to it, and I also hope that it continues to be a thing where people can read it and say, “that’s what I was thinking. I’m glad you put it to words.” Sometimes you have these strong feelings, but you can’t articulate what it is about the situation that is bothering you.

I like to think that my characters are now, very specifically, why we feel a certain way. It’s helpful to me, and I hope it’s helpful to others to feel like they’re heard and seen, and maybe even understood.

Your characters in “Where I’m Coming From” each have such distinct voices. Are they inspired by real people?

Well, I think I’m a bit about all of them, but I also have a lot of girlfriends, so I maybe snatch or take a bit of this, and that. When I was doing it for the Syndicate, I was living in Brooklyn at the time, single living in Brooklyn, girlfriends talking, it was a way to just eavesdrop.

When I started trying to whittle down the number of women I was using, I started using the same person to talk about certain things like say, Jackie, who is very anxious, and I’m very anxious. So I can do things with her when I want to talk about anxiety, or what is going on in the world, and tears are flying out of her head, and she’s shaking.

If I want to talk about something political, I usually use Lekesia. She’s the one that kind of has the stylized dreads, and just having a strong social, conscious, and feeling that social justice is mandatory.

They all have that kind of stream of social consciousness underlying, because that’s what I believe Black people have to be. That’s the way you have to be. My one character who has a kid, she’s a single mom. What I’ve done more recently is that she has a cap that says, “I am woke”, and the strip is like, “say it loud. I am woke, and I am proud!”

Then, I have a flighty character, Nicole, it’s just only in concern with herself, and how she looks, and all that kind of stuff. So it’s people I know, it’s parts of me, and that’s where they come from.

You’ve opened so many doors for Black women creatives. What advice would you give to young illustrators and writers who are looking to follow in your footsteps?

It’s funny, because me being like the first, I felt that was complicated, because there I was the first, but I felt like I was maybe inspiring younger people or younger folks coming up. But I was also in the door, not more than one person is accepted at a time, “we have, Barbara, we don’t need anybody else.”

In general I would tell everybody to keep doing it. Keep drawing, you’re only going to get better. Keep writing, you’re only going to get better. Keep at it. Don’t let “No” bring you down, let it embolden you. You’re like, “no, I think not, I do have something to say. I do have something to express and trust in your individuality.” Don’t try to be somebody else, be yourself, because nobody can be you, so just do you. That’s what I say.

As you look at today’s social and political climate, what do you think the role of art and specifically Black women’s voices in art is in moving us forward?

It’s necessary, it’s times like these where you need creatives to express themselves. In a time where you feel so helpless, things feel like they’re out of your hands and out of your control, and in some ways they are out of your control, but this is a time where artists and writers need to speak up. If that’s all you can do, if that’s the only thing you can do, speak up, express yourself, put it out there, let it be known.

These times really call for it. This is precisely the time to create and put it out there, and keep and feel all the emotions you feel and put that into your work. And it’s a great way to record our history. Years down, we can look back at different things that were created during this time, and try to understand how that fit into this crazy time.

How can people follow your work?

There’s a book out now, it’s been out for a couple of years now, but it’s a hardcover book. It tells my origin story, and it tells how I got to where I am. So it’s not only selected strips from the time when I was syndicated, it’s also stories about how I became syndicated, and this and that, but anywhere you get books, you can find it. It’s called “Where I’m Coming From.” So I would love for people to get it and read it, and it’s kind of like a history book honestly, but it’s got cartoons. It’s all cartoons, mostly cartoons.

I also have a website, it’s my name, barbarabrandoncroft.com, and I also am on Instagram, and I have the very creative handle of Barbara Brandon Croft, so that’s how you can also find me. But I did get a blue check. So if you see the blue check next to my Instagram, you know that it’s actually me.