“What’s it like going from playing a hero to a villain? They’re both equally fun. The best part is discovering the qualities of a bad guy that don’t make him much different than a hero – that make him just like any of us.”
All-Negro Comics, published in 1947, was a single-issue, small-press American comic book that represents the first known comics magazine written and drawn solely by African-American writers and artists.
African-American journalist Orrin Cromwell Evans (born 1902, Steelton, Pennsylvania; died 1971) was “the first black writer to cover general assignments for a mainstream white newspaper in the United States” when he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Record. After the paper’s closing, shortly after World War II, Evans partnered with former Record editor Harry T. Saylor, Record sports editor Bill Driscoll and two others to found the Philadelphia publishing company All-Negro Comics, Inc., with himself as president.
In mid-1947, the company published the only known issue of All-Negro Comics, a 48-page, standard-sized comic book with a typical glossy color cover and newsprint interior. It was copyrighted July 15, 1947, with a June 1947 issue date. Unlike other comic books of the time, it sold for 15 cents rather than 10 cents.
In 2014, Orrin C. Evans was inducted to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for his work as president of All-Negro Comics (X)
