Hyperallergic reviews Where I’m Coming From

Newspaper funny pages feel anachronistic these days, in a world where so much news content has moved out of newsprint and onto televised or online platforms. But for many decades, the comics section was a little window into the soul of its distribution community, all drawn together by the gold standard of nationally syndicated cartoon strips. Like most forms of media, the subjects of cartoon strips and their creators were overwhelmingly White. That’s what made Barbara Brandon-Croft’s Where I’m Coming From — the first nationally syndicated cartoon strip by and about Black women — such a breakthrough achievement. A new publication of the same name from Drawn and Quarterly Press compiles highlights from the strip between 1991 and 2005 (the years of its national syndication), as well as frontmatter including the artist’s pitch letters to major publications, and essays on the work’s importance.

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At its peak, Where I’m Coming From ran in some 60 newspapers nationwide, and several international publications. While comic books and graphic novels have bumped the numbers for Black creators, cartooning newspaper strips remained an incredibly niche occupation, and Brandon-Croft’s success was a crucial groundbreaker for strips like The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder, which debuted in 1999 and went on to become an animated show on Adult Swim in 2005. Like a lot of newspaper strips (we’re looking at you, Family Circus) the conversations between Brandon-Croft’s characters aren’t always particularly funny, but thanks to her particular perspective, they are always real.

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