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All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End: The Cartoons of Charles Johnson
Years before he wrote his National Book Award–winning novel Middle Passage , Charles Johnson created these sidesplitting and subversive gag comics about Black life in America, now collected for the first time in nearly half a century.
Before Charles Johnson found fame as a novelist and won the National Book Award for Middle Passage in 1991, he was a cartoonist, and a very good one. Taught via correspondence course by the comics editor Lawrence Lariar, mentored by the New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti, and inspired by the call of the poet Amiri Baraka to celebrate and depict Black life in America, Johnson crafted some of the fiercest and funniest cartoons of the twentieth century.
Reimagining the gag comic as a powerful and incendiary tool, Johnson tackled America’s mid-century afflictions—segregation, inner-city poverty, police brutality, and white supremacy—by craftily subverting stale gag tropes. He populated them with bullet-dodging Black Panthers, doubt-filled Klansmen, militant babies, selfserving politicians, and complacent suburban liberals.
This collection, Johnson’s first in nearly fifty years, brings together work from across his college newspaper gags, selections from his books Black Humor and Half-Past Nation Time , his unpublished manuscript Lumps in the Melting Pot , and uncollected pieces. Taken together, this volume reveals Johnson as long overdue for appreciation as a cartoonist of the first order.
Before Charles Johnson found fame as a novelist and won the National Book Award for Middle Passage in 1991, he was a cartoonist, and a very good one. Taught via correspondence course by the comics editor Lawrence Lariar, mentored by the New Yorker cartoonist Charles Barsotti, and inspired by the call of the poet Amiri Baraka to celebrate and depict Black life in America, Johnson crafted some of the fiercest and funniest cartoons of the twentieth century.
Reimagining the gag comic as a powerful and incendiary tool, Johnson tackled America’s mid-century afflictions—segregation, inner-city poverty, police brutality, and white supremacy—by craftily subverting stale gag tropes. He populated them with bullet-dodging Black Panthers, doubt-filled Klansmen, militant babies, selfserving politicians, and complacent suburban liberals.
This collection, Johnson’s first in nearly fifty years, brings together work from across his college newspaper gags, selections from his books Black Humor and Half-Past Nation Time , his unpublished manuscript Lumps in the Melting Pot , and uncollected pieces. Taken together, this volume reveals Johnson as long overdue for appreciation as a cartoonist of the first order.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published November 8, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 8, 2024
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A Provocatively Funny Portfolio
As a life-long fan of comics and—in my more recent years as a journalist—part of national efforts to preserve endangered newspaper comic strips, I'm a strong supporter of the New York Review Comics imprint. As many of my friends on Goodreads already know, this imprint is part of the 25-year-old project started by Edwin Frank that many readers like myself celebrate for its efforts to keep important "classic" books in print. Along the way, Frank's team decided to branch out into a comic-format imprint with a mission to provide "new editions of out-of-print masterpieces and new translations of books that have never been published in English—from intimate memoirs to absurdist gags, graphic novels to dizzying experiments."
In a quick count of the books along my library shelves this morning, I currently have six of the books from this imprint and now I am adding this wonderfully provocative collection from Charles Johnson to that list.
Those who recognize Johnson's name probably remember him as an author of fiction and non-fiction, especially after winning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1990 for Middle Passage. And, just to clarify for readers who might be searching for more about Johnson as a result of this review—we're talking about Charles R. Johnson. There are a whole lot of Charles Johnsons spread across the internet and books by and about him are inconsistent in whether they include his middle initial. For example, the current Scribner paperback of Middle Passage lacks that clarifying middle "R."
So, for many reasons it's easy to miss the large body of Johnson's satirical cartooning—on top of the fact that most of his early collections of cartoons are out of print. That's why he came to the attention of New York Review Comics. Working with Johnson to add biographical context to each of his earlier works, this new volume gives us samples from Black Humor, Half Past Nation-Time and another collection that apparently never found its way into print until this retrospective was put together. That last "book" was to have been called Lumps in the Melting Pot.
This book also contains some great examples from Johnson's freelance career and you'll find a small sampling of his "monk on the mountaintop" cartoons, a concept he mined repeatedly over the years.
The main motif in this collection is a gun-toting Black revolutionary who tromps, in various forms, through all kinds of social and public settings—always standing for justice but often unaware of the ironies of his efforts.
One of the funniest comics in this collection is that same armed-to-the-teeth revolutionary leaving a wet mess on the floor of a men's room as an elderly Black janitor shakes his head and says, "I sure hope your aim is better when the revolution comes!"
Johnson often is skewering the over-zealousness of the revolutionary impulse as well as the clueless White responses to ongoing injustice.
This is a wonderful "time capsule" of evolving American culture—or, given the alarming rise in hate crimes over the last couple of years, perhaps I should describe this book as a "timely" reminder of America's continuing racial challenges.
I've now added it to my library shelves of comic classics I want to help preserve as I try to spread awareness through my own ongoing writings—including this Goodreads review. If you're intrigued, consider getting a copy of this book that will make you laugh at your own blindness and biases, whatever the color of your skin.
A Provocatively Funny Portfolio
As a life-long fan of comics and—in my more recent years as a journalist—part of national efforts to preserve endangered newspaper comic strips, I'm a strong supporter of the New York Review Comics imprint. As many of my friends on Goodreads already know, this imprint is part of the 25-year-old project started by Edwin Frank that many readers like myself celebrate for its efforts to keep important "classic" books in print. Along the way, Frank's team decided to branch out into a comic-format imprint with a mission to provide "new editions of out-of-print masterpieces and new translations of books that have never been published in English—from intimate memoirs to absurdist gags, graphic novels to dizzying experiments."
In a quick count of the books along my library shelves this morning, I currently have six of the books from this imprint and now I am adding this wonderfully provocative collection from Charles Johnson to that list.
Those who recognize Johnson's name probably remember him as an author of fiction and non-fiction, especially after winning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1990 for Middle Passage. And, just to clarify for readers who might be searching for more about Johnson as a result of this review—we're talking about Charles R. Johnson. There are a whole lot of Charles Johnsons spread across the internet and books by and about him are inconsistent in whether they include his middle initial. For example, the current Scribner paperback of Middle Passage lacks that clarifying middle "R."
So, for many reasons it's easy to miss the large body of Johnson's satirical cartooning—on top of the fact that most of his early collections of cartoons are out of print. That's why he came to the attention of New York Review Comics. Working with Johnson to add biographical context to each of his earlier works, this new volume gives us samples from Black Humor, Half Past Nation-Time and another collection that apparently never found its way into print until this retrospective was put together. That last "book" was to have been called Lumps in the Melting Pot.
This book also contains some great examples from Johnson's freelance career and you'll find a small sampling of his "monk on the mountaintop" cartoons, a concept he mined repeatedly over the years.
The main motif in this collection is a gun-toting Black revolutionary who tromps, in various forms, through all kinds of social and public settings—always standing for justice but often unaware of the ironies of his efforts.
One of the funniest comics in this collection is that same armed-to-the-teeth revolutionary leaving a wet mess on the floor of a men's room as an elderly Black janitor shakes his head and says, "I sure hope your aim is better when the revolution comes!"
Johnson often is skewering the over-zealousness of the revolutionary impulse as well as the clueless White responses to ongoing injustice.
This is a wonderful "time capsule" of evolving American culture—or, given the alarming rise in hate crimes over the last couple of years, perhaps I should describe this book as a "timely" reminder of America's continuing racial challenges.
I've now added it to my library shelves of comic classics I want to help preserve as I try to spread awareness through my own ongoing writings—including this Goodreads review. If you're intrigued, consider getting a copy of this book that will make you laugh at your own blindness and biases, whatever the color of your skin.
May 16, 2023
This is a nice, humorous complement to the graphic novels I've read recently about the Black Panther Party and Angela Davis. Johnson's cartoons from the 1960s and '70s are able to find the funny in Black militants, the KKK, and race relations in general. And sometimes that means involving aliens and Noah's Ark.
It's great to see material too long neglected back in print.
FOR REFERENCE:
Contents: From High School to Black Humor (1965 - 70) -- Half-Past Nation Time (1972) -- Lumps in the Melting Pot (1973) -- Freelance (1968 - 1975) -- Later Work (1975 - Present) -- Acknowledgments -- Also by Charles Johnson
It's great to see material too long neglected back in print.
FOR REFERENCE:
Contents: From High School to Black Humor (1965 - 70) -- Half-Past Nation Time (1972) -- Lumps in the Melting Pot (1973) -- Freelance (1968 - 1975) -- Later Work (1975 - Present) -- Acknowledgments -- Also by Charles Johnson
September 19, 2022
"...a cartoon just possibly might be seen as being a visual poem. Like the best haiku, where a thought or feeling is perfectly expressed in just a few lines and ins instantly understood, a well-done cartoon can often lead to an epiphany or 'Aha!' moment of laughter and sudden insight into a subject" (118).
April 2, 2023
Reluctant to admit that I hadn’t heard of this prolific and important cartoonist, author, and scholar before finding this book on the public library shelf.
Johnson took on social issues, prejudice, and black militancy throughout the twentieth-century with brilliant accessibility through humor and a wink. You can see the art become more sophisticated and pointed as you leaf through this retrospective.
I loved the wide variety and volume of cartoons, but felt that the comments and context could have been presented in a more analytic or comprehensive fashion instead of the casual breeziness I found. I think I’d like to learn more about him, but this book wasn’t that venue.
Johnson took on social issues, prejudice, and black militancy throughout the twentieth-century with brilliant accessibility through humor and a wink. You can see the art become more sophisticated and pointed as you leaf through this retrospective.
I loved the wide variety and volume of cartoons, but felt that the comments and context could have been presented in a more analytic or comprehensive fashion instead of the casual breeziness I found. I think I’d like to learn more about him, but this book wasn’t that venue.
November 30, 2022
Fantastic new collection of Charles Johnson's cartoons from 1965-1975 provides a succinct history of that turbulent period, with its idealism and tragedy, in quick flashes of brilliant insight and wit. Somehow Johnson's drawings make you laugh out loud and break your heart at the same time. And of course many (most?) of these issues are still roiling the U.S. today. A great gift to bring to a family holiday gathering and pass around; it's sure to spark hilarity and discussion and, for the older people present, many memories. Absolutely wonderful.
November 10, 2022
I received an advance review copy of this book from New York Review of Comics. I hadn't seen much of Charles Johnson's cartoons before, and it was exciting to learn more about him and see his subversive but sadly still relevant work which largely deals with racial issues in America. I only wish there were more autobiographical info and anecdotes from his personal life.
October 21, 2022
This is very good. Sadly my review copy was missing over half of the comics. It had the quoted text, like 4 or 5 clumped together, but there would be no photo to accompany them.
December 14, 2022
A book of old comics about racial inequality and injustice.
December 11, 2022
The revolution will not be televised—it’ll be comic. That is, one panel gag cartons from a literary writer and a great gag cartoonist.
November 10, 2022
4 1/2 stars. Extremely funny and solidly drawn gag panels.
September 29, 2023
Charles Johnson was awarded the National Book Award for his 1990 novel about slavery, The Middle Passage. This is the first time I had heard of him; he wrote fiction. It was not until I had moved to Chicago and was collecting Chicago coming-of-age stories for the book I and my co-editors published, Growing up Chicago (Northwestern UP, 2022) that he submitted a story he had written about growing up in Chicago, or Evanston, technically.
The story, "My Father's Pillow Talk," was about the nightly talks Johnson had with his father before going to bed. The heart of the story was a time in which the teenaged Charles told his father that what he wanted to do when he grew up was to become a cartoonist, a notion that his father discouraged. But become a cartoonist was exactly what he did, beginning with his high school newspaper, moving to his college newspaper and on to community writing, beginning in the Chicago area. He went on to publish book collections of his cartoons.
This book collects his 1965-75 cartoons, including the work from his books, most of them political humor work focused on racism, raising issues as people did in the sixties about the possibility of a (black) revolution in the light of the years of civil unrest regarding racial inequities. I lived two hours from Chicago, and I am white, so I would not have read much if any of black political cartooning out of the radical left, because I didn't have access to the south side black newspapers, so it is great to have this beautiful hard cover collection of his work, with his commentary and an afterword. It's a kind of revelation, a gift, to black Chicago, but to Chicago and black history.
The story, "My Father's Pillow Talk," was about the nightly talks Johnson had with his father before going to bed. The heart of the story was a time in which the teenaged Charles told his father that what he wanted to do when he grew up was to become a cartoonist, a notion that his father discouraged. But become a cartoonist was exactly what he did, beginning with his high school newspaper, moving to his college newspaper and on to community writing, beginning in the Chicago area. He went on to publish book collections of his cartoons.
This book collects his 1965-75 cartoons, including the work from his books, most of them political humor work focused on racism, raising issues as people did in the sixties about the possibility of a (black) revolution in the light of the years of civil unrest regarding racial inequities. I lived two hours from Chicago, and I am white, so I would not have read much if any of black political cartooning out of the radical left, because I didn't have access to the south side black newspapers, so it is great to have this beautiful hard cover collection of his work, with his commentary and an afterword. It's a kind of revelation, a gift, to black Chicago, but to Chicago and black history.
December 29, 2022
The works of Charles Johnson—perhaps best known now as the author of Middle Passage, which won the National Book Award—have been recognized in numerous ways, including a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and other awards. These acts of acknowledgement of Johnson’s talents came after he earned his PhD in philosophy while—wait for it—working his way through college as a cartoonist. The cartoons were largely single-panel gags concerning racial issues published in Black-owned media outlets. A selection of Johnson’s early cartoons was published in the anthology It’s Life as I See It, and this book follows up on that initial selection, with almost no overlap. Unlike the previous anthology, which ends during the 1980s, All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End includes works long out of print, lost and restored, and never before in print, ranging from Johnson’s first published cartoons in 1965 and to present examples done gratis for small publications. Topics range from radical Black Panther actions to Stanley Crouch’s dismissal of Spike Lee and Toni Morrison. An essential collection.
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...
January 26, 2023
Political comments with a humorous twist, this compilation shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I was unaware of this author’s work before now, and I have not seen much like it before. Very interesting from a history perspective, although of course the humor cuts in unexpected—as well as the expected fashion.
Blacks’ opinions on things are continually underrepresented and therefore less preserved. I wasn’t around in 1965, and we learn history from what other people leave for us and what we can find. So, one of the problems of this book is that a lot of the jokes I didn’t understand because they were before my time and the references are just not in my lexicon. I don’t think that makes this work dated, however, I also don’t think I can fairly judge all levels of this work because I am *so not* the intended audience. And that’s okay! I’m glad this is out there because it’s a rare find.
Blacks’ opinions on things are continually underrepresented and therefore less preserved. I wasn’t around in 1965, and we learn history from what other people leave for us and what we can find. So, one of the problems of this book is that a lot of the jokes I didn’t understand because they were before my time and the references are just not in my lexicon. I don’t think that makes this work dated, however, I also don’t think I can fairly judge all levels of this work because I am *so not* the intended audience. And that’s okay! I’m glad this is out there because it’s a rare find.
April 6, 2023
I first discovered Charles Johnson in a library book "It's Life As I See It: Black cartoonists in Chicago 1940-1980." His were the ones I liked best. I was very pleased that my library was getting this book featuring his cartoons, published mostly before he turned to writing.
Chapters are: from high school to Black Humor, Half-Past Nation Time, Lumps in the Melting Pot, freelance, later work.
Recommended for its mostly humorous view of Black life in America.
Chapters are: from high school to Black Humor, Half-Past Nation Time, Lumps in the Melting Pot, freelance, later work.
Recommended for its mostly humorous view of Black life in America.
June 17, 2023
It's maybe less insane than I want to suppose that Johnson's politically/racially charged cartoons from the Black Power movement still resonate in today's society. Which is sad, even to resigned fatalists such as myself.
Anyway, this is worth a look if you know anything about that time period.
Recommended for anyone who was ever told to "ask your black friends" what they thought of a poem you wrote before it could be approved for inclusion in an art show. : /
Anyway, this is worth a look if you know anything about that time period.
Recommended for anyone who was ever told to "ask your black friends" what they thought of a poem you wrote before it could be approved for inclusion in an art show. : /
January 2, 2024
I am so glad that a friend told me about this wonderfully insightful book! The cartoons of Charles Johnson are a unique look at the political environment of the 60's and 70's from the perspective of an African American cartoonist who was not afraid to tackle the most culturally divisive issues of the day.
December 30, 2022
This book has some great cartoons about African-American ethnic issues in the US.
January 1, 2023
Amazing book, well worth the read
March 1, 2023
Both of it's time and ahead. My favorite sequence were the four single panels of the fists.
June 11, 2023
Some of the messages in the comics were lost on me. I think I'd need to do a little more research on the era to appreciate the book.
July 16, 2023
Lots of gags about the revolution.
September 19, 2023
“Look moderate.” Funniest thing I’ve ever read.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews