Rebroadcast: Cartoonist Barbara Brandon-Croft on being the first Black woman with a nationally syndicated comic

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This rebroadcast originally aired on March 10, 2023.

Until 1991, there wasn’t a single nationally syndicated cartoon by a Black woman. That is – until Barbara Brandon-Croft.

“I kinda put them on blast,” Brandon-Croft says. “‘You haven’t done this, why not? Here is one.’”

Her comic strip “Where I’m Coming From” put the voices, images, and stories of Black women into many American homes for the first time. The comic strip was carried by over 60 newspapers and talked about everything from friendship to love to racism.

“It wasn’t until somebody said to me, ‘Hey, you’re kind of funny. And you draw. You think you can come up with a comic strip?’ And I was like, ‘I think I can.’”

Today, On Point: We sit down with the legendary comic strip artist Barbara Brandon-Croft.

Guest

Barbara Brandon-Croft, cartoonist and creator of the comic strip “Where I’m Coming From.” First Black female cartoonist to be nationally syndicated. Author of the book “Where I’m Coming From,” a collection of her strips from 1991 to 2005. (@barbarabrandoncroft)

Book Excerpt

Excerpt from ‘From Where I’m Coming From.’ Copyright Barbara Brandon-Croft, courtesy Drawn & Quarterly. Not to be reprinted without permission. All rights reserved.

Comics by Barbara Brandon-Croft

 Transcript

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: In 1989, Barbara Brandon-Croft got her own comic strip in the Detroit Free Press. She was so excited that she quit her reporting job at Essence Magazine to pursue being a comic strip artist full time. Problem is, it paid just $75 a week. That’s about $180 a week in today’s money.

So, Brandon-Croft knew that if she wanted to do it full time, she needed to be…