>> From the library of congress in Washington D.C. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:15 >> Larry Sarratt: Good afternoon everyone, I'm Larry R. Sarratt, President of the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Cultural Association here at the Library of Congress. I want to take this opportunity to welcome each of you here at the library. You've heard the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child" and today, it has taken a village to put on this program. And I just want to welcome each of you in behalf of the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Cultural Association of the Library of Congress. Blacks in government -- the Library of Congress chapter, Office of the Equal Opportunity Employment, Equal Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity and diversity programs, serials and government publications division and prints, and photographs division. So, we want to welcome you. And what if -- and we want to welcome each and every one of you on behalf of the divisions and the organizations here at the Library of Congress. Again, we welcome you and we hope that you will enjoy this wonderful program that has been prepared for you today. Again, we welcome you, and at this time we'll have Mister Pinckney come and give his presentation. >> Kevin Pinckney: Good morning, my name is Kevin Pinckney, and in June of this year I went to my first Comic Con, there was too much to see and little time. So, I chose what two items I wanted to see at the program. One of the programs was this one called the -- here we are -- the unacknowledged history of black creators and black characters in comic books. And as you see, as Mister Goza has already stated there is a lot of information, and he barely had enough time then, to give his presentation. And he's already started ahead of time, and I'm sure by the time -- times up, he'll have even more to go. He said five or six hours, so -- Yes, exactly. So, Darrell goes ahead of creation -- creatives script graphic comic books, affirmed specialized in commercial art and design, he's a well-known author of African-American comics, and who has explored the American history which shaped the comic book history. David McLane [phonetic] to the far end, is co-owner of Graphic, Rhythmic Productions. Mister McLane is a cartoonist and illustrator, he does create his work in New York City metropolitan area, and has been in the graphic arts business since 1970. Katrina Oxner [phonetic] sitting to my left, and those -- made digital systems and social media integration for Goza Creative Script Graphics comic books. Miss Oxner works on creative resources for the firm, and provides costumer engagement and investigative capabilities to strengthen their brand. And I was going to talk -- ask about Stan, but he's already startled by that, because that's the concept that I was thinking about when he was giving his presentation in June. The other group that was briefly mentioned was the Library of Congress professional associations, What If, Science Fiction and Fantasy Club. And I'm going to leave it to Mister Goza now, to pick up where he left off, I got the script ready, and we'll go for that. Thank you. >> Darrell Goza: Thank you. My name is Darrell Goza, I represent Goza Creative Script Graphics. Initially, when I first started doing work in comics, I used to do a lot of shows, and when I was in college a gentleman met me at a show on Neil Adams, and he said he liked the work that I was doing, he said, "Come work for me, you can learn more about comics with me, that you'll ever learn in school". So, within two weeks I was at his studio on New York, and I work there for nearly 15 years -- actually, more like 20, OK? I ended up leaving it, because I looked out and I realized that as long as you are working for somebody else, in that capacity, you don't get to spread your own wings, is always about having his wings been [inaudible]. And Neil has some big wings, trust me. He's very good, he has one of the most -- well, I call it the most devastating work ethic on the planet. I'm trying to have one even better than his. He's a guy that during his formative years, only had to do 10 comps in his class. He wanted to be the best in his class, so he did 100, and picked his best 10. It took two years before the students in the class with him, realized they needed to do that, if they wanted to beat him, OK? So, coming into that with this, I looked and said, "If I'm going to do a comic book line, what's the one big problem most comic book lines have?" Is that they produce a book, put into the market, hope it makes money, and then they try to make the next one. And then, they hope that makes money, and then they try to do the next one. So, I looked at my team, when I started assembling my team, and said, "We don't want to do that. We want to have 50 books in the camp before we launch" So, this way -- then it's just a question of getting in into the market. And we found that that's going to be the best way for us to do this. Now, I'm going to tell you something about creatives; they are notoriously -- like Batman says, that criminals are notoriously cowardly lot, well, most creatives are notoriously lazy lot. How do I know? I used to be one of them, until I met Neil, OK? Once that happens, and you start working with creatives, you start to find out they have two ways in which they operate with their work. One, you stroke their ego and make them feel good, and maybe they'll work, or you don't work with them at all, because, ultimately if you have to stroke the ego to get them to work there, they're not committed to their work at all; they're committed to their ego. And I'm not against them being committed to their ego, but in this industry, you need someone that can do the work, because you have to do a minimum; minimum one page a day, complete one page a day, if you can't do one page a day in comic book art, you're in the wrong industry, you're in the wrong field. And I know this from experience, and I know from every other person and about the most people are trying to do more than that Jack Kirby, who helped Stan Lee build the Marvel universe, he used to do up to five pages a day. And that's why he got be known as phenomenal -- to be the phenomenon that he was. Today, we're going to talk about some of the unknown creators out there that were just as diligent doing what they did but they didn't receive the accolades for what they did. But, before we can even begin that conversation we have to start with the conversation that says, where do the images of us come from in the first place, how did they come about, what created them, and what made them so resistant on getting away from them -- so resistant, or resistant to us overall, and to do that, we have to go back when they first started, all right? '1950s; birth of a nation. Affectionately called the classmen marked the time in our history, when we weren't allowed to even play ourselves in popular media productions. Instead, they were white actors that took [inaudible] on black, in their face for the playouts, and were even more than not, more stereotypical than they were realistic. And here's an interesting thing; the gentleman you see in this picture, his name was Bert Williams. He was a Jamaican, who had to put caulk on his face to get work. Think of that concept, a black guy has to put caulk on his face to get work as a black guy, OK? This is why I have laughed for the most part, about how stuff with us worked, back in the day. Now, if you take a look for the down, you'll see Al Jonson, on the Jazz Singer, and this also became a very, very stereotypical image of black people back in the day. And quite naturally, since most comic book art, or most art in general reflects the sign of its times, it you look right underneath it, this was from a comic strip of Mickey Mouse, where they actually mimicked that image. And I want you to take a look on the image on the bottom lower right -- well, your right, my left. That's a character called Little Ape Boy [phonetic] keep him in mind. Next slide. In the 1930s, Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse did those kind of things. In 1934, there was a comic strip called Mandrake the Magician, and there was a character they introduced that they called Lothar. This was one of the first attempts to actually humanize black people in this country, and what they did was that they brought him in, and he was the king of seven nations, or the prince of seven nations. Now, think about this. I'm a magician, I come to your land, you're in line to be king of seven nations, and you decide that you wanted to be my sidekick. Shouldn't that have been the other way around? So, for all antics and purposes, though, they drew him fairly humanistic, OK? And that was a good thing that was a good thing. Lee Falk understood something that even back then, about the nature of human beings and what people looked for out in the world. You'll also notice that on the lower right-hand side, there's a character called Wacko, because back at that time, Marvel was also looking at these things, because when people were doing stuff, they don't work in a vacuum. So, if I create a Star Wars; I can guarantee you, there's going to be 15 rip-offs of Star Wars. So, if I created a character like that and it turns out to be a popular thing, you're going to get people that are going to also do that. Next slide. ^M00:10:04 1936, Jackie Ormes; the thing that's really interesting about her, her name was Zelda Jackson when she was born, but she took on the name Jackie Ormes, and she was one of the first females and it's largely on -- she's largely perceived, and largely received as being the first female -- the black female, African-American cartoonist. In 19 -- when she did her strip, she would actually engage in social issues. She would actually engage in social issues. Now, early on, she did them fairly benign, but when this strip came, when she -- when they brought it back on the '1950s, she actually went full tilted head on, and took on social issues, such as racism, such as poverty in the actual comic strip itself, OK? Next one. But, as it is in the world, no good deed goes unpunished. So, what happens is that at that time, when people actually started to portray us in comic as being human, then there was a backlash, so people decided that what they were going to do, is that they were going to go back to the old, original ideology and iconography of who we were. Note Little Ape Boy, not only did they do comics strips like this, when they gave us the big head, the dark skin, the big lips and the big eyes, they put on planes, and took it all the way around the world, because they wanted the entire world to see us that way. Now, I want you to understand something; I do not fault for being who they are, at the time, when they don't know any better. Back then, most people did not know any better. Remember that birth of a clan -- that birth of a nation film, it basically set the standard for a lot of things, and the way that people looked at things in the world. Did most of you know that the burning cross that most clansmen began to use, wasn't even originally theirs? It was done in that movie, and they adopted it. What a brilliant film, I quote, 13 done by Ava DuVernay. If you get an opportunity, see that film, rent it, download it, go on Netflix and watch that film. Because, she explains the history of that, and she's very, very succinct in how she does it. OK, next one. Now, as I said, if you remember, even Stan Lee at the time, and this was when -- before Marvel was Marvel, when they were known as Stan Lee Comics. Stan Lee Comics, they did a book called Young Allies, and in Young Allies they created a character called Washington Jones. And by the way, Washington Jones was his name, but what they called him in it, was White Washed. His name was Washington "White Washed" Jones. And for the most part, what he was used as is the guy that always had to be rescued. He always had to be rescued, he always had to be saved, he was always the one getting in trouble, and for all intents and purposes he was used for comic relief. I don't want -- I'm trying to figure a nice way to say it; there's no nice way to say it. Comic Relief. And for the most part, this is how characters were treated over that time frame. Now, I want you to take a look at the one at the upper right, all the way on the side. That's the Spirit. Underneath you'll see a character called Ebony White. Ebony White was drawn exactly like, or in the same iconography stereotypical way as White Washed Jones, there was one difference though, the artist, the creator of The Spirit, Will Eisner; he had a different ideology about his character. So, whereas he drew him like that, he actually had a character being more human, in the way that he was interacting within the story. And I had a 45-minute conversation with Will Eisner out of show, because I wanted to ask him about that, I said, "Will, you're a hip guy. How could you even do that? Why didn't you rail against him, why didn't you showed them what it should have been?" he said, "Sign of the times". Those were his exacts words that was a quote, those were his exact words, it was the sign of the times. He said, "But, I did at least, to my credit, at least have him be heroic", even in spite of the way he was visually portrayed, and that was true. This gentleman's name is Clarence Baker, this guy -- I never knew he was black throughout his entire career; I never really knew he was black. But, what he did was, is he specialized on what's known as good girl art. Because, he knew that if you do good girls, people would buy your books. So, they put him -- he didn't even start on Phantom Lady, but he was the one that changed her, and modified her. So, that she was as sexy, as she is now. Now, here's the sad part about that; at that time, and let me give you the date, because I want to make sure that you know this. Now, we're in 1944, what happen was that there was a gentleman by the name of Fredric Wortham, who was writing a book called Seduction of the Innocents. And in Seduction of the Innocents, what he was trying to do, was say that comic books led to juvenile delinquency, because they had juvenile delinquency problems in America, or at least they thought they did. And so, what he did is that he wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocents, and in that book, he said, that comic books by a large, cause people -- young kids, to become juvenile delinquents. He had no scientific data to back that up, it was all based on his own supposition in it, and you end on his part. But, the Phantom Lady; that's on the bottom left, all the way to the side. That was one of the images that he put in his book to say, that this is one of the reasons white kids are juvenile delinquents. Because they see women half naked in a comic book. Go figure, go figure. Next one. Now, we're in 1947. Now, this is what I think -- again, remember; things go in cycles with most people. You may start off one way with an image and a stereotypical way of seeing things, and as you put that out on the world, people will rebel and they'll do something totally the opposite of that. So, early we started with us being global savages, then, we became like Lothar; not really that super intelligent yet, but at least, we looked at least human. Then, they went back to the other stereotypical image, and now, they say, "Well, wait a minute. There have been black that have done a lot of things in the world", but again, we're not necessarily heroes, but what they decided to do, is that they decided that what they would do, is that they would actually start the show -- people that were real life and out in the world. So, now they started doing comic books about sport figures or science guys, and things along those lines because they were safe. And basically, that's exactly what it was; it was all about being safe. You probably should view comic books with more positive portrayals of black characters than they did. Paris Magazine Institute published Negros Heroes, in the spin of 1947, but the title would only go two issues. There was not enough people that was buying them. And it was for reference, after that point that they started doing it, and then they started doing more stuff along those lines. Well, it would actually be stuff that was already being printed in newspaper, and they would compile them and put it into books, OK? Next one. In 1950 -- oh, let me go here. In 1950, [inaudible] did a book called Negro Romance, which was the other side of that. But, on June of '47, a bunch of creators that was working for a newspaper called the Record, decided that what they were going to do, is that they were going to produce a comic book that featured not only all black writers and artists, but all black characters. And this book was called All Negro Comics, and it was published in June of 1947 as the first comic book to be published by Black Americans, to feature black characters and black creators. And may also be the first independent book ever produced. African-American journalist Orrin Cromwell Evans, decided that it was time that black people had a comic book. So, he produced this book; he got a bunch of his people from newspaper of like mind, and they produced the comic book. One of the things about this comic book that I find to be very, very interesting, is that some of the -- they actually had super heroes in it, they had detectives in it, they had one little cute history, with these little cherub -- little kids, that had little wings and it was kind of really, very, very nice. That's one of those really like kid-say things. And when I was reading it, it was funny, because when I first find out about this, you couldn't find this book anywhere. I heard of -- I've seen one writing upon it, one sentence on a paragraph, and I started searching on the internet for it. And it actually took me over a year and a half, to find any imaging from it. And then, I found some imaging from it, because somebody had an issue that they were trying to sell online. So, now with a guy that has scanned the entire book, and he's now got the entire book online. I downloaded it right away, the entire book, because I want to have a history and a record of all the books that have been done by African-American creators, and African-American people that features African-American characters. I want to actually create an archive where we have that entire thing laid out, where people can go and they can see it in historical context, of how it goes from year, to year, to year, to year, and this is something I'm pretty sure I really am -- I'm going to have to dedicate my life to, because I had no idea that there was as much out on the world as there is, with this. Now, thank you, next one. This book. This book is called Treasure Chest the Fun in Fact. Most people may not know, have never -- may have never heard of this book, don't mind me I'm just a little bit nervous, it's been in moments since I've given this lecture. So, I'm trying to remember all of this stuff, and the research that I did. Because, I'm doing research, far beyond this now. This book; the most interesting thing about is, this book was an anthology title. ^M00:20:00 So, in this book they were usually about 8 to 10 stories. This was one story called 1966. So, remember was done in the '1950s, this was 1956. So, they were postulating 20 years into the future, where the presidential campaign would look like. In that presidential campaign the opposing character, you never saw him, and his name was Pettigrew [phonetic] and you never saw him. They would always have him hidden behind the tree or a lamp, or a post. So, for the entire 10 issues that it ran, you never saw that it was a black candidate. So, think about this, catholic charities in 1957 thought by 1976 we would have black people running for president, or running for the nomination. How outrageous is that in this day and age, where we actually now have had a black president. Even though it was from 57 -- therefore I remove. So, does that mean, if you're a catholic school kid you're going to be ahead of your time, progressive. Well, let me tell you, I was a catholic little kid, so I'm saying yes. OK In it, they just showed him winning the nomination. And they left it opened ended as to whether or not he would have actually won the presidency. So, now we know it's a day that we can actually have when it comes under presidency. OK, thank you. Along with that, also in 1965; we're going to skip ahead for this a little bit. This was the first actual comic book that actually featured a black character in a lead role, and as the lead of the book. Up until then, you had a lot of characters like Wacko for instance; ran in the back of some issues. So, you have a lot of it with the characters that they would put in as a part of an anthology story, or annual story. Now, this was the first book, that actually outside of All Negro Comics, where they actually had a lead black character in the book. The thing that's very interesting about this also, is that it was done by what was considered at that time a major publisher. Dell used to be a major player in the book place, in the publishing place, in the paperback space and in the comic book space. And this is something I didn't know either. When I was a kid, we used to laugh at the Dell books, they had painted covers, and then they had some story on the inside, we looked at that and said, "That's nice, that's cute, but we're going to Marvel and D.C." But, I had no idea about the story of Dell until I saw this book, and I saw it reading up on what Dell did, and what else did they produce, because [inaudible] producing this. Do they have black females, do they have Hispanic females, do they have -- so, I'm trying to see everything that they have, and unfortunately this was it, all right. But, this was for all intents and purposes the first book to feature a black character. So, I love you people who thought -- who Cage was it, you are wrong. For those of you who know who Luke Cage is from Marvel, all right? Next one. Now, when that book came out, I'm going to tell you one quick aside -- when that book came out, the general print out on that book was 200,000 which was a standard print for dell at the time. Those books were sent out, and most comic book companies are working three months in advance. So, they basically worked on the third book before the first book comes out. This, when they put out the first one, and then they started working on the second. When they -- way they looked at the numbers and the returns; the sales. They would notice that the books were not selling, and why the books are not selling? And back in that day, they had what was known as returnable. In other words, you ripped of the cover, sent the book back and you'd get credit for your next purchase. So, what happens was the books were coming back with the covers ripped off, and they were wondering why isn't this book selling, this book should be selling like hotcakes. And what happened was is that it would get to the retail out, and the retail outlet guys would at the book, "I'm not selling this. I'm not selling that; it's a black character, I'm not selling that". Now, here's what I'm thinking, me -- well, again, known to who I am, if someone sent a book to me like that, I would've looked at them, and said, "If it's a chance for the soul, let's put it out and see if it does", if it does -- what I'm making? I'm making money, you understand? I'm not trying to not make money, I'm wanting to make money, but they were not going to forward a black comic book character. So, they were sending the books back. So, by the time they got by the second issue, they finished the second issue and a friend of mine actually purchased it, he purchased a copy of the second issue. And again, I scanned the crap out of that, so I now I have that on my archive. OK. The first one and second one are archived already, and because they sent those books back, the publisher said, "Listen, nobody is buying this, so we're not going to continue to put out money for 200,000 prep runs, and nobody is going to buy it". So, that's why it has only two issues, and that was the end of that. The fact that they actually got the book to the stand made an impact on the industry. So, now what happens is Marvel looked out at this, and well, maybe there is time, maybe we need to have a black character out there, maybe we should. So, they reached back into their archives, and they pulled a book out called Wacko, remember him from back in the '1930s; they brought it back. But, now they weren't really willing to give him his own book just yet. So, they said, "Well, we'll do it as an anthology title", and as an anthology title it had a bunch of different stories, and Wacko's story was one of them. They put him in there, and here's the funny thing; people liked it fine, it wasn't as if they ran away from it, or got away from it, or didn't like it, or didn't want to read it. So, they said, "Well, wait a minute, now I wonder -- then along comes a gentleman by the name of Jack Kirby, who've been working for them, would made Captain America popular -- for popular and the Fantastic Four popular and he says, "You know what? We need to have a black character". So, he went on to call the Black Panther initially, he wanted to call him Cold Tiger. Stan Lee said, "Cold Tiger? I don't think so." He said, "We've got to give them something that's a little more powerful, a little more fantastic", and so, they came up with Black Panther. And initially, the original Black Panther costume; the face was open, just like a regular super hero where you could see the skin. Stan Lee figured, "Well, let's not push that. Let's cover him up, let's get people into the story, let's let people read the story, and get connected to the character and then they'll realize who he is. So, that's why you have Black Panther; the all black outfit. And when he came out in the book, it turned out that it was a hit, it turned out to be a very, very phenomenal book in terms of their selling structure. At that point, they realized they had a hit on their hands. So, they decided that they were going to actually start to do some stuff with him. Now, from 1966, and this book was done in 1966 -- in 1969 they decided, now, let's actually create a black character people will know he's black from the very beginning. This is when the Falcon came in. And by the way, the Falcon came in because he was recruited by the Red Skull, to help the Exiles defeat Captain America. They put him on an island that Red Skull used the cosmic cube to steal Steve Rogers identity, and what he did, he said, "Well, I'll become Cap, and I'll put Cap on this island, and they'll kill him, and then I'll just be Captain, I'll ruin his reputation, I'll ruin everything", they put him on this island, he runs across Falcon one day on the island, and he's like, "Who are you?" and he's like, "Well, who are you?" And so, they started talking, and [inaudible] they have me here to kill some guy, and he says, "I know, I'm that guy", and he's, "Oh, I don't want to kill anybody", he said, "But I don't know what I can do", he said, "I know what you can do; you can fight them", he says, "I can't fight, I don't know anything about that", so Cap says, "I do, let me train you." So, Falcon and Cap were in secret, were training each other so that they could take on the Exiles and then, take on the Red Skull. Now, if any of you know anything heroes and comics, do heroes win? So, did they win? Absolutely. But, in that, when they were fighting, he said, "Falk, you need to have an outfit", and at that time, Falcon already had the bird. Red Wing was his bird and his friend on the island, so as such, he decided to take on the name of the Bird, which is a Falcon, so he did. And the interesting thing was when they fought, he said, "You need to get an outfit, you need to get yourself a name", and he said, "Call me The Falcon", and there was Falcon. So, they fought, they won, they got off the island. And again, they had a hit in the Falcon character, they drawn him back a couple of times in Captain America's book. So, from 1969 to 1972, still no real major black presence in the major comic book industry. But, now it looked up and said, "You know what? We need to have a dedicated book, specifically to a black character." Now, remember none of this stuff happens in a vacuum. So, outside of that, what happens? You have the black exploitation films that were happening too in that time frame. Anybody remembers Sweet Sweetback Badass Song? [Inaudible] black hand sign, yes. So, now, guess who's going to the movies? Black people. Let me tell you -- again, a little aside, when Melvin van Peebles attempted to take Sweet Sweetback Badass Song and get it into the distribution that -- nobody would buy, nobody was going for it, there were two little guys, there were two Jewish guys, I think it was Chicago who had this movie theater that was failing. And so, when he came to it, he called me and said, "Listen, since the distributors aren't doing -- he decided he's going to call all the movie houses, to see if he could get it in there. Nobody was listening. These two guys, their movie theater was failing, they were going to lose it; so, they said, "You know what? What the heck, we've got nothing to lose. Well run for it, we can see how it does." So, they took Sweet Sweetback Badass Song, put it in that movie theater, and within one showing had lines around the block, four people deep. So, now of course, Hollywood when they were getting the numbers back -- OK, from the tracking sheets they said, "Well, wait a minute. All of our movies are flat lines. How come this movie is doing so well?" So, they sent a representative about them, and said, "yes, we are running this black film" So, they said, "Really? Wow", so the black [inaudible] of films began. Now, everybody wants to put a black film, why? Because they realized that there was a market out there that they never, ever looked at as being a market. ^M00:30:09 And again, to me; smart business men. When you're looking at dollars and cents, you're not looking at color; you're looking at dollars and cents. And 15 people in this -- if everybody in here was an elf, and they would pay in to come here to see this, trust me, I'm making an elf movie. OK. Let's be real. OK, let's be real; I'm making an elf movie. So, that's what happens. So, Marvel looked up at that and said, "Maybe, we should make a black comic book dedicated, with a black lead character. We'll be the first in history", they didn't remember Lobo, they didn't remember All Negro Comics. So, Marvel actually marketed just like that; the first black character to have his own book. And the book sold well, the book sold well. So, D.C., their competitors, looked at that and said, "Wait a minute. This can't be possible, that book is doing well, is doing good." So, what did they do? They created Black Lightning. And by the way, a friend of mine named Trevor [inaudible] some of his work is in the back game, which we found to be very, very interesting. He was the guy that was brought in to draw that book, and guess what? They just did something totally unusual; usually they're looking for people that have a lot of credit, a lot of history in doing comics. Trevor, wasn't even 16 years old when he drew that issue. 16 years old. So, now they had the opportunity to have a double cue. Number one; they had a black character, and not only was he a black character, whereas theirs was drawn by white man, ours is drawn by a young black guy, and that's how they marketed it. And what can I say of that? It's what Trevor told me, he said, "God bless them". God bless them, next one. Now, across the [inaudible] in England, they were looking at this phenomenon in America called the black exploitation era. They were looking at the fact that black books were now in the mainstream, and they decided, "Well, we need to do one too." So, they decided to do a book called Power Comics, or actually the book was really called Power Man, this is a compilation of it, when they found it they did it again, and brought it back in this form. Now, the character that they originally had was a character called Power Man, and his only weakness was snakes. Now, don't get me wrong, I have that same weakness. OK, and I'm pretty sure if -- a snake on the floor, a lot of you wished that you would have it too. But, outside of that he did it, and here's the thing; they wanted to market it to schools in Nigeria. They were producing it in England, and Brian Bolland who went in to later -- to do Watchmen, was the artist on a lot of the stories, and they wanted to take him into the school systems, and into the market in Nigeria to sell. And so, that's what they did, that's what they did. Next one. Thank you. Now, again, as I said, nothing ever happens in a vacuum. So, what happens is a lot of black creators were looking at that time, and they were saying to themselves, "Now, wait a minute, they're doing books about our characters, why aren't we doing books about our characters, we aren't doing comic conventions where we're bringing in a lot of black creators, to show what black creators are doing", because again, we're part of it, we're part of this us all. So, we're looking at this stuff, and what we're doing; Dave and I were creating stuff all along that time frame. OK, crude, because we didn't have the expertise at the time back then. But, we were looking at all of that, we were influenced by it also. So, just as we were influenced, so were a lot of other people, but a lot of other people had much more experience than us. And because they had much more experience than us, they were bringing a lot more heat to the table. And because such, a gentleman by the name of [inaudible] his career was touched upon a variety of disciplines of fine arts, applied or visual art, producing works in painting, drawing illustration, publishing fashion, most [inaudible] production. So, what he -- it was quite naturally that his attitude was, "Wait a minute, why don't we create an entire movement around this? So, that we can actually have stuff that we can say is our own" and so, that's what he did. [Inaudible] was for all intent and purposes the grandfather of the Black Comic Book movement. He started organizing shows and organizing conventions, and having creators, and inviting black creators in. So, that they could actually show the stuff that they were doing, and in doing that, he opened up and entire well spring of what was available to everyone here. Now, at some point I'm going -- each one of the people on these slides is going to have their own slide, OK? Because, when I was doing it back in the day, I realized that they were very, very small. And you can't really see who they are, and you can't really see a lot of their work. But, to give you an example, the guy just a little bit above, lonely, a guy by the name of Jerry Craft, he does a syndicate strip called Mama's Boys, which talks about a mother raising to their young boys, and it's one of very few comics that -- the gentleman right under that is Al Simmons; Al Simmons has opened up a connection between African-American creators and Africa, where he goes over there and he does this thing called Kids Con, where he teaches young African kids about comics and how to do them, and the comics that exist on every other nation in the planet. Here -- planet, well, we've only got one planet. But, I'm sure, if he could get it out to space, he would, because that was the kind of guy, he was very forward thinking, and he created a character called Blackjack, which is about a black adventurer in the '1930s, who actually met Tarzan, in the Tarzan syndicate district. Because he got to write for that format, and so he brought his character into that, which is very, very interesting. Now, we have Felix, who's all the way on the other side of the top, a little small picture of Felix. He does a lot of stuff on the New York area, where he does conventions for a lot of creative and independent creators. Primarily Latino in nature. Latino and Hispanic, but he invites us in because he gives the nod. So, that's how I met him. Underneath him, in the far-right hand corner, the gentleman on the bottom with the head rag on. His name was Mshindo Kuumba, you may want to remember that. This guy is for all intents and standards, when I tell people is the goal standard for what we're trying to do. If I could draw like him, right now, you -- trust me, all of my work would be in this building, all of my work would be in this building. This guy, for all intents and purposes is what we're aiming at, that level of quality, that level of sophistication, that level of coloring; humans in terms of the way he draws, that's what we're aiming at. And he has some stuff that's coming out over the next two years, and I can't say anything about it unfortunately. But, it's some of the most beautiful stuff I've ever seen in my life. Are any of you familiar with the gentleman by the name of Alex Ross? He was Alex Ross, before Alex Ross was Alex Ross, OK? He's that good. And so, he's going to be bringing stuff to the table and out to the world. Now, he has stuff out now, but we need to get him in a book, we need to get him into something that we can get into kids' hands. Once that happens, the game will be changed, the game will be changed. Next slide. Now, along this time frame, since it took only opened up that door, quite naturally is going to be somebody is going to actually step through it, and say, "You know what? We need to do something else." This character was the first statement, where this guy decided that he was going to create a character that actually spoke to the actual black dysphoria in America. And this character is called Brother Man. Now, I'm going to tell you why I haven't mentioned his name. Guy Sims is the guy that wrote it. The guy that drew it is named Dawud Anyabwile [phonetic]. That's what I'm trying to not say the name too much. I'm just going to call it Dawud, and we'll leave it at that, all right? But, when he drew this character, he took it to the New York expo, in 1990 and at the New York expo, three-day event, he sold 70,000 units. What he showed, was that black comic books could make money, they could sell, and they didn't have to come from a major publisher. That was the statement that he made, in addition to that, this book did so well, that it was featured on our City Hall, and what our City Hall said was this, "If this character, that image you see down there on the bottom left -- your bottom right that was the image he flashed on his screen behind him he said, "They say that the sales are Superman and not doing well, maybe if Superman looked like this he'd sell more." That's the quote. Next slide. So, now, of course after that, what did Black Prize do? Wait a minute, if this guy can do it, we can do it. And here's the thing, the interiors of the Brother Man book were all black and white. Just like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles black color covers, black and white interiors, so was that. These guys came along and decided, we don't need one book, we need a line. So, they decided they wanted to create a line of books. And this was called Ania [phonetic] and I forget what the promotion thing was. Was it all black creators, all black art, all black, all black -- someone tells they put so much black in their first advertisement that I was like, "Wow. Gee, I guess they're a black company" But, here's the funny thing. They ran it to the same problem most creators ran into when they were trying to create products; they produced the first books, they put them out, and they got a lot of press all across the country. They guy that did [inaudible] -- he used to actually dress up like a Zulu warrior, and he would climb besides the capital buildings, and have a flag up there to generate publicity. ^M00:40:10 So, people buys his book. And what happens was that they ran into the problem that most creators run into, that they think that they're actually going to create a book, make money, and then do more. So, most of these books ended up not getting past the third issue, because the creators could not keep them. The one book that was an exception to that was the book called Purge, and that was done by Roosevelt. That book is still being published today, in fact, he just released a graphic novel just his past summer, and this past fall. Now, out of this company, comes this one; this is the company most people will know as being the eminent and the standard by which all black comic book companies will be judged from here on out. This was Milestone Media, it was headed by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle; who worked for Black Enterprise Magazine, and Ed Davis. Ed Davis and Denys Cowan; I both know, and I got to meet Dwayne McDuffie, because when they first thought of Milestone Media and I saw it, I said, "I want to know about this", so I went down to the offices and met McDuffie, and one of the things he said to me at that point, he said, "There's a lot of creators that want to be in this business, but not a lot of them are very good." So, that means, you go home, you work, and you get good. One of the guys that worked there with us, a guy by the name of -- he actually worked with them, but let me tell you, again as I tell you, most creators are what? They are a lazy lot. So, they would give him stuff, because Ernie [phonetic] would come, and he would just do a little bit of work, and they wanted to push him, to find out who he was, and to find his artistic voice, and Ernie's whole thing, when he would come to our meetings, was like, "Man, they're giving me nothing to do. They're giving me all this crap", we used to tell him, "Just do it, just do it. If it's so trivial, just do it." Well, he never did, and they ultimately didn't use him because of it. But, he would have been in there when they would first getting started, and he didn't see what was possible. So, he didn't do it. But, anyway, when they did this, they actually set the standard, and they worked out one of the most beautiful distribution deals with D.C. Comics; they maintain all the rights to their characters to this day. D.C. distributed it, through their distribution network, and paid them a fee. So, all they have to do is produce the books, get them into the pipeline, make money, right through D.C. And D.C. was being carried by every major retail in the planet. Not just in this country, but worldwide. Now, I'm going to tell you a little interesting thing that happened with that; as with anyone else, when you start to get a lot of notoriety in this business, when good opportunities come, you want to take them on. So, what happened? Motown Records at the time decided they wanted to go into animation. So, what did they do? They reached out to these guys to help them form Motown Animation, which is why you now have this static shock animated series. That's where it came from, it came from them and this, because they did Milestone. Next slide. Now, in addition to that; everybody looked at what any did, and then, looked at what Milestone did, and of course, how could we not do it ourselves? We couldn't, we had to. We were compelled. So, what I did -- there was this guy who they called, watch out magazine, that's how I met this gentleman Dave Bucklay [phonetic] he was good, well, as I watched out a generation after me. And we were being taught the comic book industry by the gentleman by the name of Dan Brown [phonetic] who's no longer with us. But, he opened a door to showing us that we too, could do this stuff, all right? Underneath that is a book called Steel I raise, and to the left of that is a book called MCSquare, this is the first hip hop comic book ever. And how do I know? Because, they came to me to have me do it. We couldn't, we could never work out the financial thing. So, they got another by the name of Balufu Bay [phonetic] to do the artwork for them. And until the day that he passed, he and I were in communication and good friends, all right? The thing that's really interesting also, out of that, is that there's a gentleman by the name of Dwayne Ferguson that did a book called Captain Africa. Because, he felt that if you and have a book about Africans, and featuring Africa-American [inaudible] somewhere in the title. So, he did a book called Captain Africa. But, his claim to fame wasn't through this book, it was through a book called Hamster [phonetic] Vice. Which floated in time line of books called Blackthorn for over two years while they were forming; his book was the book that people bought, and that's why they're able to do their line of books out in California. Underneath that is a girl by the name of Rachel Lewis, who did a book called Sandstorm, and she also worked through us with a company called Bidnip, which is the fourth book that you see in the upper left with the green behind that. And the cooper book we have, we printed copies of it, over in the back for you today. So, that you can take them home, and you can read a real story, because let me tell you what we wanted to do; in addition of doing a comic book story, we actually wanted to do areal novel, we wanted to say, "What will happen if you put a real novel in a comic book?" I mean, a real story, something that when people read it, you don't just read it and brush through it, but you actually read it like a novel, but it just has illustrations. So, that's what we did, and in doing that story, we [inaudible] it all throughout Pennsylvania, we figured Pennsylvania would be the toughest market for a black guy, in a black company. And you would read on the back of it, what they said about that book, and how well they liked it, and so we were all like, "Yes, yes. So, we need to compile all of this in one big volume. So, that people can get it all at one time", the whole story all at one time, so that's what we did. And underneath it, underneath that, you'll see a book called PB soldier, that's one of my partners, that's going to be launching along with me in 2017, his name is Naseed Gifted, and the next will go over Star Age, which is also going to be one of the first books that's coming from our line in 2017 -- February of 2017, actually. Next slide. In addition to this, I was not satisfied with that just being a comic book, and by the way I want you to understand this, at a certain point you start to realize that -- again, we don't work in a vacuum; because we don't work in a vacuum the digital age was upon us. So, we decided that what we were going to do, is we were going to create some digital online content that people could read for free. Now, this would operate as a promotional tool for us. It would also operate as the thing -- but we would have content that we could actually put on books down the line. And so, that's what we did. We launched that project in 2013, and we've been doing roughly about 2,000 to 3,000 hits a month. Well, actually it's a weak, if I'm not mistaken, but people will coming in -- and it's funny, because the creators -- we have creators, and when each one of them gets that higher hit, everybody tries to act like, "Oh, no. It's not about the hits, it's not about this", until somebody else beats them. Then it's like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute", it's not really about the hits and it's like, "Well, I'm coming for you". So, we wanted to be competitive, because that's how you can better; competition meets excellence. So, if people are competitive, they will step up in excellence or they will get going, because that's the way that this industry works; you either get people to like you, or you're leaving because you're herd, and that's how we are very, very insecure, that way. OK, next one. So, in addition, I want to do some honorable mentions very quick. Now, this is new, so the people that saw it prior, did not see this stuff. The reason I wanted to this was because Mohammed Ali had a comic book, believe it or not. And he fought Superman, believe it or not. And he beats Superman, believe it or not, OK? Upper right, your upper left, it's a comic book called Black Man. This was the beginning of the black exploitation theories in films, which was done around the time that Ania came out, and I put this one in, because this was the first one that struck my fans, because it had turned them like this; Black Man. I said, "Can't beat it" I wanted that name, believe me I did. But he came out, I was like, "Don't go in it" so I couldn't mess with it. Brother Voodoo was a character, a Marvel created it was going into their supernatural space, he ultimately ended up becoming the sorcerer supreme, which is what Doctor Strange actually is. And now for -- because of the movie, they brought Doctor Strange back, and he's the regular Doctor Strange again, OK? Next, do you see classics illustrated -- in the beginning they were doing books a lot like the books back in the '50s, where they were doing benign characters of society's sport figures and along those lines, which was kind of nice, on the complete left, the two books on the bottom; these were books that were based on animated characters, Cosmic Kids, Column Globetrotters, and there's a whole bunch of them, I just put two up, but there's a whole bunch that were done based on animated things. Because, they knew that kids were watching the animated series, that they had automatically had a locked in audience. And so, they would actually produce books based on that. X-Men; I've put this on, and only because people kept telling me, "You mentioned all these black characters nobody knows, but you never mentioned Storm." And I said, "OK." The Storm; that was her first book, that's how they introducer her, OK? In X-Men number one, they introduced her, they introduced the Russian character, and introduced Nightcrawler. Mister Miracle; the reason I put this one in, it's because the character that Mister Miracle trains was called Shilo Norman, he ultimately ended up becoming the next Mister Miracle, and then, when they killed off the entire New Gods line, they brought him back, and now you have the regular Mister Miracle again, go figure. Underneath it, you have Star Spangled War, which is the first time or not the first time, but there was a character known the Unknown Soldier. Now, throughout the history of that book, the Unknown Soldier was always a white character, until they did the front, they did a series on him, and in the front, he was a black character fighting -- helping to fight the war on Ruanda. ^M00:49:58 So, I was kind of interested in that, and so I ended up getting the series because of that, and it turns out it was a black character. Next dude is Wonder Woman, and by the way, the woman you see here fighting? Her name is Nubia, she's black, and she's Wonder Woman's sister. ^M00:50:09 ^M00:50:14 Now, the reason I say it, it's because her mother created two; she created Wonder Woman, and then she created Nubia, she made her with a different clay, that's all. All right. Underneath it, you'll also see Spider-Man in the prowl, at night a conversation with a gentleman eerily by the prowler character. All right. Next tool you see on static shock, the comic book and then, you'll also see Static Shock the DVD. Dave, next one. And, here are two trail blazers that I wanted to mention. Kyle Baker was one of the first illustrators in the world, by my knowledge, to actually say, "You know what? Comic books are nice" and I had a conversation with him at the New York Comic Con, and he said to me, "Comics are nice, but that comic book space is owned by Marvel and D.C.", he says, "But, they're not the only publishers in the world." So, what he did, he started taking his concepts to book publishers, and that's what he did; he ended up producing graphic novels for book publishers. Now, I'm going to tell you something that's really interesting about all of these books. They're all very well done, they're all very -- they're elected, they're not done like comic books per se, as they use that as a format, but he's drawing them in all kinds of ways, and using all kinds of techniques to draw. But I want you to note that Matt Turner book; he did something so phenomenal, in that Matt Turner book, even today my mind is blown. That book is done with nothing but illustrations, no words, which means it can go into any audience, because anybody can read the pictures. So, an Asian person can read it, a Hispanic person can read it, a Mongolian person can read it, an American person can read it, and still get the story. That's what made that book phenomenal to me. Larry Stroman, on the other hand, the reason I put him in, it's because I've also worked with him. But, his claim to fame while all the books are the upper part of that, even Black Panther, but the book that gives him the claim to fame for me is the book on the bottom, with the black cover, with the silver encasing; that book was called Tribe Number One. That book sold over a million units for image. According to Rob Liefeld, and again, my attitude is that if I sell a million unit of any of our books, I guarantee you; I'm going to hire so many black creators, that you're all going to think that I'm crazy. You're all going to see so many black, and Hispanic, and Latino, and white and women and everything; I might have the United Nations in my comic company, if I sell a million units of anything, OK? All right, thank you. Next, OK. Now, for those of you who don't understand why we need to have a black comic book, and a black comic book line this is why; most of the people in this are black people, dressing up as white characters. It's not like we don't have black characters, we don't have what any of that are out there -- they're powerful enough that a black person wants to dress like that and say, "I'm a black character", OK? Outside of Falcon. So, you've got Black Aquaman, you've Black Robin, you've Black Superman, and by the way; for those of you who don't know, there's an actual -- there is an entire race of black cryptonians, that was written in the Superman story. And I'm trying to find out what they're going to do with that, because I want to write something and propose it to D.C., and say, "Listen, you do know you have a bunch of Superman on your planet that are black, right?" now, I want to see what they're going to do with that. But, I have a story in mind for that. But, again, whether they take it or not, I don't know; but, I'm definitely going to write it, definitely going to draw it, OK? Thank you. And, we're again -- no one works in a vacuum. So, we have African brothers that are creating entire lines of comic books right now that they're putting out to the market place, even more -- and again, more of them. And I just want -- would like you to see some of the diversity, and some of the stuff that they're doing out in the world. Next one. And, for those of you who've got phone, you might want to take a photo shot of this, because these are places you can go to find a lot of information about what's going on online, right now with black creators and black stuff -- how much time we have? Right. This should be it. And the end -- this was opposed to what I did, coming writing this kind of stuff. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ^M00:54:29 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:54:34 Sorry about that. And here's a funny thing, normally I would be the guy sitting there, writing it down, I would still not text Abby with this -- then it says, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, I got to say -- let me use it". So, this is what we'll do, to make everybody know, so that you can go. And if you go to these things, you -- a lot of the stuff that you've seen here today, you'll see. And a lot of the stuff -- international. I didn't get the chance to go on to South American heroes, Deepak Chopra, the guru; he had a line of comic books of hind characters from India. Like the real India, not Indian-American; India. So, I hope this has been at least fairly informative, and remember there's a lot more I could've put on this and brought to the table, but again, we'd be here much, much longer already than -- show me the time. All right, thank you very much. ^M00:55:19 ^M00:55:29 >> Darren Jones: Good afternoon everybody, my name is Darren Jones, and on behalf of all of the organizations that sponsored this program today, we want to thank Mister Goza, for that excellent history of black characters and creators. Let's give him another hand. ^M00:55:43 ^M00:55:47 More to come, and he and Miss Oxner, and Miss McLain are going to take some questions in a minute, but before they do that, I want you to say Le Month before you leave the room. Le Month raise your hand; he's selling some books in the back. We also have Georgia Highly [phonetic] back there, who is with the serial government publication division, we have some comic books, and we have [inaudible] at least he has presentation on the back for prints and photographs. So, see those things before you leave today. >> By the way, anybody that purchases any of the books of ours back there, do let me sign it please. That's what will give it value in the future, we want all of our books to be worth $10,000 in 10 years, just letting you know. >> So, we're going to turn it over to the panel right quickly, and take a few questions before we leave today. OK. Questions? >> All right. OK. ^M00:56:38 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:56:42 Oh, you do? ^M00:56:43 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:56:51 >> I hope we get time. OK, I don't know if we can get to that today, but if so, I'm will definitely come back. I might get a car today, I already talked to my man about how I got to get a car today. ^M00:56:59 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:57:12 Vixen -- they never really gave her a title per se, for the most part, what they did, is they did it with women. They did this really weird thing that I never understood; they gave them these short runs, they gave them like a six-issue run. That to me is not really giving a person an issue, if you believe your character is good; give him a book, give him a book. Let the audience decide whether or not they're one. Even Wonder Woman had to fight with Wonder Woman to keep her out there. And I don't understand that at all, given that there are more women in this country than men. But, they never promote her. If you look at the Avengers movie, when they did the marketing for the Avengers movie with the toy line and the dolls and the action figures, they didn't have a Black Widow action figure. You know how many girls would have wanted that action figure? Again, I don't understand the whole non-woman, nonblack people, non-thing when there's money to be made. See, I'm never going to understand that as a concept. I'm never going to understand it. Yes. With who? Kumite? ^M00:58:16 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:58:20 Oh, you wanted to know if we're familiar with -- yes. Kumite. Actually, some of his books. But, I never really engaged or gotten involved enough to know enough what's he's doing yet. Anybody else? ^M00:58:37 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:58:49 That's Milestone that was Milestone. And the question, is that you want to know where Milestone went? With the Icon character. Well, what happened was that Dwayne McDuffie started writing upbeat pieces about the fact that blacks are not represented in comics. So, they quickly took him off that book and stopped published Icon. Icon was slated to become one of the JLA, and that ended in -- within that two-year time span, Dwayne McDuffie passed. And so, once that happened, they said, "Well, nothing to really going to do with it", remember, Milestone owns those targets. Yes. So, D.C. really can't do anything without them, unless the Milestone people want them, and if the Milestone people say them, that "Yes, you can use them", guess what Milestone people are going to say to them. Yes. ^M00:59:39 [ Inaudible ] ^M00:59:49 Did the Brown Hornet become a comic book? I think they did a one off, if I'm not mistaken, but it never was -- it didn't become a series per se. It's again, one of those things where you run it up the flag pole, and if enough people don't generate interest, then that I got to show off the money. Because in this industry, you have to print first and hope you make it back. ^M01:00:10 So, a lot of people, they are not going to take that kind of a hit. Yes, anybody else? Don't be shy. This is your time to ask all the questions you might have had. ^M01:00:20 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:00:30 Well, that's what we're doing -- what we're trying to do. Well, she's asking if about educational outreach, one of the things we're trying to do in educational outreaches, is that we want to be able to tie directly to school's core curriculum. See, we can do a book about science, or we can do a book about math, but if it doesn't tie in to the school's curriculum, then the school can't really utilize it as well. Not that they can't use it, but we want them to buy the book from us. OK, we want to produce the actual physical book, and we want them to buy it from us, and the way we're looking at is if we work with the education, in any particular school system in developing that curriculum, as a comic property, what happens is, as their characters are going through the book and doing things, they'll be learning based on that, and because they're learning based on it, we -- Our assumption is, quite naturally, that their grades will do better. If you have watched a kid that actually learns, and when he learns something he's Superman; you can almost see the S on its chest. And he's like, "Yes", and I just looked it on YouTube, where a kid got beat up, because he got an A. I was like, "Are you kidding me?" I would want to go into that classroom, I would want to go into that classroom with those kids, and say, "That kid that got an A, he was showing you the way, now, let me show you a better way", because if you have an A, your life is going to be the much -- better than a kid that's afraid to have an A. ^M01:02:00 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:02:24 Well, you're going to have to connect them with the creators that are doing it. Like I said, I donated my time to foundations, schools, and across the spectrum; colleges, high schools, grandma schools, because that's the only way that they're going to exposed to it. The thing about anything in this, you have to expose people to it, once you exposed to them -- no. Now, the other thing is, that you might have to actually go to some comic shops. Because, if you go to a comic shop, particularly on a Wednesday when the books are released, you will find creators in there. You just ask the comic shop owner, how many people coming here are artists? And then, you have your son day that day, and say, "I want to bring my son, I want to meet some of your audience". Trust me, they will connect your son with artists, and once they've connected them with the audience, that artist will more than likely want to help your son do this stuff. ^M01:03:12 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:03:20 Well, yes. ^M01:03:21 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:03:26 Well, the mission book that we do is written by Kelly Williams, the star -- the book that I showed you with of the Cheetah's book. Sandstorm that was written by a female. Did so well, that she was able to get over $100,000 from a video company, to produce it as a video game. And here's a funny thing; she's a doctor. She went to school to be a doctor, she went back and got a doctorate, to be an actual doctor. And I told that, said -- went about the Comics. So, she said, "You know, it was fun." OK. And we would love to have her back, because her books actually sold in the market place. A friend of ours, one of our artists, when he used to go on the park on New York and on the weekends, he would actually sell her books at there, he said, "They're a big seller". >> We'll take one more question. ^M01:04:25 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:04:44 Hudden Brothers [phonetic], Hudden Brothers; no, I'm not. ^M01:04:47 [ Inaudible ] ^M01:04:54 Well, here's the most interesting thing about all of the black people that are doing stuff in this field. Like I told you, there's so much stuff out there, I try to catch as much of it as I can. But, I'm sure stuff is flowing through the cracks, I'm absolutely sure stuff just fallen through the cracks. But, that won't be the case all the time. This for me is like being on a journey now, OK? The gentleman started me on this past, OK? They've started me on this path of finding the historical side of this, OK? It opened my eyes, and once my eyes -- I felt like I was in the Matrix. They unplugged me, and I was like, "No, I can't go back, can't go back now. There's just too much out there". I'm so curious about everything now. I'm not even locationally afraid anymore. I want to find out what people in other countries are doing. I want to find out what the little kids Burmese jungle -- what kind of -- what is he drawing. What kind of story is he telling? So, I'm hoping that at some point, we'll have an international -- what I was saying, an international nations of comic book creators, where everybody is involved, and everybody is engaged; that is my hope that is the dream I have. All right, I want to thank you. ^M01:06:14 [ Applause ] ^M01:06:19 This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.