“Sambo Without Tears” by Georges Sadoul [translated by Samuel Beckett]

Platinum Age Comics

“Sambo Without Tears” by Georges Sadoul [translated by Samuel Beckett]
“Sambo Without Tears” by Georges Sadoul [translated by Samuel Beckett]

©2020 Ken Quattro Below is an article written circa 1930 by the legendary French film critic, Georges Sadoul. Sadoul was a journalist and one of the first to begin reviewing films as an art form.   In this article, however, he took a look at the presentation of Blacks in French comics. He specifically contrasts the representation of Blacks in…

Wertham’s Forebearers
Wertham’s Forebearers

©2020 Ken Quattro Virtually every comic fan with even a cursory interest in the history of the medium, knows the name of Dr. Fredric Wertham, psychiatrist, author and comic book critic. Just the mention of his name is enough to evoke some slanderous remark, a dismissive eye roll, a curse. But he wasn’t the first to criticize comics. Not by…

The Gaines-Hecht Letters

©2019 Ken Quattro It was 1941 and the debate about the effects of comic books on the youth of America had been raging in earnest for over a year. Sterling North’s article, “A National Disgrace,” published on May 8, 1940 had jump-started the discussion and the comic book industry had been on the defensive ever since. Within the comic book…

The Major: The Man, The Myth — Part 4

©2019 Ken Quattro The details were purposely oblique, in keeping with military protocol. “…now at the Hotel Astor is Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, who was in command of the mounted detachment of the A.E. In G., who will go from New York to Washington to ask for a leave while he returns to Sweden for his wife, who has a Swedish…

The Major: The Man, The Myth — Part 3

©2019 Ken Quattro As with all soldiers, Second Lieut. Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson spent his first months in the Army in training. Upon finishing his instruction at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, he was temporarily assigned to Fort Meade in South Dakota to await the return of the Second Cavalry from the Philippines. He finally joined up with them when they arrived at…

The Major: The Man, The Myth — Part 2

©2019 Ken Quattro The dawn of a new century brought with it the chance of a new life for Antoinette Strahan and her children. To make a complete break with her past, Antoinette (aka Nettie) made a formal declaration of her separation from her husband, Lola. “As order of publication of summons was entered in the case of Antoinette W.…

The Major: The Man, The Myth — Part 1

©2019 Ken Quattro Not every story related to comics history involves super-heroes or the people who drew them. What follows is a story, a long story told in four parts, of a man, how he came to be and how he arrived at one point of his life. And like every story, this one has a beginning. Though you won’t…

Will Eisner Presentation: March 6, 2019

Will Eisner was the Colossus of Comics. With a career that began at the inception of the modern American comic book era back in the 1930s and spanned the history of the medium into the 21st Century, he both preceded and outlasted most of his contemporaries and was still producing quality work right up until the day he died in…

Welcome!

“The truth is never pure and rarely simple.” — Oscar Wilde Welcome! Or, if you’ve stumbled across me before, welcome back! My name is Ken Quattro and I am THE COMICS DETECTIVE of this blog’s title  and simply put: I study, research and write about the history of the comics medium–comic books, comic strips and everything related to them. I’ve…