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The same way I dealt with the rampant racism in Birth of a Nation, or just about any other vintage entertainment-- admiring the craft while not necessarily agreeing with, or condoning, all the content. I would be utterly appalled if, say, a modern-made Spirit retelling didn't omit or retool the character so that he was less offensive to modern sensibilities.

Since Ebony was usually portrayed as smart, resourceful and brave, I didn't have too big a problem with his caricatured looks. What I want to know is how that little kid got a hack license.

Actually I didn't have so much of a problem with Ebony as with the other black characters who weren't portrayed as well. Still in the context of the time, Eisner was ahead of the curve. When I first read Spirit reprints, it wasn't a big issue but I thought other people might blow a gasket.

I actually haven't dealt with it. I have a hard time reading the Spirit.

Every time Ebony shows up it pulls me out of the story. I have to pause and tell myself "okay, put it into historical context". And I do, and I keep reading. But then he shows up again and I have to pause...

It kind of wears me out. So I don't read as many Spirit comics as I'd like. I just want to read about a guy in a costume who punches people. I don't want to have to think about it.

Personally I'm delighted that old comics give me material for self-righteous moral masturbation.

Eisner's depiction of Ebony was a mixture of progressive and regressive. How he looked and spoke was like a tar baby throwback (but excellently executed) but what he said and did was intelligent and brave (as mentioned above).

So I deal with it by knowing it is of its time but yet ahead of it. And that the setting and era is itself one of my reasons for enjoying the Spirit.

Never read the Spirit. Never heard of Ebony White before just now.

"Pieface" in Green Lantern, however ... argh!

I've got no problem with it. But I'm from the south...

That was sarcasm, by the way

The only way that I deal with it is to not read Eisner's Spirit, honestly. Ebony White is a huge turn-off and something I cannot support, wondrous craft or not.

I just deal with it by writing Eisner off as another typical close-minded racist and don't lose any sleep over it. Why should I care if some cartoonist considered black people inferior? It really doesn't effect my daily life and I've got much bigger problems to deal with.

You can't always remove art from context (or at least you shouldn't always). I don't condemn Eisner for Ebony any more than I do Chuck Jones for Inki or Winsor McCay for Impy or Osamu Tezuka for his early depictions of black people. That was just how people drew back then, and they (generally) wouldn't have done it maliciously. Sure, its sad that such feelings were so prevelent in our culture, but it doesn't necessarily hurt the work by existing.

The Spirit is lucky in that it is not really a "timeless" setting. It clearly takes place in the 1940s when it was written. So in this case, having Ebony be such a stereotype kind of adds to its atmosphere. Unlike in, say, Astroboy where he goes to future Africa and meets ridiculous big lipped monkey-men (of course thats a completely different discussion, because none of those Japanese artists had even SEEN a black person in their life and thought they actually looked like the American cartoon caricatures. Osamu Tezuka later expressed a great deal of embarassment and shame when he figured that out). Sometimes knowing the context of the stereotypes even enhances the work, like say the Merrie Melody short Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves.

Would I feel differently if I were black? Maybe, I have no way of knowing. The stereotypes may not be so obvious these days, but the same sort of feelings are there in a lot of the country. I've never really had to deal with prejudice and so I can be sympathetic to people who find these works offensive or retroactively racist. I'm just personally not going to lose much sleep over it.

Just to respond to Lynxara briefly - I don't think "The Spirit" and "Birth of a Nation" are comparable. "Birth of a Nation" didn't just contain racist stereotypes; it was an ode to the heroism of the confederacy and to the Ku Klux Klan as an extension of that heroism. It was regarded even in its time as controversial and beyond the pale, and its popularity in the South is often credited with the revival of the Klan in the twentieth century. I flinch when I come across Ebony White in The Spirit, but the character seems a product of the ignorance of the times, not an act of malice.

I flinch when reading Ebony, I won't lie. When he first was created, he wasn't intelligent or brave. He was superstitious and totally bumbling. He gradually became a little more three-dimensional, but having him in a story does take away part of my enjoyment, it's true. I udnerstand that in context of when he was created, Eisner wasn't doing anything unusual, but it's nothing I feel comfortable completely condoning either.

Weirdly though, he did create some other black characters in the Spirit who were articulate and drawn normally and so on. So it seems like he was deliberately using Ebony as comic relief, which included racist visuals. I've heard his explaination for why Ebony talked horribly but his other black characters didn't as being a "North/South" thing, and that Ebony was supposed to be from the South. Which turns it from a completely racial thing into a regional thing. Which isn't really better, but something to keep in mind.

I think Eisner later felt sheepish about Ebony, but he was young when he created him and I guess if at least a person can mature and see what was wrong with some of his earlier work, then that's the silver lining. As it stands, when I see Ebony, I flinch then move on. It's a relief reading the stories with Sammy if only so I don't have to feel guilty enjoying them, but I suppose that's a cowardly way to approach the material. It is what it is, I guess.

When people talk of "flinching" at the sight of Ebony, I'm torn between feeling pleased at how much our social standards have changed in sixty years, and feeling surprised at how sheltered a lot of people must be from the other offensive racial depictions from the past. I watch a lot of movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and that means seeing a lot of shuffling mush-mouthed stereotypes presented as "affectionate" and "loveable." I'm glad this is in the past -- for other races too, it seems; we don't (for example) see cariacatures of Muslims anything close to the utterly poisonous racist depiction of Japs that was routine in WWII -- but looking at Ebony in isolation, without considering the historical context of similar portrayals of Black characters in all media at the time, seems a bit unfair to Eisner. He wasn't right to do this, or to make excuses for it later, but Eisner was a product of his time.

As for how I personally deal with seeing Ebony in Spirit reprints...well, first I'd ask myself if I'm so utterly pure and flawless that I've never once caught myself in racial or ethnic stereotyping or condescension. Then I'd ask myself how reactionary and crude American comics' treatment of women and gay characters will look sixty years from now. Depending on the answers to those questions, I'd decide whether or not I have the right to sit in judgement of what looked "normal" and "acceptable" back then.

I understand why people get worked up about Ebony. But I have to say that while he was often comic relief, he was also brave, daring, resourceful and in his own way as much a hero as the Spirit.

On the other hand I'm a middle-aged white guy, and I might not be the best person to decide if a character is racially offensive or not.

I will say though that one of the main reasons I won't be buying the new Spirit comic from DC is because Ebony won't be in it.

when i think of ebony white i wonder why he had to exist at all. being jewish eisner had to experience racism and predjudice why subject someone else to the same thing you had to go through. the same with chuck jones and the tom and jerry cartoons and off subject even more al jolsen.

I think he's fairly distracting in the early strips, but his presence in the post-War material is played down (due to Eisner's rethinking of the racial sensitivity of such a portrait.) That's also the reason you started getting, as Anun pointed out, black characters who are less stereotypical.

I take him as temporal baggage, and appreciate that, though there's ignorance in the portrayal, there's no malice as such.

If I may spin briefly onto a tangent here (perhaps as a suggestion for a related thread sometime in the future, Brian?): I've heard other references to the woeful Pieface, about whom I know next to nothing because I never read Green Lantern comics when I was a kid (I loved the character but pretty much knew him exclusively through JLA). I know he was an East Asian friend of Hal Jordan's, and that's about it. How far back does he go? How stereotypical was he? It seems to me that, being a much newer creation than anything Eisner did in the '40s, if Pieface is as bad as some people have suggested, then it's a lot less defensible (though I also suppose there's historical context for anti-Asian sentiment in the '60s thanks to the Vietnam War). Also, wasn't there a one-shot about him during the days when Hal was dead — was that any sort of decent revisionist take on the character? Thanks, folks.

It really depends for me. As some have noted, there are quite certainly stories in which Ebony is being played as a racial stereotype of the worst kind. But Ebony is indeed downplayed later, and ratehr nicely downplayed at that. I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable with the character, who bespeaks an uncritical acceptance of somethign that even in the 1940s was seen as unacceptable by at least a few people. But then, I'm not particulary impressed by Eisner's "more enlightened" later work tackling themes of race and prejudice either -- he seems to retreat into sentimentalism as a solution far too often.

He's always struck me as being important first for his development of a set of storytellign methods and techniques, and second for being one of the early proponents of medium over genre. His published work in the latter area is generally less impressive than the innovation of the aspiration is in the first place. So I suppose Griffith is a good comparison, especially when one considers the move from Birth of a Nation's blithe acceptance of hard racism to Intolerance and its strained valorization of liberal pieties.

On a side note, Jess Nevins has said a lot of interesting things about this topic in 1940s comics, come to think.

I wonder how people will deal with Miller's forthcoming "reimagined" Spirit movie in which Ebony will no doubt be reinvented as a near-naked Zulu warrior assassin chick.

We can not write off art work just because things in it are a product of its time. If we did that noone would read the Iliad or any number of classic works.

I will say though that one of the main reasons I won’t be buying the new Spirit comic from DC is because Ebony won’t be in it.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm cautiously optimistic about the new comic, personally. I've got no interest in supporting, viewing, or helping perpetuate open hostile depictions of black people. "Art" or not, personal choice and personal responsibility come into play, and I don't want my children, if any, to have to deal with that sort of thing.

Ebony White is a damaging stereotype, bottom line.

Depending on the answers to those questions, I’d decide whether or not I have the right to sit in judgement of what looked “normal” and “acceptable” back then.

I can't agree with this POV. Right is right and wrong is wrong, anything else is just making excuses for racism. "acceptable" should never include something that was wrong.

Ebony White is a damaging stereotype, bottom line.

I think Ebony, while embarassing, is not really that damaging a stereotype today because he's so over-the-top. I doubt anyone today is so sheltered from black people that they would find anything remotely realistic in his portrayal. Insulting, sure. Ignorant, yeah. But damaging? Not nowadays. If anything, I think it's more damaging to Eisner's reputation than blacks. Stereotypes perpetuated by gangster rappers I think are more damaging because they are a lot more realistic, they are glorified by many blacks and even some whites, and are easy to imitate.

My problem isn't so much Ebony's creation but rather how Eisner to my knowledge never explicitly addressed it. As a black person, I read Eisner's pro-Jewish works like The Plot and one of the things he takes issue with is the treatment of Jews in horribly caricatured stereotypes coming from Europe in the early 20th century. Ironically, that was around the time he was making stereotypical caricatures of blacks. Kind of hypocritical to self-righteously rail against stereotypes when they disparage your people, yet not address similar behavior YOU did. In light of the fact that The Plot was autobiographical in some portions, I'd have liked to see Eisner bring up his own similar racist behavior when he was discussing his research into anti-semetic stereotypes, even if it was like "Upon reading the hurtful materials, it made me reflect on my own career and some of the unfortunate choices I made" or something of that matter.

If you take it in context of the times it's a little less offensive...but I think the positive qualities of the character shine through...

But that said...it is still cringe worthy...

This is one of those times I'm pleased to say T. is a voice of reason and insight.

Rebis, as far as I've ever known, the only problem with Pieface was his name: the character was an Eskimo, and the nickname is a play on "Eskimo Pie" but he was never, ever goofy comic relief or a stereotype in any way I'm aware of. He was an engineer at Ferris Aircraft and Hal Jordan's best friend and confidant, who kept a scrapbook of Green Lantern's adventures. He's an engineer, not a goofball. If anyone can produce evidence of any way other than the nickname in which the character was ever portrayed offensively or as any kind of racial stereotype, I'd like to see it!

Note also that Wikipedia lists under "Pieface" no usage of the term as an ethnic slur, but mentions that Nathan Detroit calls his fiancee by that nickname in Guys and Dolls. And George Carlson was famous for a strip called The Pie-Face Prince of Pretzelburg -- and I'm sure John Broome knew this as well as the Nathan Detroit reference, so these combined with the pun on the frozen treat were what he had in mind in dubbing the character.

T: Eisner explicitly talks about this in the prologue to FAGIN THE JEW.

Keep in mind, back then comic relief characters in a superhero strip were almost always cartoonish, regardless of race. Consider Plastic Man's Woozy Winks, or Slam Bradley's Shorty Morgan. The fact that Eisner drew other black characters who DIDN'T look the same as Ebony speaks volumes.

On my own behalf, I could discuss how all the Catholic Irish in those days were similarly stereotyped as the blacks and Asians were, but it serves no point -- it was how things were drawn at the time. Fifty years from now, the PC police in that day will lambast us for the art and writing we produce today.

I think Ebony is an offensive racist charicature, and I think Eisner's portrayal of women is equally offensive and ridiculous. But that doesn't mean the stories can't be appreciated, or even enjoyed, today.

I don't think you need to equate aesthetics and morality. I don't even think they belong in the same conversation, unless your desconstucting propaganda, which The Spirit is not.

So, for me, the beauty of The Spirit can still resonate even after our acceptance of the moral content has changed.

I have no problem filing something as being "of it's time" and then enjoying what is good in the story. I fully understand that not everybody can do that.

I couldn't accept Ebony, as shown in the original comics, being done today. But knowing when the stories were created, I can focus on the positive elements and give Eisner an overall positive score for his presentation, considering the time. It doesn't get in the way of me enjoying the story.

(I wonder how people will deal with Miller’s forthcoming “reimagined” Spirit movie in which Ebony will no doubt be reinvented as a near-naked Zulu warrior assassin chick.)

Actually, according to Miller at the 2006 ComicCon, Ebony won't even be in The Spirit movie.

I think it comes down to educating yourself about the context in which the story was produced, the collective state of mind at the time it was written, and knowing what lessons you want to take away from the story and what ones you want to leave behind.

For example, when you read 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', you're also faced with African-American characters who are written very differently than we would see them written today--and when that book is taught in classes, it includes discussions of what life was like during Twain's time, why Twain wrote what he did, and what it meant then as well as now. I think that's important and necessary. If you just read those stories and absorb them uncritically, you get...um, Jar Jar Binks. Ultimately, I think it comes down to putting it in context and understanding it, while acknowledging that understanding doesn't mean agreeing or accepting it.

And Pieface's name is more than just a joke on "Eskimo Pie", it's a reference to what is seen as wide, rounded, flat faces on people of Inuit descent. I've not heard that exact term used, but to suggest that it's not a racial slur is being pretty nice to the writers. (Nicer than I would be.) It'd be like having Hal Jordan and his Chinese mechanic, "Slant-Eyes", for example. They don't need to make a big deal out of it or anything, but I really wish that future Green Lantern writers would just call him "Tom", and drop the whole embarrassing "Pieface" thing into the past, where it belongs.

I've always loved the Spirit and found Ebony, to be frank, one of many embarrassing stereotypes that have populated comics all the way to, well, today in some instances. At least Ebony's portrayal evolved as the strip continued ...

As far as Eisner himself goes, he didn't quite go so far as T would have liked. But the legend did acknowledge the issue in an interview in Time Magazine a few years back when he produced a graphic novel fleshing out another cultural stereotype - Fagin The Jew.

I also don't think its entirely fair to condemn him as a racist and be done with it. None of us really knew the man, and what regrets he may or may not have had regarding his life's work.

Here's an excerpt from the interview.

TIME.comix: As you say in the introduction to "Fagin," you have your own history with stereotype, most particularly in the character Ebony White, a big-lipped, saucer-eyed African-American comedic sidekick to the Spirit. Although Ebony evolved with greater sensitivity in the latter half of the series' life, do you see "Fagin" as a kind of mea culpa?

Eisner: I suppose if I denied it nobody would believe me. But I if you go back and examine how I handled Ebony, I was aware that I was dealing with something that was volatile and had I a responsibility. The only excuse I have for [that portrayal] is that at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English and physical difference in identity. Later I attempted to depart from it by having a black character, a detective, who spoke proper English and I had an airplane pilot that was black.

TIME.comix: Isn't there a parallel, though, between Charles Dickens' depiction of Fagin and your depiction of Ebony, in that both were created out of the culture of their time?

Eisner: The only difference between what he did and what I did is the fact that his Jew was an evil man and the presumed characteristics of the Jew -- the money-clinging, tight-fisted, narrow-eyed character -- was what he capitalized on. For example, Dickens' depiction of another villain [in "Oliver Twist"], Sikes, makes no mention of nationality.

TIME.comix: The idea of fleshing out another author's character is interesting. I'm wondering how you would feel if somebody wrote a biography of Ebony White?

Eisner: I would deserve it. [Laughs] I would deserve that. As a matter of fact that probably would be a very worthwhile idea. I think more, if I were somebody else and were to undertake that, I would probably do something about his psychology. He lives with the Spirit, his engagement was solely tied up with the Spirit and I would probably touch on the slave mentality that he probably had.

TIME.comix: Did you think of doing just that: a biography of Ebony White?

Eisner: I once thought about it but I've left "The Spirit" and have gone off onto other things. My mention of Ebony in this book was something I felt I had to honestly do because if I didn't mention it somebody else would. But as far as the Spirit is concerned, I stopped doing "The Spirit" in '52 and when people ask me, Do I ever feel like doing it again, I say, "When I do, I lie down until the feeling goes away." If the "Fagin" book is successful I think there's more to do in that [polemical] direction.

Hope this all helps!

Ok, I was happy just reading the comments here. In fact, I wasn't even entirely happy with that, as they seem to have descended quickly into a series of rather intractable half-informed opinions instead of an informing discussion.

For instance, the distinction "moose-n-squirrel" draws between the unconscionable specific racism of [i]Birth of a Nation[/i] and the insensitive stereotypes perpetrated in things such as Spirit comics. Not that both shouldn't be viewed with a critical eye, but they're certainly substantially different.

But what really gets me is the comparison to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Seriously, there are offensive stereotypes that we should be careful of and then there are harsh truths about how the world was 150 years ago. The black characters in Twain's novel are very specifically not intended for comic relief but their behavior and actions are an integral part of the story. Jim is likely the most well-developed and responsible adult character in the story.

We may prefer to assume that uneducated characters in that time and place are the result of stereotyping on the part of the author, but the fact of the matter is a black former slave in that time and place would indeed have been uneducated and it would have been inaccurate and dishonest to portray him differently than Twain did. In fact, I think anyone today hoping to treat someone with that experience in that time and that place correctly and respect who they really were would be foolish to dismiss Twain's work on this.

I wouldn't argue that the Spirit and Birth of a Nation contain racism of the same kind or to the same degree, nor did I ever intend to. But I do approach both works as an audience member in roughly the same way: considering the racism a grievous and dated flaw in what is otherwise a fine display of technical craft in that medium.

considering that Ebony White is one of the least-offensive of the 1940s black characthers - (which is damning with faint praise, right?), I suspect that many of the posters here would no doubt really flinch if they saw Marvel's Young Allies or Fawcett's Captain Marvel with Steamboat!

Thinking of actors likely to be cast as Ebony in the new film, (Chris Rock? Chris Tucker? Eddie Griffith?) I wonder just how different their portrayal of him would be from Eisner's?

Neil said:

"We may prefer to assume that uneducated characters in that time and place are the result of stereotyping on the part of the author, but the fact of the matter is a black former slave in that time and place would indeed have been uneducated and it would have been inaccurate and dishonest to portray him differently than Twain did. In fact, I think anyone today hoping to treat someone with that experience in that time and that place correctly and respect who they really were would be foolish to dismiss Twain’s work on this."

I wasn't dismissing Twain's work--although it is still a controversial piece of literature to this day, and I think too many still do want to dismiss it on the basis of its portrayal of race--but by the same token, I'm not sure that I'd make a definitive statement that Jim is an accurate representation of what a former slave would have been like during that time period. Certainly there are historical examples of freed and escaped slaves who sought and received education and who would strongly resent the idea that a portrayal of an educated, articulate former slave was "inaccurate and dishonest."

Is Jim like Ebony White? No. But Twain, like Eisner, was a product of his time, and saw things through the lens of their time. Twain wrote what he believed to be a progressive, heroic African-American character who would be seen in a positive light. But that doesn't mean he had escaped the way his time and culture perceived African-Americans, and that should be taken into account when reading Huck Finn. It should not be taken as a definitive statement of, "This is the way things really were back then." Because Twain was writing fiction to make a point, not writing journalism to capture history.

This isn't to say I disagree with everything you said; you do bring up a worthwhile point when you discuss differences between Twain and Eisner. Twain wrote Jim, as we both said, to make a specific point about racial bias; Eisner, it seems, didn't think nearly so much about the way he wrote and drew Ebony White. Which, coming back to my initial point, makes it important that we do; nobody should absorb 'The Spirit' uncritically, but that's good advice for pretty much anything. Even Huck Finn.

"Certainly there are historical examples of freed and escaped slaves who sought and received education and who would strongly resent the idea that a portrayal of an educated, articulate former slave was 'inaccurate and dishonest.'"

I am certainly aware of those people and did not mean to suggest that is would be dishonest to portray such people. Not did I intend that someone should only regurgitate Twain's work in portraying a former slave, merely that they'd be just as foolish dismissing his portrayal completely.

"Personally I’m delighted that old comics give me material for self-righteous moral masturbation. "

What he said.

Go back and reread some of the early chapters of Huck Finn. I think you'll find it quite obvious that Twain, even though he was writing to explicitly point out the stupidity of racism, was unable to avoid the racist stereotypes of his day in his portrayal of Jim. True, the character evolves by the end of the book, but it seems that Twain never went back to revise those early chapters. To be fair to Twain, the book was a real struggle for him and took him years to finish as he suffered writer's block on it for years at a time. So the final product is brilliant but also uneven and a bit of a mess.

Jim may be somewhat progressive for Twain's time, but even beyond the problems veghead mentions, there are at least a couple points where Twain implies/states that Jim's noble actions are basically "revealing his inner whiteness" - a conflation that I think most people would find quite offensive, nowadays.

In relation to Ebony? I remain thankful that the majority of the stories collected in "Best of" type editions don't include him at all, or show him only as a very minor character. But as people have mentioned above, what made Eisner great was less his writing and more his storytelling innovations; I tend to find his ideas and scripts nowhere near as engaging as his executions. Since I'm not really reading Eisner for his characterizations to begin with, it's much easier to avoid/ignore an offensive stereotype than it would be in the work of a more "writerly" creator.

Actually, I think Twain deliberately incorporated Jim with as many stereotypes as possible so that he could then put the twist on them and come out of the book showing how human slaves were and how much slavery sucked and no intelligent person should support it because even a dumb fool kid like Huck eventually saw it was wrong. I don't think he set out to imbue nobility on black people. I think he set out to mess with white people and show them what idiots they were. Mark Twain -- Original Misanthrope.

And I think he's a great writer and had his spite in the right place, but I don't think he was exactly a selfless humanitarian author either. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the more painfully earnest misguided well-meaning book. Huckleberry Finn is outright mean in its attack on slavery and racism.

RAB -- I flinch at all outdated racist portrayals, but I didn't see the point of bringing up Chop-Chop (another Eisner original) in a discussion specifically about Ebony White.

"So, my question is, how did you personally end up writing it off?"

Same way I deal with "Super Chief," "American Eagle," and all the other crappy stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans in comics; I roll my eyes, think of how I'm going to explain this to the kids, and move on. Admittedly, there were damned few portrayals of Native Americans at all in the era in which Ebony White was created (the only one I can recall offhand was a 1940's Superman cartoon movie villain who planned to sink the Island of Manhattan as revenge against the Dutch. As I recall, he wore a suit and tie, and a warbonnet). It's a hard question, though and I'm glad you brought it up. The past (the uncomfortably near past) was a very painful era and it's hard to face some of the severe ugliness of that time.

Pretty much the same way most here do. Put it in it's historical context and move on. Same way as Eisner dealt with women, Mexicans and Irish beat cops. It was reflective of current public views.

BTW, this is the first time I've ever seen 'pieface' referred to as a derogatory racial remark! Are you guys sure? The only way I've ever heard it used is to refer to someone with bad acne (looking like a slice of pizza, greasy and pockmarked) and I always just assumed that's what the character's nickname referred to...

As a historian, I can simply classify Ebony under "portrayl of the times" HOWEVER, with most of the people here discussing Ebony as a racial stereotype (which he was) I've never seen anything in Eisner's Spirit stories that treat Ebony as an African-American child would have been treated in 1940's America. For example -- readers always see Ebony entering diners and resturants which he never really would have been allowed to do in the real world because of segregation. Ebony often plays with other white children (which a lot of parents would never have allowed in the 1940's), even the villains treat Ebony as just a boy rather than a "black boy" when most violent people of the time would have regarded him as dirt as said so.

So while Eisner may have always drawn Ebony with a stereotypical look and may have given him a stereotyped speech pattern, Eisner never allowed Ebony to be *treated* like a Black person at the time would have been treated.

Being portrayed as a stereotype is being treated like a black person in that time, desegregation or no.

"...because even a dumb fool kid like Huck eventually saw it was wrong."

I don't want to seem like I'm harping on Huck Finn, but I think it this has considerable relevance to discussions of Ebony. Huck and Twain don't transcend the ingrained racism of their time; the novel endorses a hierarchical view of races, even in its conclusion when Huck has supposedly has had his realization, he finds out that Jim did something noble and comments, "I knowed he was white inside." As if moral good was only attainable by whites.

Yet as you say, Twain apparently had good intentions in writing the novel, meant to demonstrate the idiocy of slavery, and wanted to show the stupidity of contemporary racist attitudes. Despite himself, he ended up writing a work that endorses a racist worldview. Similarly, Eisner may have (either initially or eventually) wanted to respond to caricatured portrayals of blacks by making Ebony "put the twist on" some stereotypes. Or he may have honestly not realized how wrong his depiction was. I think it's irrelevant, in the end (the only thing that would change my view of Eisner is if it was maliciously done, which doesn't seem likely) because like Twain, Eisner's failure was simply a failure to transcend the predominant cultural attitudes of his time.

I don't think I'm communicating what I meant well enough. I think Twain deliberately threw in as many stereotypes as possible to wallow in them. I think his writing Huck to say "I knowed he was white inside" is as much a slam on progressive whites as his writing of the less-enlightened whites slams slavery. It's a pointed look at how whites naturally consider themselves top of the socio-political heap, even if they condescend to befriend a black person the way Huck does to Jim.

I'm sure Twain personally had his own limitations, but absolutely no one is perfectly enlightened in that book -- not Huck, not Tom, not anyone. It's a book that condemns pretty much everyone for being twits.

And it's important to remember that Twain very obviously does not share Huck's point of view on many (or even most) subjects and that the words that Huck says should not be assuemd to be Twain's opinion.

"BTW, this is the first time I’ve ever seen ‘pieface’ referred to as a derogatory racial remark! Are you guys sure?"

If I were tapped to write Green Lantern, I would have thought "Pieface" was on the level of "Shoeless Joe" or "Bleeding Gums"--just a strange/funny name.

Maybe I'm lacking in racist vocabulary but, even if "Pieface" is a slur, I can easily believe that many GL writers didn't recognize it.

I dunno...I mean, if there's a treat called "Eskimo Pies", it sounds like there was a link in people's minds at some point with Eskimos and Pies. "Pieface" might not be quite as ugly as some racial epithets but I could see it being on par with "Boy" or something.

"“Pieface” might not be quite as ugly as some racial epithets but I could see it being on par with “Boy” or something"

well, yeah, i guess, up until you actually hear someone use it as a blanket derogatory term for all asians.

from wiki:

* In the Green Lantern comics, Pieface is a nickname previously given to Lantern's "sidekick" Thomas Kalmaku.

* Another character called Pieface is in The Beano comic, a friend of Dennis the Menace, who could not eat a food that was not inside a pie crust.

* The most famous "Pieface" was Nathan Detroit's term of endearment for his perennial fiance, Adelaide, in the Broadway smash hit, "Guys and Dolls".

I'm having trouble finding references to 'pieface' as an ethnic slur. I don't doubt it could be, but maybe this is a case of an explanation being created after a nickname was already applied??

And it's an Eskimo pie because it's got ice cream in it. The kind of pie an Eskimo would have to make, since it's, you know, cold. Not because of a link between Eskimos and pie.

OK the only references I could find to 'pie face' as an ethnic slur was for people of Slavic descent.

One time I was hanging out with my Eskimo friend and I said "hey would you like some hot cocoa?" and he said "Nope! I'm Eskimo so I only drink COLD cocoa!" I laughed and said "boy you sure do have zany customs as an Eskimo. But I guess thats pretty cool."
"Don't you mean you guess thats pretty 'hot'?" he replied with a wink.
"Wait a minute" I said, "Isn't "Eskimo" just a blanket term invented by French traders to describe every single ethnic group inhabiting the circumpolar region?"
Thats when I noticed that my friend wasn't an Eskimo at all. HE WAS A BEAR!

The End.

So, a few months down the road, what do people think of Cooke's Ebony, in relation to Eisner's?

But I wanna condemn Eisner!

What's your view on it, Cronin?

I like Cooke's Ebony. No attempt is made to reconcile him to the old Ebony, it's just ignored and we've got an Ebony who the only relatively racist thing about him is his name.

One question, though, how old is Ebony supposed to be. He doesn't even seem old enough to drive in Cooke's Spirit.

Yes, quite the racist.

Now,while I agree that it is sad Eisner portrayed Ebony as a racial stereotype. I don't his work should be dismissed out of hand. But,should be acknowledged for what they are. Although,it's not a comic book image I'm suprised nobody has brought up the crows in "Dumbo".Both are products of the times which really alright is a product of the time it was made.don't get me wrong I'm not saying that these examples don't have any racist like bias.They why I deal with Ebony is by snickering at the boneheads who created these images and move on. Of course,we can never forget that everyone acts hipacritical in some aspect (thus is to be human).Every generation is judge by the ones that come after on its triumphs and failures. After all it is just a comic book.As much as like comics at the end of the day that's all they are.

I meant all art not *Alright* D'oh!

As a white guy who grew up in a city (Brockton, MA) of many ethnicities, religions, and cultures, and works in a school of 99% minority students in a poor urban neighborhood...

I'm still a white guy. Really, really white. If I stand in front of a car with its highbeams on, I get a sunburn.

I can mumble something about "culture of the time," "look how far we've come," etc, but I feel like my opinion has little weight. (of course, that won't stop me from sharing)If I were going to show the students at my school an example of great cartooning, I wouldn't show them the Spirit (or any WWII cartoons in which Japanese people have big buck teeth) because of Ebony. History has to be taken into account when discussing racist character portrayals, but history doesn't mean much if someone sees a character who is supposed to represent his or her people that looks like a buffoon.

I'm glad that Cooke has made Ebony into a real character. I'm glad that "Little Black Sambo" has been reimagined as "Sam & the Tiger," with the racism taken out and the cleverness of the main character emphasized. Still, I can't look at the modern Ebony or Sam and not think of the historical versions.

If he's smart and capable, why does it matter how he looks? I'm far more disturbed by comics where heroes solve problems by hitting people.

If he’s smart and capable, why does it matter how he looks?

Because unlike real people, to whom your statement would apply perfectly well, Ebony's appearance is the result of an artist's choice to use distinctly stereotypical elements in his work. Because this is a deliberate choice, rather than vicissitudes of genetics, it becomes part of the themes and content of the art itself. It cannot be magically divorced from the rest of the themes and contents; it must be dealt with in its own terms, and considered as an unavoidable part of the whole.

So yes, as others have pointed out, how he looks does indeed matter, whether you think it should or not. There is indeed such a thing as a racist visual portrayal, and Ebony under Eisner is one. Eisner himself acknowledged this in later years, and calls Ebony a racist caricature himself (if not in so many words) in several of the quotes listed and linked to in this comment page.

In any case, it's not just how he looks, but how he talks, how he's used as a minstrel-show sort of comic relief in the early stories, and so on. Ebony, especially in the strip's early years, was an exceedingly racist caricature in both visuals and dialogue. Down the way a bit, Eisner toned some of the dialogue tics down a bit -- his method was a story that sent Ebony off to finishing school for a bit -- but Ebony's visuals remained and their sources had hardly changed.

The same way I dealt with all those solly asian fu manchus in the 'golden age'.

Ignorance with it was a narrow minded war time ignorance that seems to be quite common with old people.

I'm waiting for Cooke's origin story on Eb...
Will he reveal that his real first name is actually...

Ebeneezer???

With a handle like that, "Ebony" would have been an improvement as a nickname.

But "Eb" is better.

Is Eisner's Ebony more or less offensive than Stan & Jack's Sue Storm?

I think it's an interesting commentary on our culture that images like this are considered beyond the pale of acceptability, yet comparably demeaning portrayals of women are considered perfectly acceptable. I was just reading Dinosaurs for Hire today, and the level of blatant misogyny is shocking. Or consider the kinds of responses people like Frank Cho and Adam Hughes give in interviews when challenged on their hypersexualized portrayal of women. Are the kinds of covers on some of the current Avatar stuff and some of the old Chaos! stuff or some Top Cow stuff or any comic featuring Power Girl really much less offensive than Ebony White? Yet many comics fans by and large defend that stuff and sneer at its critics. Not to say there isn't still PLENTY of racism in comics...

Is Eisner’s Ebony more or less offensive than Stan & Jack’s Sue Storm?

Sue was pretty bad, honestly, though Stan 'n' Jack gave her plenty of moments and amped her powers considerably during their run. I wouldn't defend pregnant, fainting Sue and her "Girl" codename too strongly, but between her power upgrades and the way in which Crystal joined the team -- getting even Reed to compliment her as a brilliant strategist after she thrashes the Wizard -- the FF doesn't do so badly.

But surely the Wasp is far worse; it's patently clear from the get-go that she's only in the Avengers because she's shtupfing Gi-Ant-Man, or something, because Lord knows it's nigh-impossible to find her contributions in the average SIlver Age Avenegrs story. She's so useless that at one point she's defeated on a reconnaissance mission by a sparrow. Let me reiterate: a frigging sparrow!

And she stayed roughly that useless until somewhere during Shooter's run when (thanks to a Claremont/Byrne Marvel Team-Up story) she actually seemed to have powers that might be of some sort of use in a battle. It took Roger Stern to make her seem like a "Founder."

Agh. Ebony. It bothered me a bunch at first, but then I just wrote it off as "Product of the times."

Either an element of a story is offensive enough to stop me from reading or else it isn't. And if it isn't, I mostly don't worry about it.

I'm not sure if this helps his case of not, but it's worth mentioning that in Eisner's "Hawks of the Sea" strip, which predates the Spirit, the bad guys were slavers - And shown to be total scum. (The hero was a dashingly handsome white dude, of course.)

I can't read the old Spirit books for precisely that reason. It just bothers me too much. I don't hold it against Eisner, especially since he addressed it later, but that doesn't mean I have to read them.

The new Spirit, however, is very enjoyable, and I have no problem with how Ebony is portrayed there.

Golden Age comics illustrate a world far less enlightened than ours in a multitude of ways. I'd say Will Eisner gave Ebony "tar baby" superficialities so he wouldn't offend mainstream America, which was still pretty fond of the stereotype back then and very wary of any more dignified portrayal of African-Americans.

The best way to deal with Ebony White is the same way I deal with Butterfly McQueen, Mantan Moreland, Stephin' Fetchit and other Black caricatures of that particular time. I put them in the context (or coontext) of the time--and LEAVE it there.

It took a long time for Jack Kirby to draw a Black man that looked like any Black man I recognized. Steve Ditko never learned how so at some point it looked like he just stopped trying. I'm not angry at Will Eisner for the offensive depiction. I just don't see any need for it anymore.

In 2007, there is no need for racist stereotypes like Ebony White. They don't need to be revamped, retconned or relaunched for today's audience. What's past is past. Leave it there.

I read the Kitchen Sink reprints of The Spirit extensively in the '80s. I found Ebony's appearance and speech very exaggerated but I could largely say the same about Dolan. Will Hussein Hussein be considered offensive in later years? I kinda hope not, because he's a good character Cooke has added to the Spirit lore.

I don't know if it's because the reprints I'm most familiar with are post-war, but I liked Ebony. He seemed a useful sidekick to The Spirit to me. Who else then had an african-american sidekick? Chop-Chop seemed far more offensive in that it made it obvious that Eisner dropped Ebony because he was black. But it was still okay to make fun of Asians. I honestly didn't realize until then that he was making fun of Ebony.

I am of european descent, and I am aware of the difference that still makes in America. I am trying to choose my words carefully. I admired Ebony, and Jim. I loved Inki and the Myna Bird as a child. The crows in Dumbo are hands-down my favorite characters in one of he best Disney movies. (Who has it together better than the crows in Dumbo?) It took me years to realize they were black caricatures. All I knew was "I did done seen about anything, when I see an elephant fly."

I don't know about in later years, but I consider Hussain Hussain pretty offensive *now*...