Black people have been portrayed in comics since the medium's beginning, with their portrayals often the subject of controversy. Mainstream comic publishing companies have had a historical trend of being predominantly white and male, reflecting the lack of representation and inaccurate depictions of Black people in comics. The integration of black characters in mainstream and superhero comics has endured various obstacles and challenges. Critics have noted that black men and women have historically often been portrayed as jungle or ghetto stereotypes, and as sidekicks as opposed to primary characters. Occiasionally, comic book creators would create material that called attention to stereotypes, lack of representation and emphasize social injustices. The integration of more Black creators in mainstream comics, as well as the creation of comics on digital platforms, has changed the representation and portrayals of Black people in comics and has started to reflect the complexities of Black people across the diaspora.

Currier and Ives's Darktown Comics

Starting in the 1870s Currier and Ives produced a series of lithographs called Darktown Comics. Prominent collector Harry Peters called the lithographs "mirrors of the national taste, weather vanes of popular opinion, reflectors of American attitudes". Albert Baragwanath said the body of work "remains a true documentation of the latter half of the nineteenth century -- a rich pageant interpreted with the morality and prejudice of the day." According to Baragwanath, of the approximately 500 "comic prints" produced by Currier and Ives, "more than half of these were the so-called Darktown Comics who humor lay in gross burlesque". Portions of the series was still being produced into the early 1900s.

African characters

Cartoonist Lee Falk's adventure comic strip Mandrake the Magician featured the African supporting character Lothar from its 1934 debut. He was a former "Prince of the Seven Nations", a federation of jungle tribes, but passed on the chance to become king and instead followed Mandrake on his world travels, fighting crime. Initially an illiterate exotic garbed in animal skins, he provided the muscle to complement Mandrake's brain on their adventures. Lothar was modernized in 1965 to dress in suits and speak standard English.

Lion Man, a young African scientist sent by the United Nations to oversee a massive uranium deposit at the African Gold Coast, whose main enemy was Doctor Blut Sangro, appeared in 1947's all-AFrican-American-creator anthology All-Negro Comics (more on which below.) Lion Man was meant to inspire black people's pride in their African heritage. Reprinted from Comics Buyer's Guide February 28, 1997, pp. 32, 34, 37–38. Article includes reprinted editorial page "All-Negro Comics: Presenting Another First in Negro History" from All-Negro Comics #1

In 1963, illustrator and musician Chris Acemandese Hall created Little Zeng, a young African king. Little Zeng is credited as the first black protagonist and also the first African comic book hero in the book "The Cultural/Political Movements of Harlem between 1960 and 1970: from Malcolm X to black is beautiful", organized by Klytus Smith. However, the character did not last long, as shortly after, Hall began to focus on his music career.

The series Powerman, designed as an educational tool, was published in 1975 by Bardon Press Features of London, England, for distribution in Nigeria. The series was written by Don Avenall (aka Donne Avenell) and Norman Worker, and illustrated by Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland. Another series published in the comic book was The Black Star Featuring Jango, the Fighting Black Sheriff, a Western comic about a sheriff in the fictional Gulch City, Texas. In 1988, Acme Press republished the series in the UK for the first time, to capitalize on the popularity of the artists, both of whose careers had since taken off. Acme changed Powerman's name to Powerbolt to avoid confusion with the character Luke Cage, sometimes called Power Man, published by Marvel Comics. Powerman, who was super strong and could fly, appeared in stories rendered in a simple style reminiscent of Fawcett Comics' Golden Age Captain Marvel. His only apparent weakness was snakebite.

In the larger framework of UNESCO's General History of Africa project (2012–2015), a series of open source comic books was used to support the creation of strong and positive African women role models; it was called The Women in African History e-learning platform. For the production of the comics stories available on the platform, UNESCO commissioned illustrators from France, Madagascar, Nigeria, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States. This project aimed to highlight illustration and graphic arts in Africa and constituted a springboard for the young artists involved: Y. Sanders (U.S.) — illustrator of the comic strip on Sojourner Truth Sleeping Pop (Madagascar) — illustrator of the comic strip on Gisèle Rabesahala Alaba Onajin (Nigeria) — illustrator of the comic strips on Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Taytu Betul Eric Muthoga (Kenya) — illustrator of the comic strip on Wangari Maathai (Congo) — illustrator of the comic strips on Nzinga Mbandi and the Women Soldiers of Dahomey Yann Degruel (France) — Illustrator of the comic strips on Yennega and the Mulatto Solitude

All-Negro Comics

All-Negro Comics No. 1, published out of Philadelphia in mid-1947, was the earliest comics magazine known to have been written and drawn solely by African-American writers and artists. In describing lead feature "Ace Harlem", Time magazine wrote, "The villains were a couple of zoot-suited, jive-talking Negro muggers, whose presence in anyone else's comics might have brought up complaints of racial 'distortion.' Since it was all in the family, publisher Orrin C. Evans thought no Negro readers would mind." The protagonist of "Ace Harlem", however, was a highly capable African-American police detective.

The issue was an anthology. In it we find what some comic book historians consider the first black "super hero" Lion Man, which pre-dated Marvel's Black Panther by almost 20 years. Lion Man didn't wear a costume like most superheroes do and was more of a hero in the vein of pulp heroes of the time like Tarzan or The Phantom.

1956: Comics Code Authority tries to censor "Judgment Day" In the 1950s the portrayal of a black man in a position of authority and a discussion of racism in a comic was at the center of a battle between Entertaining Comics editor William Gaines and the Comics Code Authority, which had been set up in 1954 to self-regulate the content of US comics amid fears they were a corrupting influence on youth. Gaines fought frequently with the CCA in an attempt to keep his magazines free from censorship. The particular example noted by comics historian Digby Diehl, Gaines threatened Judge Charles Murphy, the Comics Code Administrator, with a lawsuit when Murphy ordered EC to alter the science-fiction story "Judgment Day", in Incredible Science Fiction No. 33 (Feb. 1956). The story, by writer Al Feldstein and artist Joe Orlando, was a reprint from the pre-Code Weird Fantasy No. 18 (April 1953), inserted when the Code Authority had rejected an initial, original story, "An Eye For an Eye", drawn by Angelo Torres but was itself also "objected to" because of "the central character being black."Thompson, Don & Maggie, "Crack in the Code", Newfangles No. 44, February 1971

The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut decides that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a black man. Murphy demanded, without any authority in the Code, that the black astronaut had to be removed. As Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:

Feldstein, interviewed for the book Tales of Terror: The EC Companion, reiterated his recollection of Murphy making the request:

Although the story would eventually be reprinted uncensored, the incident caused Gaines to abandon comic books and concentrate on Mad magazine, which was EC's only profitable title.

Non-fiction portrayals In the late 1940s, Parents Magazine Press published two issues of Negro Heroes, which reprinted stories about such historical figures as Joe Louis, George Washington Carver, Paul Robeson, and Charles L. Thomas. In 1950 Fawcett Comics produced three issues of Negro Romance, which was notable for its eschewing of African-American stereotypes, telling stories interchangeable with those told about white characters. Fawcett also published short-lived ongoing titles featuring Joe LouisJoe Louis: Champion of Champions, Grand Comics Database. Accessed February 29, 2016. and Jackie Robinson.Jackie Robinson, Grand Comics Database. Accessed February 29, 2016.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was a 16-page comic book about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery bus boycott published in 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA).Bello. Grace. "A Comic Book for Social Justice: John Lewis," Publishers Weekly (July 19, 2012). Although ignored by the mainstream comics industry, The Montgomery Story was widely distributed among civil rights groups, churches, and schools. It helped inspire nonviolent protest movements around the Southern United States, and later in Latin America, South Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Over 50 years after its initial publication, the comic inspired the best-selling, award-winning March trilogy by Georgia Congressman John Lewis.

The final issue of Classics Illustrated, published in 1969, featured "Negro Americans: The Early Years", with biographical sketches of Crispus Attucks, black Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers, Benjamin Banneker and Phillis Wheatley, James Beckwourth, the Buffalo Soldiers, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Elijah McCoy, Garrett Morgan, Granville Woods, Matthew Henson, and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams; as well as stories about the Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850."Classics Illustrated #169 [O] – Negro Americans The Early Years," Grand Comics Database. Accessed December 4, 2019.

Fitzgerald Publishing Co. produced the Golden Legacy line of 16 educational black history comic books from 1966 to 1976. In many ways modeled after Classics Illustrated, Golden Legacy produced biographies of such notable figures as Harriet Tubman, Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, Matthew Henson, Alexandre Dumas, Frederick Douglass, Robert Smalls, Joseph Cinqué, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Pushkin, Lewis Howard Latimer, and Granville Woods. Golden Legacy was the brainchild of African American accountant Bertram Fitzgerald, who also wrote seven of the volumes. Many of the other contributors to the Golden Legacy series were also black, including Joan Bacchus and Tom Feelings. Other notable contributors included Don Perlin and Tony Tallarico.Christopher, Tom. "Bertram A Fitzgerald and the Golden Legacy Series of Black History Comics" (originally published in edited form in Comics Buyer's Guide), TomChristopher.com (2004).

First African-American solo series

In 1920, the humorous strip Bungleton Green was created by Leslie Rogers for the Chicago Defender, one of the most influential Black newspapers in the country. The strip ran until 1968, undergoing a remarkable transformation: in the 1940s, cartoonist Jay Jackson reinvented it as a science fiction time-travel adventure strip.