| Creator Matt Baker (1921-1959) |
| Profession Penciller |
| Total Entries 20 |
| Articles Matt Baker – Great Black Heroes Matt Baker – Wikipedia |
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Clarence Matthew “Matt” Baker is acknowledged as the first and most successful African American artist to work in mainstream comic books. Baker attended Cooper Union, and by the early forties he was drawing comic book stories at the Jerry Iger (sweat) shop after Will Eisner had split off from Iger. The standard practice in those days was for artists working in the comics shops to use various pseudonyms to give the impression that the shop had more artists in its employ than it actually did. Baker’s first confirmed work was penciling Sheena, Queen of the Jungle for Jungle Comics #69 in 1944. The extremely handsome Baker soon established himself as the supreme “good girl” pinup artist, drawing gorgeous, buxom (white) women in skimpy, sexy costumes, as well as handsome, dashing, and elegant (white) men. In 1947 Baker was asked to redesign the popular Phantom Lady. He continued freelancing for various publishers in his adaptable, nimble style into the fifties, specializing in stylized romance comics for St. John Publications, until his tragic death by heart attack at age thirty-eight. Today Baker is hailed as the pioneering African American comic book artist and a master of the art of glamour. ~ Drew Friedman’s Heroes of the Comics: Portraits of the Legends of Comic Books – Fantagraphics (2014)
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