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Sunday, March 1, 2026

A Sense of Doubt blog post #4031 - The Great Matt Baker - African-Americans in Comics - COMIC BOOK SUNDAY for 2603.01



  A Sense of Doubt blog post #4031 - The Great Matt Baker - African-Americans in Comics - COMIC BOOK SUNDAY for 2603.01

I have had this post on the schedule for a long time.

I seem to write that a lot, especially lately, because I am trying to knock out long planned blog entries.

I even read It Rhymes With Lust as I worked to prepare this entry.

Matt Baker was a phenomenal artist and has not enjoyed my attention even within the comics community. Only really hardcore fans and scholars of the business know who he is.

I mentioned "African Americans in Comics" in the title simply to draw attention to one reason why Matt Baker is not listed among the greatest illustrators in commercial publication let alone comic books.

In addition to racism being one reason for Baker to not be listed among the greatest comic artists of all time by the majority of those who make such lists is that most of his work appeared in romance comics and not the big name super hero or horror books of the 1940s and 1950s.

But those who know comic book artists, know how great Matt Baker was.

And he died far too soon. Just imagine all the great Baker art that would exist if he had lived past the age of 37!!

TED at the great pencil-ink blog has a checklist of Matt Baker work, and I have drawn most images from there plus some links in the content to follow.

https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2009/07/matt-baker-comics-checklist.html

As someone who maintains a list of all his favorite comic book artists, Matt Baker is one among a very select list: Pencil Ink Artist List.

As for It Rhymes With Lust, it's a strange little tale of greed, manipulation, and power-hunger. Rust Masson is supposedly so alluring and sexually-desirable that men can barely think straight. She's described as "cunning" and with "animal grace." Newspaper man Hal Weber seems completely in her thrall until he meets Audrey Mason, daughter of Buck Masson, the man Rust wooed, married, and inherited all his wealth when he died, the news item that opens the story.

Written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (billed as Drake Waller), the story is a cinematic-style treatment of the films of the era in which It Rhymes With Lust was published (1949). Dark Horse's 2007 replica edition contains an afterword on the birth of graphic novels because though Lust is not the first, it is one of the earliest.

It's worth a read by true fans of the art form.

Matt Baker is one of my favorite comic book artists of all time. It's not a list that I have made (and I should), but if he doesn't make the top ten, he would surely make the top twenty. However, my list would surely be influenced by nostalgia more than any rating of inherent greatness. Looking at Ted's list, I would not rate Carl Banks, Frank Miller, Russ Manning, and Steve Ditko in my top twenty, but they were all great artists, especially Banks. And my love for Matt Baker comes from discovering him through the PENCIL INK BLOG,  not because I knew him from before finding him there or from reading or owning ANY of his comics. I only bought It Rhymes With Lust recently when I decided to do this blog entry.

Lots of content and great art to follow.

Thanks for tuning in.


SIDENOTE: I know my mother read a lot of these romance comics when she was young, possibly some of these exact issues. Seeing ads for "pen pals wanted" makes me think that the pen pals she cultivated in England may have been set up through the ads in these comics.







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Ormes



MATT BAKER

http://cbldf.org/2016/02/profiles-in-black-cartooning-matt-baker/


Profiles in Black Cartooning: Matt Baker

by  •  • Comments Offon Profiles in Black Cartooning: Matt Baker

In celebration of Black History Month, CBLDF has partnered with Black Nerd Problems to spotlight Black comics creators and cartoonists who made significant contributions to free expression. Visit CBLDF.org throughout the month of February to learn more! 



In the 1940s and 1950s, Clarence Matthew Baker — best known as Matt Baker — was widely regarded as the master of the “good girl” style and is credited as the first successful Black comic book artist in the comics industry.

From Phantom Lady (Fox Features Syndicate, 1947) and Canteen Kate (St. John, 1952), to what many consider the first graphic novel, It Rhymes with Lust (St. John, 1950), Baker’s fun-loving, glamorous gals and classy, statuesque women could be seen on every newsstand across the United States (and most likely in many G.I. quarters overseas). Although, Baker was celebrated in the comics community for his strikingly beautiful and more anatomically correct portrayals of women, his art would also become one of the primary targets in the crusade against comics and in the infamous Dr. Fredrick Wertham’s 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent.

Though much isn’t known of his childhood, Baker would become a celebrity amongst his peers in New York City, where he moved to in 1944 to attend art school, not only for his art, but for the fashionable way that he tailored and carried himself — a trait that publishers and other artists of the time jokingly claim helped him win the ladies and “inspiration” for his art. “He had a gift for drawing anything well and women extraordinarily, which helped him avoid the steel mills that awaited other young Negro men of his time and place,” writes David Hajdu of the artist in his book The Ten-Cent Plague. Hajdu elaborates:

Matt Baker was a tall, sturdy, vigorous, handsome man with a gentle, closed-mouth smile, deep gaze, and dark-coffee complexion. “He could have been a movie star or a model,” recalled Bob Lubbers, who worked with Baker at Fiction House. In a rough and casual business, Baker was always dressed impeccably in broad shouldered, double-breasted suits and stylish silk ties. He had at least four fedoras, in brown, black, green, and maroon, which he wore to match his suits. He lived in Harlem, probably alone, presumably well, and he drove a yellow convertible coupe.

“All the women, white and black, went crazy for him, and I know he had a bunch of gals on the hook,” Lubbers said. “You know how he drew women perfectly? The anatomy was magnificent, down to every muscle. Everyone who knew him knew that could only come from exhaustive personal research. He was the envy of everybody.”

As classy as the women he drew, Baker primarily worked as a freelance artist during the 1940s and 1950s for some of the largest comic book publishing houses. As a freelancer, Baker was able to jump from project to project, working on a variety of titles and genres while continuing to master what has become his quintessential “good girl” art style. Sporting an impressively large portfolio, considering the short span of his career, Baker produced more than 1,000 individual comic pages and over 200 comic covers between 1948 and 1954.

From adventurous ladies in comics like Sky Girl (Iger Shop) and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (Fiction House), to the women of war like Canteen Kate and those in Wartime Romances (St. John), Baker drew women from literally all walks of life, dominated any genre he worked in, and quickly became one of the most sought-after artists in the industry.


Although he had worked for many publishers, Baker really found a home in the progressive publishing house of St. John Publications. It was here that he would illustrate what many consider to be the first graphic novel (or what the writers of the book, Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, would call a “picture novel”), It Rhymes with Lust. “We were extremely fortunate to have him, and St. John is to be admired for having hired him in the prejudiced climate of the time,” said Drake.

Being in hot demand was how Baker would come to work on the comic for which he is best known, Phantom Lady. Published by Fox Feature Syndicates, Baker worked on the book from 1947 through 1949. Although the comic had already been running for 12 issues, Baker took over illustrating the series at issue #13, and he overhauled Phantom Lady’s design and gave her the classic look we have come to associate with the character.

“When Victor Fox of Fox Features Syndicate asked the Iger Studios to furnish him with a sexy female costumed hero, Iger sent him Phantom Lady and assigned Baker to the artistry,” writes Gaius Chamberlain for Great Black Heroes. “Baker immediately made changes to the character and her costume. He put her in blue short-shorts with slits up the sides and a matching halter top. He gave her a belt in front and a dramatically plunging neckline along with a scarlet cape.” Now the Washington socialite fought crime in style, and fans loved it!


The buxom beauty that Baker created would not only attract the attention of fans, though. In 1954, Brooklyn-based child psychologist Dr. Fredrick Wertham published his book Seduction of the Innocent. A “report” on the ill effects of comic books on children’s psychological development, the book would become the foundation for the 1945 Senate Subcommittee hearings on comic books and juvenile delinquency — the hearings that would lead to the creation of the Comics Code Authority (CCA) and decades of mandated censorship of the comic book industry.

In the book, Wertham argued that comics not only perverted children’s minds, but also fetishized women and promoted — even encouraged — sadistic and deviant behavior, often applied towards those fetishized women. With alleged “case-studies” of real-life child patients, Wertham built his case around the idea that subliminal messaging in the artwork, or “pictures within pictures,” as Wertham described it, depicted genitalia that encouraged sexual deviance. He also claimed that even the explicit, over exaggeration of breasts and the female body drove children to become “sex maniacs.”

The comic cover that he singled out as an example of an image that promoted “sexual stimulation” and sadistic behavior was Baker’s cover of Phantom Lady #17. Depicting the character tied to a pole, her chest slightly pushed out, Wertham included the following caption in his book: “Sexual stimulation by combining ‘headlights’ with the  sadist’s dream of tying up a woman.”

Although comics fans would celebrate Baker’s artwork for its beauty and clear appreciation of the feminine form, Wertham’s book would all but drag it through the mud. Despite the fact, though, that the CCA and Comics Code would be implemented shortly after the conclusion of the Senate hearings, and publishers and artists were forced to comply with strict rules and regulations about how the female form could be drawn, there is no evidence that Baker ever had to redraw any of his works.


On August 11, 1959, Baker passed away at the age of 37, most likely from heart complications he developed after suffering a bout of rheumatic fever as a child. Although, his career was shorter than most, there is no question about the magnitude of the impact he left on the comics industry — not only as a great Black artist, but as a great artist in general. “Matt Baker was one of the first important artists in comics,” Arnold Drake recalls. “Not one of the first important black artists, one of the first important artists, period.”

Baker is an icon of the Golden Age of comics, revered by the people who knew and worked with him and recognized by contemporary creators and fans for the stunning contributions that he made to the industry. He shaped women into classy, realistic beauties, equally full of character and staring in their own stories, as opposed to the accessories that they often were portrayed as in other comics of the time. “Baker might have known his life would be short. One hopes he had an inkling that his art would outlive him for decades,” notes Joseph Procopio, author of The Lost Art of Matt Baker.

Help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work in 2015 by visiting the Rewards Zone, making a donation, or becoming a member of CBLDF!

Contributing Editor Caitlin McCabe is an independent comics scholar who loves a good pre-code horror comic and the opportunity to spread her knowledge of the industry to those looking for a great story!


Clarence Matthew Baker[1] (December 10, 1921 – August 11, 1959[2]) was an American comic book artist and illustrator, best known for drawing early comics heroines such as the costumed crimefighter Phantom Lady, and romance comics. Active in the 1940s and 1950s Golden Age of comic books, he is one of the first known African-American artists to find success in the comic-book industry.[3] He also penciled St. John Publications' digest-sized "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust (1950), the first graphic novel despite that term not having been coined at the time.

Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.[4] His influence can be seen in artists such as Dave Stevens and Adam Hughes.[5]

Biography

Early years

Baker was born December 10, 1921, in Forsyth County, North Carolina.[1] At a young age he relocated with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[1] and after graduating high school in 1940, moved to Washington, D.C.[1] Prevented by a heart condition from being drafted into the U.S. military during World War II, he began studying art at Cooper Union, in New York City.[1] He entered comics through the Jerry Iger Studio, one of the 1930s to 1940s "packagers" that provided outsourced comics to publishers entering the new medium.[6] Iger recalled that Baker came into his studio with a single sample of a color sketch in his portfolio; he thought the woman was so naturally beautiful that he hired Baker on the spot, as a background artist before he was given his first scripts.[7] Baker's first confirmed comics work is penciling and inking the women in the 12-page "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" story in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics #69 (cover-dated Nov. 1944), otherwise penciled by Robert Webb and Alex Blum.[8][9]

Much of Baker's work was originally penciled backgrounds as well as female figures for other artists, and most of his work has been inked over, with the inker credited for his work. He quickly developed a reputation as one of the best "Good Girl" artists in the business for his attention to detail when drawing women.[7]

During this period, known as the Golden Age of Comic Books, Baker did work for publishers including Fiction House, Fox Comics, Quality Comics, and St. John Publications.[9] In later years, he independently teamed with inker Jon D'Agostino under the pseudonym "Matt Bakerino"[citation needed] at Charlton Comics.

Personal life

Baker's friend Frank Giusto[10] and artist Lee J. Ames have said that Baker was gay.[11] Baker's brother Fred Robinson added of Baker and St. John Publications publisher Archer St. John, "They had a very close relationship. I don't know exactly what it was."[12]

Phantom Lady

Phantom Lady #17 (April 1948). This Baker cover appeared in the book Seduction of the Innocent.

The character Phantom Lady, created by Arthur Peddy, had originated in 1941 as a Quality Comics feature supplied by the Iger Studio. Cartoonist Frank Borth later took over the art. After Quality dropped the feature, which had appeared in Police Comics #1-23 (Aug. 1941 – Oct. 1943), Iger supplied it to Fox Comics. Baker redesigned the character into her best-known incarnation. This version (generally but unconfirmably credited to writer Ruth Roche) debuted in Fox's Phantom Lady #13 (August 1947), the premiere issue after taking over the numbering of the canceled comic Wotalife; the title ran through issue #23 (April 1949). Baker's Phantom Lady also appeared as a backup feature in All Top Comics #9-16 (Jan. 1948 – March 1949).[13]

When psychiatrist Frederick Wertham claimed comics had ill effects on a child's psychological development, he used Baker's Phantom Lady #17 as a key sample. These criticisms led to the 1954 foundation for the Comics Code Authority and decades of industry-controlled censorship.[14]

Other work

Page from Fight Comics # 40, Oct. 1945, Fiction House.

His other artwork for comic books includes the light-humor military title Canteen Kate, for which Baker drew all 22 installments,[15] as well as stories in the suspense anthology Tales of The Mysterious Traveler; the comedic-adventure feature "Sky Girl" in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics, with originals and later reprints running from #69-139 (November 1944 – December 1952); the jungle adventure "Tiger Girl"; "Flamingo", "South Sea Girl", "Glory Forbes", "Kayo Kirby"; and "Risks Unlimited". Baker illustrated Lorna Doone for Classic Comics in December 1946, his one and only contribution to the well-known series.[16] He is the generally credited but unconfirmed artist for Fox's Rulah, Jungle Goddess #17–27 (Aug. 1948 – June 1949, the title's complete run after having taken over the numbering of the defunct Zoot Comics). He also produced Flamingo as a syndicated comic strip from 1952 through 1954.[citation needed] His pen names include Curt Davis.[17] Baker shaped women into classy, realistic beauties, full of character in their own stories as opposed to the ways women were portrayed in other comics of the time.[18]

In addition to several romance comics and other titles for St. John Publications, Baker penciled an early form of graphic novel, St. John's digest-sized "picture novel" It Rhymes with Lust (1950), with writers Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, writing under the pseudonym "Drake Waller."

Baker also created or co-created what writer John Arcudi calls "the first known black hero in American comics."[19] The Tarzan-like jungle hero Voodah, drawn by Baker and scripted by an unknown writer, debuted in the publisher McCombs' Crown Comics #3 (cover-date Fall 1945, on-sale date Sept. 19, 1945).[20] As the Grand Comics Database states, based on art credits from "The Matt Baker Checklist" by Alberto Becattini and Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr. in Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour (cited under References), "Voodah is colored like a native African in this comic, but after this issue he is colored like a Caucasian." He additionally is Caucasian on the cover.[20]

Later work and death

Later in the decade, Baker freelanced for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics, beginning with a five-page anthological story generally, if unconfirmably, credited to writer-editor Stan Lee, in the omnibus title Gunsmoke Western #32 (Dec. 1955). At some point during this period, working through artist Vince Colletta's studio, Baker went on to draw stories for Atlas' Western Outlaws, Quick Trigger Action, Frontier Western, and Wild Western; more prolifically for the company's romance comics Love Romances, My Own Romance, and Teen-Age Romance; and one story each for the supernatural/science fiction anthologies Strange Tales, World of Fantasy, and Tales to Astonish ("I Fell to the Center of the Earth!" in issue #2, March 1959). Baker also supplied artwork for the Dell Movie Classic edition of King Richard and the Crusaders.[21]

In the late fifties, he branched out into illustration work, for instance for the 16-page illustrated condensation he did of Howard J. Lewis' The Complete Guide to Better Bowling (1956, Maco Magazine Corporation) for the General Motors' Information Rack Service number 1R-58-46 [22] and the early issues of the St. John detective pulp digest Manhunt [23]

His last known confirmed work is the six-page "I Gave Up the Man I Love!" in Atlas Comics' My Own Romance #73 (Jan. 1960).[9] His last known work as generally credited but unconfirmed is the first page of the six-page story "Happily Ever After" in Marvel's Love Romances #90 (Nov. 1960).

He died of a heart attack on August 11, 1959 in New York City.[2][24][25]

Awards

Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.[4]

References

  1.  Becattini, Alberto, in Amash, Jim; Nolen-Weathngton, Eric, eds. (2012). "Part One: Meet Matt Baker: Baker of Cheesecake: An Appreciation of Matt Baker, Good Girl Artist Supreme". Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour (PDF). TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-1605490328. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  2.  Matt Baker at the Lambiek Comiclopedia
  3.  Amash, Jim; Nolen-Weathngton, Eric, eds. (2012). "Part One: Meet Matt Baker: Baker of Cheesecake: An Appreciation of Matt Baker, Good Girl Artist Supreme". Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour (PDF). TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-1605490328. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help) Note: Artist credits were not routinely given in comic books in the 1940s, so comprehensive credits are difficult if not impossible to ascertain.
  4.  "2009 Eisner Award winners". Comic-Con.org. Archived from the original on August 12, 2010. Retrieved January 14, 2011.
  5.  Baker, Matt. Phantom Lady, Verotik, 1994, cover.
  6.  Becattini, p. 37
  7.  "Matt Baker - First Black Comic Artist | Great Black Heroes". www.greatblackheroes.com. January 14, 2016. Archived from the original on December 6, 2017. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  8.  Schelly, William (2013). American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1950s. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 67. ISBN 9781605490540.
  9.  Matt Baker at the Grand Comics Database
  10.  Amash, Jim; Nolen-Weathington, Eric, eds. (2012). Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour. Raleigh, North Carolina: TwoMorrows. p. 128. ISBN 9781605490328.
  11.  Amash, Nolen-Weathington, p. 153.
  12.  Amash, Nolen-Weathington, p. 119.
  13.  Phantom Lady at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
  14.  "Comic Book DB - The Comic Book Database". comicbookdb.com. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  15.  Ringgenberg, Steven; Procopio, Joseph V. (2013). The Lost Art of Matt Baker: The Complete Canteen Kate. Silver Spring, Maryland: Picture This Press. ISBN 978-0-9829276-6-3.
  16.  William B. Jones, Jr., Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History, with Illustrations (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2002), p. 44.
  17.  As in, for example, the feature "Stuart Taylor in Weird Stories of the Supernatural" in Jumbo Comics #105 (Nov. 1947)
  18.  "Profiles in Black Cartooning: Matt Baker | Comic Book Legal Defense Fund". cbldf.org. February 5, 2016. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  19.  Arcudi, John (July 17, 2019). "African American Comic Artists Through History, Part 4". Rumble. No. 14. Image Comics. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
  20.  Crown Comics #3 at the Grand Comics Database.
  21.  Jones, Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History, p. 45.
  22.  "A Guide To Better Bowling". February 7, 2021.
  23.  "Manhunt Illustrations". November 4, 2014.
  24.  Duin, Steve; Richardson, Mike (1998). Comics Between the Panels. Dark Horse Books. p. 39. ISBN 978-1569713440.
  25.  Chamberlain, Gaius (January 14, 2016). "Matt Baker". Great Black Heroes. Archived from the original on June 15, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2019.

Further reading

  • Booker, M. Keith (2010). Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 45.
  • Quattro, Ken (2020). Invisible Men: Black Artists of The Golden Age of Comics



Matt Baker
(1921 - 1959)

Golden Age comic artist, specializing in Good Girl Art for adventure and romance comics, but also involved with adventure and western titles.

Special thanks to Dan Kurdilla for helping with this page.

Phantom Lady (1948) Baker, Matt - 001

Phantom Lady (1949) Baker, Matt - 002

Phantom Lady (1948) Baker, Matt - 003

Rage For Men, "China's Cut Throat Pirate Queen" (1957) Baker, Matt - 004

Rage For Men, My Escape From The Isle of Death" (1957) Baker, Matt - 005

All Top (1948) Baker, Matt - 006

All Top (1949) Baker, Matt - 007

Classic Comics, "Lorna Doone" (1946) Baker, Matt - 008

Crown Comics (1948) Baker, Matt - 009

Western Bandit Trails (1949) Baker, Matt - 010

The Texan (1949) Baker, Matt - 011

The Texan (1950) Baker, Matt - 012

The Texan (1950) Baker, Matt - 013

The Texan (1951) Baker, Matt - 014

Amazing Ghost Stories (1954) Baker, Matt - 015

Seven Seas Comics (1947) Baker, Matt - 016

Canteen Kate (1952) Baker, Matt - 017

Teen-Age Romances (1951) Baker, Matt - 018

Teen-Age Romances (1949) Baker, Matt - 019

Wartime Romances (1951) Baker, Matt - 020

Wartime Romances (1951) Baker, Matt - 021

Wartime Romances (1951) Baker, Matt - 022

All Top (1949) Baker, Matt - 023

All Top (1949) Baker, Matt - 024

























https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2014/11/authentic-police-cases-15-matt-baker.html






https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2008/04/cinderella-love-25-matt-baker-cover.html










https://pencilink.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-own-romance-74-jack-kirby-art.html













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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2603.01 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3895 days ago & DAD = 549 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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