Word came recently of the passing of two cartoonists who had been involved with the AAEC over the decades: Jerry Fearing and Tim Jackson.
Jackson, 66, died in November. The artist and historian was the long-time cartoonist for the Chicago Defender, and his work appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Cincinnati Herald, Dayton Defender and other midwestern newspapers. He was a four-time winner of NNPA’s Wilbert Holloway Award for Editorial Cartoons, and the author of “Pioneering Cartoonists of Color,” a seminal history of African-American cartoonists.
In a remembrance on The Daily Cartoonist, D.D. Degg posted, “Tim was truly a trail-blazing researcher …. and when [his book] finally went to print I couldn’t have been happier. He was a pioneer of researching Black cartoonists in the United States and it led to more books like the “Encyclopedia of Black Comics,” Ken Quattro’s “Invisible Men” and Rebecca Wanzo’s “The Content of Our Caricature.”
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Jerry Fearing, 94, died in October. He was best known for his editorial cartoons in the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press, drawing for the midwest newspapers from the 1960’s until his retirement in 1994. He was also the author and illustrator of a good half-dozen books on life in Minnesota.
In the late ’70s, Fearing’s syndicated comic strip “Rooftop O’Toole” ran in over 80 newspapers. Jerry’s obit noted, “Rooftop and his dog Rufus delivered the daily newspaper to the White House, so he [and writing partner Bill Farmer] were able to blend political references into his comic approach. The strip celebrated a different time in American politics with humor and pathos.” When the syndicate wanted the creative team to lay off political commentary, Fearing and Farmer decided to end the strip rather than acquiesce.
