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TL 15.2.indd 46 Ontario School Library Association "Inclusion" is a catch-word that has become important in libraries. The idea of making members of all genders, ethnic groups, etc. feel equally welcome in the library, is a noble one. It is regarded as an important part of the cultural education of the young. As Harvard professor Alvin Poussaint said, a number of years ago, "[Multicultural comics] lay a foundation for them [the readers] being non-prejudiced." In addition, inclusive literature can provide emotional support for the reader whose colour, religion or gender may be overlooked or demeaned in traditional materials. Unfortunately, inclusion is also a concept with pitfalls. In the visual art form of comics and graphic novels, these problems are potentially more severe. Before the modern comic books, "pulp" novels, written for youth, filled this reading niche. In 1910, a new series of books began, one that was read by a large percentage of boys throughout the United States. Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle was the first volume of the series. It introduced an older African American who would become a regular in the series. Eradicate Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson was an itinerant handyman, probably an ex-slave, and an illiterate adult. His lack of education was used to comedic effect, along with his dialect. In 1940, Will Eisner included an African American character in his legendary work, a newspaper strip called The Spirit. Ebony White, who acted as The Spirit's sidekick and cab driver, spoke in a thick, garbled dialect that was considered funny at the time, but frequently shared dangers and risked death alongside the protagonist. At roughly the same time, the comic book character Green Lantern also had a sidekick (Rad) who was an uneducated cab driver, and who spoke in a thick, garbled dialect that was considered funny. "Doiby" Dickles, unlike Ebony White, was Caucasian. So, was Ebony a case of inclusion, or comic relief, or both? The only real difference between the two characters was that of ethnicity. In both The Spirit and Tom Swift, the characters included were used largely for comedic effect or to be an "in distress" character for various situations. Ebony evolved beyond that, as Eisner saw other ways to use the character and added other non-Caucasian characters to his stories. Rad, however, remained a painfully awkward stereotype. Neither writer was intending the portrayals to be offensive. As Eisner realized that the portrayal of Ebony was offending people, he slowly changed him. As times changed, Rad was simply dropped from later versions of Tom Swift, from the 1950s on. Were the characters of Rad Sampson or Ebony White ones that children of colour would want to read about, or to emulate? That is an important key to inclusion in literature, whether in the form of traditional narrative fiction or in the form of comic books and graphic novels. Both characters, unfortunately, played on the ethnic stereotype that African-Americans were uneducated manual laborers with no education and poor grammar. In other words, insulting cheap shots for a laugh. These examples were not unique, but there were inclusive books and comics, especially for African-Americans, even back then. Unfortunately, positive role-models were typically restricted to material written by and for the intended ethnic group, such as the issues of All Negro Comics and other such publications, in the 1940s and 1950s. While better than nothing, this was a form of segregated literature, not inclusion in the mainstream. At this point, you may very reasonably say that this was all a long time ago, and that today's literature, both textual and graphic, is much more inclusive and less insulting to ethnic groups, cultures and genders. Let's take a look at Marvel Comics in recent years. Their main African American characters are Luke Cage, who was wrongly convicted of a crime initially, but has committed many since, nominally in the name of justice; Sam Wilson, the Falcon, who is now portrayed as a DRAWN TO THE FORMTL