This book is Volume 1 of the currently ongoing series Warren Publishing's Creepy Archives, presently published by Dark Horse comics. Each hard cover archive edition binds five of the original magazine sized horror anthology comics in chronological order. The five editions inside this archive were published in 1964 and 1965.
In 1965 I was a poor black kid living in the wilds of coastal North Carolina. I might as well have been living in the wilds of Borneo at the time. North Carolina was a jungle wild land back then and ignorance ruled the land.
I remember seeing Creepy Magazine on the shelve of the tiny book section of a store in town. I never purchased one, because we were too poor and my mother would have has a freaked-out if I brought a "work of the devil" like a horror comic into the house. It wasn't until after my mother married my Army Sergent step-dad, when I was eight years old, and we were immediately whisked away from racist Nigger hating North Carolina by the Army and transported into the strange new land to me of Germany... where I was thrust into the world of white people who seemed to either want to help me progress, or just treat me with indifference like any other person on the street without spitting on me or yelling at me or calling me a Nigger to my face!
I really am still shell shocked about my abrupt shifting of realities in 1967.
And in 1968, with the presenting of knowledge from white children on the Military base school... I was introduced to the world of comic book collecting. And it started with Marvel, DC, Mad Magazine, Creepy and Eerie. And, I was obsessed with National Lampoon!
I took a lot of ass whippings from my mother, and step-father, because my Pentecostal fundamentalist mother WOULD NOT HAVE THOSE BOOKS OF THE DEVIL IN HER HOME! But, regardless of the punishment, I was hooked on comic books -- and no amount of belt whipping and 2X4 raw wood paddle ass whippings and crying myself to sleep as my ass and legs bled onto my bed sheets would abate my crack-like need to read!
A taste of this personal derision I just shared with you is in my book "Dragonflies Chasing Mosquitoes!" A more hardcore volume 2 will be released in the future.
Racism and social ignorance was as strong back then as it is today, which is some crazy backwards bullshit! Anyway, I was now temporarily out of the racism of coastal North Carolina... but certain prejudices were still VERY acceptable in more civilized settings. And that was... to treat Native Americans as savages. We ALL played Cowboys and Indians. And we ALL wanted to be the good guys Cowboys... because the Indians were BAD! That evil was conditioning from books, television, movies and popular thought.
Indians were identified with two slurs -- the men were Redskins and the women were Squaws. And it wasn't until the late 1970's, perhaps into the early 1980's, that America began to push back on the word Squaw for a Native American. Actually, Native American women began to speak out about that term. And a shocked America began to instantly respond... to basically force that word into the abject evil column of bad words.
As you know, if you've read my non-fiction, I have African slave blood in me and Choctaw Native American blood in me. And even though, as a kid, I played Cowboys and Indians... that always felt weird. And, everything racist about the Cowboys and Indian caveat came to a clear focus to my mind when I read a story in a, at the time, back issue of Creepy magazine at a friends house that I snuck off to after school one day to read some comic books. He handed me Creepy issue 5 and I read straight through that book like a hungry child devouring a grilled cheese sandwich.
The last story in that issue is titled: Revenge of the Beast! The script is written by Archie Goodwin. The art is by Gray Morrow. And the plot still affects me to my soul today.
I am not going to give a complete rundown of the plot. If you are interested in Archie Goodwin's story about white men who defile a Native American burial ground, shoot the Native American guardian dead in cold blood because there is something in that burial ground the white men want and then the white men have to suffer the consequences of a vengeful Native American spirit -- if you are interested in a plot like that, well... here it is in well written form by a master comic book writer.
What about this story affected me so as to change my personal perspective on my relationship with a part of the blood inside me?
Remember, this story is from 1965! Native Americans, at that time, were still dirty beasts to most of the ignorant American culture... and the only place for them were the reservations on the fringes of society. Political correctness was decades in the future, I remind you. Archie Goodwin's use of the word REDSKIN as a pejorative in the story, right before the unarmed "Indian" is shot to death by several men, in cold blood, did something to me. Those words flipped a switch in my head and it has not been turned off since.
Today, in the Washington, DC area, there is a quiet debate going on about the NFL Football team's use of the word Redskin in its name. I listen to WJFK radio with real hate in my heart because the Washington team's fans call in... and of course, most of them do not want the name changed, racist or not. And, the football jock on the afternoon show spewes his twisted logic about the aspects of changing the brand of the football team if the name is changed.
Why he gives a goddamn about the branding of the team is all about his personal legacy... even though the owner of the team treated him like a piece of Tiger meat during his playing days with the team, and even afterward! Bat Shit craziness...
The word Redskin is a slur!
Here is a little education people about your Washington Redskins.
The Washington Redskins was established in 1932!
This is a quote from Wikipedia: The Marshall in the quote is
George Preston Marshall, the original owner of the team...
"During most of this unsuccessful period, Marshall continually
refused to integrate the team, despite pressure from
The Washington
Post and the
federal
government of the United States.
[23]
On March 24, 1961,
Secretary
of the Interior Stewart
Udall warned Marshall to hire black players or face federal retribution. For
the first time in history, the federal government had attempted to desegregate a
professional sports team.
[24]
The Redskins were under the threat of
civil rights legal action
by the
Kennedy
administration, which would have prevented a segregated team from playing at
the new
D.C.
Stadium, as it was owned by the
U.S.
Department of the Interior and thus was federal government property.
In
1962, they became the
final professional American football franchise to integrate."
I was a 3 year old Negro child in racist North Carolina in 1962!
(Let me use my imagination for a minute. It is, say, 1959 -- the year of my birth! The owner of the Washington Redskins refuses to hire NEGROES for the team. We were not African-American at that time -- that term did not officially exist yet. Or, did the owner refer to Negroes as Colored People! Hey, that's not so bad, right? Maybe he referred to Negroes as Coons -- a word that would have been VERY familiar to him in West Virginia. How about Darkies. Maybe Jiggaboos. Fuck No! That man called Negroes one word and one word only -- I'm not going to put Niggers on my motherfucking football team. Fuck the public, fuck the Washington Post and fuck the Feds! Yea, I imagine those were his gentle words.)
All the delusional people who call in to WJFK (a CBS sports radio
property) and plead the case that the term "Redskin is not racist" are ignorant
bastards who do not know the history of their beloved team. A Nigger hating
owner, born in West Virginia in 1896, refuses to integrate his team with black
players... until the Federal Government FORCES him to capitulate! And you fans,
black and white, believe for an instant that this racist owner did not have evil
intent on his mind when he named the team the REDSKINS?
Poor delusional bastards!
And as for LaVar Arrington's batshit crazy obsession with the Washington NFL team's branding...
When I was a kid, Denny's restaurant was called SAMBO'S! The name, racial connotations, and racist attitude of the restaurant chain and its employees, was the cause of a lot of consternation for both ethnic people, and white people, for decades. Eventually, Sambo's dropped the name... but not the attitude. People remember what Sambo's was about... on both sides of the racism issue. Branding products with racist names and terms has always been popular in America. Only when the term "Political Correct" became popular did a lot of this derision fade away... but not all of it!
Redskin -- the pejorative hate filled term white men used before they shot another dirty, filthy, ugly, savage, squaw-bitch loving Indian dead in his tracks! Why? Because what was lower than a Nigger? At least the Niggers didn't fight back... unlike the Indians who were INVADED -- on their own soil --
by white men who hated everyone, and everything, that would not submit to
Caucasian derision!
For your current day example of the apathy and hate, just look toward the
NFL, its crazy fans and the name of its Washington, DC team -- THE WASHINGTON
REDSKINS!
Legacy, and branding, be damned... Lavar Arrington!
RLJ
