# data[].attributes.body
Born December 10th, 1921 in Forsyth County, NC

Died August 11th, 1959 in New York City, NY

Matt Baker born to Clarence and Ethel Baker, and had two brothers, Robert and John Baker. At a young age, Baker had a rheumatic fever which damaged his heart, which later on would exempt him from being drafted into world war 2. After graduating high school in 1940, he moved to Washington D.C. but by 1943 he moved to Manhattan to study at the School of Engineering and Design.

Matt Baker knocked down the first domino in black comic book art, showing many black children like myself, we can still make comic books no matter what color we are. Though this applied much more in the past, but because he was the first, its very easy for me to be a successful comic book artist. He also created the first graphic novel, expanding the way EVERYONE could tell their unique stories and proving again that black people are just as smart and creative as any other race.

# data[].attributes.headline
Major societal events between 1945 and 1990

# data[].attributes.subject
Major societal events between 1945 and 1990

# data[].attributes.body
1921 - Clarence Matt Baker is born

1940 - Matt Baker graduates and moves to Washington D.C.

1944 - Matt publishes first comic, Sheena, queen of the jungle.

1945 - Creates first black superhero named Voodah.

1952 - Publishes “Flamingo”

Matt Baker was born in 1921 and graduated in 1940. In 1944 He joined S.M. Iger Studio as a background artist after showing his one page portfolio. It wouldn’t be long however, until he made his own comic called “Sheena, Queen of the jungle.” He would continue making comics at Iger studio and even make the first black superhero, called Voodah. Keep in mind, Black people were not allowed to even eat near white people, and the fact that Matt was making comics with and around white people was groundbreaking at the time. He also proved that anyone can be successful with their art, no matter your skin color.

# data[].attributes.headline
He provided the art for the first ever graphic novel.

# data[].attributes.subject
He provided the art for the first ever graphic novel.

# data[].attributes.body
He made almost all the art for "It rhymes with lust." which is known as the precursor to the modern graphic novel. It contained narration on the side and a lot less dialougue.

# data[].attributes.headline
He made the first ever black superhero, named Voodah.

# data[].attributes.subject
He made the first ever black superhero, named Voodah.

# data[].attributes.body
Matt had done the art for an anonymous writers idea for a black jungle super hero named Voodah. Only the first issue has Voodah being black on the cover, the next 7 issues only have him being black in the interior, and unfortunately due to audience complaints, he is white for the rest of the issues.

# data[].attributes.headline
The first known black man to be successful in the comics industry

# data[].attributes.subject
The first known black man to be successful in the comics industry

# data[].attributes.body
It is commonly known that most African-Americans were not allowed to work, eat, or be near most white people during the 1940s and 50s. Despite all that, due to sheer talent, Matt Baker managed to be a incredibly successful artist that is still known today.

# data[].attributes.headline
Possibly the first gay man to be successful in comics

# data[].attributes.subject
Possibly the first gay man to be successful in comics

# data[].attributes.body
Matt's friend, Frank Giusto, had said in in TwoMorrow’s Matt Baker – The Art Of Glamour that Matt was gay. When asked, he said " I knew he was gay because of the people he hung around with and the parties he'd go to." and that Matt would make sexually advances on him.

Though, this should be taken with a grain of salt as this has not been confirmed.

# data[].attributes.headline
His comic, "Phantom Lady" indirectly led to the Comics Code Authority

# data[].attributes.subject
His comic, "Phantom Lady" indirectly led to the Comics Code Authority

# data[].attributes.body
Dr.Fedric Wetham had used "Phantom Lady" as a major point as to how comics led to the "corruption" of the youth. This led to the Comics Code Authority which then led to almost 50 years in comic self-censorship.

# data[].attributes.body
Baker had worked directly for Stan Lee, and some sources even say that Baker inspired "The Punisher" and "Black Panther."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Matt Baker: The First Black Comic Book Artist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Matt Baker: The greatest romance artist in comics history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
WLND City of Westland Municipal Access Channel

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Clarence Matthew Baker, commonly known as Matt Baker, was one of the first successful black comic book artists. He was active during the Golden Age of Comics Books, roughly the 1930s to 1950s. During his career he drew more than 1,000 pages of comics and over 200 covers. These works included possibly the first graphic novel, It Rhymes with Lust (1950), Phantom Lady, and Canteen Kate.

Baker was born in Forsyth County, North Carolina on December 10, 1921 to Clarence and Ethel Baker, and had two brothers, Robert and John. His family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where during this time, young Baker suffered a case of rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart, and led to his being exempt from the draft during World War II. Baker graduated from high school around 1940 and afterwards moved to Washington D.C. where he began working for the government. By 1943, however, he enrolled at the Cooper Union School of Engineering and Design in Manhattan, New York.

Baker, an admirer of the works of artists such as Reed Crandall and Will Eisner, joined S. M. Iger Studios in 1944 as a background artist. His first work came in 1944's Jumbo Comics#69 where he penciled and inked a Sheena, Queen of the Jungle story. In 1945 Baker drew the first black hero in comics, Voodah, in Crown Comics #3, though the character was made white not long after. In 1947 Baker began working on one of his most well-known projects, Phantom Lady. Baker redesigned the character, and was on the series from 1947 to 1949. Phantom Lady and his other works during the 1940s showed Baker's skill at the "Good Girl" art style, depicting traditionally beautiful women dressed in little clothing.

By the 1950s Baker began working on more romance titles in the early part of the decade, and western and science fiction stories in the latter half. His art began to emphasize realism and drama to match both the subject matter, and the shift to a primarily female audience. In 1950 Baker provided the art for the picture novel, It Rhymes with Lust, thought to be the first graphic novel. In 1952 Baker began working on Canteen Kate and would stay on for its entire 22 issue duration. He also freelanced for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics.

In 1954 Dr. Fredrick Wertham published his book Seduction of the Innocent, in which he made claims as to the ill effects that comics had on children. This led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority and decades of self-censorship by the comics industry. Baker's work, specifically the cover of Phantom Lady #17, in which the heroine is scantily clad and tied to a pole, was singled out by Wertham for condemnation.

For 25 years Baker worked at all hours of the night and under constant threat of deadlines. This took a toll on his weakened heart. In 1957 he suffered a stroke, which impacted his artistic capabilities. Two years later on August 11, 1959 at the age of 37 Baker died of a heart attack. In January of 1960 his final work was printed posthumously in the story I Gave Up the Man I Love! for My Own Romance #73. Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Clarence Matthew Baker, commonly known as Matt Baker, was one of the first successful black comic book artists. He was active during the Golden Age of Comics Books, roughly the 1930s to 1950s. During his career he drew more than 1,000 pages of comics and over ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Matt Baker is often considered the first known successful African-American artist in the comic-book industry.

Clarence Matthew Baker was born on December 10, 1921 in Forsyth County, North Carolina. The son of Clarence and Ethel Baker, Matt and his brothers Robert and John, moved with their parents to Pittsburgh, PA. Somewhere around 1940 he graduated from high school and moved to Washington, DC, where he found a job working for the government. While many of his contemporaries were being drafted into the military over next year, Baker was not eligible for military service as he was found to be suffering from a heart ailment, the result of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. He moved to to New York City to study art at the Cooper Union School of Engineering, Art, and Design, a privately funded college located in the East Village. He had been an avid drawer and found inspiration from many of his artistic heroes such as magazine illustrator Andrew Loomis, and comic book artists Will Eisner, Reed Crandall, Alex Blum and  Lou Fine.

He began his art career in 1944 joining the S.M. Igor Studio as a background artist. The Igor Studio was a comics packager which produced  ready-to-print feature material for comic book publishers. Igor recalled Baker coming in for a job interview. “[Baker] came to my studio in the early ’40s; handsome and nattily dressed, ‘looking for a job’, as he put it. His only sample was a color sketch of—naturally—a beautiful gal! On the strength of that and a nod from my associate editor Ruth Roche, he was hired as a background artist. … When given his first script, he showed originality and faithfully executed its story line. His drawing was superb. His women were gorgeous!”

His first assignment was to work as a penciller and the inker on the 12 page Sheena, Queen of the Jungle story in Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics #69. In the comic book industry, a penciller provides a rough draft of the visual view of the storyline, providing a layout of the scenes. These scenes were drawn in pencil because they would go through several drafts after being presented to the editor. As defined by Wikipedia, an inker “outlines, interprets, finalizes, retraces this drawing by using a pen or a brush.” During this period of time which historians refer to as the “Golden Age of Comic Books,” Baker did work through Iger’s studio for Fox Comics, Fiction House, Quality Comics and St. John Publications. In his earliest days he pencilled the backgrounds as well as the female form for other artists. Thus, much of his work was inked over by other artists who got credit for the artistic work. He developed a reputation early on as one of the best “Good Girl” artists in the business, a master at drawing the female form. He paid attention to the smaller details that allowed his comic book heroine to come alive as a more robust character.

Good Girl Art, as defined by American science fiction and mystery author Richard  Lupoff  is “a cover illustration depicting an attractive young woman, usually in skimpy or form-fitting clothing, and designed for erotic stimulation. The term does not apply to the morality of the “good girl”, who is often a gun moll, tough cookie or wicked temptress.”

In 1944 Baker took over as the principle artist on “Sky Girl”, a regular feature in Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics. Sky Girl told the story of an Irish Redhead named Ginger McGuire who worked as a ferry pilot in the Pacific theater of World War II, helping to fight against the Japanese. He drew for this series until its last issue in August 1948. In December 1946, Matt illustrated the popular character Lorna Dorne for Classic Comics. At about the same time, he was assigned to a Fiction House Fight Comics feature called “Tiger Girl.” Tiger Girl was a blonde bombshell with a magic amulet and a Shakespearean vocabulary. Baker worked on her comic for three years.

His most well known character was Phantom Lady. Phantom Lady was much like any other female character in those days. She was a Washington socialite who wanted to fight crime, designed a super-heroine outfit and use a “Blackout Ray” invented by a friend of her father. 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. 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. This look became her most popular version and premiered in Fox’s Phantom Lady #13 in August 1947. He pencilled and inked the character through 1949.

Baker’s personal life was somewhat of a mystery, with some describing him as a serious ladies man and others suggesting that he was a homosexual, the proverbial confirmed bachelor. What is known is that he lived in a five story building in Manhattan, in which he worked all hours of the night. He often worked for days on end before collapsing into several days of sleep. He was described by everyone as a very handsome man, standing 5’ 10” and as one of the coolest, hippest dressers in all of New York City, jetting around town in a canary yellow convertible Oldsmobile. He thoroughly enjoyed his life in the Big Apple, burning the candle at both ends, enjoying jazz music and working hard as one of the most prolific artists in the comic book industry. Unfortunately, he still had the weakened heart, which ailed him whenever he had to take the stairs to his apartment or make a brisk walk on the street, leaving him breathing heavily and exhausted.

“Matt Baker’s unique contribution to the field of GOLDEN-AGE COMIC BOOK ART sustains a growing popularity for the books he illustrated.” –
Richard Muchin, Golden Age Comic Book Expert, TomorrowsTreasures.com

Matt did not talk openly about his position as a Black man in an almost all white field, but instead let his talent talk for him. As fellow artist Al Feldstein said “he was a rare phenomenon in an industry almost totally dominated by white males. However, he was extremely talented, and it was his talent that overcame any resistance to his presence based on racial bias. But I feel that Matt, personally, was acutely aware of the perceived chasm that separated him from the rest of us. And it may be that because of that perceived problem there is little known about Matt Baker, aside from his stunning artwork that speaks for himself.”

He began working for St. John Publications in 1948 and became the company’s lead artist. He pencilled the groundbreaking picture novel “It Rhyme With Lust,” in 1950, which many consider the earliest form of the modern graphic novel. He also produced “Flamingo” from 1952 to 1954 as a syndicated comic strip for Phoenix Features.

Baker went on to work on other characters which he popularized over the next decade. One of his first endeavors for St. John Publications was “Canteen Kate.” Baker drew all 22 installments of the series focused on the kooky “Korean War-time” cutie and her morale-boosting screwball antics. He then began a long string of work on romance titles such as Teen-Age Romances, Diary Secrets, Teen-Age Temptations, Pictorial Romance and Wartime Romances. Over the years, because of his expertise in the female form, these would become some of the most popular and sought after titles that he provided artwork for.

While his depiction of sexy women would be viewed as groundbreaking in modern times, the risque drawings drew the ire of conservative organizations back in the 1950s. Dr. Fredric Wertham, the anti-comic book propagandist, featured Baker’s artwork from the cover of Phantom Lady #17 in his book “Seduction of the Innocent” in 1954,  a book that created alarm among parents and prompted them to push the comic book industry to establish the the Comics Code Authority in order to voluntarily self-censor their titles.

Later in the decade, Baker worked as a freelancer for Atlas Comics, a company that would eventually evolve into Marvel Comics. His first assignment in December 1955 was working on a five-page anthological story titled “Showdown at Sunup” in Gunsmoke Western #32, which he pencilled and inked alongside a script presumed to have been authored by comic book legend Stan Lee.  He would continue drawing westerns during this period, drawing for Atlas’ Western Outlaws, Quick Trigger Action, Frontier Western, and Wild Western. He even extended his work to the realm of science fiction anthologies such as Strange Tales, World of Fantasy, and Tales to Astonish (“I Fell to the Center of the Earth!” in issue #2, March 1959). Baker’s last confirmed work was on a six-page story titled “I Gave Up the Man I Love!” in the Atlas/Marvel’s My Own Romance #73, published in January  1960.

In the end, Baker’s weakened heart would betray him. After suffering a stroke in 1957 which affected his artistic abilities, Matt Baker died on August 11, 1959 in New York City, the victim of a heart attack. As one of, if not the first, Black artists in the world of comic books, much of Baker’s career and life was lived under the radar and thus like many men of mystery, his legend has grown over the years. His ability to move from drawing super-heroines, to war themed stories to romance stories to the exploits of cowboys demonstrated his wide artistic range and willingness to take on challenges. He is now very well regarded as an artist and many wonder what levels of success he would have enjoyed had he been a white artist and not been betrayed by a bad heart.

Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009, leaving behind a legacy that should prove to be a model for young Black artists following in his path.

Lost Art of Matt Baker : The Complete Canteen Kate [BOOK]

Sources:

Matt Baker (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Baker_(artist)

Matt Baker: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/baker_matt.htm

Matt Baker: http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=5336

Matt Baker (Grand Comics Database) – http://www.comics.org/credit/name/matt%20baker/sort/chrono/

Matt Baker: The Art of Glamour – http://www.twomorrows.com/media/MattBakerPreview.pdf

Black Superhero Hype: Matt Baker – http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/blacksuperherohype/mattbaker.html&date=2009-10-25+13:42:06

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Matt Baker is often considered the first known successful Black comic book artist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The handsome-looking gentleman at the left is Clarence Matthew Baker -- commonly know as Matt Baker -- a comic book artist who died in 1959. He attended the Cooper Union School of Engineering, Art, and Design in New York and, in 1944, got himself a job as a background artist with the S.M. Iger Studio. His first published work was in Jumbo Comics #69.

Baker became well-known for his "good girl" art that was popular at the time. In fact, it was his incredible ability which allowed him to break the color barriers that were in place at the time. Baker became the regular artist on "Sky Girl", "Tiger Girl" and "Camilla, Queen of the Jungle Empire." In 1947, Iger asked Baker to redesign Phantom Lady and his more scantily clad version of the character, based off actress Linda Darnell, caught the attention of Fredric Wertham. The cover of Phantom Lady #17 was even highlighted in Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent.

Baker and one of the writers he worked with on Phantom Lady, Ruth Roche, began a newspaper strip in 1952 called Flamingo. That ran two years and was distributed by Iger's Phoenix Features.

Baker is perhaps most famously remembered for illustrating in 1950 what is sometimes (erroneously, in my opinion) considered the first graphic novel: It Rhymes with Lust. (Though it was called a "picture novel" at the time. Also, for those who haven't read it, the 'rhymes with lust' referred to in the title is the main character: Rust Masson.) The book and the concept were conceived of by writer Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, though the book was a poor seller at the time.

Through the later half of the 1950s, Baker worked for a variety of publishers including Quality, Dell, Harvey and Timely/Atlas/Marvel. Baker was a heavy smoker and died from a heart attack in 1959 at age 37. His last confirmed work was the "I Gave Up the Man I Love!" story published in My Own Romance #73.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The handsome-looking gentleman at the left is Clarence Matthew Baker -- commonly know as Matt Baker -- a comic book artist who died in 1959. He attended the Cooper Union School of Engineering, Art, and Design in New York and, in 1944, got himself a job as a background artist with the S.M.