“PIONEERING CARTOONISTS OF COLOR” BY TIM JACKSON

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI (2016)

In 1997, Jackson published the now defunct website "A Salute to Pioneering Cartoonists of Color" on which he originally collated many of the histories and works discussed within the book.

"I was determined to make it impossible for writers of articles, monographs, anthologies, or encyclopedia entries on American cartoonists to make the usual excuse that they simply could not find any information about these artists," Jackson writes in the book introduction.

What I also appreciate about Jackson's book is how he admits in the introduction that Ormes was a "galvanizing force" in preparing this volume of his research.

"My first reaction upon reading about this gifted but little-known cartoonist was to ask why, in the face of all my research, I hadn't heard of her," he writes.

Jackson's work also acknowledges two Black women cartoonists who appear to have preceded Ormes in cartooning: Daisy L. Scott, editorial cartoonist for the Tulsa Star from 1920–1921 (i.e., until the publisher's building was burned down during the terrorism of the Tulsa Race Massacre); and Gloria C.I. Eversley, the cartoonist behind "Milady Sepia," an illustrated single-panel romance series Jackson dates as having published during 1935 in the Cleveland Call and Post.

“JACKIE ORMES: THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN CARTOONIST” BY NANCY GOLDSTEIN

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS (2008, 2019)

This work provides a comprehensive introduction to Ormes's personal and professional history, and her major works. It includes 12 reproductions of "Torchy Brown in 'Dixie to Harlem,'" four of "Candy," 88 of "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger," 24 of "Torchy in 'Heartbeats,'" 10 of Ormes's paper dolls series "Torchy Togs," and exclusive photos of an original Patty-Jo doll owned by Ormes's niece, Gayle Ormes Hawthorne.

In addition to connecting with Hawthorne, Goldstein's research included conversations with Tim Jackson (who helped locate and scan many of Ormes's cartoons that appear in the book, as well as provided insight on cartooning), Ormes's older sister Delores Towles, and Ormes's sister-in-law Vivian Mason.

“BLACK WOMEN IN SEQUENCE: RE-INKING COMICS, GRAPHIC NOVELS, AND ANIME” BY DEBORAH ELIZABETH WHALEY

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS (2016)

Whaley's insightful first chapter, "Re-Inking the Nation: Jackie Ormes's Black Cultural Front Comics," contextualizes Ormes's presence and work in American journalism and popular culture during the 1930s to 1950s, and analyzes Ormes's comics from a lens of political activism. On the whole, Whaley delves into Ormes's social justice advocacy, affiliations, and socially-aware comics voice, all of which Ormes continued despite intrusive FBI surveillance.

Included in Whaley's chapter on Ormes are in-depth critical analyses of Ormes's single-panel works "Candy" (including four reproductions, two of which do not also appear in Goldstein's work) and "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger."