"YOU ARE BLACK HISTORY"

Comic book stores, although there are many around the world but not many owned by Black people, let alone by a female, but that all changed when Ariell Johnson opened her store Amalgam Comics & Coffee on December 14, 2015, becoming the first Black-Woman Owned comic bookstore in the East Coast. Since then she has garnered national media attention because of her commitment to representation and inclusion. It was all dream when studying accounting at Temple University. It took 13 long years to make her dream come true, now her comic book store which is located in the Kensington area of North Philadelphia is a celebration of all geek culture. A place for comic book fans, hardcore gamers, movie addicts, television connoisseurs, and zombie apocalypse survivalists to meet, and with their powers combined, change the world a little bit. We here at

A. C. E. would like to congratulate her on being a great representation of Black People and YOU ARE BLACK HISTORY.

In honor of BLACK HISTORY MONTH, we would like to pay homage to many of the black creators who have inspired us greatly. Today, the spotlight is on Khary Randolph. Breaking into comic book industry in the esrly 2000s, Khary Randolph is a comic book artist known for his dynamic art style which is influenced from manga and hip hop. Some of his notable works include STARBORN, CHARISMAGIC, TECH JACKET, MOSAIC, and EXCELLENCE. Khary has also worked with high profile publishers such as Marvel Comics, Epic Comics, DC Comics, Aspen Comics, Image Comics, and Boom! Studios.

He is also a 3x Glyph Award winner, achieving the twice for "Best Cover" and once for "Best Artist". Thank you for being you, we hope you continue to work many different things because YOU ARE BLACK HISTORY.

Alitha Martinez is of Honduran and Curacao decent and has worked for Marvel, DC, and Image Comics, this is her story. In the1990s, Martinez worked as a background inker with her stand-out moment came with heavily contributing to Marvel's Cable in 1993. Her big break came when she became the lead artist for the Iron Man series in 1999, she worked on the comic till 2001. Martinez would go on to be the lead artist of the comic and popular tv show Heroes webcomics. After that, she would leave Marvel to go to DC where she co-created the character Knightfall in the Batgirl series in 2012. In 2017 she was a guest artist for Image Comics Lazarus X +66 series. Recently she created Nubia for DCs new Future State series, Alithas work was included in the Women in Comics exhibit. Alitha is also is a GLAAD Winner for Outstanding Artist, she has cemented herself as one of the great artists of color and women as a whole. Alitha Martinez has done so many different titles and each one is so wonderfully drawn, you are a great artist and YOU ARE BLACK HISTORY.

Dwayne Glenn Mcduffie is one of the most important and respected writers in my generation. Working with Marvel was his first big break by helping to create Damage Control (which is a team that repairs and cleans up all of the damage being done by superheroes and villains). In time Dwayne would later go on to be an Editor for Marvel where he would go on to write a spoof called "Teenage Ninja Thrashers". There he talks about the mistreatment of black characters stated how the origins are bad like who Falcon was a pimp name Snap Wilson or how Luke Cage was a gang member just to name a few and more. In the early 90s, Dwayne leaves Marvel to help create his own company called Milestone Comics and was the Editor and Chief. Static, Hardware, The Blood Syndicate, and more all came from him and his team. Milestone would later make a deal with DC to help with distribution; then Dwayne would also start working on stories for DC as well. He is credited with working tv shows, animated movies like Static Shock, Justice League/ Unlimited, Allstar Superman, Ben 10, Teen Titans, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Justice League: Doom, What's New Scooby-Doo? and many more. Dwayne Mcduffie contributed to some great stories and was a master at what he did but not only that helped change how black characters were projected. Dwayne Mcduffie was and forever will be respected and is without question Black History.

We here at A. C. E. enjoy shinning some light on people of color during black history month, that is in the entertainment industry that we feel doesn't don't get their just do. This week is Lesean Thomas who is an animator, comic book artist, writer, and character designer. He's worked on notable shows like The Boondocks, Black Dynamite, Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man, Axe Cop, Cannon Busters, The Legend of Korra, Been 10, Kim Possible and Children of the Ether and more.

Bruce William Smith is a black animator who works for Disney and has worked on many tv shows and movies. Some including Thundercats, Sliverhawks, Rock-A-Doodle, Bebe Kids, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Proud Family, Tarzan, Emperor's New Groove(The Movie), Space Jam, Winnie The Pooh and Princess and The Frog, Hair Love, Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph. After all of his many great accomplishments, it's sad that many people aren't very familiar with his work. Hopefully, this shines some light on this talented animator

Clarence Matthew Baker was the first black comic book artist to rise to fame with his work. Born in 1920 in North Carolina and would move to Pittsburgh, PA then he later go to school in New York City for Art. His first big break was as a pencil and inker for Sheena, The Jungle Queen in 1944, he would later develop a reputation as the best "Good Girl" artist (in other words he was the best at drawing female characters). Then in the late 1940s, Baker would go on to redesign "Phantom Lady" which would be known as the best design for the character and this helped to increase the sales when it started to decline. Baker also created a Voodah who would've been credited as the first African American character but because the character was later changed to a White/ Caucasian man, this wasn't the case. There's no denying that Clarence Matthew Baker aka Matt Baker is still a great talent and is apart of Black History.

We here at A.C.E would like to show respect for one of the more overlooked figures in history, Jackie Ormes who was the first African-American female cartoonist. Originally born as Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911, Jackie Ormes would go on to work for the Pittsburgh Courier after graduating high school. During her tenure, she went on to have success as a journalist, freelance writer and editor, often covering boxing matches, court cases and human interests topics. However, she felt her true calling was to draw. In 1937, Jackie Ormes' first comic strip, "Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem" appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier. Torchy Brown was a comedy take on a Mississippi teen who finds fame and fortune performing at the Cotton Club after moving to New York. From this, Jackie Ormes became the first African-American woman to produce a nationally ongoing comic strip. Although the comic strip would come to an abrupt end the following year, Jackie Ormes would later reinvent "Torchy Brown" in 1950. Between 1942 and 1945, Jackie Ormes produces two more comic strips, "Candy" and "Patty-Jo 'N' Ginger."During her career, Jackie Ormes went against the stereotypical depictions of African-Americans at the time. Instead she presented characters who were intelligent, brave, beautiful, confident, independent and determined. Jackie was often involved in humanitarian causes which she incorporated into much of her stories, tackling both socially and political issues. Signing a deal with the Terri Lee doll company in 1947, Jackie Ormes released a highly successful line of "Patty-Jo" dolls. Jackie would once again went against the stereotypes of society creating more realistic childlike doll. The "Patty-Jo" became incredibly popular among both African-American and white children and was the first American black doll to have an extensive wardrobe. Although Jackie Ormes would pass away in 1985 at 74 years old, she built a legacy that continues to leave an imprint on society. Jackie's efforts during her career would be rewarded posthumously when she was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2014 and

the Will Eisner Comic Industry Hall of Fame in 2018.

This being February and Black History Month we hope that we can bring a little bit more knowledge to everyone on some of these very important people who helped pave the way for companies like our and many others around the United States. We have one last person we like show you his name Orrin C. Evans. Born in Steelton, PA Orrin was a very established journalist starting out as just a teenager for the Philadelphia Tribune writing about the segregation for the armed forces in WWII. Orrin would later go on to be the first black writer to write for a popular white mainstream newspaper. Then he would later go on to create All-Nergp Comics where every writer and artists was African American. Now although this is the last day of Black History Month it is extremely important to never forget about the people in this world who shaped United States for the better whether they are African Americans or any other people of color and to always celebrate their accomplishments not for just a month but throughout every month and year. We here at A. C. E. would like say thank you to everybody from the past that suffered so many so we could share our creative abilities with the world without any hardships and thank you for reading this and take care everyone.

Once again it's time to acknowledge another great man of color in the world of entertainment. This is Gerald "Jerry" Lawson and he is the who is responsible for creating cartridge base games back in the day along with creating the first home video game consoles. This self taught engineer created The Fairchild Channel F and later founded Videosoft along with also helping develop the Atari 1600. If it wasn't for this man playing NES, The Original Sega, N64 and so many other cartridge base video games wouldn't be possible without the great Gerald Lawson. Although games now have improved tremendously he definitely is one of video games forefathers and we at A. C. E. would like to say thank you.

Every year during this time we here at A. C. E. like to pay tribute to talented African American artists and other people of color today we will be talking about Denys Cowan. Denys Cowan is a comic book artist, a television producer, and is one of the co-founders of Milestone Media. Denys first published comic was Weird War Tales in 1980 for DC comics; he would later go on to establish himself as a great artist by working on The Question 1987. Denys would also work on Batman in 1989 and then go to Marvel where he worked on the Deathlok miniseries in 1990 where he met Dwayne McDuffie, together they go on to do a Prince comic in 1991 and then in 1993 create Milestone. Later Denys would help produce the Static Shock television series. He was also responsible for helping the Boondocks to get on tv.