America's Forgotten Children
by Gary Scott Beatty
gary@comicartistsdirect.com.
Kudos to friend and sometimes employer Alonzo Washington on bringing two comics to press: "Aces" number two and "America's Forgotten Children."
"Aces" is a reprint of Alonzo's Omega 7 company's 1994 comic featuring strong black characters. A lack of black characters in comics is something the comic book community pays a lot of lip service bemoaning but not a lot of time fixing. Alonzo is committed to comics for the black community because he believes in it as a good cause and does a good job convincing others to believe in it, too.
"America's Forgotten Children" is a project I felt downright compelled to help Alonzo with. A creator and activist, he is convinced the national news media do little or no reporting on missing black children, while middle class white children like Daniel Van Dam, Laci Patterson, Elizabeth Smart, etc., receive substantial amounts of air time. Why won't the media cover the plights of all missing children? "America's Forgotten Children" is more than a comic book. "It is news literature designed to informt he public of the children that Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC decided not to give coverage to," wrote Alonzo.
The publisher has helped in the Kansas City area by providing over 3,000 kids of all races with free finger printing and photo ID kits. He's also trying to change the media's practices with an online petition asking for more coverage of missing African American children. You can sign that petition at www.omega7.com.
I thought I knew what I was getting into, including the crushing deadline, until I started working with the photos of some of these missing children, trying to clean them up and correct the color to print as clear as possible. Their little eyes stared out at me while I worked on each picture. Then I closed that one and went on to the next. And the next. I had nightmares filled with children's eyes.
Thank you, Alonzo, for choosing me to help with this project. It was the toughest assignment I've ever had and one I will remember the rest of my life.
Above, an action page from the comic adventure section of "America's Forgotten Children," colored by yours truely.
All artwork is copyright © 2005 by its respective artists and publishers.