Brumsic Brandon Jr. was an African-American cartoonist whose 1969-1986 Luther was one of the earliest mainstream comic strips to star an African American in the lead role.
Born in Washington, D.C., Brumsic Brandon Jr. was the second of five children born to Brumsic Brandon Sr., a Union Station porter, and Pearl Brooks Brandon on April 10, 1927. He attended school in the segregated Armstrong public school district. While still a teen, with his art ambitions supported by family and a high school art teacher, Brandon began submitting comic-strip ideas to newspapers. After studying art at New York University, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Following two years of service in post-World War II occupied Germany, where he reached the rank of sergeant, he returned to New York City and drew comics after his workdays in various jobs. His employers included RCA and Bray Studios, where he worked as an animator.[
A Luther strip (date n.a.) with an example of Brandon’s satirical, race-based humor
He published his first cartoon in 1945, and drew editorial cartoons as well as caricatures, some of which were collected in the 1966 book Damned If We Do, and Damned If We Don’t,[ published by the San Jose, California chapter of the Civil Rights organization CORE and the Santa Clara Valley Friends of SNCC.
He then conceived of Luther, a comic strip about inner-city African-American children, imbued with a gently satirical theme about the struggle for racial equality. He named his title character, a third-grader, after Civil Rights activist the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1968, the Long Island newspaper Newsday began syndicating Luther through its own small syndicate, Newsday Specials, in conjunction with Reporters’ News Syndicate, an initiative designed to increase minority participation in journalism. In 1970, following the purchase of Newsday by Times Mirror, the strip became syndicated widely through the corporation’s Los Angeles Times Syndicate.[
In the early 1970s, Brandon appeared as himself, a.k.a. Mr. B.B., drawing and giving simple art lessons on the locally produced, WPIX-TV children’s television program Joya’s Fun School in New York City.[
Following the June 1986 discontinuation of Luther upon Brandon’s retirement,[ Brandon contributed political cartoons and op-ed pieces to the Brevard County, Florida, newspaper Florida Today.
Brandon moved with his family to Westbury, New York, in 1959, later living in the Pocono Mountains area, and finally, for more than 25 years, in Florida. He was married to his wife Rita for 64 years at the time of his death. The couple had two daughters, Barbara Brandon, a.k.a. Barbara Brandon-Croft, who would become the first nationally syndicated female African-American cartoonist, and Linda, and a son, Brumsic Brandon III.[ The family was unsure of the origin of the name Brumsic, with unconfirmed family lore speculating it might be derived from “Brunswick.”
He died in Cocoa Beach, Florida, of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2014.[ He had four siblings: Grievance, who predeceased him, and Yvonne, Waliakbar Muhammad, and Ivan.