BLACKJACK, THE STORY OF A TOUGH, BLACK, VIOLENT, BRITISH BOXER, APPEARED IN THE CONTROVERSIAL BRITISH BOYS’ COMIC ACTION IN THE 1970s. ACTION WAS DEEMED THE SEVENPENNY NIGHTMARE BY THE CRITICS OF THE DAY FOR IT’S VIOLENT CONTENT . . .
Written by the future creator of Judge Dredd, John Wagner, Blackjack told the story of Jack Barron, a black heavyweight boxer from the East End of London. The story came in two parts, as at the midpoint, Wagner decided to leave, having told his boxing tale. He wrapped up the story with a solid and upbeat conclusion. Unfortunately, it was decided to continue the strip, which seems a serious error of judgement. The first half of Blackjack concentrated on the boxer’s quest to win the World Heavyweight title before he went blind . . . Prologues to the strip, featuring Jack’s early adventures, appeared in both the 1976 Summer Special and the 1977 Annual . . . Amazingly, the strip was accused of racism, depite being a story whose primary character was a black man striving to overcome his impoverished background and the bigoted attitudes of others, toward him. Barron was a hero to the people of the East End of London and ultimately achieved his goal at great personal cost. There were characters in the story who make racist remarks to Jack, but given that Action strived for realism, this was something that Jack would have faced. If anything, there would probably have been more obstacles that his working-class and ethnic origins would have placed in his path, but Jack, who was both an achiever and a hero, was the lead character, which for 1976 was almost unheard of. At that time, strong ethnic characters in comics were the exception rather than the rule.
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