Mr. Turner Introduces First Positive Children’s Show
Moorie Turner, Comic Strip Creator of ‘Wee Pals’, was the first black cartoonist in national syndication. As a Blackman,  Turner sketched the first Black Comic Strip called ‘Wee Pals,’ which debuted in newspapers in Chicago in 1965.
As a child, were you into comic strips? Do you remember the Saturday morning cartoon KID POWER, which aired on ABC in 1972? Well, Kid Power was based on Moorie Turner’s comic strip. Rankin/Bass, the creators of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced the show for television.Â
According to an article posted by KQED News, “Mr. Turnerâs comic strip âWee Pals,â featuring childhood playmates who were white, black, Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish (joined in later years by a girl in a wheelchair and a deaf girl), was considered subversive in 1965 when a major syndicate first offered it to newspapers.
Only two or three of the hundreds of newspapers in the syndicate picked it up. By early 1968, there were five.
But of the many changes that occurred after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that April and the urban uprisings it started, some of the first appeared in the nationâs funny papers (âA Passing: Oaklandâs Morrie Turner, Creator of âWee Palsâ Comic Strip,â 2014).”
A Passing: Oaklandâs Morrie Turner, Creator of âWee Palsâ Comic Strip. (2014, January 29). KQED. https://www.kqed.org/news/124677/a-passing-oaklands-morrie-turner-creator-of-wee-pals-comic-strip