Sambo Remo Rastus Brown –

Just as it seemed I was about to make my fortune on a twenty-five-dollar-a-week shift, and that I could go back home and claim the girl I was convinced every fellow with a grain of sense was trying to steal away from me, the half-tone picture came along and kicked the feet from under newspaper artists. It looked like the end of the world then, but it proved to be exactly the thing we needed. Now we were compelled to use our imaginations, our inventiveness. - Seven Men Who Draw Funny pictures – And Large Salaries, Literary Digest, Aug 14, 1920

WHEN Negro boxer Jack Johnson was about to fight the great White Hope James Jeffries for the world heavyweight boxing championship in 1910 at Reno, Nevada cartoonists flocked to cover the fight. Clare Briggs created Sambo Remo Rastus Brown, neighbor and friend to Jack Johnson, and followed him cross country. After many adventures SRRB finally arrived in Reno and became Johnson's sparring partner and second. In 1912 Sambo Remo reappeared in the comic strip Dandy Dreamer, Sr. and Sambo Remo Rastus Brown.

Sept 19, 1926

JKA

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