The Mysteries of the Red Mask, the First Black Masked Comics Hero

 

Call him Schrödinger’s Black Superhero. The Red Mask, the star of a nationally syndicated newspaper strip published in 1936, two years before Superman appeared, was either a black man or a white man that everyone thought was black. We will never know because his strip was canceled before the answer was revealed. No matter what his race was meant to be, the Red Mask is a fascinating figure in the history of race and comics—especially considering that he appeared while Jim Crow still ruled the American South.

In 1939, The Adventures of the Red Mask were reprinted in four issues of Best Comics. I love the first cover—it may be the first example of a black hero hitting a white villain to protect a white love interest. But after the first issue, the company decided a black hero on the cover was not a good commercial choice—it’s possible some distributors in the South refused to carry the book. So Best Comics made the Red Mask white on the covers and left him black inside.

The Red Mask strips were credited to George West, but West is a mystery of his own. Allan Holtz wrote in The Comics of Syndicated Features: Adventures of the Red Mask:

“The feature is credited to George West… Is it a pseudonym? The art is serviceable, but it’s not a style that reminds me of someone else who’d want to hide behind a pen-name. ... Adventures of the Red Mask ended after episode #26, and was replaced the next week by Adventures of Nervy Nerts. The new strip was credited to George Scott, but I think it is possible, even probable that the new credit is just another pseudonym of the same guy.”

We may never know who George West was because we know so little about the people who produced the Red Mask strip. Holtz researched them for The Syndicated Features Corporation Puzzle:

The Syndicated Features Corporation produced a Sunday color-comics section with eight strips… The comics ran from July 13, 1936 to March 8, 1937. A few years later, the comics were reprinted in Best Comics.

I have not been able to find good copies in color of all 26 episodes of the Red Mask’s adventures, but thanks to the web, I have found readable ones. The following is from Out Of This World: Early Black Comic Book Heroes: The Red Mask, The Comics of Syndicated Features: Adventures of the Red Mask, and Facebook's comic strip appreciation group, where Stefan Wood posted black and white scans of the Red Mask strips.


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