Current issues presented through character development

From what I know of the editorial cartoons, they present some current issues to the targeted audience and the writer voices out his/her opinions about the issue in editorial cartoons. In Torchy Brown Heartbeats, I think Jackie Ormes incorporates some features of editorial cartoons in her comic strip. For example, she targets the audience to be the young girls. The cutout dolls at the end of the cartoon not only introduces the fashion that Ormes was interested in during that time, but it also allows the comic to be more interactive with the readers. Additionally, I think the writer wants to encourage the idea of feminism through her development of the protagonist in her comic strip. She depicts the character, Torchy Brown, to be very independent, who makes choices for herself, and she is also very adventurous and bold. Therefore, by developing the character in such a way, the writer wants to expose the idea of feminism, so that the readers, who are the future generations, can be more vocal about female inequality in society in the future.

Jackie Ormes also points out the problems of the racial segregation during that time period in her comic. Through her development of the character, Jamie Fuller, she presents the issue of racism during that time. She specifically makes the young white boy, who can innocently make indelicate comments, to talk about the racism present in society, because when a white adult man/woman says things that Jamie has said, the connotation behind those speech balloons would be different. This again points out how she is so successful in her character development to approach the current issues.