Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger vs. Torchy Brown Heartbeats

Although Jackie Ormes does not receive the acknowledgement she deserves for her comic creations, upon reading excerpts from "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger" and "Torchy Brown Heartbeats," it became clear why the former was more popular than the latter. I found her creation of one-panel comics to be much more effective than her use of sequential series of panels. Whereas "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger" successfully uses childish, almost slap-stick humor, to appropriately convey editorial material, "Torchy Brown Heartbeats" uses melodrama and romance, which evokes a soap opera of sorts. The theatrical plot and the frilly language seem to undermine character development. The drama is further heightened by the "To be continued next week!" cliff-hanger endings, which mimic the format of TV shows, especially soap operas. At a time with so much political unrest and such heightened racial tensions, "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger" appropriately addressed and commented on these issues instead of including social commentary sporadically within plots of romance drama.

Furthermore, although from a contemporary perspective, "Torchy Brown Hearbeats" seems more relevant to women reader seeking entertainment, such as that offered by soap operas, the limitations undermining both African Americans and women at the time of the comic's conception, seem to overshadow aspects of entertainment. In other words, literature oriented to both minority groups would be less likely to gain momentum in a society marked by prejudices to both groups, members of which were not necessarily empowered by their identity.

This leads me to my final point regarding the language Jackie Ormes implements in her comics. Especially in her original "Torchy Brown" comics, use of dialect and slang make the text at times hard to decipher. Hence, although "Torchy Brown" is not as overtly editorial as "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger," it is clear that like many editorial cartoons, "Torchy Brown" is designated for a very specific audience. Ormes' use of language is such that "Torchy Brown" seems to be even less universal than "Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger," which although relevant to a very specific time, seemed as if it would reach broader audiences in that era.