Let's Look At Black Man Magic! Turtel Onli , M.A.A.T. Phd, BFA,  AA

"Why would one think this is important?"

The first Rhythmistic character was created in 1979 and ran as a cartoon strip in the historic Chicago Defender Newspaper.  The Defender was a leading journal in inspiring Blacks to leave the oppression of the American South for better opportunities in the American North.  It championed liberation and prosperity for decades in the 20th Century. This was innovation. A character, style & concept like none other!

"Why would energy be focused on this?"

In 1981 NOG: The Protector of the Pyramides was published as a Rhythmistic Graphic Novel by ONLI STUDIOS. It oozed with the excitement of being the innovative concept and character that would open the door to the growing Black Age of Comics.  Its creator Turtel Onli had been exploring the potential of his Rhythmistic Future-Primitif stylizations in the visual arts in Fine Art and Commercial illustration since 1970.

"On the same wave length!"

ONLI STUDIOS published a 'zine called "Future Funk" in 1982 to celebrate and promote forward thinking artistic practices and related efforts. Onli exuding confidence in reaching into the future. Knowing a path and untapped market was there in the future.  For the emergence of more genre, markets and opportunities for the practice and profitability of Future-Primif and independent Visual Art derived form the Black, African or Urban experience.  He did this without the blessing of any school, group or establishment. 

This was a Black MAN putting his Black Money behind his Black thoughts & creativity. Expressing his Black MAN MAGIC to the benefit of others.

"Did! Not tried!"

Not talking trash and telling lies or wishing upon a star, Onli did it!  Created terms and products along the way to launching the indie movement known as the Black Age of Comics.  A quick Wiki search will yield more information about that history.  The mainstream, the systems of suppressing of denying the brilliance of Black MAN MAGIC along with some serious maladjusted hating,  in-fighting, or orthodoxy in Black circles often  combined to move the narrative and value away from Onli's works and impact.  As seen when a non-Black decides to explain to Blacks for Blacks a term to use for themselves.  Sort of like the discovery of America when it was already there.

"There is no power like an idea whose time has come!"

Summer & Fall of 2021 will see NOG and Future Funk included in the landmark group exhibition, "Chicago Comics: 1960 until now!" Curated by Dan Nadel at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. This show includes better known works such as "Dick Tracy" and "Brenda Starr".  Yet in a wave of rare righteousness ONLI STUDIOS: NOG and Future-Funk were included. with much luv and appreciation for Turtel! Clearly this curator has a brilliant mind and practice of his own.

In this era of racial justice an reckoning Onli's long overlooked yet ever-present BLACK MAN MAGIC deserves your attention, participation, luv and money.  Why keep supporting the mainstream over your dream? ONLI STUDIOS has already been so about you.

 

By most accounts Comic Books & Graphic Novels are the most dynamic and economical hybrid of Visual Art and Literary Art.  While the medium is dominated with fanatical market loyalty to Three Big Brands there has always been hundreds of small energetic independent publishers.  The mainstream has always used its massive amounts of resources to suppress the value and impact of these smaller innovative operations. 

 Even now in the digital era customers, scholars and fans tend to relate to Comic Books or Graphic Novels through the traditional lens and influential narratives established to benefit the Big Brands and invalidate smaller more independent operations.

Fortunately you are not so easily to manipulate.  You are looking well beyond the narrow and redundant flow of characters and re-worked concepts that the mainstream offers.  You know there are well established styles, innovative characters and stories out here that speak to you.   That drive the expansion of this industry beyond the limits and religious dedication to the Big Brands.

You appreciate that the efforts and activities of indie publishers such as ONLI STUDIOS LLC have both maintained high standards while producing a variety of concepts, characters and styles that go where the Big Brands will not.

  They can not! They can't touch you!  They can't touch ONLI STUDIOS LLC.

ONLI has been publishing since 1981.  Its founder, Turtel Onli, was a major market illustrator before that.  His clients included Ebony Jr., Playboy, WGN-Courtroom News, The Paris Metro & MODE Avant Garde.  He learned publishing by working for various high profile publishers in the USA & Europe.  When it came to the world of comic-books Onli saw the low wages and the exploitation of creative professionals as a serious turn off.  In 1981 this gave rise to his morphing ONLI STUDIOS from a free-lance illustration studio to that of independent publishing, production & event planning.  

Onli created the terms "Rhythmism" to identify his Future-Primitif approaches to art and creativity in the early 1970s.  Onli coined the genre naming term, "The Black Age of Comics" in 1992 and produced the first ever "Black Age of Comics" convention in 1993.  He often askes:  "How Black, Colored or Open was this industry before the launch of the Black Age in 1993"? 

 The answer is proof to the impact and real potential and value of ONLI STUDIOS LLC.  

We could not have done it without you!

Because the Big Brands control the distributors that sell to mainstream comic-book stores and book-stores you will almost never see independently produced products from small publishers on shelves.  However you will see them at comic-conventions and via the internet.  Visit ONLI STUDIOS LLC to acquire, appreciate and share its growing line of Rhythmistic, Afrofuture, Horror, Educational and open products & books.  To express Onli's luv for your participation each books comes with free over-sized limited edition Trading Cards that are twice the size of those sold by the Big Brands!

 Onli gives luv to the love of all things indie!

 

 

Additional Book Information

Series: New York Review Comics
ISBN: 9781681375618
Pages: 200
Publication Date: June 1, 2021

IT’S LIFE AS I SEE ITBLACK CARTOONISTS IN CHICAGO, 1940–1980

edited by Dan Nadel, essays by Charles Johnson and Ronald Wimberly, cover designed by Kerry James Marshall

$24.95

Between the 1940s and 1980s, Chicago’s Black press—from The Chicago Defender to the Negro Digest to self-published pamphlets—was home to some of the best cartoonists in America. Kept out of the pages of white-owned newspapers, Black cartoonists found space to address the joys, the horrors, and the everyday realities of Black life in America. From Jay Jackson’s anti-racist time travel adventure serial Bungleton Green, to Morrie Turner’s radical mixed-race strip Dinky Fellas, to the Afrofuturist comics of Yaoundé Olu and Turtel Onli, to National Book Award–winning novelist Charles Johnson’s blistering and deeply funny gag cartoons, this is work that has for far too long been excluded and overlooked. Also featuring the work of Tom Floyd, Seitu Hayden, Jackie Ormes, and Grass Green, this anthology accompanies the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s exhibition Chicago Comics: 1960 to Now selected and edited by Dan Nadel, and is an essential addition to the history of American comics.

Published in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, on the occasion of Chicago Comics: 1960s to Now, June 19–October 3, 2021. Curated by Dan Nadel.

Click to enlarge images



PRAISE

An important and groundbreaking collection, bringing together important voices and biographical context illustrating four decades of Black perspectives on everything from daily life to the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the strips will make your jaw drop with the way they bring to life a particular period in history, some of them will make you shake your head with the poignant realization of how little has changed, and some of them will just make you laugh.

—Eve L. Ewing, sociologist and Marvel Comics writer

Nadel’s lush, profound and well-researched volume sheds well-deserved light on some of the most talented, tenacious and sadly unsung, heroes of modern comics.

—Emil Ferris, author of My Favorite Thing is Monsters