Ebon #1

I was so happy to discover this book after an amazing week of comic book collecting and learning that culminating in an awesome BCU episode with my good friend Marcus Roberts of Second Sight Publishing.  We introduced the Top 10 Black Comics of the Bronze Era.  The episode had so much information we actually ended up sharing close to 20 Black Comics all together.  As a honorable mention we shared Larry Fuller’s Ebon, published in 1970.  Although it didn’t make the top 10 of most “valuable” Black comics, a title usually reserved for the major publishers,  Ebon is still a highly valuable and rare comic (only 100 copies published) in it’s own right.  With sales reaching $900 and higher. 

Ebon is mentioned often as the first “black superhero” although it was published well after the first appearance of Black Panther in Fantastic Four #52 (FF #52).  However, Ebon was published six years prior to Black Panther’s solo book.  Which would make Ebon technically the first Black superhero with it’s own title, written and drawn by a Black creator.  Needless to say, the significance of this book simply goes to show that Black Comic Book collecting doesn’t begin and end with Marvel and DC comics.

But Larry Fuller’s notoriety doesn’t stop with Ebon.  Fuller is actually a pioneer in the underground comix scene.  In 1975 his Fulhorne publishing company put out the groundbreaking Gay Heart Throbs, the first homosexual-themed comic book, published in 1976.