Rupert Kinnard, ‘Brown Bomber’ return for Cornell College exhibit in Mount Vernon

MOUNT VERNON — Rupert Kinnard, creator of the oldest continuing Black gay and lesbian comic characters in the United States, will exhibit his work where it all began, at Cornell College. And he’s bringing the Brown Bomber with him.

“From Cornell to Cathartia: A History of Cathartic Comics” runs through March 11 in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery in McWethy Hall on the Cornell College campus. Kinnard, a 1979 Cornell graduate, will return to campus for an artist’s reception and gallery talk from 4 to 6 p.m. Feb. 11. The event is free and open to the public.

While the bulk of the show is cartoons created after Kinnard left Cornell, at its heart are more than 15 Brown Bomber comic strips from The Cornellian newspaper and cover art from the 1979 Royal Purple yearbook. The exhibit will show the evolution of the strip and its Cornell influence.

Kinnard began sketching superheroes as a child and eventually questioned why they were all white — including the characters in his imagination. The summer before arriving at Cornell, he started sketching the Brown Bomber, a non-violent superhero based on boxer Joe Louis (nicknamed the Brown Bomber). In 1977 The Cornellian editors learned of Kinnard’s sketchbooks and asked him to provide editorial cartoons.

“I very quickly became aware that the editorial page was a page that lends itself to social commentary,” he said. “That’s what led the Brown Bomber to being a political character. He was observing antics and things going on the college campus.”

The Brown Bomber came out as gay in a trilogy of comic strips shortly before Kinnard graduated.

“I personally thought of that as my subversive parting shot, as the visibility of a queer subculture slowly became more apparent on campus when the national coming out movement was gaining steam,” he said.

More than a parting shot, it was also a beginning for Kinnard, who has made a career of providing commentary on social issues, particularly gay rights and racial justice, through his characters.

After graduating with a degree in art, Kinnard moved to Portland, Ore., where he still resides. He established the syndicated political comic strip “Cathartic Comics,” and the Brown Bomber was given an ageless lesbian partner, Diva Touche Flambe (Kinnard has called them “my yin and my yang”). They began appearing in Just Out, a queer Portland newspaper for which Kinnard was the founding art director.

Kinnard didn’t consider himself a pioneer until recognition began flowing to him.

In 1991 his characters were featured in the books “Young, Gay and Proud” and “B.B. and the Diva: A Collection of Cathartic Comics.” In 1996 he received Pride Northwest’s Spirit of Pride award. In 2007, his business, The Rupe Group Graphics, received the Oregon Cascade AIDS Project Community Angel Award, and in 2013 he received the Standing on the Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Arts Foundation.

In 2020 Kinnard received the Distinguished Achievement Award, the highest honor given by Cornell College to its alumni.

And in 2021, along with Alison Bechdel (“Fun Home”), Kinnard was one of five pioneering cartoonists featured in the documentary “No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics.”

He is working on a retrospective graphic memoir of his work.

“I get emotional when I think at the end of all this recognition is a show at Cornell College where it all started,” Kinnard said. “It’s very, very emotional to be invited back to Cornell. I really truly feel like I owe a lot to Cornell for the part it played in the career I have.”