Charles Boyce facts for kids

Charles Boyce was born in 1949 in Olive Branch, Mississippi. He is an American cartoonist. He is famous for his comic panel called Compu-toon. This comic is published in many newspapers.

Boyce also created a cartoon character named KeyPad Kid. This character was used in programs to teach people about the telecommunication industry.

About Charles Boyce

Charles Boyce went to the Memphis Academy of Arts in the 1960s. In 1969, he joined the United States Navy.

His comic strip, Compu-toon, was in about 150 newspapers from 1994 to 1997. Charles Boyce still creates Compu-toon today. It is distributed by Andrews McMeel Syndication. Boyce lives in the suburbs of Chicago.

Charles Boyce's Work

The cARToon Exhibit

In January 2007, Charles Boyce was part of an art show. It was called the cARToon exhibit. This show was held at the Barrington Area Library.

The exhibit featured a collection of art. It was titled the Blues Arrangement Exhibit. Boyce said his artwork showed scenes about the blues music. These scenes were from Memphis. They covered events from the early 1900s to today. He drew things he had seen or heard about. The exhibit also had paintings of famous blues musicians. Some paintings were called Lead Belly, Harmonica Player, Ducks 1, and Ducks 2.

Different Voices in Cartoons

For a long time, there were not many cartoonists from different backgrounds. But between 1988 and 1998, more cartoonists of color started to get their work published. In 1988, only one cartoonist of color worked for a big company. This was Morrie Turner, who created Wee Pals.

There were a few reasons for this change. For example, some newspapers held contests for cartoonists from minority groups. Also, more attention was given to the need for different voices in comics.

However, even with this focus, some cartoonists still faced challenges. They were sometimes told that a newspaper "already had a minority comic." This happened to artists like Barbara Brandon and Rey Billingsley.

Charles Boyce believes that "people are people." He thinks that a cartoonist's background does not change how much people enjoy a comic. He says that comics by minority artists can be popular with everyone. Many cartoonists of color received fan mail from all kinds of readers. Also, most comics created by minority artists continued to be published during that time. This was a great success for the decade.

Speaking Up Through Art

In February 2008, Charles Boyce joined other artists to speak up. They wanted more black cartoon artists to be shown in newspaper comics. They wanted to highlight the problem of "tokenism" in newspapers. Tokenism means including just one person from a group to seem diverse, but not truly being diverse. This issue made it hard for many black comic artists to publish their work.

Other artists who joined Boyce were Jerry Craft, Charlos Gary, Steve Watkins, Keith Knight, Bill Murray, and Tim Jackson. For one day, these cartoonists all drew a very similar comic strip. The strip showed a white reader looking at a comic by a minority artist. The reader was complaining that it was a copy of Boondocks. This was their way of showing the problem.