Afro Tiger: A Forgotten Black Role-Model, Ahead Of Our Time!
Written by Trip Robbins IIIHi, my name is Tommy “Trip” Robbins III, and I am a comicsoholic. I’ve spent my life following classic golden age comics, silver age comics, bronze age comics, etc. I have studied the histories of DC (formerly National Allied Publications), Marvel (formerly Timely Publications), Charlton, and even Johnny-Come-Latelies like Dark Horse or Image Comics.
But my absolute favorite publisher of comics was Atlas Comics. Not the Atlas that was the predecessor to Marvel, but the Atlas comics published by Seaboard Periodicals by former Marvel Comics founder Martin Goodman in 1974.
The Atlas/Seaboard comics were groundbreaking, not only in content but in business practices too, in that they were an early champion of creator’s rights and worked with creators like Neal Adams, Howard Chaykin, Steve Ditko, John Severin, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood.
Goodman’s son Charles (“Chip”) was an important and somewhat controversial part of the company, but the unsung Goodman creator was the almost completely forgotten brother Christopher “Kip” Goodman who created my all-time favorite character: Afro Tiger.
Atlas/Seaboard created many memorable characters like, The Cougar, Demon Hunter, The Grim Ghost, The Scorpion, and Tiger-Man; but Afro Tiger was truly something special and far more revolutionary than the earlier (but much inferior!) Marvel comics character Black Panther.
Kip Goodman and artist Cleavon Pewton were truly “woke” before such a mangling of the English language was ever dreamed of. In an interview in issue #42 of Boil The Bourgeoisie (a militant newsletter combining Black Power, Feminism, and Emersonian Transcendentalism, with easy to cook recipes for the busy revolutionary) they described themselves boldly (albeit extremely controversially) as “…black souls born in white upper middle-class bodies.”
While Marvel comics had his more famous competitor come from a fictional African country, Kip and Cleavon tied Afro Tiger’s origin into the headlines of the day.
Afro Tiger was born Jackson Henry who grew up on the poor streets of Detroit to a junkie and a whore. He was a hard working black kid who got great grades and even a scholarship to Harvard when he was captured by transsexual Nazis to be experimented on.
Jackson held out against their mad science based torture just long enough for a Parliament Funkadelic-style Mothership to come down, turn the transsexual Nazis into chinchillas, and select Jackson as the avatar of their Once-and-Future totem, the Afro Tiger!
The Afro Tiger is an ancient spirit who led early African tribes to the stars with advanced technology born of Atlantean, Lemurian, and Hollow Earth secrets (all of those cultures were originally of proto-African origin). The chosen champions of the Afro Tiger have enhanced strength, agility, the ability to shape-shift into a half-man/half-tiger being, and the ability to summon the spirits of all African ancestors to rain down holy hell upon the white oppressors by boogying down and coming In On The One!
Throughout his career Jackson, in this current incarnation of the Afro Tiger, fought Klansmen, politicians filled with white guilt, country music stars, militant “White Power” mimes, and, of course, the Afro Tiger’s archenemies: the remaining factions of transsexual Nazis.
In the final two-part “Crisis on the Black Man’s Earth” storyline Afro Tiger stopped the Transsexual Nazis at an extremely high cost. They were going to bring about the demise of every non-white person on the planet by staging the largest production of “Springtime for Hitler” ever performed while powering the Mighty Mengele Machine with stolen Malt Liquor from Harlem. There was no way that Afro Tiger could win, he was up against too many honkeys… and THEN, he did something daring, crazy, and tragic.
Afro Tiger called his ancestors to dance him back to a time before Hitler was born so he could kill him when the future fascist came out of his mother.
The two-part story was supposed to have an epilogue where we would see Afro Tiger back in the past, but that issue was never published. As a matter of fact, almost every reference to Afro Tiger, Kip Goodman, and Cleavon Pewton have disappeared from all historical records.
All of my friends, and even my mom, think I’m crazy (my dad wrote me off years ago as a “stupid wigger”—whatever that is) but I KNOW that I’ve read those issues! I know that Afro Tiger saved us all from Transsexual Nazis! I know that Kip and Cleavon were true heroes of the resistance. Someone else has to remember them too.
Don’t they?
Date Modified: 11-22-2025
