This is on point. I'm Megna Chacrobardi. In 1989, Barbara Branden Croft got her own comic

strip in the Detroit Free Press. She was so excited that she quit her reporting job at

Essence Magazine to pursue being a comic strip artist full-time. Problem is, it paid just

$75 dollars a week. That's about $180 bucks a week in today's money. So Branden Croft

knew that if she wanted to do it full-time, she needed to be published in many more papers.

She needed to be nationally syndicated. So she reached out to the syndication companies.

She got a lot of rejection letters. But she also received one yes. And with that, Branden

Croft made history with her comic strip where I'm coming from. And her story and a collection

of her comic strips from 1991 to 2005 are in a new book also titled Where I'm Coming

From. And Barbara Branden Croft joins us today from New York. Welcome to On Point.

Thank you. Thank you. I can't tell you what a joy it is to be able to talk with you

today. So I'm so grateful that you're with us. I'm wondering if you could start by actually

telling us more about that story of how you reached out to the syndication companies.

Because you wrote a letter, submitted some of your sample comic strips with it. And the

letter itself had a pretty vivid style and message in it. What did it say?

It said, you don't have black women in your comic pages. Here I am. What's the point?

I mean, what's the matter? We need to, I don't know. I put them on blast. I just pointed

out that they've been, they've been comics around forever. And few have been black, none

have been women. Black women, that is. And I just think they needed to recognize. And

I was already published. So I was like, it can happen. It, I have something that could

work. So that's what I did. Well, you know, I have to say I, what I understand, the letter

was visually arresting. Also, right? Because you put it in headline.

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