He was an American comic book artist who drew the costumed crime fighter Phantom Lady , among many other characters. Active in the 1940's and 1950's Golden Age of comic books , he is the first known African-American artist to find success in the comic-book industry. He also penciled an early form of graphic novel , St. John Publications ' digest-sized " picture novel " It Rhymes with Lust (1950). Baker was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009. Baker was born in Forsyth County , North Carolina . At a young age he relocated with his family to Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, and after graduating high school circa 1940, moved to Washington, D.C. . Prevented by a heart condition from being drafted into the U.S. military in World War II era, he began studying art at Cooper Union , in New York City . He entered comics through the Jerry Iger Studio , one of the 1930's to 1940's "packagers" that p