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Clarence Matthew Baker (December 10, 1921 – August 11, 1959)

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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 provided outsourced comics to publishers entering the new medium. Baker's first confirmed comics work was penciling and inking the women in the 12-page "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" story in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics #69 (cover-dated Nov. 1944), otherwise penciled by Robert Webb and Alex Blum.

During this period, known to historians and fans as the Golden Age of Comic Books, Baker did work for publishers including Fiction House,  Fox Comics, Quality Comics and St. John Publications. In later years, he independently teamed with inker Jon D'Agostinounder the pseudonym Matt Bakerino at Charlton Comics.


Later in the decade, Baker freelanced for Atlas Comics, the 1950's forerunner of Marvel Comics, beginning with a five-page anthological story generally it was unconfirmably credited to writer-editor Stan Lee, in the omnibus title Gun Smoke Western #32 (Dec. 1955). At some point during this period, working through artist Vince Colletta's studio, Baker went on to draw stories for Atlas' Western Outlaws, Quick Trigger Action, Frontier Western, and Wild Western; more prolifically for the company's romance comics Love Romances, My Own Romance, and Teen-Age Romance; and one story each for the supernatural/science fiction anthologies Strange Tales, World of Fantasy, and Tales to Astonish  ("I Fell to the Center of the Earth!" in issue #2, March 1959). Baker also supplied artwork for the Dell Movie Classic  edition of King Richard and the Crusaders.

His last known work, as generally credited but unconfirmed, is the first page of the six-page story "Happily Ever After" in Atlas/Marvel's Love Romances #90 (Nov. 1960). His last known confirmed work is the six-page "I Gave Up the Man I Love!" in the company's My Own Romance #73 (Jan. 1960).


He died in August of 1959 of a heart attack.

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