Morrie Turner, Creator of Wee Pals: a 45-Year Retrospective

Morrie Turner, creator of WEE PALS, an integrated comic strip, stands behind a display at the San Francisco Main Library that includes some of the early strips. Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle

Morrie Turner is the subject of an interview by Jesse Hamlin for the San Francisco Chronicle upon the occasion of a gallery retrospective of his WEE PALS comic strip at the San Francisco Main Library through October 15, 2009.

"You see that in the cartoons he published in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s in Negro Digest, Black World and Ebony magazines (the originals were destroyed in a fire at Turner's Berkeley home, so he created the color versions in the exhibition from memory, so his son, also named Morrie, could have them). One, from the '50s, depicts an African American woman perusing three white guys in a police lineup: one tall and skinny, one squat and bald, the third with a mop of hair. 'I don't know!' she says. 'They all look alike to me!'"

Morrie Turner, Creator of Wee Pals Cartoon: a 45-Year Retrospective is on view noon-5 p.m. Sun., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon., 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tues.-Thurs., noon-6 p.m. Fri. and 10-6 p.m. Sat. at the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St. (557-4000), www.sfpl.org.

Hat tip to Tom Spurgeon for this. Thanks, Tom!