Charles Clark: On any given day, you can go get any daily paper and go to the comic section and look for a Jumpstart and you will see why I am so exciting about this interview.
I’m talking about right now. None other than the creator of Jumpstart, none other than Rob Armstrong. How are you, sir? That was the best intro ever. I’m great. I’m great, y’all. This is very, very exciting. Listen, I have a lot of questions. I’m going to jump right in. But I got to ask my signature question first. Who is Rob Armstrong? That’s a great question.
Robb Armstrong: We’ve been given these names [and] sometimes even a career that’s exciting. We start believing that that is what and who we are. It’s actually incomplete. Who we are, who I am, I’m discovering it. It’s a journey. 0I think the totality of my life will answer the question better, but I will [say] I’m just a guy trying to use my gifts for good. What God has given me–I’m trying to use it for the benefit of myself, my family, and mankind. And leave a mark, you know?
CC: There are not many African-American cartoonists doing what you do on a regular basis. there is something that you said in an interview when you are speaking to individuals that is not impossible, it’s going to be tough, but don’t quit. Has that been your mantra all these years doing Jumpstart?
RA: This attitude of not quitting is an ongoing process. I’ve been blessed with a great deal of good fortune and things have certainly gone my way from the outside. You can look at it, but I’m still faced with frustration, disappointments…we all need to understand if things always went our way [it] would be a disaster. We’re not equipped, nor are we authorized. God is authorized to have things go this way or that way. When we start expecting, you know, suddenly to wield that kind of power, it’s problematic. It’s better to just to go, “look, I’m still up, I’m still awake, I’m still alive, I’m still healthy.”
CC: What keeps you going? You’ve been doing this a while, my brother, since 1989. So how many… I’m pretty sure the family, the Jumpstart family, I like to call them the Jumpstart family, they’ve been through every kind of situation most possibly can go through. How do you keep it interesting, not only for the reader, but for yourself?
RA: My strip is a commodity. It’s traded and bought and sold. I’m a huge part of it, but I’m not all of it. I’ve got a huge syndicate called Andrews and McNeil that’s behind me [and is] responsible for selling Jumpstart to papers. Jumpstart is in over 700 newspapers. It’s the most widely syndicated strip by an African-American in the world. Every day is different in terms of potential. I’ve had television opportunities, some who have crossed the finish line, some have not. But if I didn’t have this ongoing success, it would definitely be harder to do this. [But] success isn’t an arrival—[it’s] an ongoing encouragement you receive from what you are blessed to do. You don’t even need money to have success. You need somebody sitting there going, “that boy’s good.” That’s all you really, you know what I mean?
My [success] began with my mom being that cheerleader. I felt like a big success when I was six. By the time I was 12, forget about it. I saw my first professional work at 17. And by then, you couldn’t tell me nothing. I was at a point of self-confidence that is maxed out. And I was poor then. I’ve never been more confident than that. A teenager still in high school strolling into the Philadelphia Tribune and successfully selling them six political cards. I’m thinking, “wow, like I made it!” And I was getting 75 bucks a piece for this cartoon. Success isn’t financial. It’s believing. It’s seeing yourself in a moment the way God sees you. That’s success.
Well, let me ask you this, because I find this very important. How important has it been to have mentors in your life? And I want to ask, I have a quote for you. Yes. Because your mentor said this about Jumpstart. “Jumpstart has what Peanuts has, great characters.”
[Peanuts creator] Charles Schultz said that to me back in 1990. I will tell you the importance of mentors. People sometimes are mistaken about this mentor thing. They want me to take someone under my wing for a long time. I was never under Charles Schulz’s wing for a long time. We’ve had dinner together. I’ve been out to visit him, made some phone calls, [and we] are great appreciators of one another’s work, but I consider him to be a mentor. I’ve been in position to be a mentor to many kids — I would go so far as to say thousands. I’ve had children reach out to me…I don’t remember them, but they remember me. Not only that, they remember something I’ve said to them. Now, sometimes I’ve said this in front of a room and they’re one of 500 kids in that room, but they consider that to be one-on-one and they’ve taken that run with it. And now they produce fruit. Now they have a career in everything. And they’re telling me, you said “blah, blah, blah” to me. “And guess where I work now? I work at Pixar. I’m in studio doing animation as my dream, and you helped make my dream come true.”
Charles, I don’t always feel deserving of this kind of praise or accolade. I’m just thinking…”who is this kid?” Mentorship means you are special. Instead of just lining your own pocket, feathering your own bed, you’ve said some things to people who needed to hear something to get them going. if we don’t contribute to young people, what are we doing? We [are] fail[ing].
CC: But listen, I wanna talk about that. What was it about the [Peanuts] character Franklin that so reached out to you other than him being looking like you, of course?
I experienced Franklin as a six-year-old. I was I was one of those kids who just grew up you know hanging on every word [of] Peanuts and Snoopy and all that. Snoopy’s actually my favorite character, not Franklin. Snoopy’s unbelievable. He’s the best cartoon character ever created. He speaks to everyone because he doesn’t have an agenda. He seems to be there to represent what’s cool…what’s possible…the hugeness of the imagination. [But] I’ve got a connection to [Franklin] obviously far deeper than what I have with Snoopy. What Franklin showed me was more about the creator of that comic strip. See, you
When I was a six-year-old, we would have one heck of a year in America. It was just brutal. I was six years old in 1968. America’s going through a painful period [with] the death of Dr. King. And then, then I had the death of my brother [Billy] that year, too. He was my hero. [Dr.] King was killed in in April. My brother was killed in July. And then, Franklin [debuted in] the strip also in July. And it was powerful because my family was in mourning. We were grieving the loss of Billy. And I suddenly had a ray of hope because this strip that I love, my favorite strip, was making this massive statement.
And I know you’re thinking, “you’re six years old. What do you know about massive statements?” I’m in the game now. I’m included now. Charles, I signed the deal of my life [to do Jumpstart] 20 years later. That’s the blink of an eye. I was the youngest cartoonist in this country with a syndication contract. And I had such a boost by seeing Charles Shultz reach out to me. [For a young kid, even in] a big audience, [they] can feel reached out to. If the right thing is said from that stage, even though you’re in a crowd, it can hit you like a conversation over a cup of coffee. If it’s said the right way, if it’s authentic, if it’s from the heart, you can feel reached out to. I felt Charles Shultz has reached out to me. I’m not some anonymous kid in Philadelphia. I [didn’t] know where [he was]. I’m just thinking, ‘Man. today, he’s reached out to me.’
CC: That’s a great segue to talk about “Welcome home Franklin.” You’ve made Franklin your own though. And let me tell you why. In one of the episodes, he says this, “Know when you’re home, when you’re finally home, when you’re surrounded by good friends.” That reminds me of something, a quote that was in your book. Fearless. I said, okay, Franklin and Rob are the same individual. Now we all know the story [of] how Mr. Schultz called you one day and asked could he give your last name to Franklin? So, it kind of fits that he now sounds a little like you. What do you want people [to see when they] look at Franklin now in 2024?
RA: I want them to be inspired the way I was inspired [and] start living outside of their own situation. But we all have to overcome things, man. That’s the evidence of God. Look, when the person understands that God has put in front of their path things to overcome, that’s when you turn to God for help. That’s when you say, Lord, I love you. Because every hurdle, every stone, everything, every obstacle, represents the size of his regard for you. The fact that I’ve lost my mother, my father, two brothers, two sisters — I just think He’s got a tremendous amount of confidence in me for some reason, because he’s [thrown] stuff at me that would destroy a lesser man.
So, I want people to look at their own situation and say, “I can do it, or my dreams aren’t crazy.” I’m always the one who says that Franklin is just like me. And it’s quite a shock to people, you know what I mean? Franklin is not like the characters in Jumpstart. I created those characters to not be like me. There’s nobody in Jumpstart like me. Not one single character speak[s] on my behalf. I can’t do a strip every day for the rest of my life about me. I’m not that important. My point of view doesn’t matter like that. Jump starts about Joe, this cop, Marcy, this nurse, and the four kids and all their family and stuff, their opinion. They should be weighing in on this world, not me. What happened with Franklin was this rare opportunity for me to be very direct because Franklin and the real person who I am both had to adapt to the white society.
And in order to do it, it’s like Franklin, I’m coming to a new neighborhood. So, he says, you know what, I’m going to rely on my grandfather’s wisdom. Yeah. He carries around his grandfather’s wisdom, literally carrying around his pocket. It’s a metaphor. It’s a visual metaphor for the Black experience as we branch out from our comfort zone. So, what we do as Black people, we say, yeah, I gotta code switch right now. I got to watch how I’m saying things when I’m going to this meeting.
[So Franklin’s] expressing it. He’s not coming out and saying that “I’m just showing you what it’s like to be black.” Suddenly, he’s got to adjust to a new existing system that’s white. He’s coming into, man, the same thing happened to me when I was leaving my comfort zone at the age of 12, because [my mom] said, “I’m getting you into a private school.” She sent me to the Shipley School at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
I’m coming into the Shipley thing and I’m feeling entirely like I’m the only person in here like me. It is not happening. It ain’t working. They kept me in seventh grade for two years because it was not landing. I was like, what the heck is going on? Franklin [was] confronted with the exact same scenario as no accident. Charlie Brown in Welcome Home Franklin is like Franklin. Charlie Brown is an outlier. He’s not a part of that system either. He’s white like them. So, the world starts thinking he’s good. That’s his stomping grounds. Like those are his people. Snoopy’s his dog. Linus is his boy.
But that’s not true. Charlie Brown is alone. When I was working with [Craig] the son of Charles Schultz and [Brian] the grandson, I said, “You guys, we have to come to an understanding here. Charlie Brown is like Franklin. No other kid is truly his friend like that. Charlie Brown is alone, alone in his thoughts and alone in his suffering like a black person. They just went, “Wow.” He struggles to be understood and he struggles to be treated fairly.
That’s the black struggle. And there’s lots of people in this world who are not black, who are going through the black struggle. A lot of artists go through this. No one understands me and no one treats me with fairness or I’m being overlooked and I’m being disregarded. So, let’s understand that Charlie Brown is marginalized within that system. Franklin is coming into that system and he too is marginalized.
I want people to know as much, to learn as much about Charlie Brown as they do about Franklin at the end of this movie. And that’s what we did. That’s what we pulled off.
CC: Well, I agree, but you also pulled off something else, if I might add. still Franklin is an individual and comfortable in his own skin. I’ll give you a scene. When he’s playing jazz and explaining to what jazz is. Come on now. More blackness. Come on. I loved it. And he’s trying to explain to Charlie what jazz is and the move and the groove. said this, I’m to Rob Armstrong is amazing. Still black, still, but he knows who he is and not afraid to share his experience. And I think that’s one of the things. I just turned 50. So, you got me watching cartoons, it’s a trip, it was a trip, doing this. Cause I was sitting watching by myself, it was interesting. And I said, wow, little dude is really comfortable in his skin. Cause I wasn’t that comfortable, cause I love jazz. You see how I the connection. But I didn’t tell people I liked jazz cause they would say, what’s that? I ain’t probably trying to explain it to them. I just kept it to myself. He’s very, he’s very excited about his black experience.
RA: Yes, he is. Even though he’s eager to fit into his other system because it’s a necessity. He’s been moving around a lot. You know, he’s not really nailed the friendship thing because he doesn’t invest. He’s never really invested in it himself. He stopped having confidence in it. He picks up and leaves too quick usually when he’s in Europe and places like that. But now he’s like, want to, want to, I want to be someone’s friend.
So, he starts to share his excitement about his own culture with Charlie Brown, believing that this guy is going to receive it. And he’s right. Charlie Brown has this interesting line in the movie that I hope people pick up on where he says, “Wow, Franklin, a kid can really learn a lot hanging around someone like you.”
Those are the magic words. That is the elixir of life. Our friends have to appreciate us on that level. They have to think you have something to bring to the table. So, Franklin happens to be that kid who’s excited about his love of jazz, his love of James Brown. He has a way of making fun.
“Hey, any relation to you and all that?” [he asked him.]
Charlie Brown said, “Don’t think so.”
Franklin is happy to answer Charlie Brown’s questions about the Negro League. He’s not going to lead with that. He’s not going to walk in and say, “did you know that black players couldn’t always play with white players?” Charlie Brown asked him about the Negro Leagues, [be]cause he said, “What is that?” And he says, “My uncle played in [the] Negro League. He’s a superstar: Gene Benson.” [Benson is my real life uncle.
CC: Is that one of the main ideas or the genesis or purpose of Franklin? You said the essence of Jumpstart is discovering the extraordinary in ordinary every day. And so, is that one of the things that you want to say with Franklin as you do with Jumpstart?
RA: I think everyone has to understand you wouldn’t even be here unless you were extraordinary. Like your existence is an extraordinary phenomenon. It will never occur again. It has one time in man’s history and that’s it. You will never happen again. It’s not possible. Whether you tap into that extraordinary-ness, whether you become this extraordinary thing, that’s none of my business. That’s up to you and the God you serve. What I’m trying to say with Franklin is he deserves to have a friend.
He’s a sweet kid. He’s a kind person. Charlie Brown deserves to have a friend. They deserve to win something together. And it doesn’t even matter if they fail on the surface. You can’t really be victorious until you failed on the surface. They don’t actually win this race. Lucy and Schroeder win the race, but they win something better than a soapbox derby race. They win friendship. What we need to understand about friendship is how fragile it is, how special it is. Because everything that Franklin says in this piece, called Welcome home, Franklin, is like that. It’s special. It’s fragile.
[franklin] says a thing about liking jazz: “Don’t you feel it? Do you feel it?” It’s subtle. But what he’s saying is lots of people don’t feel this. He gives Charlie Brown a chance to feel the special, this fragile thing. If Charlie Brown [says], “I’m not into that.” It would be over. That’s how fragile it is. Instead, Charlie Brown starts tapping [his foot a] little off-beat. And he says, “I feel it.” Like, that’s all we want. We want our friends to [say], “I don’t know anything about it until you brought] it up. I didn’t know anything about it, but I feel it. And that goes for the good and the bad.
CC: What’s next for Rob Armstrong?
RA: The Police Athletic League is a youth enrichment program where mostly retired cops get involved in the lives of young people, which is the best answer to the issues of police brutality and criminality. It’s the best solution. Just have cops involved with kids all their lives and all that stuff is diminished.
And so, the PAL approached me to be their national spokesman because the main character in Jumpstart is a police officer and he seems to embody what I’m talking about. I’ve been the spokesman for PAL for almost a year, six, eight months or so, doing some really good things. [I] just did a big program out at Oxnard and painted a mural on behalf of PAL. All [of] these kids who show up at the library, now they have a mural and they watched it happen. I guess I can see and feel the importance of what power represents and how perfect it is that I’m the guy to do it. Like it’s amazing confluence of good things. And, you know, I’m really blessed to have… my wife is now working with me, making sure I’m promoting my books and things.
I have a book that’s on Amazon. She always [says] don’t [forget] to promote your books and Fearless. I don’t think that they’re little disparate things. I think that my life losses–the personal losses, the tragedies, the strange trajectory of being thrust into a different culture, to having a great diversity of friends and relationships. To have these things that are very visible examples of success are one thing, one piece, of just this godly thing occurring. When God’s involved, it’s so obvious. You don’t need to go volunteering your time in prison necessarily. You just have to get God involved early and often, And he’s going to make a way. As long as you don’t quit.