This Black Historical past Month, Invisible Collective founder Justin Polk and Invisible-represented director Carl Jones have fun the launch of their three-part authentic collection for Main League Baseball (MLB): Plain – Tales from the Negro Leagues. This animated retelling of the Negro Leagues’ historical past and legacy shines a light-weight on the Leagues’ affect on the sport of baseball, together with its most legendary gamers, its historic feminine ballplayers and its worldwide affect.
The collection might be featured on YouTube Youngsters and MLB’s Official YouTube web page. It’s going to even be obtainable at MLB.com/originals and the MLB app.
Plain is MLB’s first-ever animated collection, and a key initiative among the many org’s plans, in addition to its Main & Minor League Golf equipment, to have fun Black Historical past Month. The artistic and live-action manufacturing for the collection was spearheaded by Polk, a passionate baseball fan. Polk partnered with Jones (The Boondocks, Black Dynamite) and his animation studio Martian Blueberry to craft a comic-strip-inspired highlight on these essential tales.
“There was nobody else for this job,” mentioned Polk. “Carl’s already part of the Invisible household, and because the proprietor of one of many solely Black animation studios within the trade, he helped Invisible inform these numerous tales from a spot of authenticity.”
The idea was sparked 2020, when MLB determined it will formally start treating the roughly 3,400 gamers of the Negro Leagues, which operated between 1920 and 1948, as Main Leaguers, making their stats and information a part of MLB historical past. “After I discovered this out, I reached out to Main League Baseball to ask them in the event that they have been going to do a marketing campaign in celebration,” mentioned Polk.
MLB requested Polk to pitch them concepts, which resulted in three animated shorts overlaying the history-spanning legends Jackie Robinson and Monte Irvin, trailblazing ladies within the league like Toni Stone, and the worldwide affect of the league. Polk initially found these tales by way of Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and a eager baseball historian who would incessantly inform these tales to museum patrons. Now, Kendrick continues to unfold the phrase as narrator for the animated shorts.
Jones and his Martian Blueberry staff produced Plain‘s hand-drawn 2D animation ove rteh course of 12 weeks, working in collaboration with MLB to get each element precisely, traditionally right — all the pieces from the precise shade of blue on the Indianapolis Clowns’ uniforms to the cultural accuracy of the participant’s bodily options.
“These are Black and Brown legends who have been up towards an amazing quantity of adversity and nonetheless discovered a solution to overcome and turn out to be the icons that they’re. We face comparable obstacles as Black creatives in Hollywood, the place there’s a scarcity of range throughout,” mentioned Jones. “Invisible and Martian Blueberry are aligned in our mission statements, and as Black-owned corporations, we’re particularly centered on telling our tales in an genuine manner. Which requires plenty of consideration paid to our cultural nuances — to how we discuss, stroll, costume and transfer.”
Polk emphasised, “This challenge was essential to me in so some ways: as a baseball fan, as a supporter of the historical past of the Negro Leagues, and as a Black man. I’m so proud that Main League Baseball and the Negro League Museum put their belief in Invisible to share these exceptional tales.”
All three Plain shorts (5 minutes every) are scheduled to debut throughout Black Historical past Month, starting right now:
- February 1 (Nationwide Ladies & Ladies in Sports activities Day) – Ladies of the Negro Leagues. That includes Toni Stone, Connie Morgan and Mamie “Peanut” Johnson
- February 8 – Worldwide Affect
- February 15 – Jackie Robinson & Monte Irvin
