The transformation of the subaltern into the fantastic | Distancing the comics from the city
The working-class world that originally formed the basis of the comics' realist ethos gradually transforms into a fantasy world that is not simply at the bottom of the social structure, but rather altogether outside of it. The fantasy of the subaltern as magical alien finds its clearest expression in talking animals like Mose.
As the pressures of competition moved both Outcault and Luks to distance their comics from the unownable reality of New York, Luks experimented with the rural south and racist fantasy.

George Luks, "Mose and the Pickaninnies Have a Crap Game and Uncle Remus Enjoys It," World 2 June 1897. Reproduced from microfilm.