There's somr overly critical reaction to depictions like this. Sometimes it seems almost as if black people would have to be drawn essentially as white people with brown skin to not be accused of racism. There were some outlandishly exaggerated stereotypes in 1940s comics -- Whitewash from the Young Allies comes to mind-- but this doesn't seem to be anything other than a straightforward attempt to draw black people.
The artist does have this bizarre, stylized technique which almost looks as if he were pasting Coloforms on the page. So he's working within those limits. Harold Foster he's not.