Frances Gateward

In The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics & Sequential Art, editors Frances Gateward and John Jennings argue, “The Black image has had a very troubled history in the United States; so have comics, for that matter. In a sense, this collection seeks to investigate those histories and where those narratives overlap, create conflicts, and accent each other. The various explorations of Black identity in this volume are, again, an attempt to recontextualize the images connected to the Black body and its depictions in the comics medium while also offering alternative methodologies of dislodging Blackness as a monolithic identity” (pg. 7). Gateward and Jennings divide the collection into four sections. In the first, their contributors examine the way depictions of race in comics reaffirm or challenge power hierarchies. In the second, Nancy Goldstein, Robin R. Means Coleman, and William Lafi Youmans examine newspaper comic strips. The third section focuses on black superheroes, while the fourth section looks at graphic novels.

In the first section, Patrick F. Walter examines Joshua Dysart’s comic book, Unknown Soldier, which focuses on the political situation in Uganda. Walter argues, “While Unknown Soldier often makes critical gestures toward… colonial discourse and, more specifically, the geopolitical relationship between the Ugandan government, global capitalism, and the violence inflicted on the Acholi people of the country’s northern region, these critical gestures are just as often undermined by spectacles of mutilated bodies, religious fanaticism, and chaotic political turmoil – spectacles that reify colonial discourse” (pg. 65). In part two, Robin R. Means Coleman and William Lafi Youmans conclude, “Like so many earlier comic creators (e.g., Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Ray Billingley’s Curtis), McGruder delivers his provocative social commentary through the mouths of babes, which works to heighten the comedic factor while moderating the analytical blow – most likely an ingredient in the strip’s commercial success” (pg. 129).

Part three begins with Consuela Francis examining Kyle Baker’s Truth: Red, White & Black. Francis argues, “Truth… tells a superhero story from a black point of view, and that point of view provides an opportunity to look at the role that race plays in readers’ interpretations of superhero comics and the role that race plays in this particular story” (pg. 151). She concludes that, while Truth used “race to disrupt the superhero narrative,” its conclusion “ultimately succeeds instead in demonstrating the genre’s ideological limits” (pg. 151). Examining several heroes and heroines at Marvel and DC, Blair Davis argues, “Each era defines masculinity differently, with such definitions also being subject to variations based on such factors as ethnicity. With many superheroes serving as conspicuous symbols of masculinity (e.g., the strength of Superman, the Hulk’s rage, etc.), it is natural for black male superheroes to reflect, consciously or not, the dominant societal values that construct black masculinity in any given period” (pg. 204).

In part four, Kinohi Nishikawa examines the place of black graphic novels in comparison to works produced by and for white audiences. He writes, “Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories… popularized the term graphic novel in the trade market upon its publication in 1978,” spreading comic books to a general readership (pg. 220). He continues, “Unlike Eisner’s work, Daddy Cool’s veering away from traditional comics fans led it not to the general market but to the places where black pulp fiction was already being sold: newsstands, bookstores, and corner shops in the black community” (pg. 220). Examining the role of the Western in black comic book history, Qiana Whitted writes, “The first African American character with his own comic book was a cowboy hero called Lobo, written and drawn by Tony Tallarico in 1965 for Dell Comics” (pg. 244). Hershini Bhana Young examines the formal attributes of comics and how it shapes narrative consumption, writing, “The comics medium allows the reader to construct multiple narratives. The flow of images on a page can be read in numerous ways, especially in the instance of Bayou, whose story often progresses without words as one reads the various haunting images that fill the page” (pg. 276).

Much of Gateward and Jennings’s volume remains cutting-edge critical reading for those studying comics theory and representations of African Americans and those in the African diaspora in comics. The book appeared prior to works like the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Panther, Netflix’s Luke Cage, and the CW’s Black Lightning, which certainly would have offered material for analysis as cross-media works, but it provides an essential introduction. Furthermore, many of the scholars have subsequently published work expanding on themes from this volume: Qiana Whitted, who wrote chapter 11, recently published a monograph about EC Comics and race for Rutgers University Press’s Comics Culture series.… (plus d'informations)