Qiana Whitted

In her introduction, editor Qiana Whitted writes, “Desegregating Comics explores race and blackness in comic books, comic strips, and editorial cartoons in the United States from the turn of the twentieth century through the height of the industry’s popularity in the 1950s. The historical perception of Black people in comic art has long been tied to caricatures of grinning minstrels, devious witch doctors, and vicious criminals, yet the chapters in this volume reveal a more complex narrative and aesthetic landscape, one that was enriched by the negotiations among comics artists, editors, distributors, and readers over how blackness should be portrayed” (p. 3). To this end, “rather than accept the hegemonic readings encoded in these problematic representations, Black readers petitioned for changes and insisted that their enjoyment of titles such as Captain Marvel, Buz Sawyer, and The New Funnies should not come at the cost of their dignity” (p. 14).

The essays in this volume cover many different genres and styles of comics and comic art. For example, Andrew J. Kunka examines the character of Ebony White in Will Eisner’s The Spirit. He concludes, “Ebony represents the limitations of imagination and empathy for both readers and a creator who could not envision any other options for a Black character in the late 1940s (despite examples of such options being numerous) or who try to defend a racist caricature on the grounds that the image should weigh less in the assessment than the more abstract and subjective qualities of his character and the creator’s intent” (p. 74). In her essay, Rebecca Wanzo examines the careers of Charles Alston and Romare Bearden, taking a holistic look at their different artistic styles which ran the gamut from mor established artistic forms to political cartoons to rough sketches (p. 79-94). Blair Davis looks at Alvin Hollingsworth’s work, arguing, “His work within the comic book industry is itself a key piece of comics history that has gone unchronicled, but his career is also a critical object of study for the larger fields of media studies and cultural studies given how the trajectory of his work moved from comics to fine art; his work spans both popular culture and the visual arts, bridging the realms of so-called lowbrow and highbrow culture” (p. 121). Similar to Wanzo, Davis argues that an “emphasis on formal analysis places aesthetic issues at the forefront, allowing Hollingsworth’s art and his artistry to be analyzed in a way that elevates the work itself by comparing the stylistic traits between his comics art and his paintings” (p. 123).

Carol L. Tilley synthesizes and analyzes “scattered historical evidence of comics reading by Black youth in the United States during the 1930s through the 1950s” in a way that foregrounds “these young readers’ blackness, while integrating the influence of geography, socioeconomic status, education, family, and community” (p. 165). Examining form, Quiana Whitted argues, “The lens of racial stereotype has a wide scope in the comics industry and a long history of prompting and bolstering an already pervasive material culture in which blackness is exploited as a vehicle for ridicule, shame, pity, and fear… [Philadelphia journalist and comics creator Orrin Cromwell] Evans knew that African Americans, young people especially, counted themselves among…comic book readers and enthusiastically embraced the medium, even as they critiqued its racist representations” (p. 190). Thus, Evans joined several other creators in publishing Black-created comics for an African American audience. Jacque Nodell’s essay explores the short-lived comic Negro Romance, examining how it both use and circumvented the trappings of genre to rise above the stereotypes in many mainstream comics with Black characters (p. 261-280). Rather than simply re-color characters from prior comics or use tokenized roles, Negro Romance featured original stories and art. Nodell concludes that the series was “ahead of its time” (p. 278).

Whitted’s book builds upon the scholarly efforts of her own prior scholarship as well as that of Frances Gateward and John Jennings, the editors of The Blacker the Ink. Similarly, this volume demonstrates Rutgers University Press’ continued leadership in comic book studies. A critical entry on Black comics creators and stories during the Gold Age, Desegregating Comics is a welcome addition to the field of comics scholarship and is eminently readable by scholars and enthusiasts alike.… (plus d'informations)

In EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest, Qiana Whitted focuses “on a profoundly influential type of story that EC writers and artists developed to directly engage the problems that Americans faced during the early Cold War and civil rights eras” (pg. x). She argues, “The narrative, aesthetic, and marketing strategies of ‘the EC way’ constitute one of the most effective means through which questions of social justice were explored in American comic-book culture after World War II” (pg. x). Whitted’s work builds upon that of Amy Kiste Nyberg, Bradford W. Wright, David Hajdu, Carol Tilley, and others who examined EC comics, the end of the medium’s Golden Age, and the rise of the Comics Code Authority (pg. 6). Unlike those works, however, Whitted “takes a different approach by analyzing the creative choices and critical significance of the message stories within the EC brand against the larger ideological contexts of the late 1940s and 1950s” (pg. 6).

Whitted discusses EC’s social issue comics, nicknamed preachies, writing, “The preachies consistently took advantage of the visual and verbal medium of comics to disassociate white normative subjectivity from virtuous qualities such as innocence, courage, and moral authority” (pg. 53). Further addressing the Whitted writes, “These stories make a case for racial justice by appealing to Americans’ civic and religious beliefs. In doing so, they condemn racism as the betrayal of the nation’s democratic ideals, particularly in light of the Korean War and the Truman Doctrine’s positioning of the United States as the international standard-bearer for democracy” (pg. 53). While many EC stories relied on a twist or shock ending, the social issue tales made great use of shame. Whitted writes, “Shame is the face of justice in the EC preachies. With few exceptions, the message comics drew deeply on individual and collective acts of public shaming and stressed the sentimental invocation of related emotions such as disgrace, humiliation, and guilt in their ‘plea to improve social standards’” (pg. 78). She continues, “Shame is used to situate single acts of wrongdoing within larger institutional networks of white supremacy and xenophobia and, ultimately, to condemn the systemic reach of oppression that manifests itself in the everyday life of EC’s readers” (pg. 79).

Whitted identifies unruly mobs as a recurring motif in EC’s social issue stories. She writes, “The comics scrutinized the consequences of unchecked power that could come from socioeconomic entitlement in America – particularly… when associated with white, middle-class men and mob violence” (pg. 40). Further, “Gains and [Al] Feldstein consistently invoked the vigilantism of mob rule as evidence of the pervasiveness of American racism, and they made a point to relocate the iconography of summary justice associated with southern hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to the growing suburban enclaves across the nation” (pg. 93). This focus on the mob helped present the message to predominantly white readers.

Whitted acknowledges that EC’s approach, while impressive, often fell short. Many stories did not take the time to address African American characters’ perspectives or inner life. However, she writes, “I see calculations of risk in the context of a racial advocacy that cautiously sets EC apart from other comics and popular-culture texts of the period” (pg. 61). Whitted concludes, “Mainstream comic books were still figuring out how to have these conversations. National [DC], Timely [Marvel], Dell, Fawcett, and other major publishers concerned with alienating white readers, parents, librarians, and distributors often limited their discussions of racism and social justice to nonfictional historical biographies and sports comics… However, EC had cultivated a community of young, predominantly white, oppositional readers willing to engage a story that forthrightly addressed the racial violence and discrimination perpetuated by the people in power” (pg. 62). In light of this, while EC may not have gone as far as it could, it went further than most in addressing these issues.

Though EC appeared to have found a willing audience, their work still faced criticism from those who either did not know how to read the intent of the stories or who balked at the horror and crime material. Addressing William Gaines’s responses to the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, Whitted writes, “Rather than deny the cruelty and violence that comic books portrayed (and that could be found, he pointed out, in any newspaper), Gaines takes his cues from the reactionary measures of the Atomic Age in which he lived to argue instead for EC’s creative decision-making as a containment system equipped with discursive barriers to shield readers from harm” (pg. 34). Discussing the reaction to “Judgment Day!”, one of EC’s final comic book stories, Whitted writes, “The praise of EC’s cleverness places the comic’s choices in conversation with anticomic proponents going as far back as Sterling North and Stanley J. Kunitz. What the Defender editorial board describes as the ‘lure of color and fantasy’ to educate young black children directly counters the anxieties that Kunitz expressed about the overindulgent pleasures of a medium that through its lurid and dangerous storytelling acted as a ‘highly colored enemy’” (pg. 132).

Whitted concludes, “Gaines’s company helped to usher the mid-twentieth-century debates over the social function of art into mainstream comic books. Just as importantly, EC opened up a space among the monsters and aliens for every reader to act as an accomplice in the struggle for civil rights and to demonstrate that even the most disposable ephemera of American popular culture can have a lasting impact” (pg. 136). Whitted offers an innovative approach to material familiar with many comics scholars. Her focus on psychology, literary technique, and fan reaction enables her to go beyond the familiar historiography of Nyberg, Wright, Hajdu, and Tilley while also demonstrating the scholarship that sets Rutgers University Press’s Comics Culture series apart from others.… (plus d'informations)