Greg Baldino On Black Comix – Part Two

Continued from Part One

Over the course of about five years, Duffy and Jennings assembled and researched the book’s content as they produced their gallery exhibitions, something made possible by both the changing perception of comics as art/literature, and by the expanding scholarship of black arts.

John Jennings: As far as I can see,there has been an upsurge in Black Visual Studies courses and programs around the country and there are now large national and international conferences- for example the National Conference for Black Studies and the Collegium for African American Research respectively- totally dedicated to the study of black culture and history. We have been very pleased in the fact that even some of the larger comics publishers have been committed to putting out comics and graphic novels that are centered around black characters and black narratives; such as Incognegro, Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm, Deogratiatias, Narcissa, The Original Johnson, Nat Turner etc…

Damian Duffy: I think one major change that has come about in the changing cultural perceptions of comics within studies of black arts and culture is a greater awareness of, and interest in, the potentials of comics for education. There is a growing sense that comics can be used to teach, and not just to teach kids to read prose. There’s a great potential in comics to be used in classrooms and academic study to really delve into very complicated questions about race and art and history. Graphic novels like Nat Turner or Stagger Lee are really excellent texts for delving into questions about how black people are presented in media and history, and about who writes those histories, who sells particular images over others. I think the changing critical perception of comics has brought comics into the realm of teaching and studying black arts and culture.

While mainstream comics have sometimes had tricky relationships with its non-white characters and creators, many of the alternative artists in Black Comix have found success from working outside the conventional model of comics publishing. By not only working through smaller presses, but in many cases bypassing traditional venues of distribution and retail, they’ve managed to form strong direct connections with their audience.

John Jennings: The comics mainstream, in its current state, is basically centeredaround the direct market and also the publication of comics that support a trademarked idea. The major publishers of comics are now owned by multi-million dollar corporations that have their hands in any number of media entertainment endeavors. You can imagine how difficult is for an independent comics publisher to even scratch the surface of building a fan base.

By going outside of the mainstream, creators can at least have a chance to create an audience, build a brand, and not have to compromise what they want to do with their creations.

Comics seem to breed rebels. It’s a medium that anyone can execute and there aren’t any rules to making them.

Because of the “cookie cutter” nature of mass media; readers quite often will seek out alternative products. By utilizing the technology currently available to them, creators can sometimes carve out a niche and actually turn a profit while creating on their own terms.

Sometimes…

Black Comix: African American Independent Comics Art and Culture, by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, is published by Mark Batty Publisher.

Greg Baldino lives and writes in Chicago, where he watches over the local comics scene like a posthuman autocrat. His fiction and journalism has appeared in many publications internationally. He can be contacted at greg.baldino@gmail.com.