Qiana J. Whitted
  • Home
  • About
  • Publications
  • CV
  • Blog
  • Contact

How Do Comics Visualize Racist Speech?

5/29/2014

 
Originally posted at The Hooded Utilitarian. 
Picture
My copy of Joel Christian Gill’s new graphic novel arrived in the mail last week shortly after I read Frank Bramlett’s post on the way editorial comics depict Michael Sam, the openly gay, black football player who was recently drafted by the NFL’s St. Louis Rams. Of particular interest to Frank was how few of the comics he found rely on metaphor to convey meaning and instead invoke more literal representations of Sam to comment upon the significance (or insignificance) of his social identity. As the post makes clear, scrutinizing the visual and verbal shorthand that comics use to illustrate abstract ideas like race or sexual orientation can reveal a great deal about how society negotiates changing attitudes, institutions, and avenues of power.

Gill’s collection, Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narrative from Black History, provides us with another opportunity to raise questions about the figurative modes of expression that today’s comics creators use to represent race and racism. Readers of the short stories in Strange Fruit quickly learn to appreciate the playful succinctness of Gill’s iconographic language. He knows when to use humor and sight gags to advance the story. (On the experience of enslavement, Henry “Box” Brown remarks: “This stinks.”) But Gill knows when more serious cultural cues are needed too, as in the two-page spread where Brown’s body, shown curled inside a wooden box, silently tumbles from slavery to freedom.

Picture

Read More

Is it okay to laugh at Li’l Eight Ball in 2013?

9/20/2013

 
Picture
Originally posted at Pencil Panel Page.

I’ve spent the first few weeks of my African American Comics class dispelling myths. With a sharp and tremendously engaged group of diverse university students, we’ve tackled questions not just about the form, but also about the range of black representation in America’s earliest comics from Outcault’s The New Bully and Herriman’s Musical Mose to Dell’s New Funnies, Fawcett’s Negro Romance, and EC’sShock SuspenStories.

This week I asked the class what surprised them most about our readings so far and a few voiced their initial skepticism that a course on black comics could have enough material to last a full semester. (One student is particularly pleased that she can argue now about comics with friends whose experiences begin and end with Batman.)

So far the Negro Romance story, “Possessed” and the first issue of Rural Home’s Jun-Gal have inspired the liveliest exchange. But what has stuck with me is the conversation surrounding our analysis of a Li’l Eight Ball story from a December 1945 issue of New Funnies. The story is very much in keeping with the slapstick humor of other Walter Lantz characters. A clumsy little boy tries to please his mother in a simple plot that revolves around physical comedy and a serendipitous happy ending. Still, the boy in this story has a large shiny pitch black head, oversized pink lips, and wears white gloves. His plump “mammy” wears an apron and handkerchief around her head as she scolds her son’s well-intentioned antics.


Read More

How Does ‘Musical Mose’ Complicate Our Understanding of Racial Caricature?

6/21/2013

 
Picture
Musical Mose, Feb. 23, 1902
Originally posted at Pencil Panel Page. 

I am fascinated by Musical Mose, an obscure humor comic strip by George Herriman, better known for his critically-acclaimed series Krazy Kat. Published as Herriman’s first continuing series for New York World in 1902, Mose is a traveling black musician whose recitals go awry when he attempts to impersonate a performer of a different ethnicity. In “No Use These Days, To Try To Break Into Those Exclusive Professions” from March 9, Mose is pummeled by a group of Italian men for posing as an organ grinder (see below), while in another episode, he plays an Irish fiddle beautifully, but is assailed by the Tipperary Guards for singing “The Wearing of the Green.”

The series lasted for only three or four strips and I’m grateful that Allan Holtz at the Stripper’s Guide blog has made these scans available online.

Read More
    Picture

    About

    An archive of my online writing on comics, literature, and culture. (Illustration above by Seth!)

    Categories

    All
    Adaptations
    Aesthetics And Style
    Anthropomorphism
    Brazilian Comics
    Caricature
    Comics And Gender
    Comics And Music
    Comics And The South
    Comics Research
    Defining Comics
    Django Unchained
    EC Comics
    Editorial Cartoons
    Empathy And Emotion
    Events
    Indie Comics
    Interview
    Reader Response
    Romance

    Archives

    July 2020
    June 2020
    February 2019
    August 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    March 2017
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    August 2011

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Publications
  • CV
  • Blog
  • Contact