Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime

257 Pages·2015·12.47 MB·English

by  Deborah Elizabeth Whaley

BLACK WOMEN
IN SEQUENCE

Deborah Elizabeth Whaley
BLACK WOMEN
IN SEQUENCE
Re-inking Comics,
Graphic Novels,
and Anime
University of Washington Press
Seattle and London
This publication was made possible in part by a grant from the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa.
© 2016 by the University Library of Congress
of Washington Press Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Printed and bound in the Whaley, Deborah Elizabeth.
United States of America Black women in sequence : re-inking
Design by Thomas Eykemans comics, graphic novels, and anime /
Composed in Andada, typeface Deborah Elizabeth Whaley.
designed by Carolina Giovagnoli pages cm
for Huerta Tipográfica Includes bibliographical references
19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1 and index.
isbn 978-0-295-99495-6
All rights reserved. No part of this publi- (hardcover : acid-free paper) —
cation may be reproduced or transmitted isbn 978-0-295-99496-3
in any form or by any means, electronic (pbk. : acid-free paper)
or mechanical, including photocopy, 1. Comic books, strips, etc.—History
recording, or any information storage or and criticism. 2. African American
retrieval system, without permission in women in literature. 3. Africans
writing from the publisher. in literature. 4. Women in literature.
5. Graphic novels—History and
University of Washington Press criticism. I. Title.
www.washington.edu/uwpress pn6725.w48 2016
741.5'973—dc23 2015012083
The paper used in this publication is acid-
free and meets the minimum require-
ments of American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi
z39.48–1984. ∞
For my mother
Emma Ruth Whaley
CONTENTS
1
Preface ix RE-INKING
THE NATION
Acknowledgments xiii
Jackie Ormes’s Black
Introduction 3
Cultural Front Comics
28
2 3
BLACK CAT GOT AFRICAN GODDESSES,
YOUR TONGUE? MIXED-RACE WONDERS,
AND BAADASSSSS WOMEN
Catwoman,
Blackness, and Black Women as “Signs”
Postracialism of Africa in US Comics
67 94
8/18/15 9:45 AM
4 5
ANIME DREAMS WHERE I’M
FOR AFRICAN GIRLS COMING FROM
Nadia: The Secret Black Female Artists
of Blue Water and Postmodern Comix
121 147
CONCLUSION Notes 185
Comic Book Divas Index 215
and the Making of
Sequential Subjects
179
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PREFACE
I would buy comics, but I would take them from the store in a brown
paper bag held close to my stomach sheepishly, as if it were some form
of shameful porn. I had an hour bus ride from the [comic book store],
but I wouldn’t take the comics out until I was safely at home. In a neigh-
borhood that was majority white . . . I was surrounded by other broth-
ers. . . . I was comfortable. I was at home. I had a people. And they were,
for all their acne and dandruff, beautiful.
—Mat Johnson, “The Geek”
Most scholarly books on comics begin with commentary by the author, who
admits to loving comics in early childhood or young adulthood, immerses
the reader in an ethnographic moment of fans and readers, or establishes
distance by asserting the author’s primary role as a scholar. Popular books
on the topic are usually by journalists or writers or artists of comics, who
provide a window into their writing and artistic process, and an analysis
that instructs potential producers, satisfies readers and fans with origin sto-
ries, and warns of narrative spoilers. As a scholar and artist who grew up
finding solace in drawing comics, and later in alternative rock subcultures
in close alignment with the broad artistic spectrum of sequential art, my
foray into comics takes both a similar and a different authorial route. Mul-
tiple subject positions and interdisciplinary training in American Studies
shape how I position myself in the fantastical world of sequential art.
I am a Black woman in a fanboy world.1 I did training in cartooning as
a teenager; I maintain the artistic practice of painting and mixed-media
ix