Black Comix Returns by John Jennings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I was growing up, when I first started reading comics, I fell in love with Supergirl, because she was like me. We all look for ourselves in what we read, even if we are trying to escape. We like to think that if we find someone like us, that looks like us, or is from our part of the country, or talks like us, or is any way like us, that we can project ourselves into this world of make believe.
Later, of course, as I grew up, I looked at what was then called the Underground comics, to find people more like me, that thought the way I did. It was the time when women were drawing their own comics, and I was, again drawn to that.
Representation, anywhere is important. We need to see ourselves in books and stories, so that we feel part of it. When we see women in power, we know we too can grow up to have power. When people of color see themselves in books and stories, they feel more engaged.
So that is why this book is so important, although it is more of a taste than anything else. There are so many great artists, so many different styles out there, it makes you want to go and seek all of them out. Amazing stuff.
The only problem with this collection, as some of the reviewers pointed out, is that there is not enough of each artist. That it is only a taste, and we need more than that. What we probably need now, is an anthology, more like what some of the reviewers though this book was.
Here are just some of the examples of the huge number of artists mentioned far too briefly in this collection:
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.