African American Classics Anthology Published

Poems and short stories are given the comics treatment by important comics artists of our day in this must-have collection. Click the link embedded in this post's title to see some preview art.

Jeet Heer on Race and Comics

R.I.P Dwayne McDuffie

A pioneer in diversifying the the comics scene has left us due to complications from heart surgery. He will be missed. Read more here.

Feb 12,19, 2011: "Black Comic Book Day"

From the Press Release:

Saturday, February 12, bookstores in Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit will host Black Comic Book Day to celebrate and make more widely available the work of African-American comic book writers and artists. In Chicago, four racks permanently dedicated to African-American comics have been placed at venues around the city, including one in the DuSable Museum. New York holds its Black Comic Book Day on February 19, at the Hue-Man Bookstore and Café in Harlem.

While these inaugural events are being held during Black History month, the display racks are permanent, dedicated additions to the stock offered by the hosting bookstores.

Black Comic Book Day is the brainchild of artists/writers Turtel Onli, father of “The Black Age” comic art movement, and Jerry Craft, creator of the award-winning Mama’s Boyz comic strip, distributed by King Features Syndicate since 1995. The idea developed as the duo brainstormed ideas to promote their work along with that of the many other talented artists and writers in the African-American community.

Onli and Craft believe that these events will have many benefits, such as encouraging reading and providing heroes for young readers to emulate from the African-American community.
“The only reason I, and most of my friends, read regularly was because of comic books,” Craft said. “I still remember the excitement of running to the corner store and seeing the new issue of Spider-Man waiting for me. Reading comics helped build our vocabularies.

The bold is mine, but here's another testimonial to the power of comics in literacy. For more information about events, click here. There are some pretty major names involved!

Article on R. Crumb's African Americans

With the release of Genesis, R. Crumb may be finding more folks beyond comics scholars willing to consider his work for classroom use. He's also done some short comics biographies of famous blues musicians that could make for interesting conversation in secondary music, history, or literature courses, for example.

However, his depiction of African Americans has been troubling at times. The article linked to in this post's title examines this issue.

2010 Glyph Award Winners Announced

Minority Representations in Comics

This video is a good resource about how minstrel figures, picanninies, yellow-skinned demons and other non-white characters have been represented in comics.

Once I teach another comic course, I'll probably use this video. I often ask students to visit the Grand Comic Book Database and look at minority representations in old covers of Captain America, Luke Cage, Tarzan, etc. It's an eye-opening experience.

Graphic Novel Reporter Updates

Some intriguing stuff in this week's edition:

* A roundtable discussion on black issues and comics
* News that the Los Angeles Times has added a graphic novel category to their Book Prizes.
* Lisa Coxson teaches comics to ninth-graders in the Bronx.

Graphic Novels Featuring African American Characters

My link to the Beat's link to Library Journal's link. Ain't bloggin' great? ;)