The debut of director Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” movie last weekend and its vision of the utopian African nation of Wakanda has sparked black joy around the world.

Poster for director Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” movie. (Courtesy of Marvel Studios)
Poster for director Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” movie. (Courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“When I was growing up there was very little representation of people like me in movies,” says Joel Christian Gill, who teaches at New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester and is the creator of “Strange Fruit: Volume II,” his second collection of nonfiction comics recounting “Undercelebrated Narratives from Black History.” “Having people that look like you is really important for building self-esteem and saying you have value, you’re important. … Black heroes matter because black kids need heroes too.”

So after seeing “Black Panther,” where else can we find thrilling diverse perspectives in comics? I asked Gill and Tony Davis, owner of The Million Year Picnic comics shop in Cambridge’s Harvard Square.

Amidst the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and ‘70s, mainstream comics publishers began adding African-American superheroes with titles like “Black Goliath,” “Black Panther” and “Black Lightning.”

“Luke Cage.” (Marvel Comics)
“Luke Cage.” (Marvel Comics)

“Almost every black superhero had to be black something,” Davis says. “I remember when the first issue of ‘Luke Cage’ came out. He was written by white writers who didn’t fully understand the experience.”

“The last five years, there’s been this explosion of more diversity in characters and we’re starting to see more diversity in creators,” Davis says. “The creator part is essential.” The result is “more authentic voices.”

Davis says, “As somebody who’s been a reader of comics pushing 50 years now, and as somebody who’s African-American and started growing up when there were very few characters of color in main stream media, the idea of seeing reflections of yourself, seeing faces that look like you, your parents, or the idea of seeing the world, not just a whitewashed version of it, it’s important for me myself, it’s important for me as a parent, it’s important for all of us.”

Below are comics that Gill and Davis recommended.


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“Strange Fruit: Volume II” by Joel Christian Gill. (Fulcrum Books)
“Strange Fruit: Volume II” by Joel Christian Gill. (Fulcrum Books)

“Strange Fruit: Volume II” by Joel Christian Gill. (Fulcrum Books)
A second volume of non-fiction African-American history comics, this time telling stories of a buffalo soldier, a fighter pilot and a pioneering mail carrier, was just released on Feb. 1. “We’ve lost our empathy. We’ve lost our ability to look at somebody else and feel like them,” Gill says. “This is my way of sharing bits and pieces of black humanity so that people look at black people not as a monolithic whole but as individuals with something to contribute.”

“March” by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. (Top Shelf)
“March” by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. (Top Shelf)

“March” by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
A nonfiction graphic novel recounting the life of the celebrated civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis—based on Lewis’s own recollections.

“That’s a fantastic book,” Gill says. “That book is just powerful on a number of fronts. Just visually. The story of a man who would have died to get people the right to vote. … He has a scar on his head from an Alabama state trooper.”

“It’s an amazing historical story that should be in every school library. His personal story and seeing the beginnings and apex and follow through of the Civil Rights movement and continuing today,” Davis says. “Lewis is a pretty extraordinary man and to have him telling his own story.”

“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” (Marvel Comics)
“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” (Marvel Comics)

“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.” (Marvel Comics)
“A young African-American girl who is billed as being the smartest person in the universe. They paired her up with Devil Dinosaur, this dinosaur Jack Kirby created in the 1970s,” Davis says. “Sometimes they fight supervillains. Sometimes they deal with the cave man who followed [the dinosaur] to the present.”

 

 

“Ms. Marvel” written by G. Willow Wilson. (Marvel Comics)
“Ms. Marvel” written by G. Willow Wilson. (Marvel Comics)

“Ms. Marvel” written by G. Willow Wilson. (Marvel Comics)
The main character is a “Muslim Pakistani living in Jersey City,” Davis says. As in “Spider-Man” and many classic Marvel comics, it’s about “what it’s like to be a teenage superhero, and you’re going through high school and relationships, but with the added texture of being Muslim, having family who would expect some traditional behavior.”

 

 

“Monstress” by Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda. (Image Comics)
“Monstress” by Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda. (Image Comics)

“Monstress” by Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda. (Image Comics)
“Young Maika risks everything to control her psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, placing her in the center of a devastating war between human and otherworldly forces,” according to the publisher.

“It’s a scifi fantasy comic set in a world with very few male characters,” Davis says. “I heard Marjorie say at a conference that there’s never going to be an explanation. It’s sort of like you walked into an action film and there’s no women and it’s not talked about.”

 

“PrinceLess” written by Jeremy Whitley. (Action Lab Entertainment)
“PrinceLess” written by Jeremy Whitley. (Action Lab Entertainment)

“PrinceLess” written by Jeremy Whitley. (Action Lab Entertainment)
“A great all-ages comic. My understanding is the writer has a daughter who is as they put it ‘mixed,’ multi-ethnic. He wanted to make a comic where she could see herself,” Davis says. The character is imprisoned alone in a castle tower guarded by a dragon. “One day she says to the dragon perched outside her castle, ‘This is no life. I don’t want to wait for Prince Charming to rescue me. I don’t want to wait for Prince Charming to kill you. Let’s take off and have some adventures.” So they do.

 

“Luke Cage.” (Marvel Comics)
“Luke Cage.” (Marvel Comics)

“Luke Cage.” (Marvel Comics)
Long-running Marvel superhero comic. “He’s a bullet-proof black man,” Gill notes. “He was experimented on and came out bullet-proof. What a better metaphor for black people right now than a superhero whose super power is being bullet-proof?”

 

“Metaphase” authored by Chip Reece. (AlternaComics)
“Metaphase” authored by Chip Reece. (AlternaComics)

“Metaphase” authored by Chip Reece. (AlternaComics)
“It’s the first superhero with Down syndrome,” Gill says. “A very serious take on that.”

Author Chip Reece began the story after his son was born with Down syndrome. “I was looking for comics that had prominent characters with Down syndrome, and at the time there was zero, I couldn’t find anything at all,” he has told People magazine. “I wanted him to see a character with Down syndrome that didn’t let that restrict him, that he could still be whatever he wanted to be despite what other people might think were his limitations.”

 

“Watson and Holmes” by Karl Bollers and illustrated by Rick Leonardi. (New Paradigm Studios)
“Watson and Holmes” by Karl Bollers and illustrated by Rick Leonardi. (New Paradigm Studios)

“Watson and Holmes” by Karl Bollers and illustrated by Rick Leonardi. (New Paradigm Studios)
“A contemporary take on Watson and Holmes,” Davis says. “It’s Sherlock Holmes set in contemporary New York, contemporary Harlem, black Holmes, black Watson.” Watson is an Afghanistan war vet working in a city clinic. Holmes investigates “gangs and drugs.”

 

 

“Niobe: She is Life” by Sebastian Jones. (Stranger Comics)
“Niobe: She is Life” by Sebastian Jones. (Stranger Comics)

“Niobe: She is Life” by Sebastian Jones. (Stranger Comics)
“Naobi is half human, half elf, half devil-child, half goddess,” Davis says. “A really striking fantasy by Sebastian Jones.”

The publisher describes it as a “coming of age tale of love, betrayal, and ultimate sacrifice. Niobe Ayutami is an orphaned wild elf teenager and also the would-be savior of the vast and volatile fantasy world of Asunda. She is running from a past where the Devil himself would see her damned.”

 

“The Harlem Hellfighters” written by Max Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White. (Penguin Random House)
“The Harlem Hellfighters” written by Max Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White. (Penguin Random House)

“The Harlem Hellfighters” written by Max Brooks (author of “World War Z” and son of comedian Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft) and illustrated by Caanan White. (Penguin Random House)
“A graphic novel about an African-American squadron from World War I,” Davis says “They were heroes in World War I. And they come back in 1919 to a world that’s pretty much indifferent to them. And they face the racism that everyone else faces.”

 

 

 

“Matty’s Rocket” by Tim Fielder. (Dieselfunk Studios)
“Matty’s Rocket” by Tim Fielder. (Dieselfunk Studios)

“Matty’s Rocket” by Tim Fielder. (Dieselfunk Studios)
This artist of color imagines “a retro alternative universe in the 1930s and rocket technology is already out there,” Davis says. “Mattie is a young African-American girl who dreams of growing up to be a rocket pilot and she does.”

 

 

 

“Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation” based on the 1979 novel by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings. (Abrams ComicArts)
“Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation” based on the 1979 novel by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings. (Abrams ComicArts)

“Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation” based on the 1979 novel by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings. (Abrams ComicArts)
Jennings, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Jennings, a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, authored the 2010 book “Black Comix: African American independent comics arts and culture”and have just published a follow up, “Black Comix Returns.”

Here they adapted Octavia Butler’s riveting 1979 novel about a woman mysteriously transported back in time to a pre-Civil War Maryland slave plantation. “It faces one of the challenges of using a different medium,” Davis says. “Comics create something that’s different from the initial work. In the original book, you don’t know the main character is African-American. It gets revealed. It turns from a scifi book into a horror novel. This is essentially a horror novel right from the start.”

 

“Nat Turner” by Kyle Baker. (Abrams ComicArts)
“Nat Turner” by Kyle Baker. (Abrams ComicArts)

“Nat Turner” by Kyle Baker. (Abrams ComicArts)
“An incredibly interesting, incredibly challenging character,” told by an artist of color, Davis says. “I think he does a pretty good job of capturing the emotions around him and bringing him to life. [Baker] was a masterful cartoonist and this is him in his prime.”

 

 

 

“I am Rosa Parks” written by Brad Meltzer. (Scholastic)
“I am Rosa Parks” written by Brad Meltzer. (Scholastic)

“I am Rosa Parks” written by Brad Meltzer. (Scholastic)
Illustrated biographies from Meltzer’s “Ordinary People Change the World” series, which also includes “I am Jackie Robinson” and “I am Harriet Tubman.” Davis says they’re “a good way for young kids to get exposed to characters they wouldn’t necessarily have been.”

 

 

 

“Josephine Baker” by Jose-Luis Bocquet and Catel Muller. (SelfMadeHero)
“Josephine Baker” by Jose-Luis Bocquet and Catel Muller. (SelfMadeHero)

“Josephine Baker” by French creators Jose-Luis Bocquet and Catel Muller. (SelfMadeHero)
A nonfiction comics biography of the African-American dancer who went to Paris to become a star—as well as a civil rights activist and supporter of the French Resistance during World War II. Davis says, “A really well told story and she’s such an interesting figure. The whole idea of how black culture couldn’t be accepted in the U.S., so she has to go to Europe.”

 

 

“Billie Holiday” by Jose Muñoz and Carols Sampayo. (NBM Publishing)
“Billie Holiday” by Jose Muñoz and Carols Sampayo. (NBM Publishing)

“Billie Holiday” by Argentine creators Jose Muñoz and Carols Sampayo. (NBM Publishing)
The life of the legendary jazz singer recounted in a nonfiction comics biography. “It’s in the same style they did a lot of noir fiction,” Davis says.

 

 

 

 

“Ghost Stories” by Whit Taylor. (Rosarium Publishing)
“Ghost Stories” by Whit Taylor. (Rosarium Publishing)

“Ghost Stories” by Whit Taylor. (Rosarium Publishing)
A graphic novel telling three haunting semi-autobiographical tales. “There’s one story about rape,” Gill says. “Whit’s black so there’s stories about being black in New Jersey in a predominantly white neighborhood.”

 

 

 

 

“Blue Hand Mojo” by John Jennings. (Rosarium Publishing)
“Blue Hand Mojo” by John Jennings. (Rosarium Publishing)

“Blue Hand Mojo” by John Jennings. (Rosarium Publishing)
A magical detective in debt to the Devil works Chicago’s Bronzeville in the 1930s. “It’s a supernatural detective and horror,” Gill says. “A lot of the main characters are black.”

 

 

 

 

“Y: The Last Man” written by Brian K. Vaughan. (Vertigo)
“Y: The Last Man” written by Brian K. Vaughan. (Vertigo)

“Y: The Last Man” written by Brian K. Vaughan (Vertigo)
The series ran from 2002 to 2008. “It’s a book that starts with the premise that every male mammal on earth drops dead one day,” Davis says, except for one man and his pet monkey. “It deals with the fallout in a society completely run by women because that’s all that’s left and dealing with enormous challenges.”

 

 


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