Table Of Content

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 This page intentionally left blank 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