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Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics
Some comics fans view the industry’s Golden Age (1930s-1950s) as a challenging time when it comes to representations of race, an era when the few Black characters appeared as brutal savages, devious witch doctors, or unintelligible minstrels. Yet the true portrait is more complex and reveals that even as caricatures predominated, some Golden Age comics creators offered more progressive and nuanced depictions of Black people.
Desegregating Comics assembles a team of leading scholars to explore how debates about the representation of Blackness shaped both the production and reception of Golden Age comics. Some essays showcase rare titles like Negro Romance and consider the formal innovations introduced by Black comics creators like Matt Baker and Alvin Hollingsworth, while others examine the treatment of race in the work of such canonical cartoonists as George Herriman and Will Eisner. The collection also investigates how Black fans read and loved comics, but implored publishers to stop including hurtful stereotypes. As this book shows, Golden Age comics artists, writers, editors, distributors, and readers engaged in heated negotiations over how Blackness should be portrayed, and the outcomes of those debates continue to shape popular culture today.
Desegregating Comics assembles a team of leading scholars to explore how debates about the representation of Blackness shaped both the production and reception of Golden Age comics. Some essays showcase rare titles like Negro Romance and consider the formal innovations introduced by Black comics creators like Matt Baker and Alvin Hollingsworth, while others examine the treatment of race in the work of such canonical cartoonists as George Herriman and Will Eisner. The collection also investigates how Black fans read and loved comics, but implored publishers to stop including hurtful stereotypes. As this book shows, Golden Age comics artists, writers, editors, distributors, and readers engaged in heated negotiations over how Blackness should be portrayed, and the outcomes of those debates continue to shape popular culture today.
368 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2023
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June 19, 2026
A great, important set of essays about the casual, sometimes overt, racism in comics. The writers examine this topic critically, and I found the essays useful and illuminating. I appreciated how much beloved comics, The Spirit, for example, were opened up in this way.
For a book about comics, it really is a shame that there weren't more/better examples/illustrations of the comics being discussed. Not that the words couldn't hold their own, but it's such a visual medium, and it would have been a real pleasure to understand the essays on a visual level as well as an academic level.
For a book about comics, it really is a shame that there weren't more/better examples/illustrations of the comics being discussed. Not that the words couldn't hold their own, but it's such a visual medium, and it would have been a real pleasure to understand the essays on a visual level as well as an academic level.
Displaying 1 of 1 review