"I didn't exactly intend to read this book. I picked it up thinking 'oh, I'll flip through and see.' An hour later I looked up and realized that I'd made my way through several chapters and three eras of comics. Then I put it down. Then I picked it up again and read another 30 pages before I realized what I was doing.
I recommend this for anyone who wants a deeper look at the social meaning of comics and sequential art. It's a fascinating discussion of race, feminism, comics, Catwoman, exotification, post-colonialism, and the social development of the comics community. Despite a crosshair of subjects that can be contentious, the tone is frank and explanatory: shining light on an often overlooked aspect of comics—and American—culture."
Publisher University of Washington Press
Publication Date 2015-10-19
Section Sociology / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Kai F.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780295994963
Black Women in Sequence takes readers on a search for women of African descent in comics subculture. From the 1971 appearance of the Skywald Publications character "the Butterfly" - the first Black female superheroine in a comic book - to contemporary comic books, graphic novels, film, manga, and video gaming, a growing number of Black women are becoming producers, viewers, and subjects of sequential art.
As the first detailed investigation of Black women's participation in comic art, Black Women in Sequence examines the representation, production, and transnational circulation of women of African descent in the sequential art world. In this groundbreaking study, which includes interviews with artists and writers, Deborah Whaley suggests that the treatment of the Black female subject in sequential art says much about the place of people of African descent in national ideology in the United States and abroad.
For more information visit the author's website: http://www.deborahelizabethwhaley.com/#!black-women-in-sequence/c65q
