African american comics books has had a long string of success due to the writing and evolution over certain time periods. Its had many influential hip hop references to them as well and has continue to grow as time moves on. What is often overlooked is the actual art itself and the meaning behind such detailed takes on the Art. It may not seem like much, however there is a reason African American comics including the superheroes genre succeed and that because of the characters designs. Without correct characters designs in the comics books it doesn’t have as much impact. This video analysis will show it.

So right off the bat in this video we are introduced to a comic book artist who takes a lot of care into what is drawing, especially the character. He, says that he wants to make it look cool, give representation and make it look not offensive. As I explained in another blog post black comics at first had many issues. They where given typical traits and characteristic that society deemed fit a black person, at the time. The same looking characters, and given big lips for example. Another quote from the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Friere. It states,”More and more, the oppressors are using science and technology as unquestionably powerful instruments for their purpose” (Friere, 12). This is kinda applies here or at least to the b egging of the comic book time period where people who generalize African Americans and draw really weird designs for them in comics. A characters appearance all shows or gives representation and it can not be done poorly

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I think the imagery from comics are so detail and thus why they are so important. Visual can make a real difference when viewing a culture and or a person and many stereotypes can be made from them. Look at the 13 amendment documentary. In that video it talks about how ads where used to make African American people look a certain way. That was the same at the start of the comic book era and I think it is important that we appreciate the artist like in the video. He wants to make cool character designs for characters with good representation of black characters but with his take on it. See some newer designs of black characters.

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Comic books and hip hop is something that is very intertwined with each others. African American Comics books fits together really nicely and many important things can be learned from it. Hip hop can be inspirational just like comic books which is why on numerous occasions African american comic books and African American hip artist come together or to increase there audiences and spread there message. This can be seen from things like the interview from Ice Cube in “Call and Response” when he say’s , ” “Who don’t hold up the flag? Are they down to get our people, right? Or are they using them as a stepping stone for themselves?”. His music has some political themes to it in order to spread his message. This spreading of a message or conveying ideals can be applied to lots of hip hop music. The reason for collaboration between African american comics and hip hop is because you are able to see a visual and connect the songs ideas to it to help you better visualize it.

One of the important things in mind when talking about hip hop and comics is Break The Chain. In 1994, Marvel Music released Break The Chain by KRS-One. The comic came packaged with a cassette to follow as the comic was read. This is really cool and is a great reason as to why the two crosses paths. Yes you can just read the comic but with music you get a better sense of the atmosphere, the characters, and the meaning behind the lyrics as well. You can even leave many things of culture in there to show black culture and the message. Its is a big thing and that why many of the people do it. One of the videos covered in class is great example of why they would join up with comics as well. According to ” History of hip hop culture summed up in 10 minutes ” it says, ” Hip hop as it was now known had grown from being a neighborhood past time into a fully fledged culture and a way of life”.These songs benefit comics as they where popular and up and coming an could get the reach of comics out to many.

Comics also led to albums z being produced or vice versa. De La Soul used a comic strip to tell their origin story in the liner notes of 3 Feet High And Rising (1989).
2013’s Twelve Reasons To Die was directed by Adrian Younge, and was Ghostface Killah’s tenth album. This story was centered around centered around a sixties crime family. There are numerous comic book and hip hop influence sprinkled all about. One of the more interesting ones had to do with
Axel Alonso, he was the guy who heavily invested in a project around in Marvel for a hip hop covers project. In this albums where supposed have old marvel heroes with it. This actually got a little bit of backlash as people felt like a white company was appropriated black culture. This reminds me of a another quote from “The Slave Community excerpt” saying ” Such stereotypes are intimately related to the planter projections, desires, and biases that they tell us little about slave behavior and even less about the slaves inner life, his thoughts, actions,self concepts,or personality”(BlassinGame, pg xi). This quote kinda relates to how people see big studios or little amounts of African American people in companies adding hip hop and comics together. It’s kinda hard to do that and you won’t be able to appease everyone. You could also to ” Pedagogy of the Oppressed ” by Paulo Freire when it says, ” The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves “(Friere,pg 11). That is because at the begging where black comics had discrimination in them this could have been seen as oppressive.

African American super heroes in comics books are some of the most important things to happen in history. They truly gave African Americans representation and the ability to have a character that is the same race and has great stories and characterization. This reminds me of a quote that was said in one of our reading called “The Slave Community” by John W. Blassingame. In this reading it says ” by concentrating on solely on the planter, historians have, in effect, been listening to only one side of a complicated effect.”(Blassingame, pg xi) This goes the same for the comic books as well. Sure there can be many different white superheroes, but what about black heroes as well. What about there story , culture and perspective. These authors or people gave African American Superheroes there identities and they are responsible for the success of them today. They also had major roles overseeing the superhero comic book industry as a whole

So for starters one of those important people is a man by the name of Christopher Priest. He is credited to being the first African American writer in comics or mainstream comics as said. He has worked for Marvel and Dc and has written many different stories including ones on Black Panther, The Falcon, Deadpool, and many more. He truly was a very inspiring individual who had talent for writing great comic books and giving black superheroes great stories. His is a major voice in speaking up for more diversity in superhero comic books. This is very similar to in formation found in ”
“Look for me in the Whirlwind” Story of Marcus Garvey “. In this video one important thing to note is around the 25 minute mark when it explains Garvey’s speech and ideals an it says ” Be as proud of your race today, as our father was in the days of the old”. I think this is something that Christopher Priest Stands by today. He even has has some issues on the way that some company do or portray things and he keep the pressure on diversity giving the comic book characters many great stories. He has a huge influence of African american superheroes comics writers.

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Another important figure is Dwayne McDuffie. In 1993, McDuffie created Milestone Media with other African-American writers. They eventually went on to become one of the most successful minority-owned comic book companies. McDuffe is an important African American writer in the super hero industry. But this isn’t all that he has accomplished. McDuffe has played a pivotal role in helping to create great a African American heroes such as Static Shock, Icon, and Hardware. On top of that he also managed to helped with the animated series of Static Shock. He also for fought diversity in the comic book era and is seen as one of the most influential African American writers for all of things he has accomplished, and for good reason. This begs an interesting discussion on him and a reading called “The Mis-Education of the Negro” by Carter Godwin Woodson. In this it says ” These “highly educated”Negroes, however, fail to see that it is not the Negro who takes this position. The white man forces him to it, and to extricate himself from the Negro leader, he must so deal with the situation as to develop in the segregated group the power with which they can elevate themselves.”(Woodson, pg.8). This is referred to when he mentions black literature and African Americans mentioning that title. This kinda contradicts with these author because they joined the comic book industry with the attention of promoting diversity, but was it really just given to them. I’d say no this quotes isn’t really correct as I feel like their writing skills is what got them there and not just a means of having an African american writer promote an African American comic. All in all Carter Woods in is an amazing writer for the black community.

This video is one of the most important insider things of looking at the history of black comics books and characters because this gives you the perspective of someone who worked in the industry during that point of time. It covers many different details of some of the first comics books and superhero comic books and how they have changed over time in America. The first thing that should be talked about is the older comic books. Here we see the affects of american society and affects comic books as a whole.

The main start of this video is talking a little bit about the origins of African Americans in comic books. The biggest thing that should be noted here is when it talks about how some of the early comic books where humanizing African Americans a lot and at that point in society it caused backlash. This shows that a start of the black comic book push there was a lot of people who wanted oppression of African Americans and because of that you had comic books with the characters having black faces and big lips because that was a means of oppression and discrimination against blacks . However that wouldn’t stop African American comic book from taking rise at all. This reminds me of the reading from Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed when it say’s, ” To surmount the situation of oppression, people must first critically recognize its causes, so that through transforming action they can create a new situation, one which makes possible the pursuit of a fuller humanity”. In this case this recognition of oppression was seen from the fact of discriminating comics being made after humanizing African Americans.

Moving on from that there is another key point of interest in the video revolving around the progression of African American comics. There was of course the All Negroes comics book chain of comics with bigger and lead African American roles but an import an book to that would be the Lobo comic books. It was the first or rather one of the first comics books to have lead African American role which is really important as it would further progress along the idea of the need for African American Comic Books After many success the mainstream or major comic book players saw it as an opportunity to create black lead characters and comic books and in a lot of ways this really changed the overall industry and ideas of African American comic books at the time. This also is similar to a line of the Pedagogy of the oppressed when it say’s ” This solution cannot be achieved in idealistic terms. In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform”. This situation seemed like it would never improve, but with the combination of multiple different works they transformed the old comic book era to the new one.

The new African american comic book era finally came out and we ended up getting many different superheroes comic books such as static shock, power man, black panther. Black panther in general was a book that many people loved back in the day and showed that yes a black lead main character role could work. With successes like these, it created the urge of creating those black lead role comic books because they were really successful. There were also even hip hop comic books that eventually came to be.

Looking in the past of African american history you begin to see many different things created over a large amount of time. Music , art, and many more things where created by African Americans. This also includes comic books as well and with these comics books comes different stories or reasoning’s behind there creation. There a number of different types of comic books that really show or reflect the times. African American superheroes comics are just some of the popular things that African Americans took to, but they weren’t the only thing there was. When comic books fist arrived there were some comics that were originally made to show black culture, or even show the discrimination against African American people because back then there were a lot of issues still with civil rights. The main point here is how they changed from the beginning and a important group of comics created by African Americans at the time was a group called All-Negro Comics started by Orrin Evans. Evans wanted to give representation to black people because at the time there wasn’t any black superheroes or any real representation. There wasn’t really all to much representation which is why Evan sought to diversify comic books and that was done in some way with his group of comics.

“All Negroes Comics” was one of the first if not the first grouping of stories drawn and created by African American people with actual black lead characters. There weren’t any real superheroes but just regular heroes. Some of the stories that were included in this where “Ace Harlem”, The Little Dew Dillies” , “Ezekiel’s Manhunt”, and “Lion Man and Bubba” just to name a few. Some where even created for the sole purpose of showing black culture and these types of these of comic books are all usually present in the early comic books that featured African Americans. It’s not that the themes have all gone and disappear in today’s comics but you can notice that there where more significant in the early times. This situation is reminiscent of a of quote from Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” saying , “In order for the oppressed to be able towage the struggle for their liberation they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform.” The creator these comics was limited because of the time period not really wanting to represent and discriminating against blacks. However, that gave the creator a good reason to change this. Another one this readings quote says ” The more the people unveil this challenging reality which is to be the object of their transforming action, the more critically they enter that reality” and this is important because of the way these comic books led to more comics book like it.