An interview with @tanehisicoates about his Black Panther comic: https://t.co/Nw0WEwi3yA pic.twitter.com/V4XuFqa50r
— New Republic (@NewRepublic) April 5, 2016
I was planning to save this for Sunday afternoon, but now Adam’s got you all on tenterhooks, so… From Jonathan Gray’s TNR article:
Fifty years ago, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby changed the face of comics when they introduced the first superhero of African descent, the Black Panther, in Fantastic Four #52. As the hereditary ruler and protector of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, the Black Panther is as accomplished a scientist as he is a strategist.Within the cloistered world of comics he’s long been a fan favorite—featuring, for example, in the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, alongside Daredevil, and as a central member of Marvel’s Illuminati—even if he’s had a lower profile than some of Marvel’s other heroes. This promises to change in 2016, thanks to the efforts of two Howard University alumni: Chadwick Boseman who plays the Black Panther this summer in Marvel’s latest blockbuster, Captain America: Civil War; meanwhile, Ta-Nehisi Coates—2015 National Book Award winner and MacArthur fellow—scripts a new comic with a dramatic character arc for the character that debuts on April 6. Pre-orders for the first issue of Coates’s Black Panther have already exceeded 300,000 copies at various retailers, a remarkable feat given that 50,000 preorders for a new comic represents a smashing success. (Top selling comics like Ms. Marvel and The Walking Dead move around 100,000 physical copies monthly.) One of the most celebrated writers and cultural critics of his generation, Coates’s work on Black Panther promises to energize the field while attracting fans old and new to the character; it’s the most anticipated comic debut since Chris Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 in 1991. I called across the pond to Paris to speak with Coates, my old classmate at Howard, and chat about all things Black Panther…
JWG: In your first memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, you talk about “an entire shadow canon, a tradition of writers who grabbed the pen, not out of leisure but to break the chain.” How does your work on Black Panther fit into this tradition?
TNC: This is why I included the Henry Dumas poem [in issue #3]. I wanted to incorporate the poets from the Black Arts Movement into the canon of comics. Those are the people who taught how to write. Those were the writers who made space in their poetry to explore questions of democracy and self-determination. But I also was inspired by Avengers #57, “Behold the Vision,” which ends with Shelly’s “Ozymandias.” I just figured if they could fold British literature into a comic I could include African American literature in mine. That’s also the inspiration behind Changamine (a bookish political philosopher who is the intellectual leader of those Wakandans opposed to hereditary rule). This tradition informs us, and I wanted to represent that…
Also, as someone whose history as a comix phan occurred during the all-too-brief feminist flowering of the early 1970s, I really liked Coates’ notes in the Atlantic on “The Feminists of Wakanda”:
… [T]here’s been an ongoing conversation about how women appear in comic books (and women who create comic books) for some time. With the advent of social media it’s gotten harder to ignore that debate. You don’t really have to be a admitted feminist to know what it means to be “fridged.” And whether you agree with it or not, a comic book fan has to be willfully blind to not be aware of the critique of how women’s bodies have been presented in the form.
The feminist critique is in the air now. If my rendition of Black Panther wasn’t created by that critique, it breathed the same air…
So, like, how long do I gotta hold onto this comic before I can sell it for a lot of money? You said its a "good investment" @tanehisicoates
— jelani cobb (@jelani9) April 7, 2016
Might be toilet paper, by Issue #12. Still time to eff it all up. https://t.co/QcakeGs9We
— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) April 7, 2016
@jelani9 You could sell it today for MAJOR $$. Mine was worth $50+ by the end of yesterday. I work at a comic shop; sold out in 15 mins.
— Lauren Duncan (@laurenarielo) April 7, 2016
Yes! At my favorite comics shop in Johannesburg & got Black Panther joint by @tanehisicoates & @Stelfreeze T'challa! pic.twitter.com/fY9TfO1HBE
— Ambassador Gaspard (@patrickgaspard) April 9, 2016
Hope everyone who bought the book, gives time to the medium. Comics are incredible art-form. Give the folks who love making them a shot.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) April 8, 2016
redshirt
Black Panther is awesome.
And at this time and place it’s an even better character.
Adam L Silverman
Sorry AL. I always try to check and see if something is in the cue so I don’t step on someone else’s post. Didn’t mean to rush you.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman: No problem! (I was about to apologize to you on the last post, so we’ll just consider honor satisfied.)
redshirt
I just read “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” too so bring on the comic book references. It’s the ultimate American art form – and America’s lasting mythological impact on the world.
Adam L Silverman
@Anne Laurie: Not sure what you’d need to apologize for.
mclaren
Smart interesting lateral move by Coates. He’s started out as an essayist, now he’s moving sideways into fiction. Wonder where he’ll end up. Reminiscent of David Mamet who started out as a playwright and wrote one episode of Hill St. Blues, then wound up as a movie writer & producer.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
This is true revolutionary shit. As an older white woman who lived sentiently through the late 60s, seeing “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” on PBS recently, anything that picks up that thread and breaks through the racist operating system that white America runs to deflect its collective guilt into the memory hole is desperately needed in this racist as fuck country. This is soft black power.
redshirt
@mclaren: Fuckin’ Mamet!
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: The Black Panther super hero originally had nothing to do with the group. But it’s just a matter of a few years and they became conflated soon enough. But that’s not the origin story.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@redshirt:
TNC’s father was chairman of the Maryland chapter, so it’s going to be conflated. Who better to pave the way?
Omnes Omnibus
Lovely. Two threads that went comic book. Late night is supposed to be for music.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: You could do the Safety Dance, I suppose.
Dr. McCoy
@redshirt: Macarena
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: No, have fun. No, you people seem to have won. Best of luck. Keep it going.
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
LOL ? at”seeing the brain waves.”
rikyrah
I guess that I’ll try and find a copy. The artwork looks fabulous.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: “you people”?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Cartoonies.
ETA: If you can’t read a thread, it is not on me.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Cartoonies?
Good night, Grandpa. I know things are scary for you now…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: You can have both.
And I’m not proud of having looked that up
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: apparently the Balloon Juice music fight was on twitter earlier
Brachiator
@redshirt: The greatest comic in American literature is the strip Krazy Kat.
The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I always thought Lou Reed’s album Rock’n Roll Animal was one of the great live albums of its times… no, it’s not the VU but that’s where it did come from… always liked J Cale’s Paris 1919…
Anne Laurie
@Brachiator:
Foundational, surely, but I’d give the palm (if I must choose just one) to either Little Nemo or Pogo.
redshirt
@Brachiator: That’s not possibly true.
Steeplejack (phone)
What is a phan as opposed to a regular fan?
redshirt
Is there a skull supposed to be in BP’s abs?
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack (phone): Just silly playfulness, from the period.
Brachiator
@Anne Laurie:
@redshirt:
The surrealism of Kat exceeds the dreamscapes of Little Nemo. And Pogo is almost crude satire compared to the depths plumbed by KK.
The strip was early on praised by artists and poets all over the world. The strip has also inspired many comic artists who came later. The strip itself is quintessentially American, with its desert setting reminiscent of a John Ford western. And the typical setup is as pure as a Roadrunner cartoon. Here’s the basic setup:
Repeat endlessly, through surrealistic landscapes and poetic dialog that scans like jazz, scat singing and slang.
The relationship of the trio has been interpreted to be about everything from love to politics. But the relationship between the characters surely resonates today. Ignatz “reads” male, but Krazy Kat has always been of indeterminate gender. Exactly what is their relationship? It can never be pinned down.
And even though intellectuals have written miles of essays about the strip, most people are afraid to peer too deeply into what is also obviously there. Fitting in with the discussion here about Black Panther, Krazy Kat is still the most powerful meditation on race in America that has ever been written. It’s not about racism. It is about white folk’s fascination and obsession with black people and black culture even as they deny it, brand it as inferior and refuse to acknowledge the degree to which it has shaped their own lives. It is about Strom Thurmond needing to have sex with and impregnate his black maid, and then refusing for decades to acknowledge the daughter born from that “relationship” even as he secretly supported her. Krazy Kat is also feminist, and it is also gay.
It is a judgment on the absurdity of race by George Herriman, who absurdly had to deny his origins as a person of color and instead passed for white in order to get work and be accepted as an artist.
And Krazy Kat loves Ignatz (Ignorant) Mouse the way Barack Obama loves America, even if Ignatz refuses to acknowledge the love that he also feels for the black Kat, and throws a brick instead.
gwangung
Folks should not forget the foundation of Coates’ Black Panther, the seminal run of Christopher Priest (which is now being collected in omnibus form). It was Priest who turned a C-list acrobat into a formidable figure who could take out Batman from the Distinguished Competition and not have fans think it was a snow job.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hear hear! When it goes comic book or Star Trek Wars or gaming, I am out. Glad that the forum is here for those who enjoy it, but I am not that geek. Here’s one for you….
And the link didn’t work – but here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rXEKtC8iY
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus: Bonus track, and one last shot at the link-fu, else I’ll just add the link…
Sigh….okay – here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qs1DDGjUw0
Maybe Steeplejack can point out what I am doing wrong on the link-fu, because it used to work.
Steeplejack
@seaboogie:
Okay, coming in late, but your first link (“Bonus track”) is missing the colon after the
https
. Dunno why, but that’s why it’s not working.ETA: Just checked—same thing at #32.
Fred
Back when comic books cost 12 cents my friends and I hit the drug store every second Tuesday to buy all the Marvel mags. I haven’t read a comic in years but I still remember those stories. And those artists taught me how to do pen illustration. Gene Colin, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were my heroes.
That illustration of Black Panther is gorgious. Must find out who the artist is. Maybe I should start paying attention to comics again.
Ejoiner
Just read it – twice – in the past week. Excellent first issue! I picked it up because of Coates name “brand” and the story (so far) is very solid but the artwork is just crazy good. I really like how they imagined all of Wakanda’s super-tech as totally evolved from an African cultural template (yeah, duh, I know). It’s very sci-fi but faithful to the continent in terms of it’s dressing and style.
Very excited for the next issue!
Joel
I remember seeing Art Spiegelman lecture on the history of comics. I’ve never been a big comic person — but Spiegelman sure made them interesting.
Chris
As long as we’re talking comics and identity politics: I finally got around to reading the Kamala Khan comic last night. And as everyone had been saying, it’s very, very good. What I wasn’t expecting at all was that as much as she’s a teenager still figuring out who she is, the aspect of her identity that ends up mattering the most to the comic isn’t “Muslim” or “Pakistani” or “female,” it’s “millennial.” Loved her little speech towards the end – “the media hates us because we read on our smartphones, the economists hate us because we trade things instead of buying them,” etc.
If the idea of the comic was to “normalize the idea of the American experience as Muslim,” then all I can say is job well fucking done. She’s basically Peter Parker only female, millennial, and Jerseyite.
Currants
@efgoldman: yes: went to hear TNC speak there (pretty sure I saw the announcement here), and Tom introduced him. Wonderfully gentle voice and thoughtful speaker.
debbie
@redshirt:
I loved that book!
Chris
Best part of the TNC interview is this –
As much as I like the anti-colonial/nationalist stuff about the Black Panther comic, there’s something raised-eyebrow-worthy about the fact that the unconquered stronghold of African independence is also an absolute monarchy, especially if you’re doing TNC’s style of social commentary. Glad he’s getting into that, too.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: I don’t know about Africa but in India, many of the Indian princely states (autonomous except for defense) were far more enlightened and progressive compared to the exploitative British Raj (of course there was some that were worse).
ETA: The problem with monarchy is that is a crap shoot. Just because a ruler is kind and just and able doesn’t mean that his progeny will be. Too much riding on one person.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Brachiator: Wow. That’s (sincerely) some deep stuff. I vaguely remember seeing KK as a kid in the ’60s, but never really paid attention to it (it was far before my time). Something else to put on The List.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
boatboy_srq
@redshirt: We’re tiny, we’re toony / We’re all a little loony…
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Exactly.
And while I’d believe that it’s generally better to be ruled by one of your own than by foreigners who view you as racially inferior, “better than a Eurocolonial regime” isn’t exactly a high bar to clear. Besides, you’d hope that any country would evolve and improve its political system over time. Wakanda would certainly have been around for long enough. And the comics have it evolving a lot in terms of things like science and technology. It’s just the political system that doesn’t change.
redshirt
@debbie: It was a really fun read.
I asked my book club this but got no answers, maybe you (or someone else) can help: Can you name another book that is so close to being non-fiction, yet is clearly fiction? Reading “Kavalier and Clay” at times it read like a straight biography of Kirby and Simon, or Lee, but then it’s not. There are real people in the book – Dali, Orson Welles, etc.
For any comic book fan, it’s a really fun novel covering the first days of comic books in the late 30’s early 40’s and onwward.
Sasha
Can’t wait to see TNC doing the con circuit. :-)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am sorry, I can’t see around Black Panther’s crotch on that cover art. Is there any comic book character that isn’t fetishized to some degree?
Elizabelle
Been on the hunt for this one. Sold out in Richmond VA PDQ. Comic book store owner expects a fresh batch this week and is putting one aside for me.
Interested in what TNC does; hear it’s got a lot of backstory explication which is good because I would not know a Marvel character if it/he/she bit me.
Now to bookmark your thread and catch up with it later.
canuckistani
Bought it online at Comixology. No lineup, no running out of copies. And I think I’m going to have to reread it a few times. There’s depth there.