Bitter Root, Volume 1: Family Business - June/July 2024 Edition of Devin's Chicago Comics Book Club Digest

Also, Some Thoughts on Art as Propaganda

Happy (belated) Juneteenth, everyone! This month saw the triumphant return of several people, and we had our largest Comics Book Club gathering in months. As such, we probably spent more time catching up among ourselves than we did talking about this month’s selection. Lol I gave out Pride-themed tarantula stickers and we shared what movies, plays, and tv shows we’ve been enjoying when not reading comics. I had very little to contribute in that regard. XD

Thankfully, none of that meant we didn’t enjoy Bitter Root, Volume 1! The reception was overall very positive. One person continued reading through to Volume 2. Unfortunately, I clearly did a bad job communicating that we only had to read the first five issues because more than one person read all three volumes collected in the omnibus. Sorry about that! The central metaphor of how racism turns people into literal monsters was seen as potent and effective. One person confided in me that this was the first they’d heard of the Red Summer of 1919, too. A couple of people found the more dynamic page layouts difficult to follow, but everyone thought the action scenes were excellent. Sanford Greene’s art was held up for universal praise. The character design, family dynamics, and genre experimentation were unlike much of what we’ve read in all the years we’ve been meeting. Personally, this book has two of my favorite tropes in comics: the brawny guy who speaks in ten-dollar words and another from the final pages that I can’t mention because of spoilers. Also, I got to brag about meeting John Jennings and David F. Walker at San Diego Comic-Con a couple of years ago. Lol Our next meeting will be Wednesday, July 17 to discuss It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth.

What We're Reading

July 17 - It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

August 21 - The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

September 18 - Light Carries On by Ray Nadine

October 16 - Gideon Falls, Volume 1: The Black Barn by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino

November 20 - Earthdivers, Volume 1: Kill Columbus by Stephen Graham Jones and Davide Gianfelice

Since we had a larger group, we went ahead and planned for most of the rest of the year. I considered cancelling our meeting in December and doing a larger book for January 2025, but everyone was confident that the holidays wouldn’t interfere with the schedule. I may have to do another poll soon.

Next month’s selection has limited availability in print, but it’s on hoopla. If anyone needs help getting a copy, please reach out and let me know!

Shameless Self-Promotion

Last month, I asked, “Would you like to see more of Blackout?” Well, that question turned out to be a moot point because I immediately started thinking of a four-page comic to showcase the character!

I realized two things: 1) Marvel doesn’t own the word “blackout” and 2) I live two blocks from a Serbian cafe where I can easily find a sensitivity reader. Not that I’ll likely need one for such a short comic. Artist Michael Howe is interested in returning to the character, so that settled that! You can expect to hear more about this in the coming months.

I’ve submitted to another anthology, and I’m starting a long-term project with David Escobar, the artist of my CyberSync page. No sooner did I tell him my idea, but he got back to me with character designs! I’ll be doing the final edits on the script early next week. I’m excited to share more about this, too.

Finally, CyberSync is available for purchase! I’m still waiting for my physical copies to be delivered, though I suspect they’re among a pile of boxes in my building’s courtyard. Lol The interview I did with Keeping It Geekly to hype CyberSync reposted recently. Check it out!

About What We’ve Read

Bitter Root won Best Series and Sanford Greene won Best Artist or Penciler at the 2020 Ringo Awards. At the 2020 Eisner Awards, Bitter Root won Best Continuing Series and Dr. Qiana Whitted, who contributed the essay “Skin, Skin, Don’t You Know Me?” for the back matter, won Best Academic/Scholarly Work for her book EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest. Bitter Root was nominated for Best Comic Book at the 2020 Dragon Awards. The Washington Post also wrote about the creation of Bitter Root.

Sanford Greene talked about the series’ origins at the Rock the Bells Festival. The Comics Journal spoke with David F. Walker about his career as a whole back in 2022. Here’s a short interview Chuck Brown, David F. Walker, and Sanford Greene gave at New York Comic Con in 2018 to Karama Horne.

A film adaptation of Bitter Root is in the works to be directed by Regina King and produced by Ryan Coogler. The day after the Comics Book Club met, the Chicago Public Library hosted Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of The 1619 Project, in conversation with journalist Natalie Moore, which wasn’t directly about our discussion but it wasn’t unrelated either.

The latest NEWS digest is available here. The next NEWS digest will be posted in two weeks.

Some Thoughts on Art as Propaganda

One of the best parts about Bitter Root, aside from the comic itself of course, is the back matter that was thankfully reprinted in the collections. In addition to the usual variant covers and character sketches, there are essays and scholarship that provide historical and cultural context for the characters, themes, and setting, including from comics creators and academics such as John Jennings and Kinitra Brooks. One quote from W.E.B. DuBois has stayed with me, from his speech “Criteria of Negro Art”:

Thus all Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent.

I know I’m not the best person to expound on the words of W.E.B. DuBois, but I’ll try. The whole speech is well worth a read, and the opening paragraphs do an excellent job of outlining the purpose of art, particularly in relation to social justice movements: It is neither unnecessary nor is it meant for pure escapism. Art is a means to communicate the need for social justice, to dramatize how it might be achieved, but also to assert the existence of those who require it.

This is one of the many reasons why representation matters. Cynics and bad faith actors will say it’s about ticking boxes, but it is partially about showing that marginalized communities exist, have existed, and will exist long into the future.

This is especially important to remember in a time of increased book bans, when anything with LGBTQ+ content is labeled “grooming”—a legitimate threat regardless of one’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity—and anything that addresses white supremacy or highlights Black history is labeled Critical Race Theory—a legitimate graduate academic pursuit reduced to a meaningless buzzword by bigots and their easily duped followers.

It might seem odd that I agree with the notion of creating art as propaganda, since I abhor and reject all the work I used to create to “promote Christian values.” My first attempts at writing are littered with the detritus of trying to pretend that the world was stuck in the 17th century, and anyway that’s not what DuBois is talking about.

Deliberately creating a work of art to be propaganda for the cause of Black liberation is not the same as creating a proselytizing tract with flat characters and an obvious “moral.” Nothing strips a work of artistic integrity quite like moralizing, though there’s a place for it in fables and some of the best Twilight Zone episodes. There’s a difference between moralizing and having a clear moral sense, the latter of which is important for any creator. (I’m not going to get into how amorality is itself a moral stance for right now.)

There’s a reason fascist movements attack art so relentlessly, because its very existence can be an affront to the reality they wish to define. This is part of what DuBois is referring to at the end, the propaganda “confined to one side,” so no other stories, perspectives, or histories can be shared. There’s plenty more to unpack in that quote, particularly regarding how art can be used as propaganda, but I’m running up against my deadline as I type this.

I was a bit rushed this month, but I hope I made my point well enough. Feel free to share any thoughts or comments below! How do you define art and propaganda? How do you interpret that quote from DuBois? Please subscribe if you haven’t already. Thanks for reading. See you next month for It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood!