Beyond âBlack Pantherâ: Afrofuturism Is Booming in Comics
A bumper crop of graphic novels and comic books melds African culture and science fiction, with influences as wide-ranging as space travel, Caribbean folklore and Janelle Monáe.
âHardears,â set on a mythical version of Barbados, is among the titles coming from Megascope this year.Credit.Matthew Clarke/Abrams Books
Feb. 7, 2021
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it struck the author and illustrator John Jennings as so unprecedented, such a break from American history, that it was like an event from some far-flung future.
âBefore then, the only time you would see a president who was Black was in a science-fiction movie,â he said in a phone interview last month. Jennings compared it to the sorts of imaginative leaps one finds in the most forward-thinking works categorized as âAfrofuturist.â
Tim Fielder Details the Legacies of Radical Black Imaginaries
January 21, 2021
Every art form has an economy that surrounds and fuels its standing within the world’s cultural systems. The very survival of many industries is absolutely dependent upon the products generated by those forms as artisans of industry utilize their tools to design, manufacture, distribute, and market to willing consumers. Corporations have long employed the imaginations of futurists (those who forecast the trends in economics, business, government, and technology) to project trends and themes so that crucial investment decisions can be made to maximize profit. Imagine the shock and horror of the world’s oligarchs, who pay millions to professional futurists, when Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” made $1.3 billion at the box office. A desire was present, an intent formed, a product provided; gold was the result. No one saw it coming. Except those who practice Afrofuturism.
On the morning of Jan. 6, I was cackling over “Stop the Steal” rally attendees’ clueless posts about parking in Washington. Future Tense contributor Faine Greenwood was lurking on TheDonald.win, a Trump fan discussion site, and tweeted the best examples of out-of-towners fretting about the logistics. (I particularly loved the person who thought that 6 a.m. pandemic D.C. traffic was “psycho.” Buddy, you have no idea.) By the end of the day, everything seemed a bit less funny. But as a new and furious round of discussion about deplatforming erupted, it still seemed perfect that the morning began for me with screenshots of TheDonald.win.