Lecturer: Michael Kobre

Like everything else in American Life, the history of comic art also reflects America’s diversity and its long, difficult racial history. This lecture will explore Blackness in American comics, highlighting the achievements of Black cartoonists and representations of Blackness by white creators. Along the way, we’ll talk about George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, the editorial cartoons of Romare Bearden, the importance of The Pittsburgh Courier and the Black press, the first Black woman cartoonist Jackie Ormes, and superheroes like The Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Captain America.