African-Americans and Graphic Novels

Joel Christian Gill is a cartoonist, historian, and educator who has written and drawn several graphic novels about African American history and culture, including the Tales of the Talented Tenth series, Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History (Vols. 1-2), Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride, and the graphic memoir, Fights: One Boys Triumph Over Violence.

His latest graphic novel is Robert Smalls: Tales of the Talented Tenth #3 which focuses on the true story of the enslaved South Carolinian who emancipated himself and his family by pulling off one of the most daring and largest heists of the Civil War.

Mr. Gill is currently working on the graphic novel adaptation of Dr. Ibram X Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. Gill is also Associate Professor of Illustration at Massachusetts College of Art & Design and is originally from Roanoke, Virginia. 

Meet Joel Christian Gill

https://youtu.be/micdG9mOMAA

"Tales of the Talented Tenth is a testament, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, that everyday Black people stand under the sun, with bravery and courage, to represent us. Joel Christian Gill shows how ordinary people fight for our collective liberation and whose stories are not often at the forefront of our historical consciousness." —Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist

      Moderated by Professor Qiana Whitted

Qiana Whitted is professor of English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. A graduate of Hampton University with a PhD from Yale University, her research and teaching focus on Black literary and cultural studies, and American comics and graphic novels.

She is the author of the Eisner Award-winning book, EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest and co-editor of the collection on Comics and the U.S. South. Many of her published essays explore race, genre, and identity in comics representations of historical figures such as Nat Turner, Stagger Lee, and Emmett Till.

Professor Whitted is currently editing a collection of essays on blackness in early American comics. She is also the editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society and chair of the International Comic Arts Forum.

This program is in partnership with the African-American History and Cultural Events Committee (AAHCE) and the University of South Carolina African-American Studies Program.

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82599266276
 

Or One tap mobile :
US: +13126266799,,82599266276# or +19294362866,,82599266276#
Or Telephone:
Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
US: +1 312 626 6799 or +1 929 436 2866 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 253 215 8782

Webinar ID: 825 9926 6276
International numbers available: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kbPnRW64PZ