strange fruit

Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History by Joel Christian Gill is a narrative history for young readers. The book was released in May of 2014 to some acclaim, but didn’t quite break through to a wider audience. Mark Waid and JG Jones' controversial recent Boom project of the same name has made Gill'’s excellent book a topic of conversation again. J.A. Micheline and Megan Purdy dig deep into Gill's exploration of some of the forgotten faces in black history.

Comics — you have a race problem. Deny it if you want, but after last week’s Strange Fruit controversy (which Boom Studios has yet to address), this week’s discussion about Marvel’s appropriation of hip hop and black culture (which Tom Brevoort addressed first badly, then wrongly) and a general pattern of racial diversity promised in press releases but rarely actually seen in the creative process… the writing is on the wall.

Period piece comics can be precarious if not handled with care, but when done properly they make for inventive narratives drawing from a rich historical backdrop. Enter Strange Fruit, the upcoming Boom Studios series from the heavyweight creative team of J.G Jones and Mark Waid. Set in the fictional town of Chatterlee, Mississippi, issue #1 of Strange Fruit begins with the arrival of the Mississippi Flood of 1927, one of the most destructive natural disasters in US history. Heralding a much more significant anomaly, the flood plays as a secondary plot device to brewing racial and classist tensions in what appears to be a former plantation town.