Strange Fruit, Volume IIMore Uncelebrated Narratives from Black Historyby Joel Christian Gill

Fulcrum PublishingComics & Graphic Novels | Teens & YAPub Date 1 Feb 2018   

Description

Like all legends, people fade away, but not before leaving an incredible legacy. Strange Fruit, Volume II: More Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History is a collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity. Each of the eight illustrated chapters chronicles an uncelebrated African American hero or event. Joel Christian Gill offers historical and cultural commentary on heroes whose stories are not often found in history books, such as Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier, and Eugene Bullard, a fighter pilot who flew for France during World War I. These beautifully illustrated stories offer a refreshing look at remarkable African Americans.

Review

Strange Fruit is a superb anthology of telling the stories of overlooked black Americans. Having not read Strange Fruit 1, this book reminded me very much of Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World by Penelope Bagieu. I loved that book. While Strange Fruit doesn’t soar to quite the same heights of Bagieu’s Eisner award winner, it accomplishes what it seeks out to do expertly.

The comic anthology is a smart way of telling stories about people that, most of the figures in this book I had not heard of before. All of them have fascinating stories and that their narratives aren’t better known is a shame.

As with all anthologies, there are weaker sections, the Cathy William’s section seemed to me to be underdone. Another weakness is the art. I found it adequate for the most part, but it only really excelled in the Willie Kennard, and Tom Wiggins. To my eyes, some of the facial designs across all the characters were similar. This wasn’t helped by the colouring, which was uniform throughout, it might have helped to choose different tones for each era or figure. Anthologies for all their strengths do have the inherent weakness of not being able to explore the tales in depth.

That said I would very much recommend this book. The writing and dialogue effortlessly carry you into the lives that these people lived and it certainly sparked an interest in my to find out more about them. The stories of these black Americans are fascinating and Strange Fruit does a fantastic job of bringing them into the light.