Reviews

The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging by Rebecca Wanzo

jbrendanshaw's review against another edition

5.0

Wanzo has a vast archive here of comics and editorial cartoons stretching back to the days of the Civil War and ending with the Black Panther film - she brings white authored cartoons into conversation with those Black cartoonists who engage in caricature as a way to make a call for political belonging. While I am not a comics scholar, the broader conversation about the need to move beyond a binary of "good" and "bad" representation and the ways in which representation is always fantastic are definitely things I want to incorporate into my own research. Wanzo writes deftly with humor, a deep intelligence, and blends in personal experience when appropriate without distracting from her thoughtful arguments. As she says in the closing, the book aims also to introduce readers to new comics and I definitely want to read several of the titles she discusses. This is definitely an academic work but I loved it.