I recently made a trip to Malvern, Arkansas (pop. 10, 318), as part of a public history project on which I have been working for the last three years. I grew up in the New York metropolitan area and–despite regular visits to see family in Laurel, Delaware (pop. 3, 708) and Darlington, South Carolina (pop. 6, 289)–I have developed some not-so-fair assumptions about small-town Black, southern communities. During my weekend in Malvern, the graduates of that city’s segregated high schools (the district integrated in 1968) were having their triennial all-class reunion. These reunions draw graduates from the local area as well as from all across the country, and everything I saw about the local area graduates and their children and grandchildren upended every stereotype I’d previous held about small-town Black folks. The young people were sophisticated and stylish, but also very welcoming and kind to those of us who were visiting from outside. In addition, the adults in attendance–the aging men and women who graduated from high school when the “colored” schools were quite separate from the white schools in the city–were enthusiastic ambassadors for their community. While many might believe that Black people remain in small towns only when they have no other opportunities, the segregation-era graduates who have remained in Malvern have done so by choice.

The young man in this drawing, a grandson  of a 1950s-era graduate of the city’s “colored” high school, impressed me with his thoughtful analysis of what made Malvern great. Here’s what he said:

This is where your roots are deep–deep in terms of family, in terms of friendships, in terms of your church family. There are families who are living a house where their great-grandparents once had their first house, going to the same church the great-grandparents went to, and making friends with the sons and daughters of the people who were their grandparents’ and parents’ friends. You move away, you lose all of that. And that’s who you are. Why would anyone want to lose whose they are?

Ajuan Mance

PS: The shadow in this drawing contains a partial map of the city of Malvern.

Ajuan Mance

With this drawing, my 2012 Comic-Con sketchbook comes to a close. I might create and post a few more monsters in the future (I really enjoyed doing drawing #365), but the next drawing will reflect some of my other recent travels–around California and to some other points farther away. One of the highlights of the conference is the number of people of all ages, races, and abilities dressed as their favorite film, novel, tv, and comic book characters. For this year’s Comic-Con drawings, I focused on a small subset of the cosplayer demographic. Farewell costumed attendees. I’ll just might see you in 2013!

Ajuan Mance

The Comic-Con sketchbook continues. Since so many news stories portray Black men as monstrous I decided to take some inspiration from Comic-Con and draw a real African American monster, the Black werewolf. For those who have trouble distinguishing the monstrous from the human, the drawing above is a monster. The brother you see walking down the street is not.

Ajuan Mance

The 2012 Comic-Con sketchbook continues…

Ajuan Mance

…another drawing from my 2012 Comic-Con sketchbook. If I had to give it a title, it would probably be “Cosplay Sees No Color”…

Ajuan Mance

At the Hollywood production designers panel–which, incidentally, including the man who was the production designer for the original Planet of the Apes, The Towering Inferno, and the Poseidon Adventure–almost all of the audience questions were from artists and designers hoping to move up in this field. This guy in this picture almost didn’t get a chance to ask his question (about how he can get a foot in the door in the production design business) because the man in front of him took up a lot of time with the one question that wasn’t about how to break into the field. He was looking for advice on the appropriate response to an incident involving his employer and his union. The incident was quite detailed and it took him a long time to recount it for the panelists, none of whom seemed to know what to say in response.

When the man in my drawing finally got to ask about the best way to get work in the field, the panelists gave an answer that I’d also heard from the presenters at the costume design panel and at a previous year’s Black panel. They advised aspiring production designers to start out by working for free. For several of the production and costume designers I  heard speaking on this year’s panels, working for free was how they first attracted paying jobs. I have to say that I am always intrigued by this answer, no matter how many times I hear it. Something about this response feels wonderfully subversive in that it suggests alternative forms of remuneration…like experience, word-of-mouth street cred, and visibility. Very cool!

Ajuan Mance

I am happy to announce that I exhibiting some of my recent work at this years SF Zine Fest. I’ll have prints, postcards, and copies of my 1001 Black Men ‘zine.

This year the Festival will take place on Labor Day Weekend, September 1 + 2, 2012 at the San Francisco County Fair Building, in Golden Gate Park.

If you’re in the Bay Area, please drop by and say hello. Look for me at 8-Rock press!

For more information on this event, follow THIS LINK.

Hope to see you there!

Ajuan Mance

At first glance, this guy looked like Wolverine from the X-Men comic book series. He was leaning over a wall overlooking the escalator, and as I got closer I realized that he was not dressed as that comic book hero. He had, however, grown a superhero-worthy pair of sideburns. Thus he became the second drawing in my 2012 Comic-Con sketchbook.

Ajuan Mance

It’s that time of year, again. Comic-Con 2012 took place during the third weekend of July. I attended some amazing panels featuring talented artists, writers, and entertainers…like Allison Bechdel, Sid and Marty Kroft, the cast of Mythbusters, Jamie Kennedy, Shaquille O’Neal, and N.K. Jemison.

Comic-Con describes itself as a celebration of the “popular arts,” including science fiction, horror, and fantasy novels, movies, video games, television series, and (of course) comic books. The annual event attracts fans, geeks, comic-collectors, film buffs, gamers, and nerds of all ages, genders, and ethnicities. One of my favorite things about the Comic-Con is the sheer number of Black people in attendance, many in costume.

Over the next several days I will post the drawings from my 2012 Comic-Con sketchbook. I took my pen and pad to every panel, every film screening, and even to the masquerade ball. In order to honor the spirit of the event I have created some of my Comic-Con drawings in the style of a comic book cover.

The man in this drawing was dressed in a blazer that I believe was supposed to suggest one of the earlier incarnations of Doctor Who. He was standing in one of the vendor booths in the exhibition hall, and he was eyeing this replica of a battle sword whose name I didn’t recognize. For the bottom part of this figure I used a section from the famous Bayeaux Tapestry, created in England in 1070.  I added this element as a nod to this fan’s unabashed enthusiasm for medieval war games and weaponry.

Posted by Ajuan Mance