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Black Kirby
In Search of the Motherboxx Connection
By Stacey Robinson, John Jennings Black Kirby Collective
Copyright © 2013 Jennings and Robinson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-941958-12-4
CHAPTER 1
SUPER DUPER BLACKNESS: THE INTERSECTION OF AFROFUTURISM, THE BLACK COMIC HERO AND JACK KIRBY
Reynaldo Anderson AKA DARK LORD HARDCORE
Commander of the MS Drapetomania
Arriving from the Sirian system during the season of Ahket or in Earth terminology July 1964; Dark Lord Hardcore aka Dr. Reynaldo Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Harris-Stowe State University. Forsaking a return to Sirius B Hardcore took a hueman wife, Lady Denise and is the father of two daughter's, princess's Zari and Lauryn; Dark Lord Hardcore is a commander of the Mothership (MS) Drapetomania, and a leader of the hue-man resistance against the reptilian conspiracy and their minions the cyborg Africoons. He also currently serves as a member of the Executive Board of the Missouri Arts Council and Cultural Trust board. Recently Dr. Anderson was awarded the Governor's Humanities award in exemplary community leadership. Reynaldo's research interests are in Africana Studies, Afrouturism, Critical Theory, Rhetoric, and Digital/Media studies.
There is a historical division in how African Americans and other minorities are portrayed or represented by white artists in comic books and or sequential art. Specifically, in relation to African Americans, these negative images frequently were at odds with how black masculinity was portrayed vis-à-vis animal or minstrel like figures. This topic is important because of how contemporary artistic, literary, and contemporary black comic or sequential production intersects with the emergent Africana Diaspora aesthetic of Afrofuturism. Although it is generally well known in Afrofuturistic circles about the influence of musical artists like Sun Ra or Earth Wind & Fire, and or literary figures such as Ishmael Reed, Samuel Delaney or Octavia Butler on the emergence of the Afrofuturist perspective; it is less discussed or appreciated about the impact of Jewish American comic artist Jack Kirby (1917-1994) on the emergence of the contemporary construction of black masculinity and superheroes via the comic medium and its subsequent incorporation into the still growing corpus of Afrofuturism. Therefore, despite criticisms of comics as vehicles for racial stereotypes and ideological viewpoints rather than being polysemic or open to many meanings; I adopt the latter position due to the fact the social construction of blackness itself is fluid and changes across various spatial dimensions of time and space, and although contradictory, Jack Kirby's appropriation of a black masculine subject in the hero image of Black Panther in the 1960s was ground breaking. Consequently, Kirby's multiple influences on the consumption of the black masculine subject in comics emerged during the Cold War and Black Arts movement, was adopted by other ethnic writers despite the contradictory elements of the medium, and was and is a tributary contribution to the post cold war development of modern black comics and Afrofuturism.
Prior to WWII black comic figures were largely characterized as minstrels or working class figures. However, after WWII, and during the Cold War black masculinity in comics went through a transformation influenced by the civil rights movement, black power movement, and black arts movement that fought against the derogatory images of the Mammy and little black Sambo. Correspondingly, during this period, Sun Ra and his collaborator Alton Abraham in Chicago formulated some of the early concepts that later would be identified with the founding of the group Earth, Wind & Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, and others, and would develop and foreshadow some of the concepts of what would later be called Afrofuturism. In a similar fashion during the height of the black power movement, black arts movement and African Independence struggle Jack Kirby would draw and develop the comic character Black Panther. Endowed with the powers of the panther god, T'challa, king of the African kingdom of Wakanda, becomes the first black superhero in mainstream American comics appearing in Fantastic Four issue # 56 during the summer of 1966. Blending African sorcery and science, T'challa a.k.a. the Black Panther evolved over the last four decades as a constant figure interacting with other hero's such as the Avengers or the X-men and currently stands as the first archetypical figure of Afrofuturism in the comic medium.
Yet one reason why there was some opposition to the comic medium and the artistic representations of blacks was the potential effects that consumption of the images may have on the psychological and intellectual development of young readers. For example as has been pointed out by other scholars the depiction of mammy and sambo like characters earlier in the 20 century. However, this presumes the comic audience as a passive audience subject to dogmatic stereotypes without the ability to discern between genuine humor and negative racial portrayals. Furthermore, a more critical approach examining the connection between race and superheroes reveals the nexus between the polarizing position of the exotic other and as representatives of order. For example, Jack Kirby's Black Panther occupies contradictory positions as African royalty, and an attractive black masculine superhero presence, yet, exists primarily, in the early editions, in a role to help maintain social order in a predominately white American society. However, this fact points out the tension present in the larger society at the time of Black Panther's creation and the desire by white readers of Marvel comics to come to terms with the changing role of race in the broader social fabric and the desire by African Americans for positive portrayals in the comic medium. Pursuing this rationale further it exemplifies the fact when it comes to race, the American mainstream and the comic medium it is difficult to develop superheroes of color that reflect real diversity or agency of their own without having them assimilated or Borged into the drone collective of generic multicultural diversity in the interest of globalized capital and political interests. But a generation later, by the end of the Cold war, minority comic artists, influenced by the works of Kirby would independently fashion art to suit their own taste and cultural traditions.
This brings into focus demonstrating how the comic medium is amazingly adaptive to cultural forms, content and in the generation since superheroes like Black Panther made their appearance artist of color have increasingly drawn upon their own cultural matrix to develop characters for their unique audiences. Tony Chavarria has noted how the comic medium is understood as a recognized form of storytelling through art and American Indian artists are able to articulate politics and cultural identity in this format. Furthermore, American Indian artists are able to explore their heritage and indigenous perspective utilizing a comic methodology that lends itself to an adventure or a humorous outlook, and are indebted to not only previous generations of American Indian artists but also absorbed the works of writers like Jack Kirby or Crumb. Correspondingly, beginning in the 90s writers like Dwayne McDuffie, and other African American artists, previous admirers of Marvel and DC comics, launched minority owned labels that reflected the still emerging afrocentric/afrofuturist sentiment in the urban African Diaspora community, and its purchasing power. For example, black owned Milestone media developed afrocentric and afrofuturistic characters that reflected urban experiences like Icon, Hardware, Wiseson, Flashback and Brickhouse that noted the agency of Africana characters in relation to contemporary problems of race, science, gender, and religion.
Lastly, contemporary African American comic writers continue to explore the tension between the individual and the open society. They craft their work to both dialectically and digitally display visual aesthetics that contest the cultural logic of previous stereotypes and continues to transcode fluid Afrofuturistic cybertypes via new media for Diasporic audiences. Therefore, the undisputed influence of Jack Kirby in both the emergence and continued popularity in Black comic heroes and his influence on a generation of artists is unquestioned and requires our ultimate respect and appreciate for his huge literary talent and artistic vision.
CHAPTER 2
THE SOUND AND HER (BLACK) FURY: BLACK KIRBY'S MOTHERBOXX CONNECTION
Regina N. Bradley
Regina N. Bradley, Ph.D is a black pop culture and contemporary African American Literature scholar from that GA Red Clay. Scholar by day, Down South Georgia Girl 24/7/365. Twitter: @ redclayscholar. Black Kirby approves this bio.
Black Kirby is one of those cultural phenomena that is like a good cultural gumbo: take a little bit of this culture, a little bit of that black, and Wa La! Magic. Perhaps most brilliant about this exhibit is its simultaneous existence between alterity and reality, tetering between the (sub)conscious and the commercial. After all, in thinking about a contemporary black experience, how can African Americans express any emotion but being content? What about complicity? Black Kirby provides an alternative mode to explore the complexities of today's race and identity politics that may otherwise be subtly acknowledged in a moment where forced humanity, not racial realities, dominates the American cultural landscape. As Black Kirby sarcastically asserts, "We not just conscious. We double conscious." That consciousness comprises an awareness about lived realities and expected performances, what black really is and what black really ain't but is necessary in order to be exist.
To navigate this updated understanding of racial consciousness, Black Kirby takes us on a fantastic voyage through subversive memes of (contemporary) black identity. It's full title, Black Kirby: In Search of the Motherboxx Connection punches your ticket. Black Kirby is a mixtape of illustrated sound, picking up on images and memes not frequently accessed to interpret contemporary blackness. A pun on Jack Kirby's motherbox, a living computer connected to the world, the Motherboxx too is a living computer with a heightened awareness of racial and sexual discourses surrounding the black body. The play on gender is significant: the double xx suffix suggests the double bind of the hypersexualized black female body and the genetically normal female chromosomes XX. The motherboxx is the technological equivalent of the "mother land" in the black diasporic imagination. She is fertile, common ground for interpretations – literal and stereotypical – of the black experience. She is where black identities merge and depart. Part of the tense alterity that the motherboxx provides is her use of sound. When the motherboxx speaks, what does she sound like? To again signify on DuBois, what are the wavelengths of blackness by which she speaks? Simply, what's the word, yo?
Consider the piece "Makes Me Wanna Holla," or, if I could have named it, "Screaming Hair." There is a triad of heads, two of which are screaming. One is an onomatopoeic configuration of black (masculine) rage while the second head asks "HEY! You hear that tortured scream of pure rage and desperation?" These outfits of rage are silenced by the main head's nonchalant quip "Hm? Nah. Was watching the game." This play on awareness and (sub)consciousness is vexing because it doubly binds black complicity as normal yet problematic. The main head's response speaks to the question "Is there still a need for black rage?" Where does that rage come from? Is it personal frustration or can it be attributed to the world at-large? The invisibility of black rage in a deemed postracial setting is particularly poignant in piecing together the role of sounding motherboxx's rage.
By using the three heads, room is made for multiple streams of consciousness: raw rage, critical/philosophical rage, and complicity. These three tensely co-exist in the same body, filtered by selective listening or social-cultural propaganda of making it. If anything, the dismissal by the main head of the "hot heads'" call for action signifies a collective assertion of what Mychal Denzel Smith calls "outrage fatigue." Why is there a need to be pissed off all the time? Do I (we) really want to heed that type of consciousness?
Another part of the motherboxx's sonic complexity exists in her connection hip hop. Aside from being a living and feminine computer, motherboxx can also signify the boombox, the mouthpiece of a "hip hop generation," the latest wave of black folks that exist in a murky space where race and identity often collide with dominant white culture. Motherboxx is Radio Raheem's boombox in Do the Right Thing. She is the motherboxx of Outkast's Speakerboxxx. When blacks are in search of a way to express themselves when void of the right language, motherboxx provides a voice in the "noise" of racial ambiguity. For example, she has foot soldiers like Blak Noize, a dual headed MC that signifies the duality of blackness in a commercial space like today's hip hop. A sharp spin on the oral tradition of call and response, emcees Big Call and MC Response are the two heads of black popular expression. Big Call, sending out a message to the masses – not necessarily the message – is validated by MC Response. That "big call" could be a call to highlight the bartering of black identity in American popular culture where the response is an acknowledgement of this understanding. It is important to recognize that Black Noize's heads are facing two different directions, representing the polarized expectations of black popular expression like hip hop. Although polarized in their actions, MC Blak Noize are codependent upon each other and under the watchful eye – er, speaker – of motherboxx. A large, circular speaker is prevalent in the Blak Noize piece, alluding to motherboxx's omnipotent eyes and ears. The ankhs that adorn both Big Call and MC Response's heads further solidifies motherboxx's control and awareness of how blackness is maneuvered through sound. In a word, she is the way to "hear the universe" and the "marketplace."
Alas, motherboxx also understands that Hip Hop is no longer a black American thang but a global thang, commodified and utilized to speak to folks' marginalization around the world. Hence, motherboxx is hip hop's framework, providing navigation through the world wide web for black identity to exist. Of course, motherboxx encounters static and resistance, often sifting through what DJ Spooky calls "the sonic debris" of the world. Some of that debris is the commercialized narrative of black rappers, often dominating and suffocating American popular discourse surrounding black identity. This sonic debris is illustrated in a series of panels that appear to be illustrations of colorful, distorted soundwaves. Quotes from Spooky's Rhythm Science appear throughout the panels, offering a visual demonstration of what sonic debris and the loss of consciousness – collective and individual – looks like. These panels illustrate motherboxx's sonic connection the black community in wavelengths that are not barred by 'traditional' frames of cultural expression. The, ahem, "Spooky Panels," (all puns intended) riff on blackness' look in hip hop as a heavily commodified and increasingly accessible multicultural medium. Instead of registering as strictly and visually normal as black, these sonic inferences of African American identity are, to borrow from Paul Beatty, "psychedelic" allusions of racial politics. Clashing displays of hot reds, cool blues, hazy yellows suggests the complexity of the black experience and expresses the tensions that accompany these complications. Broken words and phrases highlight the linguistic debris of black life, words often falling short of adequately speaking about these experiences. Black Kirby plays to language's shortcomings by using art to fill in the gaps. After all, motherboxx speaks in multiple languages outside of literal discourse.
Black Kirby's multifaceted motherboxx is a filter of the multiple streams of blackness and black agency that currently exist. The motherboxx is the motherboard of contemporary black existence, holding all of the critical components of black identity while sifting through their relevance today. By accenting sonic compositions of blackness, motherboxx ups the ante, suggesting that Black Kirby ain't "just conscious," but triple conscious. She is an alternative reading of Baldwinian consciousness, providing an outlet "for being in a constant state of rage." That rage Black Kirby's sound art pieces, illustrating the sound of motherboxx's fury.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Black Kirby by Stacey Robinson, John Jennings. Copyright © 2013 Jennings and Robinson. Excerpted by permission of Black Kirby Collective.
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