Introduction

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When describing Afrofuturism, images of Janelle Monae’s visual album Dirty Computer or Ryan Coogler’s film Black Panther initially come to mind. At its core, Afrofuturism is an aesthetic and movement that depicts imagined Black futures. Mark Dery coined the term in his 1995 essay “Black to the Future.” He defined it as, “speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture—and…appropriates images of technology and prosthetically enhanced future” (Dery 180). This definition, though important for the crafting of Afrofuturism as it is known today, is confining and rudimentary. Dery’s definition has since been revised by many academics, one of the most popular revisions coming from Ytasha Womack’s book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture: “[Afrofuturism is] an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation” (Womack 9). Afrofuturism exists in many forms, from films to novels to albums to photography. The broad reach of what constitutes as afrofuturism lends the concept interpretive value across various media. Rooted in the visual aesthetic, afrofuturism makes comics and graphic novels, a visual medium, fertile ground for the genre to thrive. 

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Two graphic novels that use the genre of Afrofuturism in their visual medium in artful and unique ways are Victor LaValle and Dietrich Smith’s 2017 book, Destroyer, which follows a scientist in the world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as she creates her own creature, and Kwanza Osajyefo and Jamal Igle’s 2017 book, Black, set in a world where only Black people have superpowers. These narratives use the visual medium to tell violent and graphic stories set in afrofuturist landscapes that provide profound and complex commentary on the purposes of afrofuturism.

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Afrofuturism has a unique relationship with optimism. As a genre centered on looking towards the future or imagining a revised past, there is almost an inherent connection to optimism. Dery writes that the question at the center of afrofuturist narratives is whether “a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out…imagine [a] possible future” or not (Dery 180). While this can be read as evidence in support of afrofuturism’s relationship with optimism, it’s not universally accepted as a principle or pillar of the genre. Author and scholar, Nnedi Okorafor, in a description of her conception of “Africanfuturism”, a genre deemed similar to afrofuturism, but described as “concerned with visions of the future, is interested in technology, leaves the Earth, skews optimistic.” While Okorafor was defining this concept in contrast to afrofuturism, I would argue the optimistic trait exists in both genres. Nevertheless, the mere act of looking toward the future and envisioning a world shaped and centered by blackness and Black culture is a revolutionary one. 

Digital Dimension

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Both Destroyer and Black were published in 2017 by smaller comic publishers Boom! Studios and BlackMask Studio, respectively. These books engage with afrofuturist principles in their use of the fantastical and the technological, but don’t embody the optimism of afrofuturism on the surface level of their narratives. Both these books are heavily in conversation with the cultural moment in which they were written. Although they were each published in 2017, production on the graphic novels began years before. 

Coming off the founding and first major wave of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2014, as well as the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump, these narratives tackle the heavy questions and reality of Black life in America head-on. The catalysts of both these stories are acts of police brutality in which a young Black boy is murdered. The basis of each narrative is a grim foundation that is then colored by supernatural elements that drive the plot. Both narratives feature massive systemic antagonists like government agencies, massive corporations, and hate groups. Despite being fantastical in nature and occurring in liminal near futures with no defined date, neither story shies away from the contemporary issues of Black life for that cultural moment. It is with an intense bluntness in addressing real-life issues and openness to imagine futuristic possibilities that these graphic novels breathe optimism in the face of bleakness. 

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Of the two graphic novels, LaValle’s Destroyer embodies the technology and technoculture aspects of afrofuturism. The main character is Josephine Baker, the smartest scientist in the world, who embarks to use the science of Victor Frankenstein to create a nanorobotic, artificial intelligence-powered, homunculus of her deceased son, Akai, who died in a police brutality killing. The story deals with themes of grief, revenge, reparations, and the legacy of Black Americans. The narrative is grounded in science fiction tropes and history, particularly by being set in the world of Mary Shelley’s original Frankenstein universe. The plot of Destroyer sees Baker finalize the creation of her techno-organic recreation of her deceased son, and being hunted down by the government agency where she was formerly the head scientist. Baker was fired for becoming pregnant and desiring both a family and a career. Josephine is presented as a near mythic figure within the narrative, appearing halfway through the first chapter. She is a pastiche of the stereotypical mad scientist, but as a Black woman. Her motivations are primarily of self-interest to prove to herself her own capabilities, but after the death of her son, her motivations expand into getting him justice. 

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Although the story is set in what is presumed to be a contemporary world to that of 2017, most of the technology is futuristic, powered by nano-robotic technology and artificial intelligence that is repeatedly stressed in the story, created solely by Josephine. Much of the story is spent during the night that Akai is fully resurrected into a new body, and being hunted by both the government and the Creature created by Victor Frankenstein. 

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What’s fascinating about this narrative is the emphasis on the relationship between humans, but specifically Black people, and technology. At the beginning of chapter four, in a flashback interaction between Josephine and her soon-to-be husband, Pliers, a concept of “braiding” is introduced. Braiding is developed by Josephine to optimize the performance of pilots and their robotic machines by merging them on a molecular level. This concept of braiding permeates throughout the narrative and serves as a metaphor for how Black people were dehumanized into a chattel workforce. This braiding becomes the science fiction extension of Black people and their relationship with labor in the American political and economic sphere by unifying them with machinery and tools. Notably, the only two characters within the narrative to undergo this braiding are Akai and Pliers, the only two Black male characters. While portrayed in a horrific light throughout, by the end of the story, braiding and Black people’s relationship with advancing technology is presented as a potential avenue of liberation from racism and white supremacy in Akai as a character. Technology becomes a new dimension where Black people won’t suffer. 

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Gritty Optimism

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Osajyefo’s graphic novel attempts to ask the question: what if we lived in a world in which all the Black girls and boys who were killed could come back and fight back? Black is an explicitly graphic novel compared to LaValle’s Destroyer. The book contains on-panel gruesome violence because the narrative is more directly tackling issues of police brutality and systemic racism. The narrative follows Kareem, an older teenager living in Bed Stuy, New York City, after he is fatally shot in an altercation with the police, but miraculously resurrects himself. This reveals a conspiracy and secret society of superpowered Black folks to Kareem Jenkins and the officer investigating his apparent death and disappearance, Detective Ellen Waters. Unlike LaValle’s Destroyer, this comic book deals with the ways in which the Black community responds to tragic acts of violence like police brutality. The graphic novel uses an interesting and not unfamiliar but unique approach to afrofuturism by imagining a world in which blackness and the fantastical have always been a part of the world rather than a manifestation of the future. The narrative is akin to early Black Panther stories and shares many parallels with Ryan Coogler’s 2018 film. Within the small population of superpowered Black people, there are two large factions with differing ideals, motivations, and goals represented by their leaders, Juncture, the leader of the Empowered, and his son, 0 (Zero), who defected from his father’s cause of protecting the empowered by hiding their existence. The story takes place over the weeks after Kareem’s shooting and explores how that experience radicalizes both Detective Waters and Kareem himself to take action against the system. 

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Black uses both its medium and genre to make a claim about optimism and its role within Black liberation. Throughout the narrative, much of the conflict exists within the warring ideologies of Juncture and Zero because of their inability to conceptualize a hopeful future for the Empowered and the wider Black people community. In the final conflict of the book between the two factions and Theodore Mann, the white supremacist, Kareem, who has spent time with both sides and had time to understand both the ideological reasons for their actions, is able to defeat Mann while affirming both approaches. The scene is paneled showing Kareem using his powers to simultaneously physically fight Mann while also facilitating a conversation between Juncture and Zero. Though the physical fight is drawn in an extreme manner, it is juxtaposed on the same page by the very static conversation. The finale of the book truly encapsulates the premise of the novel in asking the hard questions about Black liberation and facing the gruesome realities of what it means to be Black in America through a fantastical lens. In using science fiction as an allegory for the plight of Black people, Osajyefo is able to ponder the role of optimism and faith in liberation seeking. 

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Conclusion

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Afrofuturism is hard to define. By nature, it refuses to be put in a box. It's a genre, movement, and aesthetic that dares to ask Black people, What if? It makes space for creatives to imagine in a world and country that stifles said imagination. That is the creative mode that Victor LaValle and Kwanza Osajyefo were writing in. That is the mode that Dietrich Smith and Jamal Igle were drawing in. These creatives took the what-if question many steps further and asked their audiences, even in the face of violence and horror, if Black people can still hope? That's the beauty of these two graphic novels when read from an afrofuturist lens. It's a twisted, gritty beauty, but beautiful nonetheless

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Works Cited

Dery, Mark. “Black To The Future: Interviews With Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose.” In Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, edited by Mark Dery, 179–222. Duke University Press, 1994. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1220m2w.12. 

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LaValle, Victor. Victor LaValle’s Destroyer. BOOM! Studios, 2017. 

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Osajyefo, Kwanza, and Tim Smith. BLACK, Vol 1. Black Mask Studios, 2017. Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism : The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. 1st edition, Independent Publishers Group, 2013,