Panel Check! Racist images in comics.

Before shelving a book in our collection, no matter the review nor recommendation, here at the Takoma Park MD Library we always run a ‘panel check’ on every graphic novel we add.

This means I read a great many comics of course, the point here is to confirm where a book belongs in our collection, and in our children’s section to avoid any upsetting surprises for patrons hunting for an appropriate book for their kid.  Adult language, realistic violence, sexually charged situations, mature topics– these are all reasons why a book may step up the ladder to the next higher age category.  (See promotion criteria at the bottom of this article).

Occasionally we get ambushed by a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing and buy a book intended for a young audience, but discover a single panel of art that bumps it to a higher category.   Kid-to-grown-up ‘booby-trapped’ books are especially upsetting when an otherwise great story, appropriate for all ages, is derailed by unfortunate racial stereotypes or caricatures.

Here is a smattering of otherwise excellent books that are tainted by their own prejudices.

Why not Comics? (Some history).

Underground, you can feel the weight of the cliff face overhead.  There is a solemn quiet in the tribe, even the bundled infants keep respectful silence.  All would be dark, but you have brought fire with you,  bundles of rivergrass twisted together burning brightly.  White Streak pours water on a pile of powders, dips his hand into the mud and strokes the wall, leaving a swatch of color.  He scratches with a burned stick, here and here.  Behold:  an animal,  then a herd, running, powerful.   Here a hunter carries a spear, here a spear has pierced the skin of a great longhorned bison that staggers and soon will die to feed the tribe.

Stories told in pictures have been with us for as long as we have recorded story in any durable form.  We are hardwired to understand images, and make stories in our heads to make sense of these images.  It is an important part of our mental heritage, and in fact one of the building blocks of ‘culture’ itself: the ability to pass on information via visual representations.