Hip-Hop and Comics

Sheena C. Howard is an award-winning author, scholar, and cultural critic whose work explores the intersections of race, representation, and visual storytelling. She is the first Black woman to win an Eisner Award for Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation and has written for major comic book publishers, including DC and Marvel Comics. Howard’s edited book Why Wakanda Matters was a clue on Jeopardy! Her scholarship and creative work examine the cultural and historical impact of comics, particularly in relation to identity and representation. As a writer and editor, she has helped shape narratives that bridge academia and popular culture, solidifying her place as a leading voice in the study of comics.Justin D Burton is professor of music at Rider University, teaching primarily in the music production degree and in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program. Burton’s research revolves around matters of gender, race, and class in hip-hop, dance, and pop music, and their book Posthuman Rap engages the ways rappers use transgressive tropes to liberatory ends. Burton is coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Music and has also published in venues that include Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of Popular Culture, Journal of the Society for American Music, Shima, Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, and Sounding Out! Burton has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Society for American Music and is currently coeditor of the media reviews section of the Global Hip Hop Studies journal.Brea M. Heidelberg is associate professor in the Arts & Entertainment Enterprise Department at Drexel University. She is also founder and principal of ISO Arts Consulting, a firm focusing on equity-centered coaching, executive searches, human resources solutions, organizational assessments, and workshops for arts and cultural organizations. Heidelberg’s primary research focuses on industrial psychology in arts and creative environments and organizations. Her forthcoming book Human Resources in the Arts focuses on how to create and maintain cultural organizations that are humane and equitable. She is also interested in how class, gender, and race are presented in popular culture in ways that reflect and reject societal norms and harms. Her work includes a critique of Hamilton’s color-blind casting in Global Hip Hop Studies and a forthcoming chapter (coauthored with Justin D Burton) in Hip-Hop and American Literature on Black women overwriting phallocentric songs with lyrics centering their desires.

• Foreword by Patrick A. ReedIntroductionSheena C. Howard, Justin D Burton, and Brea M. HeidelbergArtistic Innovation and ResistanceChapter 1: Eric Orr and the First Hip-Hop Comic Book: Situating Rappin’ Max RobotSheena C. HowardChapter 2: DMC’s Legacy: Meaning-Making, Hip-Hop, and ComicsSheena C. HowardChapter 3: Crafting an Alternate Reality Through Grassroots Comics and Rap Music in IndiaJayanti DattaChapter 4: Wall (S)crawlers: Comics, Graffiti, and the Aesthetic, Political, and Rhetorical Resonances of Public Visual ArtsMichael B. Norton DandoMarvel Comics and Hip-HopChapter 5: "Sweet Christmas": Luke Cage and Pulp AuthenticityMatthew TeutschChapter 6: Dynamic Duo: Marvel Comics and Hip-Hop Culture’s Innovations in StorytellingStephen J. Tyson Jr.Chapter 7: When Worlds Collide: Hip-Hop Music and Superhero MoviesLaith ZuraikatChapter 8: From Mic to Mask: Unveiling Hip-Hop’s Impact on Black Masculinity in Marvel SuperheroesJohn P. CraigCultural Expression, Impact, and IdentityChapter 9: Masked MaraudersMichael SalesChapter 10: To Murder the Hunger: The Boondocks, the Exorcism and/or Beating of Tom DuBois, and an Appeal to Black Male Solidaritygeorge white jr.Chapter 11: "I’m Michael Jordan, I’m Not Malcolm X": Performing Black Masculinity in The BoysCollin M. Bright, Kathryn Hobson, Lea Beka, and Daniel SilverChapter 12: Remembering Daniel Dumile: "The Classic Conception of Death" Through Dr. Victor Von Doom née MF DOOMJohnny JonesChapter 13: Hearing Comics in Hip-Hop: Leikeli47 as Black Feminist SuperheroBrea M. Heidelberg and Justin D BurtonAfterwordThe Darryl Makes Comics Team (Spenser Nellis, Amy Chu, and Riggs Morales)About the ContributorsIndex