Sweet Christmas, darling gays! (It’s a superhero catchphrase. I looked it up.) Prof andré carrington (UCR) brings us truth, justice and a queerer tomorrow in this Queer Lit quest. With great knowledge comes great responsibility and andré is ready to take it: he takes us on a deep dive into queer black comics, fan studies, queer cartoonists, and introduces me to awesome characters from Aqualad to Jughead, from Black Panther to Storm.

andré truly is the best at what he does, which is why you should follow @prof_carrington on Twitter and his trusty sidekick @benjaminbannekerphdog on Instagram. @queerlitpodcast hangs out there as well.

Texts and people mentioned:

andré carrington’s Speculative Blackness
andré carrington’s “Afrofuturism, Public Enemy, and Fear of a Black Planet at 25”
https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/11/09/afrofuturism-and-fear-of-a-black-planet-at-25/
Queers and Comics (@queersandcomicsconference)
https://queersandcomics.com/
“Anne Lister Fan Research“ with Sarah Wingrove
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49139141
Milestone Media Comics
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas’ The Dark Fantastic (2019)
Ramzi Fawaz’ Queer Forms (2022) and The New Mutants (2016)
Dwayne McDuffie
Reginald Hudlin
D’Arcee Charington Neal
Alison Bechdel
Jennifer Camper
Ivan Velez Jr.
Justin Hall
Howard Cruse
Phil Jimenez
Magdalene Visaggio’s Vagrant Queen
Black Mask Studios
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Roxanne Gay
Afua Richardson (@afuarichardson)
ASAP Association for the Study of the Arts of the Presence (UCLA)
https://www.artsofthepresent.org/conferences/
Isaac Julien
Unarchiving Blackness
Jade Sasser
Jody Benjamin
Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi
Ayana Omilade Flewellen
Center for Ideas and Society (UCR)
https://ideasandsociety.ucr.edu/
Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1.How can comics help us understand queerness and race in new ways?
2.andré talks about wish fulfilment as one function of comics. What else can comics and their worlds do? How do they negotiate antiqueerness and antiblackness?
3.What is an acafan?
4.Which roles can (queer) fans play in the study of comics?
5.Which of the characters that andré mentions do you find the most interesting in this context and why?