^{Photo of artist duo Stacey Robinson and John Jennings}

FUTURE WORLDS: Social Justice Comic is inspired by artist duo Black Kirby’s exhibitions which use the comic book medium to explore themes of Afrofuturism, representation, and social justice. New Black Kirby exhibitions will be on view at the Culver Center of the Arts in winter/spring 2022. The workshop will invite high school students to imagine a future they want to see around a social justice topic of their choice. Students will work with published YA graphic novel creator and teaching artist, Marco Magallanes (pen name is Marco Finnegan), to create their own mock graphic novel cover art and mini comic. They will create a speculative fiction character that is a manifestation of a social justice issue, much like the imagined comic book covers in Black Kirby exhibitions. Social justice topics will be chosen by each student and could include issues such as racial discrimination, gender discrimination, mass incarceration, environmentalism, immigration, and more. 

The workshop can be taught as a digital art class, a traditional materials art class, or a combination depending on the school’s preference or student interests. The comic cover art from each workshop will be printed in a Future Worlds Comic Catalogue that students will receive at the end of the workshop.

About Black Kirby

Black Kirby is the artist duo of Stacey Robinson (Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Illustration, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) and John Jennings (Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside). Black Kirby functions as a rhetorical tool by appropriating comic legend Jack Kirby’s bold forms and energetic ideas combined with themes centered around Afrofuturism, social justice, representation, magical realism, and using the culture of Hip Hop as a methodology for creating visual communication. It also utilizes the notion of an alter-ego as a symbolic allegory for DuBoisian “double consciousness” theory. This collection of work samples from Kirby’s style but also remixes it with the formal and conceptual influences from many other artists, pop culture, and artistic expressions.

Artworks from past exhibitions will be included in the Black Kirby survey exhibition which will be on view at the Culver Center of the Arts. These exhibitions include:

1. Uncaged: Hero For Higher is a critical race design installation that actively engages with and analyzes Marvel's Luke Cage character and his history as a representation for black masculinity in American comics culture. Click here to see the exhibition. 
   
   
2. Reflection Eternal: The Candyman Illustrated Syllabus explores the various possible social meanings of the haunted and horrifying Candyman character from the 1992 film by Clive Barker via a collection of installations, digital media, and printed artwork. Click here to see the exhibition.
   
   
3. Ebon: Fear of a Black Planet will be a new Black Kirby exhibition that centers around Larry Fuller’s character, Ebon, the first African American superhero to have his own comic book (that only ran for one issue) in 1970. The exhibition will build, expand, and re-imagine the world of Ebon and will be on view at the Culver Center of the Arts from approximately January-June 2022.

About the Teaching Artist

Marco Magallanes (pen name is Marco Finnegan) is an educator by day and writes and draws comics by night. He is a published YA graphic novelist who teaches Art and Positive Behavior Intervention Support at Great Oak High School in Temecula, California. His recent publication, Lizard in a Zoot Suite, deals with the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, an event that is a part of his family’s history. The riots occurred in L.A. when Navy servicemen targeted Latino young people and Magallanes reimagines the event through a science fiction lens. Magallanes is excited about the opportunity to inspire young people to imagine a future they want to see around social justice topics through the comic artform.

Outcomes

• Students will have an exclusive tour of the exhibitions with Black Kirby artist duo John Jennings and Stacey Robinson.
• Students will consider social justice topics that are important to them and/or their community. Through the speculative fiction comic medium, they could imagine a future in which these issues have been confronted and/or resolved.
• Students will learn the basics of the comic artform from a teaching artist who is a published YA graphic novelist. They will learn how to conceptualize a protagonist and antagonist who are manifestations of a social justice issue, how to design a graphic novel cover, and how to create a mini comic strip with a story arc.
• The finished product will be a collection of imagined comic book cover artwork created by students around social justice topics that are important to them. Students will receive their own Future Worlds Comic Catalogue with their comic cover artworks from the workshop.

Artwork

Illustration: Uncaged - Hero for Higher        

Illustration: Ebon Fear of a Black Planet