5 Often categorizing black traditions in pejorative terms as imperfect cognates of white Protestant Christianity, the disdain of the dominant society for black religions was made apparent by the invention of “Voodoo” to denote black religions of Africa, the Caribbean, and their American siblings, the black folk traditions of Hoodoo and Conjure. Churches, organized sects, folk traditions passed down from slavery, political–spiritual institutions, and house temples existed side by side in African American communities throughout the United States. 4 For example, in the heyday of comics’ rise in the early 20th century, black religions inhabited a diverse continuum that was rarely seen in popular depictions. Nevertheless, due to their subordinate status, black religions are rarely represented on their own terms in the art and literature of popular culture.
Insofar as African American religions are also products of culture, they are evaluated by society according to the prevailing ethnocentric standards of the majority. As cultural artifacts, comics reflect many of the beliefs, values, and norms of the society in which they are produced. In the United States, issues of black representation were hard fought on the battlefields of popular culture, with comics at the forefront of many of those battles. I show that, in depicting black religions, comics both supported and contested representations of race and religion in ways that parallel and diverge from their actual historical presence in United States (US) popular culture. Part two considers the work and influence of black comics artists, writers, and other creators of black subjects and their engagement with religious themes in the same period to the turn of the 21st century. Part one speaks to the impact of misrepresentation, stereotyping, and caricature in depictions of black religions, particularly in mainstream American comics in the early- to mid-20th century. 3 In this article overview, I look at comics’ treatments of black religions in two movements. A focus on black religions also affirms the ways that African American comics creators contested racial misrepresentations with viable portrayals of black spiritual life. Charting black religions in 20th century comics opens a window onto views of race and religion during this period and provides insights into the use of negative stereotypes that denigrate and distort Africana spiritual traditions. This lapse occurs in analyses of comics that represent Africana spiritual practices, and in comics that promote religious stories in order to educate or proselytize. Although comics are a topic of current academic interest in literature, history, and cultural studies, few discussions give focused attention to black religions. In this article, I discuss Africana (African diasporic) religions, Islam, Christianity, and black folk traditions such as Hoodoo and Conjure, as they appeared in 20th-century cartoons, animation, comic books, and comic strips.
The wry commentary indicates that prior to the twentieth century, the perceived “otherness” of African-based traditions like obeah readily translated into fodder for satire in the comics medium. The cartoon construed the spiritual tradition of obeah as a bizarre magical practice, while describing the perils of social intercourse between blacks and whites in the New World environment. We see the black conjurer, with grizzled beard, staff, and medicine pot with feathers, grave dirt, and egg shells, dispensing assurances to Newcome, who is pictured in another scene with nine offspring from his liaison with Mimbo Wampo, now the “queen” of his “harem”. In one panel, Newcome consults an “Oby man” to seduce “Mimbo Wampo”, a slave woman. In this 1808 sequential art print, the religious tradition known as obeah appeared in a story about the adventures of a hapless English plantation master in slavery-era Jamaica. More than 150 years before the advent of Black Panther, a representation of Africana religions appeared in a British cartoon called Johnny Newcome in Love in the West Indies.
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