Where I'm Coming From by Barbara Brandon-Croft

It was the first syndicated comic strip created by a black woman. Talking head newspaper comic strips featuring black women talking about every day concerns (paying rent, dealing with bad boyfriends and bosses) and struggles related to systemic racism.

With supplementary writing by the author and her peers alongside throwback ephemera, this long-overdue collection situates Brandon-Croft as an inimitable cartoonist, humorist, and social commentator, securing her place in the comics canon and allowing her work to inspire new readers at a time when it is most needed. The magic in Where I’m Coming From is its ability to present an honest image of Black life without sacrificing Black joy, bolstered by unexpected one-liners eliciting much-needed laughter.Īs the daughter of the mid-century cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr.-the creator of Luther, the second nationally syndicated strip to feature a Black lead-Brandon-Croft learned from the best. This remarkable and unapologetically funny career retrospective holds a mirror up to the ways society has changed and all the ways it hasn’t. From 1989 to 2005, she brought Black women’s perspectives to an international audience with her trailblazing comic strip Where I’m Coming From.įrom diets to day care to debt to dreaded encounters with everyday racism, no issue is off-limits. A seasoned cartoonist of epic proportions, Brandon-Croft carves out space for Black women’s perspectives in her nationally syndicated stripįew Black cartoonists have entered national syndication, and before Barbara Brandon-Croft, none of them were women.

Where I'm Coming From by Barbara Brandon-Croft