Comix is a distinct art form—sequential art—that expresses ideas with multiple images, most often combined with text. It's a hybrid (think co-mix) and, importantly, it’s a medium not a genre—don’t confuse the two in the presence of a comix creator or you might get your head bit off (for a real-life dramatization, see the opening of To Teach: the journey in comics). Comics aren’t just for kids anymore, and the medium has been creatively deployed to communicate non-comedic content—see Maus or Persepolis or Fun Home. They’ve taken over the world in this golden comix age, and you can find them everywhere—classrooms, special sections in bookstores and libraries, and, yes, still hidden in that secret drawer in the closet—and still the medium retains a sense of its insurgent origins. The word “comix” (or “comics”) is a “non-count noun” like “politics” or “economics” referring to the medium itself. We’re joined by two old friends in conversation about comix and the world—Eve Ewing, poet, playwright, scholar, teacher, author of the Ironheart series for Marvel comics, and the first Black female author of the Black Panther series; and Ryan Alexander-Tanner (www.ohyesverynice.com), illustrator/comics artist and educator, co-author of To Teach: the journey in comics, and author and artist of Muhammad Ali: The Greatest Comics Biography of All Time Volume One: Cassius Clay.

When Freedom is the Question… was published on September 10, and we had a book launch that night at our home-away-from-home, Pilsen Community Books, in conversation with Eve Ewing. We traveled to Women and Children First, Seminary Coop, The Wooden Shoe in Philadelphia, Book and Puppet in Easton, PA, Riff Raff in Providence, Firestorm in Asheville, NC, Red Emma’s in Baltimore, Busboys and Poets in DC, the PIT (Property is Theft!!) in Brooklyn, and more. I read at public libraries, coffee shops, and Movement venues like Haymarket House, Hasta Muerte, and The James Connelly Social Club. A couple of the events were taped, one at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY where I was in conversation with the legendary thinker and activist Barbara Smith, co-author of the Combahee River Collective statement, and one at La Pena in Oakland where I was in conversation with Cat Brooks, organizer, activist, and KPFA radio host---Under the Tree will drop those spicy conversations in the future. I was honored and often awed to be in conversation with several other powerful comrades and dazzling friends: Lisa Lee, Danaka Katovich, Alice Kim, Damon Williams, Jacqui Lyden, Daniel Kisslinger, Martha Biondi, Adam Bush, James Michael MacDonald, Jeff Jones, Martha Swan, and more.

The word “racism” can apply to a specific person or to the social structure, and in our hyper-individualistic culture, the word most commonly devolves to a singular individual who did something obviously prejudiced: Cliven Bundy, the Nevada cattle rancher, Amy Cooper, the New York person who called the cops on a bird-watcher who’d asked her to keep her dog on a leash. Racism is this or that person or particular act or behavior, and it means“bigoted, backward, stupid, and offensive.” But since I’m not backward and bigoted and stupid like them, “I’m not racist.” Convenient for white liberals, but not helpful in repairing the harm. We dive into that wreckage with the brilliant thinker, writer, and teacher, Janine de Novais who explores and engages human liberation as a cultural project. Her book, Brave Community: Teaching for a Post-Racist Imagination, illuminates practices that confront racism and empower and edify everyone involved.