What if white people were the minority of the US population and black people were the majority? Black Cotton takes this concept and runs with it, in issue 1 of this Scout Comic mini-series.
Created by Patrick Foreman and Brian Hawkins, Black Cotton flips ideas on their heads, shakes our preconceptions, and mixes in liberal (and conservative) amounts of drama. The script by Brian Hawkins delves into a situation: in this alternate reality, the wealthy Cotton Family is under heavy scrutiny: police officer Zion Cotton has shot a white woman. The mindset of the event, the perception that ‘white lives don’t matter’, the perception of black privilege, all combine to pressurize the situation.
Visually, the reading is a treat. Artist Marco Perugini provides a fluid style, a shorthand, elastic line with loads of expression. Perhaps reminiscent of Will Eisner or Mike Ploog’s ease of brushstroke and use of light and shadow. The black and white (the book interior is printed black only, not four colour) renderings make the appropriate ironic/not ironic statement: this is ‘not about colour, but there is some grey area’.
The storyline is compelling, the characters strong. I really enjoyed reading the first issue. My only criticism is that the splash pages and double-page spreads were unnecessary or misallocated, and some sequences could have been compressed to give us more, more, more good scenes and conflict before issue two!
Scout Comics, Black Cotton #1, $3.99 for 22 pages of content. Teen
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