Black History Month: Graphic Novel Book Club
Location
This program will take place in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL), 3rd Floor, Room 304.
Join staff at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library for an open discussion of our favorite Graphic Novels. Each month, we focus on a specific theme and related graphic novel.
About the Book
Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos
By Jay Jackson
Meet Bungleton Green--an anti-racist time traveler and the first-ever Black superhero created more than a decade before characters like Black Panther and Falcon. In 1942, almost a year after America entered the Second World War, Jay Jackson--a former railroad worker and sign painter, now working as a cartoonist and illustrator for the legendary Black newspaper The Chicago Defender--did something unexpected. He took the Defender's stale and long-running gag strip Bungleton Green and remade it into a gripping, anti-racist science fiction adventure comic. He teamed the bumbling Green with a crew of Black teens called the Mystic Commandos, and together, they battled the enemies of America and racial equality in the past, present, and future. Nazis, segregationist senators, Benedict Arnold, fifth columnists, 18th-century American slave traders, evil scientists, and a nation of racist Green Men all faced off against the Mystic Commandos and Green, who in the strip's run would be transformed by Jackson into the first-ever Black superhero. Never before collected or republished, Jackson's stories are packed with jaw-dropping twists and breathtaking action, and present a radical vision of a brighter American future
Get the Book
- Borrow: NYPL Catalog
Don't have a New York Public Library card? Get one here!
About Comics and Graphic Novels
Comic books and graphic novels have long been popular with a wide range of readers and influential for many in creative endeavors. These graphic works have become an important means of artistic and literary innovation, while gaining long overdue scholarly and academic attention. Over the past few decades, the popularity of comic books and graphic novels has significantly risen…Up, Up and Away!
The New York Public Library offers an extensive collection of titles that shed light on the historical and cultural significance that comic books and graphic novels have had on American culture. For more information, visit our LibGuide.
Join the Discussion
Our group values recommendations and input from all participants, so please come ready to share your favorite comics and graphic novels on this month’s theme.
All programs are subject to change or cancellation.