Dreaming of a Face Like Ours

By Prof. William H. Foster III (Fine Tooth Press, 2010; 100 pages).

This is another useful book of essays by Prof. William H. Foster III, who has a longstanding academic interest in the depiction of African-Americans in comics. Nearly a fifth of the book is taken up by “Do We Still Have to Be Black?—Comic Book Creators Discuss Racial Identity,” a transcription of a panel discussion Foster moderated at the 2005 Big Apple Comic Convention in New York City. The panelists include Trevor Von Eeden, Jamal Igle, Mark Morales, Alitha Martinez. It’s a wide-ranging discussion that delves into not just graphic-novelistic but social and cultural stereotyping.

 

Otherwise, the book mostly consists of Foster’s own insights and research, including nine installments of the Foster’s Freehold blog he had on the BlackSciFi website in 2005-06. There are two essays in which Foster deals with his own relationship, as an African-American and as a free-expression-devoted reader, to the n-word. He sees the controversial black character Ebony from Will Eisner’s classic The Spirit series as a positive portrayal of black culture for its time, and writes about telling Eisner so to his face. He has an interesting take on the mute comics hero Henry, whose strip did not denigrate or ghettoize black characters the way so many others have. He chronicles noteworthy and affirmative black strips like Tom Little’s Sunflower Street.

 

He brainstorms a handy list of Harlem-based comics characters with Lloyd A. Williams (from the 2006 book Forever Harlem). He comes up with ten solid comic-book biographies of “Black Women from History,” not to mention a slate of “Black Cowboys in Comic Books.”

 

He also meditates on the mortality of a black superhero which shared his name—William Foster DSc, PhD, aka Black Goliath—following the humungous hero’s death in a confrontation with a clone of the Marvel warrior Thor. I was privilege to edit Foster’s obit for the New Haven Advocate in 2007, and it’s nice to find it now in book form.

 

I’ve known Bill Foster for years know, have seen him speak a few times, and am impressed by his mastery of an ever-shifting, oft-overlooked yet vital niche of comics scholarship.  This book exhibits that range, but it also demonstrates the friendliness and generous nature of its author. Foster doesn’t browbeat you with facts or keep you at arm’s length with scholar-speak. He draws you in with big ideas and bright images. Like a comic book.