Introducing King, by Ho Che Anderson

King, by Ho Che Anderson

 As you may have noticed, King differs greatly from a number of other texts we've read this semester--both in its visuals, its composition, and its storytelling choices.

Early in the semester, you had a great conversation about the differences (such as they are) between "high" and "low" art, and how comics is often left to straddle divide between the two.  This conversation questioned the very notion of constructing boundaries between mass and elite cultural production, even as many of you admitted that the ideas of high and low continue to filter into how we appreciated and categorize art.  (Think of visiting "Half-Price Books," for instance--how does the store's shelf categorization suggest something about the place of genre fiction (such as crime fiction, romances, etc.) as compared to what we deem "literary fiction"?).  How does King borrow from the conventions of both "high" and "low" art, as well as the vocabulary of film, to tell MLK's story?  Is King more like the sort of visual art you'd see hanging in a museum or gallery than what you'd usually associated with the visual universe of comics?  For those of you who have the big, "special edition" of the text, how does the "making of" section in the back of the book affect your sense of Anderson's project in constructing King?

Moreover, as I will outline further in my podcast, King differs from the other works we've read because it tells the story not of a random individual (as Maus and Persepolis do) or of a group seeking rights (as Stuck Rubber Baby does), but of an iconic figure that many of us have already encountered in written or visual form (t.v., film, photography).  How does the fact that King is about an iconic figure affect your reading of the text?  How does it affect Anderson's use of visuals and storytelling technique?  What do you make of his opening of the text with young MLK, his use of the "chorus" of commentators on MLK, the stark black and white palette (mixed with the occasional use of color) employed throughout the book, and his introduction of photographs, however blurry, into the text?  Perhaps, most strikingly, what do you think about Anderson's choice to show the darker side of King in terms of his extramarital affairs? Please use the space below to comment on some of these questions about King. 

I know this text is a challenging one, and I will use my podcast and some further blog posts to help us make sense of it.