All Black, All Queer: A Sci-Fi Comic For The Minority — Introducing ‘We Belong’
by Jude Locke
If you’ve found yourself craving – and starving for – representation and diversity, We Belong delivers. Something I find myself worried for when seeking out content that showcases people of all shapes, sizes, and colors is the potential of a monolith. In this I mean, it’s easy for one person to write about their experiences across several characters and encourage a stereotype or expectation. We Belong eradicates this by engaging multiple authors. This sci-fi and fantasy comic is actually an anthology. Several Queer Black creators have been employed to create a collection of stories over 100 pages long.
This is super exciting. As a Queer White individual, I see myself in media I enjoy 100 times more often than my Black friends ever do. Representation matters. Seeing a character that resonates with you and reminds you of yourself reminds you that you are normal and your life is worth living. That is powerful and irreplaceable.
This is super exciting. Something I feel my peers often forget is not only our history and our rights that were gained by the voices of Black women, but our culture in and of itself is heavily shaped and influenced by Black culture. If you’ve ever uttered ‘slay queen’ at a gorgeous outfit, ‘spilled tea’ by sharing details that weren’t yours to share or insulted someone by ‘throwing shade’ you have used and appropriated AAVE. In the same way that you have to know a food’s origin before you can properly replicate it, you should know where the language you use comes from and pay homage and respect to its origin.
We Belong also features an array of different art stylized specifically to each story, offering a wide array of fun and engaging images. I enjoy this because it helps characterize each piece of the anthology as an individual piece, as opposed to one cohesive unit. It also draws the eyes to compare and contrast among the stories and their images.
For fans of:
• No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall
• Beyond: The Queer Sci-fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology, edited by Taneka Stotts
• Shook: A Black Horror Anthology, edited by Bradley Golden
Viktor T. Kerney and William O. Tyler have worked with publishers Stacked Deck Press and Prism Comics to launch a Zoop campaign, which is currently live, to bring We Belong to life. Check out the campaign here to get stickers, pins, and signed copies of this comic.
