(upbeat music)

Meepelous: Hello and welcome, my name is Meepelous (they/he/she)!

And today’s pick is The Talk by Darrin Bell. A graphic memoir published by Henry Holt and Co.

Content notes for aggressive dogs, toy guns, cops and police violence, gangs, nine eleven, swastikas and maga crowd.

The Talk is a Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction, and a winner for the ALA Alex Award, NAACP Image Award for Graphic Novels and Libby Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel 2023.

I picked this book up both as part of my Black comics TBR but also because I heard a lot of great things about it.

What kinds of keywords came to mind reading this volume? coming of age, identity, relationships, pop culture and political cartoons.

The summary is “Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn’t have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are.

Through evocative illustrations and sharp humor, Bell examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles—and finding a voice through cartooning—Bell becomes painfully aware of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and police officers and thus of his mortality. Drawing attention to the brutal murders of African Americans and showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the way, he brings us up to the moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now Bell must decide whether he and his own six-year-old son are ready to have The Talk.”

Scrolling through Wikipedia… Darrin Bell is an editorial cartoonist and was also apparently the first Black person to have two comic strips syndicated nationally. He is the recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

Looking at the art, Bell’s editorial style definitely shines through. Which is different then many graphic novels but not bad. I thought his use of colour for emphasis was also spot on.

Writing wise I found myself completely engrossed throughout. The balance Bell strikes between his own internal world and the way he was mentored/influenced/judged by the people around him was just chef’s kiss as they say.

I also appreciated that Bell was willing to criticize himself. Particularly when it came to a cartoon he made after nine eleven that perpetuated anti-muslim stigma and hurt a lot of people.

A coming of age story, The Talk also covers a pretty impressive swath of time. With flashbacks to his parents taking us all the way through to his adult life as a parent himself during covid.

Interwoven with top notch pop culture references, I especially appreciated the Deep Space Nine quote in the acknowledgements at the end. Reflecting on how the prophets taught Sisko that human’s don’t just exist in the present; something Bell felt like he learned through writing this memoir.

Looking at the intersecting identities that I always do:

Race was obviously pretty front and centre for Bell in this memoir. He is a bi-racial child of an interracial relationship, and Bell really went out of his way to depict all the different ways the people around him felt about race and Blackness in particular. Watching his mother’s naivete as a white woman turning into a fierce protectiveness of her Black sons. His brother’s bravado fueled skepticism. The teacher who judged Bell as a problem and the other teacher who let him get away with defending himself from a racist bully. Not to mention the politician who used a young Bell as a token for his campaign.

We also broke a bit out of the Black white binary, with Bell recounting the ways his race and that of other racialized students he was friends with overlapped or were completely different.

Gender was not a focus but I did appreciate that Bell generally depicts the women in his life in a very positive light.

Sexuality came through not only in Bell’s own opposite sex relationships, but also in the way he highlighted his other most controversial cartoon. Namely a pro-gay marriage one. Especially as we round the final corners of Bell’s story, he is adamant in stating in all positivity that the struggles of all Black people and queer people and Black queer people should be tied together and be a point of solidarity and not division.

Class, place and disability were not particularly discussed as far as I can remember.

Wrapping things up, I was once again very impressed and thought that it was extremely successful at what Bell set out to do. Would highly recommend.

Bye y’all, keep reading and stand with striking workers.

And Literally Graphic is created on land that should be given back to the traditional land holders, which in this case is to my knowledge the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, an Anishinaabe people, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Huron-Wendat nation.