Real Deal Comix

Entertainment made by and for African-American audiences has often featured aspects glorifying "bad dudes" since slaves first regaled one another with wish-fulfillment yarns. The comics medium, however, has seen very little of this, with most of its black characters serving as exemplars of what their (usually white) creators saw as role models. This volume offers a scabrous counterpoint to such well-intentioned pap, taking a dizzying banquet of sleazy and negative bad-dude stereotypes to a level that borders on sociopathy. From its first panel, the authors thrust the reader face-first into a crudely-illustrated DIY cartoon world populated exclusively by pimps, hoods, gamblers, mafiosi, drug addicts, sex workers, and just about everyone else one would find in blaxploitation thrillers, only with the profanity, ultra-graphic violence, and abuse of women cranked up to an extreme degree while presented as darkly humorous. Originally published in the 1990s, this sepia Chernobyl of offensiveness is recommended solely for those who can handle its sandpaper-rough lashings of brutal vileness. (Sept.)