Queenie: Godmother of Harlem is a page-turning, vividly illustrated graphic biography of Stephanie St. Clair, a legendary 1920s Harlem figure better known as Queenie, a Martinique-born Black lady-racketeer, who ruled the numbers game in Harlem and amassed a fortune doing so. Charismatic and ruthless, Queenie lived among and attracted an influential circle of notable Harlem figures, including Harlem Renaissance painter Charles Alston, Duke Ellington, boxer Jack Johnson, Father Divine, W.E.B. Dubois and many others. Unafraid of corrupt cops or such mobsters as Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano, who were determined to take over her lucrative criminal territory, Queenie was also brilliant–she spoke five languages–defiant, and politically adept. She used her ill-gotten wealth to support and invest in Black people and Black businesses in Harlem, while denouncing segregation and racist politicians and cops in the Amsterdam News. In this eight-page excerpt, a meeting after dark in a Harlem alley with the police commissioner (who is on her payroll) takes a violent turn when he wants more than just money. Queenie: Godmother of Harlem by Elizabeth Columba and Aurelie Lévy is out now from Abrams ComicArts/Megascope.