Adafruit’s comic book reading list: Nat Turner by Kyle Baker #adafruitcomics #blackhistorymonth @kylejbaker
A new edition of Adafruit’s comic reading list — it’s Nat Turner created by Kyle Baker, written up by Shipping Group Managing Director Zay!
When I was a kid, going to Best of Two Worlds in Berkekely, CA, there were all sorts of thing I maybe never should have read at such a tender age — or maybe it was essential for me to read them, because they stretched to the breaking point what I thought of as comics, stories, characters, and themes.
Chief among these comics that I only understood later is the very funny, very adult, very New York Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker. It was before its time, anticipating 30 Rock and the fast-patter dialogue of Quentin Tarantino.
That book was written by Kyle Baker, a comics artist and writer who’s pushed his style and approach have over the years. He’s the kind of artist who’s always exploring, always looking for new ways to the work.
He’s written comics as diverse as illustrated versions of literary classics, a well-received revival of Plastic Man that pushed at the edges of what’s graphically possible in super-hero comics, and an animated music video and comic for legendary South Bronx rap artist KRS-One.
Kyle Baker seems to relish changing up his style depending on the project at hand. In 2006 he set aside the playful line work for the raw, rough lines and wide black slashes of Nat Turner, his four-part re-telling of Nat Turner’s Rebellion, a slave rebellion that took place in Virginia during August of 1831.
It’s a great, arresting thing to see — images of African American slaves in compositions and contexts we rarely get to see: taking their power for themselves and moving together in a direct action.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion is about to burst into the American consciousness again with the Sundance Film Festival award-winning movie Birth of a Nation hitting theaters soon.
If you want to get a jump on the zeitgeist, and see what an incredibly talented comic artist can does when he wants to get across one of the great lost moments in American history, look no further than Kyle Baker’s historical masterpiece.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
