Black Cotton #2

Black Cotton #2

Scout Comics 2021

Created & Story by Patrick Foreman & Brian Hawkins

Written by Brian Hawkins

Illustrated by Marco Perugini

Lettered by Francisco Zamora

The public outcry for justice after police officer Zion Cotton shoots an unarmed minority white woman, Elizabeth Nightingale, causes calamity and despite Zion's wealthy family trying to quell social tensions and fix the problem, Zion decides to take matters into his own hands. Meanwhile, Elizabeth struggles with what has happened to her.

Here is one of my few observations about this issue, one if Black folk run the United States why are there so many instances where the dialogue reverts to less educated way of speaking? Now i’m not talking about regional dialogue, New England, New York or the South or even how the Gullah Geechee nation in South Carolina who keeps their heritage alive through their language, no, I’m talking about what we see today as a minority group who leaves out words and sounds uneducated, or as it’s put ghetto. Now this grabs the readers attention, engages them if you will into thinking about when they rose to prominence and the circumstances that happened under so that the reader does become fully immersed in what they are reading.

How we see this being told is rather interesting. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The hospital scene to me could be any rich person versus any middle class, or lower class to lower middle class, family and the problem is many just assume this is how it goes but without being there how do we know? Having never been on either side of the that particular coin I cannot relate to either one, yes I just erased the colour factor. The character development is interesting the Cotton’s feel like a Republican family at least through the attitude and actions of the parents. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing what we need to see and know we start getting glimpses at the bigger picture here.

The way this is structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, strengthen and evolve while new ones emerge is infinitely fascinating. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow and how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved.

I kind of like that the interiors are black & white with gray wash, I mean it’s a difficult medium to work in and it will show any and all imperfections. In this case I think it’s stylised to a degree that almost blurs the colour line in the characters so you really gotta pay attention to what’s happening. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds though i’m not sure if Marco’s style is as well suited to that, though I do enjoy what we do see very much. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The composition within the panels does bring some nice depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story.

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Here’s what I like about this, no matter who you are, what stage of life you are in, this is a conversation starter. Take this to a trusted friend whom you can have an honest conversation with, have them read this and then open up the dialogue and learn something. I’ve always wondered if I had white privilege but i’m also Jewish and Gay and in this world those are two strikes versus the one checkmark so I’ve always had to work for what I want, work hard at it too. Still if stories like this one, especially in the world as it is today, are meant to make you question things, open up dialogues and think about how you can be a part of change or self betterment than it’s more than fulfilled its purpose. P.S. it’s not just one colour who this story should work that way for, it’s geared toward every single shade of human being on the planet.