Award-winning graphic novelist James Spooner and comes to Chicago Humanities for a chat on punk, comics and Black Identity. Spooner is a leader in the Black punk community. His works include the seminal documentary Afro-Punk (2003), creation of the Afro Punk Festival, and a graphic memoir, The High Desert. In this book, Spooner shares his experience being Black in small-town California and finding salvation in punk music, winning the American Library Association Alex Award and the Cartoonist Studio Prize. The artist and activist returns as an editor for his latest book, Black Punk Now. This anthology shares the voices and stories from the Black punk community. It is filled with contemporary nonfiction, fiction, illustrations and comics that collectively describe punk today and give punks—especially the Black ones—a wider frame of reference.

Listen to a portion of this program along with an interview between New Yorker cartoonist Asher Perlman and Chicago Humanities Tapes podcast host Alisa Rosenthal here.

A book signing will follow this program.

• Copies of Black Punk Now will be available on site for purchase.
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