These three friends will be tested and tried, will work in solidarity, and, just maybe, betray each other, in this explosive graphic novel-with prose by crime fiction author Gary Phillips and images by acclaimed artist-writer Dale Berry.

But when a cop beats him down while walking his pregnant Korean wife-to-be home one night, Ollie becomes a symbol of oppression and the streets threaten to explode. Then there’s Oliver “Ollie” Jefferson, a decorated Korean War vet who writes and draws editorial cartoons under the pseudonym Attucks, for the daily Red newspaper The Struggle. When she gets a lucrative offer to write and draw a “Negroes must reject agitation” flyer for the FBI, can she pass up the opportunity? Though Stephaney “Stef” Rawls has her own romance-adventure strip for the largest black newspaper, she still has to work brutal hours as a maid to make ends meet. He’s black uptown and white downtown, and he has an eye for the ladies, and they for him-including his boss’ wife, who knows Cliff’s creation, the Phantom Avenger, is about to be stolen from him. In the turbulent era of late 1950s Manhattan-with jazz, the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, and the Red Scare as the volatile ingredients-three groundbreaking black cartoonists defy convention and pay the price.Ĭliff Murphy is matinee handsome, a light-skinned, straight-haired black man and a comics artist known for his glamour girl art.

The Be-Bop Barbarians by Gary Phillips