{"id":29504,"date":"2024-03-09T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T09:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29504"},"modified":"2024-03-07T18:09:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T18:09:22","slug":"harlem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/03\/09\/harlem\/","title":{"rendered":"Harlem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Mika\u00ebl<\/strong>, translated by Tom Imber <\/strong>(NBM)
\nISBN: 978-1-68112-328-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-329-5<\/p>\n

Certain eras and locales perennially resonate with both entertainment consumers and story makers. The Wild West, Victorian London, the trenches of the Somme, and so many more quasi-mythological locales instantly evoke images of drama and tension, and prompt tales just begging to be told. In these modern times of environmental doom, global brush wars and economic privation, one of the most evocative is Depression-era America\u2019s \u201cBig City\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because it feels so tantalisingly within living memory, or maybe thanks to its cachet as the purported land of promises and untapped opportunity, America has always fascinated storytellers – especially comics creators – from the \u201cOld World\u201d of Europe. This inclination has birthed many potent and rewarding stories, and none more so than this continentally-published yarn from multi-disciplinary, multi-award-winning French-born, Quebe\u00e7ois auteur and autodidact Mika\u00ebl (Giant<\/strong>; Bootblack<\/strong>, Junior l\u2019Aventurier<\/em><\/strong>; Rapa Nui<\/strong>, Promise<\/em><\/strong>), who has been creating comics wonders since 2001.<\/p>\n

First published in Europe in 2018, Giant<\/strong> told linked stories of little people – many of them newcomers to America – who built the Empire State Building in 1932, lensed through the interplay between immigrants and the underworld that offered so many their only chance to survive and thrive. Mika\u00ebl returned to the milieu with Bootblack<\/strong>, which originated as twin albums before being released as a brace of English-language digital tomes courtesy of Europe Comics. It finally found a worthy home as an oversized (229 x 305mm) resoundingly resilient hardback edition from NBM that got the entire story done-in-one. Now designated \u201cThe New York Trilogy\u201d, the evocative venture concludes in a powerful fictionalised account of a minor but ferociously real celebrity of that faraway era\u2026<\/p>\n

Originally released au Continent<\/em> as two tomes in January 2022 and August 2023, Harlem<\/strong> unfolds as a complex sequence of overlapping flashbacks, telling (part of) the story of crime boss, shady entrepreneur and unlikely civil rights crusader St\u00e9phanie St. Clair<\/em> (December 24th 1897 – December 1969). Regarded as a French migrant, she was actually born in Martinique (West Indies) before becoming a domestic servant in Quebec and moving to New York in 1912. From then she went by many names but most notably Queenie<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

By 1931 the infamous elegant mobster, popularly adored social climber and \u201crichest black woman in the country\u201d had instituted and was running Harlem\u2019s numbers racket. Other people\u2019s penny bets made her rich, lifting her above and beyond alleys and gutters via a meticulously organised, savagely administered – by poet turned enforcer\/lover Ellsworth \u201cBumpy\u201d Johnson<\/em> and slick white lawyer Mr. Mahoney<\/em> – (generally) harmless gambling enterprise that provided work for hundreds of poor black residents\u2026<\/p>\n

As the drama shows, Queenie has a man who supports her every decision and a close circle of women friends who enable her to occasionally drop her austere and steely public fa\u00e7ade. Cushioning glamourous notoriety allows her to live away from sordid poverty in a posh enclave of wealthy and influential \u201cnegro intelligentsia\u201d – at 409 Edgecomb Avenue: the palatial apartment building on \u201cSugar Hill\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Everything starts to collapse when her activities increasingly chafe with cops who take her bribes whilst despising her skin colour, intelligence and \u201cuppity\u201d attitudes, just as ruthless outsiders Lucky Luciano<\/em> and Dutch Schultz<\/em> – deprived of their former revenue streams by the repeal of Prohibition – turn envious eyes on the district north of 110th<\/sup> Street – the no-go region for decent folk commonly called Harlem\u2026<\/p>\n

The actual trigger is well-meaning white reporter Robert Bishop<\/em> whose love for the glitz of the Harlem Renaissance and a \u201cmiscegenating\u201d dalliance with Queenie\u2019s pal Tillie Douglas<\/em> brings him to a jazz nightclub on the night \u201cThe Dutchman\u201d tries to seize Queenie\u2019s territory by force, only to be humiliatingly faced down by the proud celebrity. Outraged by her usual treatment from Irish cops led by corrupt racist Captain McCann<\/em>, Madame St Claire starts writing opinion pieces denouncing police corruption and Mafia encroachment, also advocating militant change and offering legal advice for the disenfranchised. These she forces local paper New York Amsterdam News<\/strong> to publish. She soon hires Bishop to proofread and edit them, but when his close access turns into his subsequent articles in support of black advancement in white newspapers, it augurs disaster and the beginning of the end\u2026<\/p>\n

As a battle for turf collides with the deepening Great Depression, socialist agitation in the streets, an influx of Mafia drug pushers and murder pushes the district into chaos. With Shultz and McCann closing in and Queenie\u2019s old allies and even friends turning against her, St Claire makes a bold and unpredictable move, retaliating in the only way she can\u2026
\n\"\"
\nIntercut with nightmarish scenes of her childhood, island life and gradual move to America, Queenie\u2019s rise and fall occurs in a cultural melting pot of oppressed peoples just starting to feel the faint stirrings of equal treatment. Everything about this stylish drama is potently mythic and tragically foredoomed in a sincerely Shakespearean manner as it completes the auteur\u2019s epic and ambitious New York Trilogy. Packed with period detail and skilfully tapping into the abundance of powerful, socially-aware novels, plays and movies which immortalised pre-WWII America, this tale is all the more enticing for what it doesn\u2019t reveal\u2026 the truly remarkable turns St\u00e9phanie St. Clair\u2019s life took after this story ends. Hopefully there\u2019s someone ready to translate the latterday activist\u2019s exploits after WWII into graphic immortality\u2026<\/p>\n

This book includes poems by Langston Hughes – Harlem <\/strong>and I, Too <\/strong>– and dozens of stunning pencil studies of key locations and characters at the back. Moreover, if you\u2019re sharp, you can find the Easter eggs throughout the text where this tale intersects with and overlaps the previous parts of the trilogy\u2026<\/p>\n

Harlem<\/strong> is moving, memorable and momentous, a graphic narrative triumph you must not miss.
\nHarlem volumes 1 & 2 \u00a9 DARGAUD BENELUX (DARGAUD-LOMBARD S.A.) 2022 – 2033 by Mika\u00ebl.<\/p>\n

Harlem <\/strong>is scheduled for UK release 16th<\/sup> April 2024 and available for pre-order now.<\/p>\n

Most NBM books are also available in digital formats. For more information and other great reads go to NBM Publishing at nbmpub.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mika\u00ebl, translated by Tom Imber (NBM) ISBN: 978-1-68112-328-8 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-68112-329-5 Certain eras and locales perennially resonate with both entertainment consumers and story makers. The Wild West, Victorian London, the trenches of the Somme, and so many more quasi-mythological locales instantly evoke images of drama and tension, and prompt tales just begging to be … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Harlem”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[115,75,239,63,122,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-crime-comics","category-drama","category-european-classics","category-historical","category-mature-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4AFj-harlem","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29507,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29504\/revisions\/29507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}