Black Man of the Day: Ta-Nehisi Coates - Award Winning Writer, Black Panther NEW BOOK: The Message

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
17ALEXANDER-WEB-master675.jpg


Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American writer, journalist, and educator. Coates is a National Correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about cultural, social and political issues, particularly as regards African-Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta-Nehisi_Coates
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award

Ta-Nehisi Coates won the National Book Award for nonfiction Wednesday night for “Between the World and Me,” a visceral, blunt exploration of his experience of being a black man in America, which was published this summer in the middle of a national dialogue about race relations and inequality.

“Every day you turn on the TV and see some kind of violence being directed at black people,” Mr. Coates said in an emotional acceptance speech. “Over and over and over again. And it keeps happening.”

The fiction award went to Adam Johnson for “Fortune Smiles,” a collection of surreal and comic short stories that deal with natural disasters, technology and politics, and take place in settings ranging from Palo Alto, Calif., and New Orleans to North Korea. The judges called Mr. Johnson “one of the most talented writers of his generation” and called his stories by turns “surprising, wondrous, comic and devastating.” Mr. Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel “The Orphan Master’s Son.”

“Between the World and Me,” which was published by Spiegel & Grau, was one of the most celebrated and widely discussed books of the year, and won comparisons to the work of James Baldwin.

Mr. Coates, a correspondent for The Atlantic, wrote the book in the form of a letter to his son. He dedicated the award to his college friend, Prince Jones, who was shot to death by a police officer who mistook him for a criminal. “I’m a black man in America. I can’t punish that officer; ‘Between the World and Me’ comes out of that place,” Mr. Coates said. “I can’t secure the safety of my son. I just don’t have that power. But what I do have the power to do is say, ‘You won’t enroll me in this lie. You won’t make me part of it.’ “

The National Book Award, which was established in 1950, has gone to some of the country’s most celebrated authors, including William Faulkner, Saul Bellow and Flannery O’Connor. Presented by the National Book Foundation, the award was open to American authors who published books from Dec. 1, 2014, to Nov. 30, 2015. The prizes were presented at a black-tie dinner in Manhattan at Cipriani Wall Street, with more than 700 guests.

Along with “Fortune Smiles,” finalists in the fiction category included Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life,” which follows four ambitious young college friends in New York as one of them grapples with his dark past; Lauren Groff’s novel “Fates and Furies,” which tells the story of a marriage from the husband and wife’s perspectives, revealing the secrets they kept; Karen E. Bender’s short-story collection “Refund;” and Angela Flournoy’s debut novel, “The Turner House,” about multiple generations of a Detroit family.

The award for Young People’s Literature was given to Neal Shusterman’s “Challenger Deep,” a novel about a mentally ill teenager who has dark fantasies about traveling to the deepest point on earth, which was inspired by Mr. Shusterman’s son.

The poet Robin Coste Lewis won for her collection, “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” a meditation on cultural and artistic depictions of the black female figure that juxtaposes autobiographical verses with reflections on cultural stereotypes and art.

The best-selling novelist James Patterson received the Literarian Award, for outstanding service to the literary community, in recognition of his philanthropic efforts to support independent bookstores and promote literacy in public schools. Mr. Patterson, who has sold more than 300 million copies of his books, has donated $2.75 million to school libraries and bookstores.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Patterson joked about his outsider status as a commercial author in elite literary company, calling himself the “Big Mac at Cipriani.” He issued a call for publishers to “innovate more.”

“Let’s all be literarians, whatever the hell that means,” he said. “Let’s try to make sure there’s another generation of readers.”

The novelist Don DeLillo, whose eerily prescient works explore technology, surveillance and terrorism, was given the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters for his “diverse body of work that examines the mores of contemporary modern American culture.”

Mr. DeLillo, who won a National Book Award for his novel “White Noise” in 1985, is famously reticent and rarely grants interviews or discusses his work. He will release a new novel, “Zero K,” about a billionaire whose wife has a terminal illness, next May.

He was typically understated in his acceptance speech, and at his request, his remarks were not streamed on videocast. Rather than talking about his work or his evolution as a writer, he spoke reverently about a room where he keeps his collection of old paperbacks, and what those books mean to him.

“When I visit the room, I’m not the writer,” he said. “That’s the guy who lives down the hall. Here I’m not the writer at all, I’m the grateful reader.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/us/ta-nehisi-coates-wins-national-book-award.html?_r=0
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/yy2dzc/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-ta-nehisi-coates

<div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><iframe src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:comedycentral.com:ebf15f19-5f74-46c3-ad86-30e05a9fb163" width="512" height="288" frameborder="0"></iframe><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;">Get More: <a href="http://www.cc.com">Comedy Central</a>,<a href="http://www.cc.com/funny-videos">Funny Videos</a>,<a href="http://www.cc.com/shows">Funny TV Shows</a></p></div></div>​
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/books/ta-nehisi-coates-to-write-black-panther-comic-for-marvel.html?referrer=&_r=0
23comics-1-articleLarge.jpg

The cover of Black Panther No. 1, to be published next year, drawn by Brian Stelfreeze.
MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT

By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES
SEPTEMBER 22, 2015
Ta-Nehisi Coates can be identified in many ways: as a national correspondent for The Atlantic, as an author and, as of this month, as a nominee for the National Book Award’s nonfiction prize. But Mr. Coates also has a not-so-secret identity, as evidenced by some of his Atlantic blog posts and his Twitter feed: Marvel Comics superfan.

So it seems only natural that Marvel has asked Mr. Coates to take on a new Black Panther series set to begin next spring. Writing for that comics publisher is a childhood dream that, despite the seeming incongruity, came about thanks to his day job. “The Atlantic is a pretty diverse place in terms of interest, but there are no comics nerds,” besides himself, Mr. Coates said in an interview.

His passions intersected in May, during the magazine’s New York Ideas seminar, when he interviewed Sana Amanat, a Marvel editor, about diversity and inclusion in comic books. Ms. Amanat led the creation of the new Ms. Marvel, a teenage Muslim girl living in Jersey City, based on some of her own childhood experiences.

“It was a fruitful discussion,” he recalled.


Ta-Nehisi Coates
GABRIELLA DEMCZUK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
After that event, Marvel reached out, paired Mr. Coates with an editor, and discussions about the comic began. The renewed focus on Black Panther is no surprise. Created in 1966, he is the first black superhero and hails from Wakanda, a fictional African country.

“He has the baddest costume in comics and is a dude who is smarter and better than everyone,” said Axel Alonso, the editor in chief of Marvel. The character not only adds to the diversity of Marvel’s comics; he will do it for their films too: Black Panther is set to make his big-screen debut next year in “Captain America: Civil War,” followed by a solo feature in 2018.

At first glance, it may seem odd for Mr. Coates to write a mainstream superhero comic. He has been lauded for his book “Between the World and Me,” a passionate letter to his son on being black in America. But he does not see anything odd about it. “I don’t experience the stuff I write about as weighty,” he said. “I feel a strong need to express something. The writing usually lifts the weight. I expect to be doing the same thing for Marvel.”

“A Nation Under Our Feet,” the yearlong story line written by Mr. Coates and drawn by Brian Stelfreeze, is inspired by the 2003 book of the same title by Steven Hahn. It will find the hero dealing with a violent uprising in his country set off by a superhuman terrorist group called the People. “It’s going to be a story that repositions the Black Panther in the minds of readers,” Mr. Alonso said. “It really moves him forward.”
23comics-2-articleLarge.jpg


A variant cover of the first issue, also drawn by Brian Stelfreeze, inspired by Jay Z's "The Black Album."
MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT
Mr. Coates’s enthusiasm for Marvel started when he was a boy. Marvel was “an intimate part of my childhood and, at this point, part of my adulthood,” he said. “It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary.”

Mr. Coates, 39, began reading comics in the mid-1980s and was introduced to three minority characters: Storm, the leader of the X-Men; Monica Rambeau, who had taken on the name Captain Marvel; and James Rhodes, who was Iron Man. “They were obviously black,” he recalled, but it was not made into a big deal. Still, he said: “I’m sure it meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.”

Diversity — in characters and creators — is a drumbeat to which the comic book industry is increasingly trying to march. Marvel recently announced the December start of “The Totally Awesome Hulk,” whose title character is Amadeus Cho, a genius Korean-American scientist who will find himself transforming into that emerald behemoth. The book is written by Greg Pak and drawn by Frank Cho, both of whom are Korean-American. (“My wife is Korean, so I scored massive points,” Mr. Alonso said.)

Over at DC, Cyborg, who is black, is starring in his own series (and a film in 2020), and Beth Ross is the first female (and teenage) commander in chief in the biting satire “Prez.” This month Image Comics released “Virgil,” a graphic novel by Steve Orlando and J. D. Faith, about a black, gay cop in the not-so-inclusive Kingston, in Jamaica. “Showing different faces under the masks is very important for everyone,” Mr. Alonso said.

But it all begins with the quality of the story, and Mr. Coates is ecstatic for the challenge. This writing assignment was not about “trying to please 12-year-old me,” he said. Another inspiration, he added, is the work of Jonathan Hickman on “Secret Wars” and “the depth he’s able to get from characters.”

“You don’t come in off the board and come in at that level,” he said of Mr. Hickman’s work. “But it helps to want it to be great. I want to make a great comic. I really, really do.”

:cool:
 

durham

Rising Star
Platinum Member
Dude is seriously nice with the pen. It's amazing the way he brings imagery to the forefront using basic language.

He needs to join BGOl though and get some context to French and African history ,with his love for the French language and wanting to repatriate to France to escape the troubles of America.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Dude is seriously nice with the pen. It's amazing the way he brings imagery to the forefront using basic language.

He needs to join BGOl though and get some context to French and African history ,with his love for the French language and wanting to repatriate to France to escape the troubles of America.

very very well put
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ta-Nehisi Coates Annotates His Black Panther Debut

22-black-panther-coates.w529.h352.jpg


After months of waiting, one of the most hotly anticipated comic books of recent years has arrived: Black Panther No. 1, as authored by superstar nonfiction writer and longtime geek Ta-Nehisi Coates. Publisher Marvel Comics announced in September that Coates — writer of the acclaimedBetween the World and Me — would be penning the monthly comics series, with artwork from veteran penciler Brian Stelfreeze. The specifics of the narrative were kept under wraps, but one thing was certain: A lot of people who were fans of Coates and not necessarily fans of comics would be picking up this issue.

Now that it’s here, you might be surprised at how steeped it is in references to past Black Panther stories. In an interview from his home in Paris, Coates says he just wanted “to tell a really, really good story,” and given his love of Marvel's rich history, he drew on a lot of what had gone before. So in order to clarify anything that might be confusing, we asked Coates to help us annotate the issue, page by page. If something isn’t annotated here, that’s because it’s explained within the issue or is a new concept or character with no preexisting background information. Let the continuity-mining begin!

Page 1

WakandaLet's start with the setting, since almost everything in the issue flows from there. Wakanda is a fictional, technologically advanced African nation that was never taken over by European colonialists. It's recently been through some hardships, which will be enumerated later. “The country's been devastated a few times," says Coates. "This is a country whose identity was,We've never been conquered. We're Wakanda the invincible, Wakanda the unbreakable. The fact of the matter is, over the past few years, you've seen Wakanda broken several times, and so the question is, What is Wakanda now?

T’Challa/Black Panther
Our protagonist. The character first appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four in 1966 and has been a mainstay ever since, often using his genius intellect and fighting prowess alongside other Marvel superheroes. The role and costume of the Black Panther is one given to Wakanda's monarchs. "He's the king of Wakanda. I think in past portrayals, he's been portrayed as very proud of what Wakanda is and a very, very proud man. My T'Challa is probably less proud and probably has less of that arrogance with him, and that's probably because I always found the pride and the arrogance distancing.”

After temporarily losing the throne to his sister (we’ll get into that below), a Wakandan god made him the first “King of the Dead,” a mystical role that allowed him to commune with his ancestors. He still has that role, but is once again the ruler of Wakanda, too. He’s had a rough few years. “He still has confidence. He's not a broken dude. He's still very, very clear on what he's capable of and what he's doing, but I think he's much more interested in what it means to be a king. I think he's much more interested in why he's a king. I think he's much more interested in whether he shouldbe a king. I think he's much more interested in what his relationship to Wakanda actually should be.”

06-black-panther-001.nocrop.w529.h861.jpg


T’Chaka (left background figure, above)
T’Challa’s late father, the previous king of Wakanda and previous holder of the Black Panther mantle, appears in the first panel. It's a re-creation of a scene from a recent Black Panther story. “T’Challa basically has the ability to communicate with his ancestors, all people who have been Black Panthers before. There's a very, very moving conversation between T’Challa and his ancestors in which they urge him to really do whatever he has to do to protect Wakanda, however immoral it is. This comes to the point where he's basically told to destroy another planet to save Earth. He says he'll do it under the influence of his ancestors, but when time comes to do it, he can't. He can't bring himself to do it. Because he can't, he's kicked out. His father basically says, ‘You're not my son.’ His ancestry is severed. I thought that had to be pretty painful."

Namor (middle figure, above)
The ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis and a longtime Marvel anti-hero. While under the influence of alien intelligence, he flooded Wakanda, killing many. But afterward, T’Challa worked with him on a secret team of superpowered individuals. “The second panel is from a moment when T'Challa is discovered to actually be cooperating with Namor, who is a complete enemy of Wakanda for having flooded the country. This enemy of Wakanda is the person that he ends up talking to. He says, ‘You've spent your life building a perfect kingdom, and now you've been cast out.’ The notion is that he's been pushed out again.”

The Dora Milaje (right figure, above)
Wakanda’s elite, all-female squadron of royal bodyguards. They appear in yet another flashback. “The third panel is a moment that precedes [the Namor moment], and it is when the Dora Milaje reject him. That’s when it's discovered that, in fact, he's been working with Namor, and they say, ‘You have lost your way, my king. You have lost your soul.’ So he's king now, right, but he's experienced this rejection.”

“I've always seen the Dora Milaje as a bit problematic, and that's going to divide me from most fans of the Black Panther. One of them is taken from every tribe in Wakanda and brought in, and T'Challa has the option of taking one of them as a wife. [I don’t like] the idea of these scantily clad bodyguards for this dude who's the king and the notion that he doesn't abuse that or that this is okay. I wanted to do something different. I try to see them as independent people and not people who we see strictly through the gaze of the male comic-book fans.”

Page 2

The Great Mound
“The Great Mound is a mountain where all the vibranium is, and vibranium is the resource that gives Wakanda much of its wealth.”

Page 4

Wakandan language
Unlike Klingon or Dothraki, there’s no official version of the fictional Wakandan language. In this story, we mostly see it translated into English, but there are a few words Coates wanted to play around with in untranslated form. It resembles real languages, but don’t bother trying to find literal translations of the Wakandan terms. “I could have created a Wakandan language from scratch, but the idea is that Wakandan, as represented to the reader, pulls from a variety of African languages. [The language is] imagined as an amalgam. I think there's a little bit of Hausa in there. There might be some Swahili in there. There might be a little bit of Shona in there.”

Page 7

06-black-panther-002.nocrop.w529.h287.jpg

Excerpt from page 15 of Black Panther No. 1. Photo: Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Entertainment

The Golden City
“The Golden City is the capital of Wakanda. This is Washington and New York. This is the Paris of Wakanda. It will probably not have that name by issue 13. Neither will the Great Mound. All that stuff's going to be Africanized.”

Aneka
“She’s the captain of a group of Dora Milaje. She eventually became the leader of this group called the Midnight Angels. It's supposed to be an even more crack group of Dora Milaje.”

Shuri
T’Challa’s late sister. After an assassination attempt on T’Challa, she became Queen of Wakanda and another, simultaneously operating Black Panther. But in a recent story, she was killed and T’Challa returned to the throne. “Their relationship was broken at the point that she died. Basically, she was pissed off at him. There were various times where T'Challa would try to counsel her to not go to war with Atlantis; she did it anyway. When she found out T'Challa was scheming with Namor, she basically cast him out.”

Ramonda (the robed woman)
One of the late T'Chaka's wives and mother of Shuri, but not T'Challa. “Ramonda is T'Challa's mother, although not his birth mother. But she's the woman he considers to be his mother. She married T'Challa's father. She had a very important role; she basically ruled in his stead. She's been an adviser. She's an elder there.”

Kimoyo
“Kimoyo is something that my predecessor, [past Black Panther writer] Christopher Priest, came up with. He had a Kimoyo Card, which is almost like this smartphone-in-a-card that Black Panther used. We changed it a little bit and turned it into a band that all Wakandans have, and they do different things depending on who the Wakandan is. Obviously, if you're king, yours does a lot more.”

Page 10

N’Yami/T’Challa’s mother
She was one of T’Chaka’s wives, and she died in childbirth.

Death of T’Chaka
He refused to grant first-world economies access to Wakanda's vibranium, and a cabal of powerful operatives had him assassinated.

Page 11

Soul-Stalker technology
“T'Challa has heightened senses. That's one of his powers, but I think it's one that hasn't been used as much as it could be. I definitely wanted to use more of that, but I thought one way you could do it is, what if all of those things came together and allowed for another sense, a heightened sense taken together with something bigger than that, something almost spiritual? It's like a sixth sense.”

Page 12

06-black-panther-003.nocrop.w529.h533.jpg

Excerpt from page 15 of Black Panther No. 1. Photo: Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Entertainment

“Invasion”Though Wakanda prides itself on never being invaded by colonial powers, it was recently invaded and crushed by a sinister group of intergalactic supervillains called the Black Order. One of them killed Shuri. They’ve since been run out, but the psychological damage was done.

“Flood”
The aforementioned flooding at the hands of Namor.

“Infiltration”
Longtime Marvel supervillain Doctor Doom recently engineered an unsuccessful but very public coup within Wakanda.

“Regicide”
The death of Shuri.

Page 15

06-black-panther-004.nocrop.w529.h549.jpg



Niganda
“Niganda is a country that neighbors Wakanda, and they have not been as fortunate in history as Wakanda has. [Black Panther nemesis] Killmonger [in a recent story] tried to organize the Nigandans to basically overthrow T'Challa and take over Wakanda. It's a poorer country.”

If you’re looking for further reading, Coates recommends the story that is “most immediate” to his run with the character: writer Jonathan Hickman’s


33-issue series New Avengers, which ran from 2013 to 2015 and prominently featured many of the events referenced in this first issue. And if you like or don’t like this issue, Coates has a helpful guide on who to blame: “Listen, if this sucks, it's me; and if it's great, it's Brian [Stelfreeze]. Even though I'm joking, I kind of mean that, because Brian, he's just made this look so beautiful.”

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/ta-nehisi-coates-black-panther-annotated.html
 

Quek9

K9
BGOL Investor
Ta-Nehisi Coates Annotates His Black Panther Debut

22-black-panther-coates.w529.h352.jpg


After months of waiting, one of the most hotly anticipated comic books of recent years has arrived: Black Panther No. 1, as authored by superstar nonfiction writer and longtime geek Ta-Nehisi Coates. Publisher Marvel Comics announced in September that Coates — writer of the acclaimedBetween the World and Me — would be penning the monthly comics series, with artwork from veteran penciler Brian Stelfreeze. The specifics of the narrative were kept under wraps, but one thing was certain: A lot of people who were fans of Coates and not necessarily fans of comics would be picking up this issue.

Now that it’s here, you might be surprised at how steeped it is in references to past Black Panther stories. In an interview from his home in Paris, Coates says he just wanted “to tell a really, really good story,” and given his love of Marvel's rich history, he drew on a lot of what had gone before. So in order to clarify anything that might be confusing, we asked Coates to help us annotate the issue, page by page. If something isn’t annotated here, that’s because it’s explained within the issue or is a new concept or character with no preexisting background information. Let the continuity-mining begin!

Page 1

WakandaLet's start with the setting, since almost everything in the issue flows from there. Wakanda is a fictional, technologically advanced African nation that was never taken over by European colonialists. It's recently been through some hardships, which will be enumerated later. “The country's been devastated a few times," says Coates. "This is a country whose identity was,We've never been conquered. We're Wakanda the invincible, Wakanda the unbreakable. The fact of the matter is, over the past few years, you've seen Wakanda broken several times, and so the question is, What is Wakanda now?

T’Challa/Black Panther
Our protagonist. The character first appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four in 1966 and has been a mainstay ever since, often using his genius intellect and fighting prowess alongside other Marvel superheroes. The role and costume of the Black Panther is one given to Wakanda's monarchs. "He's the king of Wakanda. I think in past portrayals, he's been portrayed as very proud of what Wakanda is and a very, very proud man. My T'Challa is probably less proud and probably has less of that arrogance with him, and that's probably because I always found the pride and the arrogance distancing.”

After temporarily losing the throne to his sister (we’ll get into that below), a Wakandan god made him the first “King of the Dead,” a mystical role that allowed him to commune with his ancestors. He still has that role, but is once again the ruler of Wakanda, too. He’s had a rough few years. “He still has confidence. He's not a broken dude. He's still very, very clear on what he's capable of and what he's doing, but I think he's much more interested in what it means to be a king. I think he's much more interested in why he's a king. I think he's much more interested in whether he shouldbe a king. I think he's much more interested in what his relationship to Wakanda actually should be.”

06-black-panther-001.nocrop.w529.h861.jpg


T’Chaka (left background figure, above)
T’Challa’s late father, the previous king of Wakanda and previous holder of the Black Panther mantle, appears in the first panel. It's a re-creation of a scene from a recent Black Panther story. “T’Challa basically has the ability to communicate with his ancestors, all people who have been Black Panthers before. There's a very, very moving conversation between T’Challa and his ancestors in which they urge him to really do whatever he has to do to protect Wakanda, however immoral it is. This comes to the point where he's basically told to destroy another planet to save Earth. He says he'll do it under the influence of his ancestors, but when time comes to do it, he can't. He can't bring himself to do it. Because he can't, he's kicked out. His father basically says, ‘You're not my son.’ His ancestry is severed. I thought that had to be pretty painful."

Namor (middle figure, above)
The ruler of the underwater kingdom of Atlantis and a longtime Marvel anti-hero. While under the influence of alien intelligence, he flooded Wakanda, killing many. But afterward, T’Challa worked with him on a secret team of superpowered individuals. “The second panel is from a moment when T'Challa is discovered to actually be cooperating with Namor, who is a complete enemy of Wakanda for having flooded the country. This enemy of Wakanda is the person that he ends up talking to. He says, ‘You've spent your life building a perfect kingdom, and now you've been cast out.’ The notion is that he's been pushed out again.”

The Dora Milaje (right figure, above)
Wakanda’s elite, all-female squadron of royal bodyguards. They appear in yet another flashback. “The third panel is a moment that precedes [the Namor moment], and it is when the Dora Milaje reject him. That’s when it's discovered that, in fact, he's been working with Namor, and they say, ‘You have lost your way, my king. You have lost your soul.’ So he's king now, right, but he's experienced this rejection.”

“I've always seen the Dora Milaje as a bit problematic, and that's going to divide me from most fans of the Black Panther. One of them is taken from every tribe in Wakanda and brought in, and T'Challa has the option of taking one of them as a wife. [I don’t like] the idea of these scantily clad bodyguards for this dude who's the king and the notion that he doesn't abuse that or that this is okay. I wanted to do something different. I try to see them as independent people and not people who we see strictly through the gaze of the male comic-book fans.”

Page 2

The Great Mound
“The Great Mound is a mountain where all the vibranium is, and vibranium is the resource that gives Wakanda much of its wealth.”

Page 4

Wakandan language
Unlike Klingon or Dothraki, there’s no official version of the fictional Wakandan language. In this story, we mostly see it translated into English, but there are a few words Coates wanted to play around with in untranslated form. It resembles real languages, but don’t bother trying to find literal translations of the Wakandan terms. “I could have created a Wakandan language from scratch, but the idea is that Wakandan, as represented to the reader, pulls from a variety of African languages. [The language is] imagined as an amalgam. I think there's a little bit of Hausa in there. There might be some Swahili in there. There might be a little bit of Shona in there.”

Page 7

06-black-panther-002.nocrop.w529.h287.jpg

Excerpt from page 15 of Black Panther No. 1. Photo: Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Entertainment

The Golden City
“The Golden City is the capital of Wakanda. This is Washington and New York. This is the Paris of Wakanda. It will probably not have that name by issue 13. Neither will the Great Mound. All that stuff's going to be Africanized.”

Aneka
“She’s the captain of a group of Dora Milaje. She eventually became the leader of this group called the Midnight Angels. It's supposed to be an even more crack group of Dora Milaje.”

Shuri
T’Challa’s late sister. After an assassination attempt on T’Challa, she became Queen of Wakanda and another, simultaneously operating Black Panther. But in a recent story, she was killed and T’Challa returned to the throne. “Their relationship was broken at the point that she died. Basically, she was pissed off at him. There were various times where T'Challa would try to counsel her to not go to war with Atlantis; she did it anyway. When she found out T'Challa was scheming with Namor, she basically cast him out.”

Ramonda (the robed woman)
One of the late T'Chaka's wives and mother of Shuri, but not T'Challa. “Ramonda is T'Challa's mother, although not his birth mother. But she's the woman he considers to be his mother. She married T'Challa's father. She had a very important role; she basically ruled in his stead. She's been an adviser. She's an elder there.”

Kimoyo
“Kimoyo is something that my predecessor, [past Black Panther writer] Christopher Priest, came up with. He had a Kimoyo Card, which is almost like this smartphone-in-a-card that Black Panther used. We changed it a little bit and turned it into a band that all Wakandans have, and they do different things depending on who the Wakandan is. Obviously, if you're king, yours does a lot more.”

Page 10

N’Yami/T’Challa’s mother
She was one of T’Chaka’s wives, and she died in childbirth.

Death of T’Chaka
He refused to grant first-world economies access to Wakanda's vibranium, and a cabal of powerful operatives had him assassinated.

Page 11

Soul-Stalker technology
“T'Challa has heightened senses. That's one of his powers, but I think it's one that hasn't been used as much as it could be. I definitely wanted to use more of that, but I thought one way you could do it is, what if all of those things came together and allowed for another sense, a heightened sense taken together with something bigger than that, something almost spiritual? It's like a sixth sense.”

Page 12

06-black-panther-003.nocrop.w529.h533.jpg

Excerpt from page 15 of Black Panther No. 1. Photo: Brian Stelfreeze/Marvel Entertainment

“Invasion”Though Wakanda prides itself on never being invaded by colonial powers, it was recently invaded and crushed by a sinister group of intergalactic supervillains called the Black Order. One of them killed Shuri. They’ve since been run out, but the psychological damage was done.

“Flood”
The aforementioned flooding at the hands of Namor.

“Infiltration”
Longtime Marvel supervillain Doctor Doom recently engineered an unsuccessful but very public coup within Wakanda.

“Regicide”
The death of Shuri.

Page 15

06-black-panther-004.nocrop.w529.h549.jpg



Niganda
“Niganda is a country that neighbors Wakanda, and they have not been as fortunate in history as Wakanda has. [Black Panther nemesis] Killmonger [in a recent story] tried to organize the Nigandans to basically overthrow T'Challa and take over Wakanda. It's a poorer country.”

If you’re looking for further reading, Coates recommends the story that is “most immediate” to his run with the character: writer Jonathan Hickman’s


33-issue series New Avengers, which ran from 2013 to 2015 and prominently featured many of the events referenced in this first issue. And if you like or don’t like this issue, Coates has a helpful guide on who to blame: “Listen, if this sucks, it's me; and if it's great, it's Brian [Stelfreeze]. Even though I'm joking, I kind of mean that, because Brian, he's just made this look so beautiful.”

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/ta-nehisi-coates-black-panther-annotated.html
Marvel is doing this while DC is gaying up Mr. Terrific.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
BLACK PANTHER #1
Humphrey Lee

A few weeks ago, I talked in this space about diversity in comics with a BLACK WIDOW review, talking about how I feel that comics have become a pretty important and inclusive medium these days, though of course we as a community could always be doing better. And I’m here again to somewhat address that in a way with this BLACK PANTHER review because this is a release of some import. Feel free to scream “Social Justice Warrior!!” and pick up your doxxing pitchforks if you want (I live in Pittsburgh, PA if you want to stop by; we can get some Primanti’s and watch a Pirates game down at lovely PNC Park if you’re interested) but I’m not quite here for THAT, but to emphasize that, y’know, this character and book are kind of a big deal right now. Even if you don’t want to get SJW cooties in your comics, the profile of T’Challa, King of Wakanda, is about to hit the stratosphere as he’s less than a month away from making his worldwide, live-action debut and elevating his prominence of being one of (if not the) most important black characters in comic books the past half century. So, right now, I would pity pretty much anyone taking on the reins of this character at exactly this time in comic book history, let alone someone doing so as their very first comic book script they’ve ever handed in, as The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates is in this brand spanking new number one.

I especially don’t envy the job of picking up the pieces of the character and his homeland of Wakanda right now, given the wringer both figures have been through the past few years. This is essentially the focus of this first issue, the strife of this proud nations’ populace given they’ve endured a major natural disaster, a coup and a war, and the death of some major figureheads. This inflects a very serious tone and somewhat matter of fact approach to the scripting of this debut, which is unfortunate but also a bit of an opportunity. Coates may not get to write much in the way of levity due to the recent baggage this book carries with it, but he shows that he has the chops of bringing a stately manner to these pages. There’s some good weight as he talks about the disharmony and hate that plagues his country these days (which, yes, I’m fairly confident Coates isn’t just in Wakanda anymore as he describes the turmoil) and it really adds to the pressure mounting on T’Challa’s shoulders as he tries to draw strength to fight to reunite his kingdom.

All of that said, I feel like Coates may have bitten off just a little bit more than he could chew in this first go around in the realm of comics. The book reads well and carries itself well, as I just said, but there’s some added turmoil in the pages beyond just the threat of civil war, regicide, and T’Challa gluing the pieces of a shattered country together. Developments in the pages bring together a bit of the civil war angle as we discover forces in bordering countries have been planting dissenters to stoke the flames of unrest a bit, which adds some thickener to the stew Coates is already cooking as now we have an external war coming first. But we also add another crack in the overall Wakandan structure as we spend several pages on one of the Dora Milaje – the Wikandan Honor Guard – being sentenced to death for the killing of a chieftain who was forcing his village’s females into what one images was sexual slavery by the wording. Now, this is a big plot point for this issue and is in no way an “oh, and by the way” kind of piling on to the Panther’s plight, but at the same time, with everything already going on, it does feel like a bit overwhelming in light of everything else tearing apart the country. It’s another topical and worldly issue that is handled in a respectful and at times ferocious manner, but it also needs to bloom into something bigger so as to not look like it was I just said, another difficulty added to the pyre burning in the heart of the country for T’Challa to overcome. And I have every notion that this will be a matter with great ramifications to come given the importance of the Dora Milaje in the Panther’s realm, I’m just not sure it will end up being a bit much to juggle in the midst of all the other tribulations and could have been at the heart of a future arc. Coates is really going for it all now and that is both admirable and precarious.

What really helps handle this butt load of plot is having an industry vet of the level of Brian Stelfreeze to back you up. All of the atmosphere of overwhelming odds weighing on our titular character and the boiling over frustration and rage of his country are expertly depicted by Stelfreeze’s uber detailed and expressive work. Coates could not have been paired with a better “guiding hand” as he works his way into the medium and develops this story he wants to tell as he crafts a story worthy of a King. And the stage is definitely set for such a tale, despite my reservations that Coates may have put just a bit more pieces on the board than it can handle. If he and Stelfreeze pull off the right balancing act of presenting tumultuous forces closing in on T’Challa from both within and outside his country’s borders while holding up a little real world mirror to these panels and pages, this could be a really special ride we are about to embark upon. I also hope the book and creative team find some time to breathe and enjoy being a comic book but I understand the up front serious slant it has to take. Right now is the time for the panther to sharpen its claws and hiss at what is threatening it, and I think we’re in store for some very regal badassery in the short term while Coates and Stelfreeze build their grand scheme for the King of Wakanda in the comics and the Panther tries to steal the show in theaters everywhere within the month.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/74931
 

CORNBREAD

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
PSX_20160416_200517.jpg
[/url]this HTML class. Value is http://
PSX_20160416_200517.jpg
[/IMG]

Waiting for the Hip Hop Variant to arrive in the mail !!!
 

ORIGINAL NATION

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Props for the post. Do this thread ever post ghetto heros? People unlike FUBU. They made clothes from home. But as soon as they got some money from it they sold it to whites. And had a great meaning for the FUBU (FOR US, BY US). If I had the money to make clothes and try to use that I would be sued. But everything should be about for us by us.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
black_panther_124067.jpg


While all eyes seem fixated on Steve Rogers and Tony Stark in the upcomingCaptain America: Civil War, we cannot forget the new additions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe who will soon arrive as well. One of the most intriguing new additions to the MCU in Civil War is Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa a.k.a Black Panther. As the first ever silver screen incarnation the Wakandan, it’s a landmark moment for a character considered to be the first black superhero. Although his first solo film won’t hit theaters until 2018, that didn’t stop director Ryan Coogler from leaving his mark on the Black Panther we will see in Civil War.

During a recent interview with io9, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige admitted that Ryan Coogler had the opportunity to contribute to the Civil War creative process. He said:

Ryan came in and watched the movie. We did a little bit of additional photography here and there and Ryan did a pass at a couple of those scenes. So there’s a line or two that Panther says in the movie that Ryan contributed to. [Civil War screenwriters] Chris [Markus] and Steve [McFeely] absorbed it into their draft, put their spin on it and words to it, but Ryan has started to be involved in earlier cuts of this movie.

Although Captain America: Civil War very much remains a product of the Russo brothers as well as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, Ryan Coogler found himself able to add some minor contributions to the character of Black Panther. It seems like Markus and McFeely responded well to his contributions, because they eventually "absorbed" his ideas and implemented them into the film – albeit with their own take on them.

It’s worth noting that Ryan Coogler’s contribution – however minor – to Civil War will go a long way towards establishing T’Challa with mainstream audiences. While Marvel has already done a phenomenal job of making the MCU films feel fairly cohesive, Ryan Coogler’s freshman effort on the first solo Black Panther film will feel even more familiar to fans because the director will have already had a hand in an earlier on-screen incarnation of the character. That may seem like a minor detail, but it’s one that will allow Black Panther to hit the ground running in his 2018 adventure.

All that being said, it also probably helped that Ryan Coogler has proven that he isn’t exactly a hack. Over the last few years, he has proven himself as an incredibly reliable filmmaker and screenwriter. Between Fruitvale Station, and last year’sCreed, Coogler has established that he has a firm grasp on the type of voice required for the first black superhero. Black Panther director or not, referring to him probably seemed like a no-brainer.

We will just have to wait and see what sort of effect Ryan Coogler's contributions to Black Panther have on audiences when Captain America: Civil War comes out. The film will hit theaters on May 6; be sure to stay tuned for more details!

http://io9.gizmodo.com/black-panther-director-ryan-coogler-helped-with-the-cha-1770267450
 

mark115

Rising Star
Registered
He's fucking up black panther. Wakanda is supposed to represent the promise of black potential, morally ethicly and spirituality ideal.

Coates either doesn't understand that or doesn't care.

He's trying to deconstruct morally ideal wakanda by writing a story where wakandan (black) men have been engaging in sex trafficking of (black) wakandan wonen . Stereotypes about black men and africa framed as intellectualism. So he can bring in two female heros who are straight out of BLM.

Reminds me of when they made war machines sister addicted to crack because they wanted to tell an"honest" story about life in the hood.
 
Last edited:

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Marvel Launches Black Panther Video Series Featuring Ta-Nehisi Coates & Music By Run The Jewels



Marvel Comics continues presenting its new breakout movie superhero Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman). As part of the character’s cinematic debut in the commercially successful film Captain America: Civil War, Marvel is launching a monthly video series to present the world of Black Panther to a whole new audience.

The “A Nation Under Our Feet” vignette features animated comics and commentary from National Book Award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. In addition, the first episode includes a musical score from critically acclaimed Hip Hop group Run The Jewels.

“With the Black Panther capturing the hearts and minds of fans around the world, we are making an all-out press for their eyes and ears,” says Marvel Editor-In-Chief, Axel Alonso. “And who better to make our opening statement than the sonically groundbreaking duo, El-P and Killer Mike – a.k.a. Run the Jewels?”

Black Panther #2 is available at Marvel Digital Comic Shop and at all local comic book retailers.

image003.jpg

image002.jpg

image001.jpg

image005.jpg

image004.jpg

 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
True but marvel is so strong right now and have so much clout;they dam near run Hollywood..that probably protects black panther from fuckery....

I want to start something crazy...

Instead of saying Good Morning in the office

I told all the Black co workers,

Sawubona





http://www.unisa.ac.za/free_online_course/PDF/Zulu/Learn online Zulu - Theme 1.pdf

and whenever I or they did something well I said

welcome to Wakanda

Cacs were looking genuinely perplexed

one finally had the nerve to ask...

what that mean?

I said...

If you need to ask...it is not for you

and my most regal voice.

We need to start that trending...

We are Wakanda

Panther god
 

CORNBREAD

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I want to start something crazy...

Instead of saying Good Morning in the office

I told all the Black co workers,

Sawubona





http://www.unisa.ac.za/free_online_course/PDF/Zulu/Learn online Zulu - Theme 1.pdf

and whenever I or they did something well I said

welcome to Wakanda

Cacs were looking genuinely perplexed

one finally had the nerve to ask...

what that mean?

I said...

If you need to ask...it is not for you

and my most regal voice.

We need to start that trending...

We are Wakanda

Panther god

Sawubona !!!!
 

WhenTheGoingGetsTtuff

Rising Star
Registered
Lesbian warriors in African based comics:smh::smh::smh:
warriors can't be wakandan?
He's fucking up black panther. Wakanda is supposed to represent the promise of black potential, morally ethicly and spirituality ideal.

Coates either doesn't understand that or doesn't care.

He's trying to deconstruct morally ideal wakanda by writing a story where wakandan (black) men have been engaging in sex trafficking of (black) wakandan wonen . Stereotypes about black men and africa framed as intellectualism. So he can bring in two female heros who are straight out of BLM.

Reminds me of when they made war machines sister addicted to crack because they wanted to tell an"honest" story about life in the hood.
Where i get up and applaud this as loud and as hard i can. That's why i didn't want him to write the book. And that's why i didn't want Priest to write the books. Coates doesn't know about wakanda. And what Priest was trying to make wakanda into. And Priest was going to put Panther with a white woman.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
warriors can't be wakandan?

Where i get up and applaud this as loud and as hard i can. That's why i didn't want him to write the book. And that's why i didn't want Priest to write the books. Coates doesn't know about wakanda. And what Priest was trying to make wakanda into. And Priest was going to put Panther with a white woman.

Wait...WHAT?!?!?!??
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Ta-Nehisi Coates' 'Black Panther' No. 1 Is Best-Selling Comic of Year to Date

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ta-nehisi-coates-black-panther-894587

bp.jpg

It is a big year for the Wakandan prince, who is celebrating his 50th anniversary and made his film debut in 'Captain America: Civil War.'

Marvel Comics' Black Panther No. 1 — scripted by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic — sold 253,259 issues in its first month to become the best-selling comic so far in 2016. (That number will likely hit the 300,000 number Marvel announced in March once reorders are factored in). No. 2 on the list — an issue of Star Wars: Poe Dameron — sold 175,000 copies.

The sales figures marks an outstanding debut for a character often considered in the second tier of Marvel superheroes.

Black Panther No. 1's tally is comparable to the Marvel best-selling solo superhero comics of 2015: Invincible Iron Man No. 1, which sold 279,000 copies, and Spider-Gwen No. 1, which sold 254,000 copies. It outpaces such stalwarts as Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose books generally sell in the 75,000-100,000 copies-a-month range.

Coates’ re-imagining of the first mainstream black superhero has been hotly anticipated since it was first announced and has drawn rave reviews. It's a big year for the character — a prince from the fictional (and technologically advanced) African nation of Wakanda — who in addition to celebrating his 50th anniversary made his big-screen debut in Captain America: Civil War (played by Chadwick Boseman).

A solo Black Panther film is scheduled for July 6, 2018. Earlier this year, Coates won the National Book Award for his memoir Between the World and Me and was awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant.
 

playahaitian

Rising Star
Certified Pussy Poster
Ta-Nehisi Coates' 'Black Panther' No. 1 Is Best-Selling Comic of Year to Date

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ta-nehisi-coates-black-panther-894587

View attachment 193

It is a big year for the Wakandan prince, who is celebrating his 50th anniversary and made his film debut in 'Captain America: Civil War.'

Marvel Comics' Black Panther No. 1 — scripted by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic — sold 253,259 issues in its first month to become the best-selling comic so far in 2016. (That number will likely hit the 300,000 number Marvel announced in March once reorders are factored in). No. 2 on the list — an issue of Star Wars: Poe Dameron — sold 175,000 copies.

The sales figures marks an outstanding debut for a character often considered in the second tier of Marvel superheroes.

Black Panther No. 1's tally is comparable to the Marvel best-selling solo superhero comics of 2015: Invincible Iron Man No. 1, which sold 279,000 copies, and Spider-Gwen No. 1, which sold 254,000 copies. It outpaces such stalwarts as Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose books generally sell in the 75,000-100,000 copies-a-month range.

Coates’ re-imagining of the first mainstream black superhero has been hotly anticipated since it was first announced and has drawn rave reviews. It's a big year for the character — a prince from the fictional (and technologically advanced) African nation of Wakanda — who in addition to celebrating his 50th anniversary made his big-screen debut in Captain America: Civil War (played by Chadwick Boseman).

A solo Black Panther film is scheduled for July 6, 2018. Earlier this year, Coates won the National Book Award for his memoir Between the World and Me and was awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant.

What are your thoughts on the FIRST 2 issues?
 
Top