ComicMix

Excellent start to what promises to be a fantastic story.

Gah-damn.Yeah, this'll sell a few copies when it gets traded.

The White-Colored people hated him. He made a mockery of their manhood, and flaunted his skill with a dancer's grace. He conquered their women with the same ease, then laughed at their frustration."When black men anywhere grab their dicks, they're celebrating the memory of…The ORIGINAL JOHNSON."This work is a bold statement. There is no question that Trevor Von Eden wants to have an "in your face" style. Johnson's fist is drawn literally bursting from the panel to hit the reader square n the jaw.I just don't understand all the machismo. All the dick grabbing. Slavery, segregation, racism were/are a sin, a stain on the United States history and present character. But Trevor Von Eden makes it seem like Slavery and Racism are attacks on Manhood, attacks on black MEN. They are not. They are attacks on humanity. Women and men."He conquered their women with the same ease and laughed at their frustration." Their women? Whose women? The women that white men owned? He CONQUERED women? Did the women know they were being conquered? "With the same ease?" Does Von Eden mean he BEAT the women too, with his fists? Because there are some historians who portray Johnson as a wife beater. And whose frustration is Johnson laughing at? The white MEN who think they OWNED the women Johnson CONQUERED? Or is it the white women who are frustrated by being conquered and beaten?Trevor Von Eden points out the dire irony of the Constitution declaring that black men are to be counted as three-fifths of a human being in a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. But, how were women counted? How were women counted by the law and by men? Women were left without any say. Women were treated as pawns in the games of men. Pieces to be used, fought over and conquered.Johnson's achievements in the ring may have punctuated the point that black people are not inferior. Johnson had skill and bravado and Von Eden uses that might to symbolize the dawn of an era of black liberation and enlightenment. But, Johnson did not have an enlightened attitude toward women.Von Eden alludes to the trumped up Mann Act Charges for which Johnson was convicted. Even today people are working to get Johnson posthumously pardoned. But Johnson's relationships with women were far from enlightened. They were often sad and sometimes tragic. For instance, Johnsons' first wife, Etta, killed herself. I've seen this interpreted as the act of a depressed woman who could not deal with society's intolerance of her interracial marriage. I've also read this as the desperate act of a wife who could no longer deal with traveling around the country along with her husband's two mistresses or getting beaten by him for voicing her displeasure in the situation. I wonder how "The Original Johnson" will portray the Original Mrs. Johnson.Johnson's career might be seen as an attack on racism, but his personal life seems to have been marred by sexism. How will "The Original Johnson" treat the stories of Etta, Hattie, Belle, Lucy and Irene or any of the other women Johnson used, loved, married, conquered or discarded? Will Von Eden interpret Johnson's confusing relationships with women just as a series of conquests, notches on his belt? Page 9 of this story doesn't seem to promise a nuanced portrayal of women or Johnson's love life.There is no question that the art is POWERFUL. This is a Masterwork. But, so far, "The Original Johnson" comes across as very sexist. Men need to realize that their POWER is not centered in their dicks and their fists. Because women's fists aren't as strong and they don't have dicks. So if you make historical interpretation all about dicks and fists, you are going to leave out a significant portion of it. These are just the opening pages, the preface, the preamble to "The Original Johnson." I can't make definitive judgments about this. But I'm very curious. I'm very curious to see what Trevor Von Eden has chosen to leave in this story and what he has left out.