Incognegro - Softcover

Mat Johnson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848560974 ISBN 13: 9781848560970

Publisher: Titan Books Ltd, 2009

Synopsis

In the early 20th century, when lynchings were commonplace in the American South, a few courageous reporters - light-skinned African-Americans - risked their lives to expose the truth. They called their undercover work 'going incognegro'. After Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based "New Holland Herald", barely escapes with his life after his latest 'incognegro' assignment goes wrong, he returns to Harlem - only to discover that his new assignment is to report on the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi...Author Mat Johnston (Hunting in Harlem) is joined by artist Warren Pleece ("Hellblazer") to tell this gripping, disturbing story of race in America.

About this title

About the Author:

Mat Johnson is an author and teacher. Following his acclaimed first novel, Drop, Johnson wrote the award-winning Hunting in Harlem and the non-fiction The Great Negro Plot. His other comics work to date is Titan's Hellblazer: Papa Midnite. Warren Pleece first found comics fame illustrating Second City Blues for 2000AD, but it was True Faith, with author Garth Ennis, that truly made his name. His other work includes Hellblazer and The Invisibles.

From Publishers Weekly:

The brows are furrowed and teeth mightily clenched in Pleece's noirish artwork for Johnson's pulpy tale of a black journalist who goes undercover in the 1930s South to investigate a possible trumped-up murder charge against his brother—a charge that could lead to a lynching. Zane Pinchback, who is so light-skinned he can pass for white with a little cosmetic help, writes the Incognegro column for a Harlem newspaper, and his beat (like that of many a brave black journalist at the time) is the bloody circus of lynchings still claiming lives in horrendous numbers. Johnson's tale is a smart and fast-paced one, particularly when dealing with Pinchback's reluctance to return to Mississippi (wisely preferring his comparatively sheltered Harlem life). Once he's back down South, the twists and turns of the story come fast and thick, goosed by the not particularly trustworthy explanations being given by Zane's moonshine-distilling brother, and the attention-drawing antics of Zane's playboy friend Carl, who invited himself along on a lark. Johnson and Pleece have done a mostly commendable job, though the plot gets too knotted for its own good long before the conclusion, but they give a cracking Chester Himes kick to what could have been a sub–Walter Mosley imitation. (Feb.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1848560974
• ISBN 13: 9781848560970
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136