Support This Comic: Jamila Rowser Shares the Journey to The Gift.

The final part of my interview with the award-winning publisher and writer.

If you've read or listened to any of my work you'll know that one of my favorite publishers is the brilliant Black Josei Press run by the fantastic Jamila Rowser. Founded in 2017, the award-winning small press has become a powerhouse in the comics scene, publishing gorgeous, inclusive, and beautifully made books like Wash Day, The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, Arrive in My Hands, Ode to Keisha, and Gordita: Built Like This.

Black Josei Press recently launched pre-order campaigns for two brilliant projects. The first is a gorgeous comics and prose magazine called Gladiolus, which features work from and interviews with creators like O'Neill Jones, Rin Ascher, Robyn Smith, Sarula Bao, Sam Wade, Steenz, Stephanie Williams, Ashanti Fortson, Carrie McClain, Christina Santi, Aisha Soleil, Daisy Ruiz, and Danny Lore. Next up is The Gift, a stunning comic written by Rowser with art by Sam Wade, that centers on a young Black girl having a revelatory experience on a visit to a local museum. 

Sam Wade

To commemorate the last day to preorder these two brilliant new releases, I'm happy to share part two of my supersized interview with Jamila. This week we're focusing on the thoughtful journey to making her stunning new comic from Black Josei Press, The Gift, with the incredible artist — and recent interviewee — Sam Wade! The print comic is only available to preorder for a few more hours so make sure to head to Black Josei Press now and get your copy! 

"The comic follows 10-year-old Kenya and her father visiting an African art museum. At the museum, Kenya meets a mysterious visitor who takes her on an unexpected journey that leaves her with a new perspective on her roots." 

I love Sam's art. When did you first discover her work and what made her the perfect artist for this story?

I first saw Sam's work through ShortBox. Zainab [Akhtar] was telling me that Sam was one of the people that would be in one of the ShortBoxes, then I went to her Instagram and I was just like, "Oh my god, I'm obsessed!" Like, it was so beautiful. I love the minimalist style, the color choices, and I knew I had to work with her, it was gonna happen, period! Then it was a matter of what comic? And this comic, It's kind of the opposite of what you would think as far as styles go. The masquerade costumes are extremely detailed. You think of the roots and the banyan tree and all that kind of stuff, like the amount of texture and details that could be in it, here's a lot that could be done in the illustration. But I was like, "I think it would be really interesting and beautiful for this to be a much more minimalistic style." I felt that it's a quiet comic and I didn't want the art to be super detailed or hyper realistic, and that such a heavy topic should have a lighter feel when you're looking as it would be a nice balance. 

Sam Wade & Jamila Rowser

Yeah, I adore the color palette you chose as well. It feels very dreamlike, but also if you live somewhere where it's a little bit hot and a little bit desert-y it's very recognizable.

Yeah, she came up with tons of different color palettes, which we put in the back matter comic. It took so long to make and there's so much great stuff. And really wanted to talk about the comic and the meaning. And I also thought why not include the different designs Sam had. Yeah, it was wonderful working with Sam, I would do it a million times over and probably make a horror comic with her because we both love horror. 

Something that is just so representative of why the stuff you make is so great is the fact that you reached out to Maryam Kazeem and Aurelis Troncoso about working out a way to tell this story that you felt was as respectful and thoughtful as could be. Could you talk about that choice?

I was very hesitant to write this comic and to include the masquerade because of its importance and its very specific relation to cultures. I knew I could do all the research in the world — which I did — and it wouldn't be enough. So I had written the script already and then reached out to them. I also gave them a summary of what I was going for. I thought it'd be good to have more than one person. And so it was great because they read it and they gave me great feedback on things that I had put in there that were offensive, but I didn't think about. And I was like, "Oh shit, you're right." Like the view of some of these things was coming from a very western view. And so it was helpful for me as an individual to change how I look at things. I made changes based on their feedback and then I felt more confident with the story and with their feedback, even though I still felt a little nervous because the masquerade is very different from what you typically see in Africa with different ceremonies. I worried that people would read it and think, "That's not how this child should interact with this." But she doesn't know anything about it and the masquerade is coming to her for a very specific reason, so they really helped me with that. 

Another standout for me is the back matter in this book. You did such a great job putting all of this into your own words and including so much great art. As the writer and the publisher can you explain why you include back matter and what you feel it adds to the comic?

It's interesting because I'm very much like, "I'm not telling you anything about my comics, like if you don't know, that's not my problem." But because it was about Egungun masquerade and that's not mentioned at all in the story, people wouldn't know what to look up. The title was actually originally Egungun but I changed it because I thought The Gift worked better. I really wanted to explain things to people and to teach things to people because there was also a lot of stuff that I had learned and I thought was important for people to know. Not just why I wrote the story, but the history of what they are, how they're represented, and why I've represented it that way. 

It's interesting, it's this very quiet, minimalistic comic and then there's all of his backmatter with all this information and content. Most of you may not know who this mysterious character is, but I want you to know! And the culture editors gave so much information and their write ups were amazing and perfect. I would have probably not felt comfortable even writing all of the backmatter by myself. So having other people's perspectives who are experts in it, I thought was super necessary. And I want to teach like Black Americans about this too. It's stuff that we don't come across a lot. And I've always been obsessed with the beauty of African masquerades and I wanted to talk more about it! 

You can order The Gift and Gladiolus in print until 11:59 ET tonight, and if you read this after that deadline then you can also grab the digital copies from Black Josei Press!