Damian Duffy’s text succinctly captures the beauty of Butler’s language, taking her most iconic phrases and leaving them to stand their ground in modern text type amid the starkly contrasting colors of Dana’s teal blouse and the red and black world that surrounds her. Raw and hard-edged, like a wood carving, artist John Jennings cuts to the heart of the story in his quick, striking lines, from the very first encounter with Rufus and his father’s gun. Once Dana is drawn into the past, and wrapped up in the life of young Rufus, the danger is palpable on the page. As it opens with the tale of Dana’s life in L.A., round faces and familiar forms of clearly sketched out lines abound. The key to this power lies in the imagery. The graphic novel adaptation, while certainly abbreviated, loses none of the power of Butler’s original work. Her travel back in time is both a fast-paced adventure, and an unraveling of the fictions we tell ourselves.
She has her own pre-conceptions regarding slavery and blackness and history and family and what it is to submit to another’s will. She feels comfortable in her interracial marriage. She is a modern woman, with her own way of relating to her Black identity. While there, she is forced to face hard truths about the reality of slavery, and learns quickly that to experience is not the same as to read.
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