Black Cotton Star

July 22, 2019
This poignant if uneven graphic novel of war, racism, and the American Dream delivers the lesson that justice delayed is justice denied—and examines how such injustice is amplified over generations. Sente (the Blake and Mortimer series) opens his WWII adventure on an Allied base in England ahead of D-Day, focusing on Private Lincoln Bolton and two fellow black soldiers, all of whom enlisted after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Their patriotism is rewarded with a thankless assignment; they are barred from combat. However, a dramatic mission awaits, flashing back first to Bolton’s (underdeveloped) ancestor, Angela Brown, a free Black servant of Betsy Ross. Brown is left powerless when a racist landowner kills both of her brothers. She defiantly stitches the black star into Ross’s first American flag, offered to George Washington, thus creating a MacGuffin that will set Bolton and his peers (the multilingual Conor, towering Johnson, and a reluctant white officer) on a daring operation to recover it from a high-ranking Nazi. Cuzor employs sepia tones and thoughtful coloring to render the mountainous European countryside and the bustling streetscapes of Colonial Philadelphia. This epic enterprise lends due weight to the hopes and disappointments of its African-American protagonists; despite its flaws, this is a notable war comic for modern readers.