Author of
Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence (Oni Press, January 2020)
Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride, (Lion Forge, 2019)
Strange Fruit Vol 2 More Uncelebrated Narratives From Black History, (Fulcrum Pub., 2018)
Strange Fruit Vol. 1 Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, (Fulcrum Pub., 2014)
Tales of The Talented Tenth Volume 2 Bessie Springfield, (Fulcrum Pub. , 2016)
Tales of The Talented Tenth Volume 1 Bass Reeves, (Fulcrum Pub., 2016)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Graphic Novel, with Ibram X. Kendi (Ten Speed Press, 2023)
Joel Christian Gill is a cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He wrote the words and drew the pictures in Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride (published by Lion Forge, 2019) and the award-winning graphic novel series Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, as well as, Tales of The Talented Tenth from Fulcrum Publishing. He has worked for diverse clients including the People's United Party of Belize, NBC, the Boston Globe and his has written for The Huffington Post.
His latest work is a memoir chronicling how children deal with abuse and trauma: Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence (Oni Press January 2020). He was Chair of Foundations and then Comic Arts at The New Hampshire Institute of Art. He is the Inaugural Chair of BU’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Visual Narrative and Associate Professor in the CFA School of Visual Arts. Gill has dedicated his life to creating stories to build connections with readers through empathy, compassion, and ultimately humanity. He received his MFA from Boston University and his BA from Roanoke College.
Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / JoelChristianGill.com
Joel Christian Gill
Books by Joel
The Legend of the Chainbreaker (Ten Speed Press, 2027)
A brilliant reimagining of a classic superhero tale, this one set in a 1940s alternate America where Black people control the South after having won the Emancipation War.
Inspired by dystopian tales like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Alan Moore’s Watchmen, The Legend of the Chain Breaker envisions an America where Black people have become the dominant force in the South. They hold key positions as politicians, business leaders, and elites. In this world the first American superhero is Chain Breaker—loosely based on legends of Nat Turner—and stars in the bestselling comic series The Adventures of the Chain Breaker and Ole’ Massa, also now a popular radio program. The story revolves around Dangerfield “Ket” Newby IV, the great-great-grandson of John Brown's lieutenant at the Battle of Fort Liberty, Missouri who has rejected his family's privilege, wealth, and power to lead an anti-capitalist movement that unites Black and white workers. This has the press calling him the real-life Chain Breaker, but as Ket’s equality movement gains traction, he and his childhood friend Johanna Brown (an orphan yet to discover her true origin story) find themselves pitted against a secretive, powerful elite which will do anything to stop their success and maintain the power they wield.
Books by Joel
Stamped From the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America (Ten Speed Press, June 2023)
A striking graphic novel edition of the National Book Award-winning history of how racist ideas have shaped American life—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist.
Racism has persisted throughout history—but so have antiracist efforts to dismantle it. Through deep research and a gripping narrative that illuminates the lives of five key American figures, preeminent historian Ibram X. Kendi reveals how understanding and improving the world cannot happen without identifying and facing the racist forces that shape it.
In collaboration with award-winning historian and comic artist Joel Christian Gill, this stunningly illustrated graphic-novel adaptation of Dr. Kendi’s groundbreaking Stamped from the Beginning explores, with vivid clarity and dimensionality, the living history of America, and how we can learn from the past to work toward a more equitable, antiracist future.
Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence (Oni Press, January 2020)
Fights is the visceral and deeply affecting memoir of artist, author Joel Christian Gill, chronicling his youth and coming of age as a Black child in a chaotic landscape of rough city streets and foreboding backwoods.
Propelled into a world filled with uncertainty and desperation, young Joel is pushed toward using violence to solve his problems by everything and everyone around him. But fighting doesn’t always yield the best results for a confused and sensitive kid who yearns for a better, more fulfilling life than the one he was born into, as Joel learns in a series of brutal conflicts that eventually lead him to question everything he has learned about what it truly means to fight for one’s life.
Fast Enough: Bessie Stringfield’s First Ride, (Lion Forge, 2019)
Have you ever been told that you’re not enough? That you’re not strong enough, tall enough, fast enough? Bessie was told she was not enough.
Bessie dreams of riding her bike with the boys after school, but they tell her she is not fast enough. When she finally gets a chance to race, she proves not only that she is fast enough, but she is faster. Fast Enough combines an imagined story of Bessie Stringfield as a young girl with historical facts about Bessie as an adult. Bessie Stringfield went on to become the first African-American woman to travel solo across the United States on a motorcycle. Not only was she fast, but she was a true adventurer, daring to ride to places unsafe for African Americans in the 1930s and ’40s. Fast Enough is an inspirational story for anyone who’s been told they are not enough.
Strange Fruit Vol. 1 Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, (Fulcrum Pub., 2014)
Strange Fruit Volume I is a collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity. Each of the nine illustrated chapters chronicles an uncelebrated African American hero or event. From the adventures of lawman Bass Reeves, to Henry “Box” Brown’s daring escape from slavery.
Strange Fruit Vol 2 More Uncelebrated Narratives From Black History, (Fulcrum Pub., 2018)
Like all legends, people fade away, but not before leaving an incredible legacy. Strange Fruit, Volume II: More Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History is a collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity.
Each of the eight illustrated chapters chronicles an uncelebrated African American hero or event. Joel Christian Gill offers historical and cultural commentary on heroes whose stories are not often found in history books, such as Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier, and Eugene Bullard, a fighter pilot who flew for France during World War I. These beautifully illustrated stories offer a refreshing look at remarkable African Americans.
The stories included in Volume II are: Jourdan Anderson who requested payment from his former slave owner; Stagecoach Mary Fields, the first African-American female star route mail carrier; Willie Kennard, the Sheriff of the Colorado gold mining town of Yankee Hill; Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier; Blind Tom Wiggins, an autistic musical prodigy; Millie and Christine McCoy, conjoined twins known as "The Two-Headed Nightingale"; Victor Green, the creator and publisher of "The Green Book for the Negro Motorist"; and Eugene Bullard, a fighter pilot who flew for France during WWI.
Tales of The Talented Tenth Volume 1 Bass Reeves, (Fulcrum Pub., 2016)
Tales of the Talented Tenth, Volume One tells the story of Bass Reeves, an escaped slave who became one of the most successful lawman of the old west. Volume I chronicles his life from winning shooting matches in early childhood to traveling with his master, living with Native Americans in Indian Territory, and finally becoming a U.S. Marshal.
Tales of The Talented Tenth Volume 2 Bessie Stringfield, (Fulcrum Pub., 2016)
Imagine a five-foot-two-inch-tall woman riding a Harley eight times across the continental United States. Now imagine she is black and is journeying across the country in the pre-Civil Rights era of the 1930s and ’40s. That is the amazing true story of Bessie Stringfield, the woman known today as The Motorcycle Queen of Miami and the first black woman to be inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame and the Harley Davidson Hall of Fame. Stringfield was a pioneer in motorcycling during her lifetime; she rode as a civilian courier for the US military and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club in Miami, all while confronting and overcoming Jim Crow in every ride. A Kirkus Reviews Best Historical Teen Book of 2016.
Tales of The Talented Tenth, Volume 3 Robert Smalls, ( Chicago Review Press, 2021)
Do you know the story of the slave who sailed himself to freedom? For the third book in the bestselling Tales of the Talented Tenth series, Joel Christian Gill brings Robert Smalls to life by telling the true story of the enslaved African who pulled off one of the most daring and largest heists of the Civil War. Come along for the adventure as Robert earns a job working for the C.S.S. Planter, escapes to freedom, goes on to become a first-generation Black politician, and makes history by writing and leading the passage of legislation that led to the United States’ first free and compulsory public school system.