REVIEW: Strange Fruit #3

Let’s judge this book by its cover… Simple soft colour make for a very artful cover, the church and the hooded figures tell you straight away what you’re in for with this book.

Mississippi in a much darker time with black men and women working for almost slave wage and still under threat of the KKK, throw in a missing boy, an immanent flood and a strange new arrival and the town is on tenterhooks. With the boys disappearance being blamed on a young farm hand just to settle the townsfolk so they can focus the flood this book is very heavily playing the race card. Granted its set in a time when race was such an issue, I feel that books like this that focus on and highlight racism from times past just keep the fires of hate burning. What happened was terrible, truly and utterly unacceptable but it happened and we all know it happened. How can we move on from that past if it’s constantly thrown back in our faces. Writing a book with words like “Coon” even if the creative team feels it’s ok is far from it. If that word can not be used by all it should not be used by the few. Ok so my little rant ends there and I’ll slide seamlessly on to the art work which is truly stunning, it feels like each page is painted with such care of detail that every panel should have its old frame, amazingly well done. The story overall seems fitting for the time period and as I’ve not read the previous issues in unclear as to who the new arrival is but he seems to want to help.

I don’t want a lecture on the past, I just want to escape the real world for 20 mins and read a comic that takes me away to somewhere And this book made me depressed. If it wasn’t for the stunning artwork I might have stopped reading.

This only gets 2 stars from me.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Strange Fruit #3
Story by J.G. Jones & Mark Waid
Art by J.G. Jones
Letters by Deron Bennett
Published by Boom Studios
Reviewed by Dawn of Comics

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Author Profile

Dawn of Comics

Hey, I'm Shane.
Been into comics since I was about 5. Loved watching Wonder Woman and superboy in the 80's.
I Started reading seriously about 10 years ago. Began to collect a few comic series, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Teen Titans, Justice League of America and Superman Batman all pre flashpoint. Being honest that was my favourite run.