The Black Comic Sensibility

Abstract

African Americans, by and large, were largely excluded from the empowering forms of the comic sensibility. Yet the works of George Herriman and James “Jimmy” Swinnerton display a distinctly black comic sensibility that drew on visual and literary conventions originating in the minstrel tradition and further developed and replicated in burlesque and vaudeville. Focusing on Swinnerton’s Sam and His Laugh (1905—1906) and Herriman’s strips depicting black boxers Jack Johnson and Sam Langford, this chapter shows how these two artists multiplied irony through a sensitive awareness and exploitation of DuBoisian double-consciousness, making their readers laugh even as they deftly undercut white supremacist attitudes.