On Thursday, July 23, the NorcalMLK's Black & Brown Cmoix Arts Festival presented a panel entitled, "Afrofuturism and Black Religion: Connecting Imaginations", at this years San Diego Comic-Con, which was held virtually this year for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the U.S.
The discussion explored the connections between afrofuturism and Black religion and the way in which comics, graphic novels, and animation are capturing the rich dynamic that spawns new ways in which popular culture is being impacted by way in which works of best-selling speculative fiction authors Octavia Butler, Samuel Delaney, Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due (to name a few) schlars of Black religion, including the late Charles H. Long, James Noel, Tracey Hucks, and rachel Harding, bring to light how Black religion and the imagination of matter speak to the way in which Black people in the Atlantic World syncretize their experience to create community and fashion a future.
The panel included two-time Eisner Award winner John Jennings and scholars Kinitra Brooks and Sakena Young-Scaggs.