Book Review: Where I'm Coming From

Title: Where I'm Coming From 

Author: Barbara Brandon-Croft

Date: 2023

Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly (Farrar Straus)

ISBN: 978-1-77046-568-8

Length: 186 e-pages

Quote: "You should know better than to listen to me; I certainly don't."

So few women cartoonists have been syndicated that it was still possible for Barbara Brandon-Croft to be the first Black American woman who had a syndicated cartoon strip. 

She drew the strip only weekly; it wasn't widely syndicated, probably not, for example, appearing in your daily newspaper. I'd seen reprints of some of these cartoons but hadn't seen them printed regularly as a series.

One thing that made the cartoons meaningful was the simplicity of the drawings. Brandon-Croft always showed her characters facing the reader. At first she drew only the faces; then, to make the facial expressions clearer, she started adding hands, sometimes holding something (usually a phone), often detached from the faces as if the characters' shirts faded into the background. 

There were a few extra characters beside the nine regulars and the daughter who accompanied one of them. Two of the extras appear in this book. Men were part of the storyline but were never drawn in the cartoons; women were either talking to them on the phone or talking about them. All nine primary characters were single, although one of them had a daughter. All could be described as baby-boomers; they weren't all the same age, but apparently all grew up in the same neighborhood and had been friends for a long time. 

All were Black left-wingers, though Monica, whose isolation is emphasized by her never appearing in a conversation with the others in this book, usually appeared talking about the fact that she looked White. If there was any more to Monica's story than that, it's not been selected for reprinting in this book. I feel that Monica has been tokenized and discriminated against. She reads, in this book, like a character thrown in because people asked for her, created entirely from reader suggestions, not based on anyone Brandon-Croft really knew. The others seem to have to be based on people Brandon-Croft knew.

The others are Alisha, the sweet spiritual type; Cheryl, the loud, snarky, bossy woman (who is exploited by a boyfriend); Jackie, the emotional one; Judy, the supportive listening friend; Lekesia, the political nut who hardly seems to have time left over for a personal life other than work and activism; Lydia, the mother, usually drawn with daughter in tow; Nicole, the one who knows she's cute and dreads getting older; and Sonya, whom the author described as a "true stand-by-your-man kind of woman" who can stay loyal to her boyfriend because she "don't take no mess" from him, but in this book we don't see her relationship and recognize her as the older one with the wardrobe of hats. 

Many of their expressions of support for each other, their disagreements, their quarrels (as distinct from disagreements), and their demonstrations of enduring and endearing friendship, also happen to be funny. Still, the point of a cartoon series called Where I'm Coming From was to make political statements that represent the group "Black women." They're meant to resonate with readers who are either Black or women, but perhaps even more they're meant to explain things to readers who are neither.

One of the extras, we're told, is a lesbian. In the one cartoon that shows her face, in this book, before Cheryl introduces her Cousin Dee to Alisha, she warns Dee that it's not necessary "to tell the entire world what your sexual preference is," though Dee is feeling infatuated with the liberation of having told her family. On being introduced Alisha says, "Hi. How are you?" and Dee blurts, "I'm gay. How are you?" Well...that minority-within-a-minority was represented. Now, I asked as I looked at that cartoon, what about the conservatives?

But I have to be fair. Brandon-Croft, daughter of cartoonist Brumsic Brandon, grew up in Washington, D.C. In a city where trimming the federal budget instantly brings to mind the un-neighborly idea of taking away the jobs that brought your neighbors to your neighborhood, you don't hear a lot from the conservatives. They're there, but they tend to be more discreet than Cousin Dee. Staying balanced is most easily done on those regular road trips back to the home state. For a minority of Washingtonians the District is their home state...or something. That's a political issue this book does not raise.

Allowing for its political bias, I liked this book and expect most readers will, too, if they let themselves. The characters' expressions are a delight, and their overall solidarity, even when they're quarrelling, is an inspiration.