“Run For It” opens with a Bantu slave sitting angrily under a dark cloud with the title of the first story, “Kalunga.” The word refers to the the grandness of god, the sea, and death. It’s a good way to invite you into a comic about the centuries of Brazilian slavery, a dark topic that Brazilian comic artist Marco D’Salete handles in four short stories.
The stories are simple, and are almost designed for people who are unfamiliar with the life of the Bantu slaves in Brazil. Marco D’Salete tells these little folktales in straightforward black and white drawings, inked simply but shaded deeply with speckled and smudged sponges. Like any great collection of shorts, each story builds on what came before it. In ‘Kalunga,’ Valu runs, but has nowhere yet to run to. ‘Cumbe’ has a failed rebellion with a few slaves, and ‘Malungo’ has a successful rebellion with a whole village of escaped Bantu. These stories combine to three centuries of Bantu life in Brazil.
Cover by Marcelo D'saleteWritten and Illustrated by Marcelo D’salete
Run For It is one of the first literary and artistic efforts to face up to Brazil’s hidden history of slavery. Transcending history with vivid illustrations and engaging the reader’s poetic imagination through stories of individual suffering caused by the horrors of slavery, Run For It has received rave reviews worldwide. These intense tales offer a tragic and gripping portrait of one of history’s darkest corners.
In spite of a cast of a couple dozen across four stories, the characters were easy to distinguish. Each slave has scars that identifies them as plainly as a fingerprint, and each slave owner has a distinct hat, often worn low over the eyes. Hiding the eyes is a technique comic artist use to make people appear more gruff and unemotional. If the eyes are a window to the soul, you can’t connect with a character until you see them. It’s not a coincidence that here the eyes of slaves are often clear and expressive, while the eyes of the slave owners are hidden, small, or off panel. It’s a stark contrast.
“Run For It” is more than simple stories. D’Salete imported a unique world of myths straight into this comic. Each story is titled with a Bantu word that can’t be easily translated into English. ‘Cumbe’ is a word for settlements of escaped slaves, and also kingly power. ‘Malungo’ is a word for neighbor that slaves used to address each other on the trans-Atlantic voyage.
I know all this because there’s a glossary in the end of the comic. This book isn’t only a series of small stories, it’s an education. Either D’Salete or his translator worked hard to introduce the reader to Bantu culture. In spite of many wordless pages and extensive use of aspect-to-aspect panel transitions, each story and scene is carefully built to make it easy for the reader to gently fall in. D’Salete uses the regular language of comics and cinema, like starting with long shots of a forest glen to establish a humid, bucolic scene, and slowly moving in until we arrive at a pair of slaves lounging in post-coital love. Or starting so tight on a deep well that you can’t get your bearings, and slowly pulling out to show the slave Calu telling a story into it.
The symbolism is strong in this comic. It’s impossible to avoid. You don’t see a man framed with a dead steer skull in the same panel and expect to see him alive at the end of the story. At the same time a lot of it is wholly alien to my American eyes. D’Salete fills each story with symbolism and language that is unique to the Bantu slaves. That well I mentioned earlier, that’s not just a place where water comes from, and there’s no wishes being made. It’s a Sumidouro, where rebellious slaves are “disappeared.”
I know this now because, lucky for my ignorant self, the glossary is there again to help. I’m thankful for it, because I was quite unprepared for these stories. As much as I like to believe that “the author is dead,” I also believe that my understanding and enjoyment is enhanced by even the most basic knowledge of what I’m reading about. Because of it all, I believe the whole comic deserves to be read twice: once to sink into the stories, and second time to understand what you really read.
Continued belowI’ve mentioned the glossary twice. That, and the bibliography, read like it was written someone who has studied the Bantu world and stories with some academic distance. It’s surprising, and a testament to D’Salete’s skill, because these stories are so easily told that I assumed they were common stories passed down through his family for generations.
D’Salete is the sole creator for Run For It. It’s always a delight for me to read a comic by a single creator. There’s less dialog, and the panels are freer. I’ve always assumed is because the writer trusts the artist. Run For It has pages and pages without a caption box or a dialog bubble, and sometimes will focus in on a horse braying in the middle of a battle, just to help set the mood.
It’s difficult to judge a book like this. It’s about a world I knew little about, so any comic would be an exciting education. I’m thankful that “Run For It” is so perfectly executed.
