Boundless: 10 Years of Seeding Black Comic Futures at the Schomburg Center

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of The New York Public Library’s (NYPL) renowned research libraries, serving as a global repository dedicated to the research and preservation of the African Diaspora.

I’d only gone to the Schomburg Center once prior to this visit. As a teenager, with so many distractions at my disposal, it’s no wonder that this cultural gem slipped through the cracks of places I could’ve been learning from. However, that’s also the beauty of this journey… sometimes it takes time and patience for your perspective to shift so that you can start to see what’s right in front of you (i.e. decades of culture).

I was so excited when I learned that The Schomburg Center had on display the history of Black comic books.

Growing up in the 90s, comics were a big part of my childhood. Man, I miss those impromptu trips to the comic bookstore with my childhood friends, going up and down comic lined rows in the store, and browsing the latest X-Men comic books. I can still vividly remember us purchasing X-Men hologram trading cards but I never wanted to make any trades because I thought my cards and characters were too exclusive. Nevertheless, rarely did I see any comics that centered around Black superheroes or specific sections of the store highlighting Black comic book writers. So, yeah, I was hype when I learned about the Schomburg Center’s Boundless exhibition.

The Schomburg Boundless Exhibit — Photos by Rachel Bires

Boundless: 10 Years of Seeding Black Comic Futures

Boundless: 10 Years of Seeding Black Comic Futures was created to celebrate the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Black Comic Book Festival, through photographs, memorabilia, creator highlights, comic book reading stations, and clips from past festival programs.

Drawn from the Schomberg Center’s archival collections, this exhibition illustrates the long history of Black comics sequential art creators and their motivations to render humor, justice, irony, and futurism in Black aesthetic and liberatory practices from the Golden Age of comics books (1938-1956) to the present.

This free exhibit opened on October 8, 2022 and will be on display until December 31st, 2023. the Schomburg Center for Research is located at 101 W 131st Street, NY, NY 10030 and open to the general public Monday – Friday from 10am-6pm.

The Look

As the winter dull drums kick in and take effect on me I’ve come to understand that this can bring its on share of mental challenges.

So, I’ve made a conscious and purposeful decision, over these last few years, to add some brighter colors to my sweater wardrobe. These colors like orange and yellow have shown that they can help to brighten a person’s disposition.

Here, I layered a yellow cashmere sweater under Ade Dehye’s Navy Blue Kente and Fugu Bomber. I sealed the look with a rainbow-speckled glen check patterned trouser.

A smart yet casual ensemble.