The Hudlin 100: Best Books of 2011

This list always makes me ashamed because I don’t read enough books.

1. Ultimate Spider Man

2011 was notable for the major comic book companies trying to launch black comic books.  STATIC SHOCK, MR. TERRIFIC got cancelled pretty quickly, but the two characters extending the brands of major brands did work…but mainly because they were good books.  Batwing, the Batman of Africa, is a very good book. ULTIMATE SPIDER MAN, featuring Miles Morales as the black successor to Peter Parker, is a great book.  You can order both SPIDER MAN and BATWING at REGGIESWORLD.COM!

2. Touré – Who’s Afraid Of Post-Blackness?

I enjoyed this book, and not just for the bits with me in it.

3. The Kinsey Collection

The “race man”, meaning a well-educated black man who is always looking for an opportunity to advance black people as a whole, is a vanishing but crucial concept.  Bernard Kinsey, with his wonderful wife Shirley, is a race man.

The Kinseys have done so many wonderful things in their life, but one of them is amassing an amazing collection of black art and historical documents.  Their collection has been on tour around the country and is now collected in a book. This book is more than a collection of their work…they are role models of how to be smart, black and fly.

4. DC 52

The relaunch of the DC Comics universe was bold gambit that succeeded far better than I imagined.  Not only is the company selling more comics than they have in decades, they are making better superhero books than they have since the 70s.  And the underoos are gone!

5. Nelson George – The Plot Against Hip Hop

Nelson combines his love for murder mysteries and black music to a great tale that explores similar territory as his crucial non-fiction books THE DEATH OF RHYTHM AND BLUES and HIP HOP AMERICA with a fun, compelling narrative and characters you want to hang out with.

6. Martin Davidson – Leveraging Difference:  The End Of Diversity As We Know It

I did get the next two books as gifts and they are BEAUTIFUL!

8. Harlem: A Century in Images

Thelma Golden, Deborah Willis, Cheryl Finley and Elizabeth Alexander assembled this incredible collection of photos documenting Harlem through a hundred years of change, from bebop to hip hop, from Marcus Garvey to Barack Obama.

9. Hank Willis Thompson – Pitch Blackness

One hell of an artist.

FADER TV: Hank Willis Thomas by thefader

10. Kick Ass 2

Mark Millar has delivered a sequel that is both more comic book-y yet deeper and more emotionally affecting than the first one.  And JR jr’s art is INSANE. AND a movie sequel?  YES.

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