The Origins of Writing Black Panther

Sometime after the mid-2010s, I began to notice something significant unfolding in comics: more Black writers were publishing titles with major comic book companies, and conversations about diversity were expanding in noticeable ways. By 2017, I had started sketching out draft tables of contents for what I imagined would become a book project.

Initially, I planned to write a book about “diversity in comic books,” tracing multiple developments across the industry. Between August 2017 and January 2021, I produced more than 30 drafts of a table of contents while continuing my research. Then, on March 7, 2021, I made a decisive shift. I wrote in my research log: "Made the decision to make the book about Black Panther and Coates, not about comics in general.” From that moment until October 11, 2024, I drafted 33 additional versions of the table of contents, steadily refining the project’s scope and structure.

On the one hand, I was aware of the limits of focusing on one Black writer at a time. On the other hand, I had compelling reasons to center Ta-Nehisi Coates. I was extending research I had begun in Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers (2020), as well as in ideas I had been developing in my blog writing. Concentrating on Coates’s work on Black Panther also provided a powerful entry point for discussing other Black creators in comics and the broader ecosystem of critics, artists, and commentators shaping the field.

My two previous books were organized into five substantial chapters, each centered on a distinct topic. For this project, I wanted a different feel—more chronological and slightly less overtly academic. I ultimately structured the manuscript into ten shorter chapters, allowing the narrative to unfold across time while maintaining momentum.

An editor at Bloomsbury had read an article that my brother Kenton and I had written and invited us to submit a proposal for what became One Black Writer at a Time. When we submitted that proposal, I asked whether I could also share my manuscript on Black Panther, which was already well underway.

By the time I began writing the manuscript in earnest, I had spent years researching and outlining. I felt an unusual motivation to move steadily and deliberately. As I conceptualized the closing sections, I decided to title the final chapter “Star Wars for Black People,” borrowing a phrase used in 2018 to describe aspects of the Black Panther film. That framing allowed me to explore Coates’s conception of “The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda,” Afrofuturist aesthetics, and my longstanding interest in Star Wars.

Knowing that chapter was ahead of me gave motivated me to keep a steady writing pace. I pushed forward, chapter by chapter, eager to reach it. When I finally finished, I felt satisfaction and also a touch of reluctance. I was glad to complete the book, but a part of me wanted to keep thinking and writing just a little longer.

Related:

• Book Notes: Writing Black Panther