THE BLACK COMMANDOS
First edition of this self-published science-fiction fantasy with comic-book influences — in which a secret elite army of Black agents in flying saucers start a revolution.
Very good plus.
Price: $3,000.00
THE BLACK COMMANDOS
"Only the genius of a super scientist like the fantastic Denis Jackson could have wrought such an awesome achievement!"
Jackson's protagonist, also named "Denis Jackson," is a physical and mental superman, holder of a dozen graduate degrees and proud owner of a powerful chest tapering to a "compact 30-inch waist." In the novel's central interlude, a tour of Black Commando Island and its secret techno-marvels, Jackson introduces "the strange Dr. Austin Craig," inventor of the laser-triggered thermite bombs and the Death Virus, a mad scientist who is both eccentric and very angry. Devoted to destroying the licit and illicit organizations upholding white power in America, the Black Commandos launch violent and successful attacks on the Klan, the police, the Mafia, and the federal government.
THE BLACK COMMANDOS wears its comic-book influences proudly, from the unflinching grotesquerie of its violence to the prophetic names of its villains — "Governor Malice" gets a hatchet to the head, "Calvin Hate" a bullet to the brain — and the lovingly described Commando insignia of "the black fist, the steel triangle and the golden bolt of lightning." Though THE BLACK COMMANDOS has been omitted or under-discussed in many standard SF genre histories, and disparaged for its eccentricities in comparative studies of '60s Black Power fiction, the novel was championed early on by scholar Charles Peavy, who claimed in 1969 that it "represents the first attempt to incorporate the standard devices of pop culture manifested in comic books, television, science fiction, and spy-thrillers as a vehicle for black consciousness."
At its most radical, THE BLACK COMMANDOS denies the distinction between past and future, science fiction and realism: the country belongs to the feared "invaders," and always did; the aliens are here and the future is now.
Read more: Peavy, "Pop Art and the Black Revolution: Julian Moreau's The Black Commandos," Journal of Popular Culture; Bould, "Come Alive by Saying No: An Introduction to Black Power SF," Science Fiction Studies; Van Deburg, Black Camelot: African-American Culture Heroes in Their Times, 1960-1980.
The Object
First printing. Atlanta: The Cultural Institute Press, (1967). 7'' x 4.5''. Original black cloth printed in green with gilt-lettered spine. 228 pages. Minor edgewear, spine lean.
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