The Austin-based Isaiah Broussard based the adventures of the band on stories that his Great Uncle would tell him about playing music in the South
Even in the darkest of times, there are shenanigans.
That’s the core of Uppity, the newest strip from Austin’s Isaiah Broussard. Set in the Jim Crow South, it follows a group of jazz musicians as they try to make a name for themselves despite their racist surroundings. Club owners and managers are torn between their love of money and their hatred of Black folks. The absurdity of the apartheid state gets dissected a dozen different, hilarious ways by Broussard’s cast, all of whom behave like, well, musicians.
Broussard based the adventures of the band on stories that his Great Uncle would tell him about playing music in the South. Like Murphy, Keith, and the rest of the comic band, his uncle had little respect for racist laws and would cut up when the chance came.
“I come at it with the mindset of let’s try to find the absurd, to find the funny,” said Broussard in a phone interview. “Let’s also try to find where the good times are. That’s what inspired me in the first place. My uncle telling me the stupid things he did to cope with the terrible things he lived under. I want to show the joy that people can still have. I think that’s important, especially in the times we’re living through.”
Broussard is arguably Texas’s most dynamic comic creator. While still living in Houston, he launched the hard-hitting political strip Crackers & White Wine, dissecting politics through a Black lens with cutting edge wit and observation. The strip was intermittent, basically only releasing when Broussard saw something that made him angry.
However, Broussard slowly stopped publishing it during the first Trump Administration and had abandoned it completely by 2021. He said at the time that being in the headspace to make the strip had negative effects on his mental health.
Instead, he turned his attention to something completely different, a lighthearted teen comic called Transyltown starring a young, awkward vampire named Timmy. The series launched in 2022, with multiple print omnibuses for sale. Though the strip dealt in concepts like prejudice, it was definitely less overtly political than Broussard’s previous work.
Uppity brings Broussard full circle, incorporating the anger of CWW and the lovability of Transyltown. Without both, it’s unlikely Uppity would exist. Broussard’s rage at unfair systems perpetuated by petty people comes across in every panel, but so does his simple appreciation for a cast getting into trouble.
Am-ra Nguyen is a tech support manager in Austin and a fan of Broussard’s work. She started reading him because of Transyltown and followed him when he launched Uppity on Brass Comics. The colorful characters just having fun reminded her of both Timmy’s adventures and animes like One Piece, but she quickly picked up on the political power of the strip.
“The characters are not defined by their suffering as you can see in many other stories,” she said in an email interview. “I think people working to thrive despite living in a time where their success is actively blocked by the system seems more real to me than stories of individual heroes rescuing people living in oppression.”
The strip isn’t always strictly comedic every week. In practice, Uppity more resembles classic strips like Gasoline Alley and Peanuts (Murphy even wears Charlie Brown’s shirt and kicks a football in a flashback). There’s not always a punchline and payoff, so reading the strip across multiple weeks is important.
Broussard makes it work, though. The plot moves slowly enough to make catching up easy, and the characters have big enough personalities to carry through even if you forget the details of previous strips.
The strip is finding its groove, especially on Instagram and Webtoons. Broussard will be wrapping up the first story arc soon and will have physical copies for sale as he did for Transyltown. Publisher 50 Fifty has picked up another of his strips, Funktastic Adventures for a full-color first issue. Currently, Broussard is back on the convention circuit, selling zines, ashcans, and comics to his growing fanbase.
“I’m almost to the point I can cut back on my day job to spend more time creating,” he said.
Broussard has been creating comics in Texas for over a decade at this point, tackling multiple genres and styles. With Uppity, all of his experience has come together to form a pointed and powerful period piece that looks at marginalization with the courage to laugh in its face. As he said, it’s a useful to remember we can do that in times like these.
Great Job Jef Rouner & the Team @ Texas Signal Media Foundation Source link for sharing this story.
