Box of Bones: Book One

Hellraiser meets Black History.

"This mesmerizing blend of Black American folk tradition and dark fantasy provides much food for thought, as well as edgy entertainment." --Library Journal (starred review)

When Black graduate student Lyndsey begins her dissertation work on a mysterious box that pops up during the most violent and troubled time in Africana history, she has no idea that her research will lead her on a phantasmagorical journey from West Philadelphia riots to Haitian slave uprisings. Wherever Lyndsey finds someone who has seen the Box, chaos ensues. Soon, even her own sanity falls into question. In the end, Lyndsey will have to decide if she really wants to see what's inside the Box of Bones. Described as "Tales from the Crypt Meets Black History," Box of Bones is a supernatural nightmare tour through some of the most violent and horrific episodes in the African Diaspora. Ayize Jama-Everett and John Jennings have assembled a talented group of artists for this ten-issue project, including cover artist, Stacey Robinson (I Am Alfonso Jones), David Brame (MediSIN), Avy Jetter (APB: Artists against Police Brutality), and Tim Fielder (Matty's Rocket).

About the Author

John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture. As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, and comics and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and cofounder/organizer of The Schomburg Center's Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal's Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.

Ayize Jama-Everett was born in 1974 and raised in Harlem, New York. Since then he has traveled extensively in Northern Africa, New Hampshire, and Northern California. He holds a Master's in Clinical Psychology and a Master's in Divinity. He teaches religion and psychology at Starr King School for the Ministry when he's not working as a school therapist at the College Preparatory School. He is the author of three novels, The Liminal People, The Liminal War, and The Entropy of Bones, as well as an upcoming graphic novel with illustrator John Jennings entitled Box of Bones. When not educating, studying, or beating himself up for not writing enough, he's usually enjoying aged rums and practicing his aim.