N

NAT TURNER. In the historical comic, Nat Turner , artist Kyle Baker portrays the

well-known Virginia slave uprising of 1831 from the perspective of the enslaved
black man and self-proclaimed Christian prophet, Nat Turner. Kyle Baker Publishing
initially produced the comic as a four-part series in 2005, but it was later re-issued in
two volumes through Image Comics and appeared as a single graphic novel in 2008,
from Abrams. Illustrated in black and white, Nat Turner contains virtually no dialogue
and relies instead on the brutality and sorrow of Baker’s arresting images, as well as
narration from attorney Th omas R. Gray’s 1831 publication Th e Confessions of Nat
Tu r n e r to re-imagine one of the largest, most violent slave insurrections in the ante-
bellum South. Baker’s comic adapts Confessions of Nat Turner by expanding upon its
assessment of Turner’s motives; yet Nat Turner ultimately departs from Gray’s account
by minimizing the diabolical traits that white observers attributed to the slave rebellion.
Where Gray viewed the insurrection as devious and desperate, and articulated Turner’s
silence as monstrous resignation, Baker’s portrait endows Turner with dignity and cour-
age as he struggles to free his people through righteous violence.
To develop Turner’s heroism, Nat Turner begins with an origin story that illustrates
key details of his mother’s life and capture in Africa. Within the large borderless panels
and splash pages, Baker’s heavily-inked sketches use the large, expressive eyes of her ema-
ciated face as the lens through which the reader experiences the horror of the Middle
Passage and the New World auction block. Th e second part of the comic recounts young
Nat’s childhood as he learns to negotiate the restrictions of slave life, secretly learns
how to read, and begins to develop a self-affi rming religious identity. Bloodshed domi-
nates Baker’s depiction of Turner’s upbringing; around him enslaved blacks are beaten,
separated from their families, and humiliated without provocation. When Turner’s own