It’s worth noting that Incogengro’s inspiration was partly childhood games Johnson played with his brother, but also inspired by Walter Francis White, who actually did risk his life to expose racist murderers. Pleece defines the period and the locations superbly, and his storytelling is first rate, but he’s not the most expressive of artists, and once the revelations begin flowing the stiffness of his art lacks the weight of emotional impact on occasion. He knows how to write visually, and for the most part also knows when to let Warren Pleece tell the story. Mat Johnson’s writing career is broad based, mixing fiction and non-fiction, and while Incognegro was his first graphic novel, his writing skills are eminently transferable from earlier work, and there’s no hint of being unable to adapt to the form. Zane’s editor is confident he’ll take it. He also yearns to escape from the routine, to be recognised under his own name, but before that happens there’s one final case to take on, a guy arrested in Tupelo for murdering a white woman. He’s the Incognegro of the title, the alias he uses for a New York paper reporting on atrocities, able to pass for white among the Southern rednecks, although sometimes having to make a fast escape. Incognegro begins with a horrific description of a lynching in the 1930s as undercover reporter Zane describes his journalistic techniques for naming and shaming those responsible.
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