Hardears, the Barbadian graphic novel written by local comic creators Matthew Clarke and Nigel Lynch and illustrated by Clarke, is being featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit, “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.” Commonly known as “The Met”, the museum is the largest art museum in the United States and one of the largest in the world. It is also the home to the famous Met Gala.
The exhibit imagines the home of a resident of Seneca Village, a mostly African-American settlement in Manhattan’s Upper West Side that was demolished in 1857 to build Central Park, had it survived. Among the resident’s belongings are a few copies of Hardears. The book will go on sale in the museum’s bookstore.
Speaking to ZEITGEIST! Clarke said:
“It’s an honour to be there and very exciting. I want to share our culture with the world in a medium you haven’t seen it in before and to inspire Bajan and Caribbean comic creatives to pursue their dreams.”
Michelle Commander, who worked with the Metropolitan Museum on the exhibit, told Vogue that the exhibit was an opportunity to “lend some humanity to the people of the community in ways that they didn’t have it, in reality, in the early 19th century.”
Heardears is set on the fictional Jouvert Island, a magical stand-in for Barbados. After the island is destroyed by a superstorm, Mr. Harding steps forward and presents himself and his Merchant Guild as the solution to the island’s economic problems. Mr. Harding, however, is using the island’s people for a more nefarious reason. Local hero Bolo, his love Zahrah, and their allies band together to stop Harding and save their home.
The first issue of Hardears was created in 2013 by Beyond Publishing Caribbean, the Barbadian indie comics publisher founded by Clarke and Lynch in 2009. Clarke and Lynch also collaborated on Life and Death in Paradise and All Shades of Grey. The company has published other comics books by Barbadian creators such as Offset by Delvin Howell and Tristan Roach (winner of two Addy Awards and 2019 Gine On?! People’s Choice Awards nominee) and Rob by Alexandre Haynes.
The novel was picked up by Abrams ComicArts in 2019 and published under their Megascope line (which focuses on stories by and about people of colour) in April of this year.
Clarke is also the creator of the graphic novel Heartman. Nigel Lynch worked on the National Cultural Foundation’s How Hard The Times, a comic inspired by the 1937 Labour Rebellion and adapted from the play of the same name by Michelle Cox, and on Spirit Bear.
