Big Black: Stand at Attica Review

Writer: Frank “Big Black” Smith,  Jared Reinmuth / Artist: Améziane / Letterer: Andworld Design / Boom! Studios One of the most poignant facets of the comics medium is its ability to capture time. When you look at a page, when you look at a panel, you are seeing the exact moment that the writer and artist wanted you to see. You control how long you dwell on that moment and you have the unique ability to return to that moment at a near instant. This is something unique to comics: the sheer precision and how deep it can cut. While there are many examples, today I have the honor to talk about Big Black: Stand at Attica, a graphic memoir that captures the life of the titular character Frank “Big Black” Smith and in particular four days in 1971 that would alter the course of American history. This book is a time capsule and a very obvious labor of love done in the memory of the late Frank Smith who passed in 2004. The one sentiment that kept popping up in my mind as I read was, “this wasn’t that long ago.” Big Black only died sixteen years ago. The core events of this memoir barely happened fifty years ago. Big Black was born a little less than ninety years ago. This story, and the atrocities it depicts, are not far removed from our history. And that makes it that much more powerful. There is an intimacy that we get from Big Black as he provides details about his life and experience, aided by Reinmuth (the step-son of Big Black’s attorney, Dan Meyers) who helped transform Big Blac…