‘Hot Comb’: The Must Read Memoir on Black Hair in Comic Book Form

Writer: Ebony Flowers / Artist: Ebony Flowers / Drawn & Quarterly I can never get enough of reading the works of Black women and their unique relationships to their hair. When I can find such narratives in comic form, I’m hyped as seen by my love for reading about slice-of-life like depictions of wash days and other stories embracing their biracial roots. So of course, when I heard word about Hot Comb I was intrigued and rightfully so.

Hot Comb is a series of short stories collected in book form that center Black girls and women that all ultimately use hair was entry points to give social commentary on how the culture of hair shapes our lives. Each story lends an ear to so many relatable moments yet keeps the focus on women and the world that they live using a lens of Blackness. There everything under the sun: celebrations, coming of age stories, sad reflections, and instances of adulthood awkwardness collected here. From moments of a little Black girl putting on her grand mama’s wig and dancing it out to oldies to men insisting that they love Black women but use their hair as baselines for a joke, there’s a lot to read, love, roll your eyes over and process. What’s not absent is the thread of recognizing how trauma and emotional labor weave themselves in several stories that ring true.

I was stoked when looking at the art as it carried a heavy Lynda Barry influence, so the book itself as a whole carried me back to my childhood in more ways than one. Her wonderful and…