‘Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer’ is the Comic Series We Need Right Now

‘Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer’ blends historical dystopia with fantasy and horror to tell gripping stories of adventure and peril, rooted in the very real evil of chattel slavery.

Harriet Tubman is a remarkable individual and historical figure for a number of reasons. Her skill set was impressive, to say the least. After escaping to Philadelphia from a Maryland Plantation with her two brothers in 1849, she returned over a dozen times to help free nearly 70 more people—many of them relatives—eventually becoming known as the “Moses of her people” and Conductor of the Underground Railroad. In the years following, she served as an armed scout, spy, guerrilla soldier, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War, as well as a political activist for women’s suffrage.  

All of these things and more have inspired people to write books, make art, and even speculative fiction featuring Tubman. David Crownson’s best-selling indie comic Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer brings us a vision of Tubman that ventures into the fantastical with an entertaining series—which features striking artwork and color by Courtland Ellis, Joey Vazquez, and Josh Burcham—imagining her as a formidable and stealthy ninja warrior battling an “army of darkness.”

With HTDS, Crownson blends historical dystopia with fantasy and horror to tell gripping, outlandish stories of adventure and peril, all rooted in the very real evil of US chattel slavery. When frustrated slavers are unable to capture Harriet on their own or prevent her from whisking away her enslaved kin—whom the white slavers consider to be their personal property—they conjure up and enlist vampires, werewolves, witches, and of course, demons as supernatural hindrances. And so, Harriet must face waves of stalking, otherworldly creatures and beings even as she continues her abolitionist work of guiding families to freedom.

Read the full article on Wear Your Voice by Sherronda J. Brown