‘It’s a Bird’ Is a New Comic Written by Central Park Birder Christian Cooper
The story, which is loosely inspired by Cooper's racist encounter in the park, is the first in the digital "Represent!" series from DC Comics.
The tale begins, as so many in birding do, with a pair of binoculars. In DC Comics’ Represent! #1, Jules, a young Black man with an interest in birds receives the binocularsfrom his father, who claims theyhave special powers. And they do: In the drifting, impressionistic 10-page storythat follows, the binoculars show Julesa parade of faces along with each bird he spots: Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other Black men and women killed by police. At one point, while walking through the park, a white woman letting her dog run wild reacts violently to Jules’ request for her to leash it.
If that partsounds familiar, it should: The comic's writer is Christian Cooper, the birder whose filmed Memorial Day encounter with a white woman over an unleashed dog ended with her calling 911 and claiming that an “African-American man” was threatening her. Later that same day, George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck. Both incidentshave hadfar-reaching impacts. Cooper’s experience shone a brightlight on thedaily acts of racism Black people face while also inspiring Black Birders Week, a virtual event showcasing Black scientists, researchers, and nature enthusiasts. Floyd’s death sparked months of ongoing protests against systemic racism and police killings, and a flurry of symbolic changes in cultural spaces, including birding. Now Cooper’s story, It’s aBird, ties the two events together explicitly—in a medium itself that has a very mixed record when it comes to Black representation.
Cooper has history with the comics industry: In the 1990s, he was a writer and editor at Marvel Comics,He handled scripting duties on various issues of Marvel Comics Presents and the X-Men spinoff Excalibur, and he was an editor for issues of the comic Alpha Flight that introduced Marvel’s first openly gay character, Northstar. Cooper left the business in 1996, quit reading comics, and is now a senior editorial director at Health Science Communications.
Butcomics, like birding, have a way of getting their hooks into you. According to an, DC executives Marie Javins and Bobbie Chase approached Cooper about writing a comics story that reflected his Central Park experience. Cooper, who is a board member, was initially skeptical that DC—or superhero comics in general—was the place for such a story. But DC suggested the titleIt’s a Bird, a reference to the famous opening of the 1940s Superman radio show: “Up in the Sky! Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” Cooper’s script flowed from the title, and the story was brought to sketchy, emotive life by penciler Alitha E. Martinez, inker Mark Morales, and colorist Emilio Lopez.
Represent #1, which is, is the first installment of a series that aims to present works by creators traditionallysidelined in mainstream comics, particularly thosewho are non-white, queer, or both. The magical realist story of It’s a Bird,is woven together from his personal experiences and the deaths in the news reports. But aside from the headline-grabbing reference to Amy Cooper, the (unrelated) white dog owner from Cooper’s Central Park encounter, the comic emphasizes the magic binoculars themselves, passed down from generation to generation. “In real life, the binoculars that I use were a birthday gift from my dad, who was very active in the Civil Rights movement, and was a Korean War vet,” Cooper said. “All of these real elements combine with these fantastical elements to create something that is more than the sum of its parts, I hope. That’s something that comics do so magnificently well.”
Something the mainstream comics industry has not done magnificently well, however, iswhether they be writers, artists, or editors. DC’s relaunch of the comics company Milestone, originally established by a coalition of Black writers and artists, languished for years after the initial 2008 announcement. And Marvel’s launch of a series of covers riffing on classic hip-hop album art raised eyebrows among Black critics, who pointed out how few Black creators worked at the company at the time. When companies do hire Black creators, they often don’t invest in them.
“Everybody who I do know in comics that is Black, and is trying to sustain or maintain or even break into a career, talks about how hard it is to feel like you actually can grow in the medium,” says journalist and comics writer Evan Narcisse (Rise of the Black Panther). "I’ve had long established black artists tell me that somewhere along the line theybecame a 'black artist'and only got calls about Black characters.”
Narcisse credits the newRepresent! series and Cooper’s one-off story as a nice gesture. But he also hopes DC follows it up by creating solid, ongoing working relationships with a diverse array of Black talent on series that aren’t limited to only Black characters or themes like racial injustice. In his own experience, Narcisse says it’s been frustrating to watch Black creators not get the same support and career opportunities as white colleagues.
Cooper acknowledges the industry'srepresentationissues, but he also thinks it'simproved. "In terms of creators, there's been a slow but I think somewhat steady coloring up of the creators even in mainstream comics,” he told APP. “I think change in birding has been much slower. I think comics are actually ahead of birding in terms of recognizing demographic change, adapting to demographic change."
When it comes to the future, though,his optimism is much more measured."I’ve lived through this before—so many of us have,” he says. “Some unarmed innocent Black person gets shot dead by the police for no good reason, we protest in droves, people pay lip service, things calm down, nothing changes. And then we're right back where we started again."
As a project,It’s aBird ends on a similar note of bittersweet clarity: Jules walking away from the woman threatening him, her words dwindling into nothing before the shapes of people like and . All of them flying upward on pale wings, and a final caption that resonates for fans of comics and birds alike: Look, up in the sky.