About

Rage: The Evolution of a Black Queer Body in America is an essay collection by Lester Fabian Brathwaite about race, dating, love and Black queer consciousness, published under Tiny Reparations, the imprint created by Phoebe Robinson at Penguin Random House. The essays are full of energy and style, so the cover needed to match. This one is a proposal that didn’t get picked, but I still love it too much to keep it in a folder.

One of my first references was an old X-Men comic, and that iconic logo that looks like it’s about to blow apart. Rage felt like it needed the same energy. It’s not a feeling that sits quietly on a shelf, it pushes, cracks and eventually breaks out. So instead of drawing a word that looks angry, I drew one that can’t hold itself together anymore, like it’s been carrying too much for too long and is finally letting go.