We sought to translate the comic book into the language of Haiti - Haitian Creole - for circulation within classrooms in Haiti as well, as a way to supplement, in some small way, the written and oral materials that already tell the story of this unprecedented revolution. Given that teaching and learning about Haiti’s revolution is perhaps more important than ever today, it seemed a good time to recreate the web comic as a comic book, one that could circulate more easily as a printed object and as a PDF. As 2020 unfolded, we watched as more and more people became aware of the Haitian Revolution and its centrality not only to the history of slavery and emancipation in the United States, but to global history. The Slave Revolution That Gave Birth to Haiti was published on in 2018.Įducators discovered the web comic and began to use it with some success in their K-12 and college classrooms. Over the following year, Dubois supplied text, ideas, and archival images from which to work while Cotard drew on his own knowledge and experiences of the Caribbean and his artistic skill to render the story of the Revolution compelling for all ages. When schedules conflicted, it was Edwidge Danticat who, in a conversation with Dubois, recommended the young Haitian artist Rocky Cotard.

In 2017, approached historian Laurent Dubois about writing a comic book on the Haitian Revolution and proposed several artists as possible partners on the project.

Haiti by Laurent Dubois