Before 13th

Ralph underwhelms in his graphic novel debut, which employs encounters between journalist Ida B. Wells and abolitionist Fredrick Douglass as a narrative device to articulate the ties between slavery and mass incarceration arising from the limits of the 13th Amendment. Wells goes to confront Douglass after he delivers a keynote speech at the 1893 Columbian World’s Exposition, despite working with Wells to encourage a boycott of the event and its segregationist “colored people’s day.” After Douglass’s fame gets them past the white staff at the door of an exclusive restaurant, they debate their differences. From there, the pair embark on a journalistic investigation of the convict leasing program at the Kentucky State Penitentiary, where they pry into a corrupt system built on discrimination. Focusing on Joel Scott, a warden who ran the penitentiary for 40 years before the passage of the 13th Amendment, they aim to expose how prisons are being used as private businesses. Comics drawn by Nia Palmer, Ruth O’Leary, and Laura Molnar are vibrantly colored and expressive but too often rely on talking head close-ups, while dense information dumping and disconnected asides leave the central relationship between Wells and Douglass underdeveloped. Despite its good intentions, this misses the mark. Agent: Anna Olswanger, Olswanger Literary. (Sept.)