Author of
Blak Kube (Abrams, 2023)

Tanna Tucker is a cartoonist and writer living in Oakland.Often employing a speculative framework, she uses comics and drawing as a way to map her relationship to the Black Diaspora, and to interrogate the utility of Black presence (or absence) in historical and mythical spaces. She is currently illustrating the Afrofuturist graphic novel, Black Kube, written by Ytasha Womack (Abrams ComicArts, Megascope 2022). Her work has been featured in the Eisner nominated LAAB Magazine, The Nib, and in several anthologies including Black Comix Returns and Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Content.

Instagram / tannatucker.com

Tanna Tucker

Books by Tanna

Blak Kube (Abrams, 2023)

Blak Kube is the story of Kek and Kekuit, two ancient Egyptian gods who were at the beginning of the universe. The Ks, as they are called, are part of the eight primordial beings called The Ogdoad. They are the darkness before the dawn, the nebulous black before creation; the prima materia to life itself. So, of course once they aren’t worshipped anymore they choose to start an inter-cosmic art gallery and explore human passion and creativity.

Blak Kube is a millennia-spanning, surreal exploration into questions of faith, creation, and the darkest parts of the human heart. It tries to give us answers to what happens to gods when the faithful move on, create new gods, or choose to become gods themselves. Blak Kube will take advantage of the surreal nature of comics to explore the lives of the Ks and their/its perceptions but also critique the notions around the very Eurocentric “white cube” of the modern gallery space. The Ks are ever present at the inciting moments of all things. They believe that every life is a work of art and deserves to be treated as such.

Part Afrofuturist manifesto, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and American Gods, and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Blak Kube is where at any given moment the art on display may be your soul’s desire or the beauty found in your worst possible nightmare. Just don’t touch the art. It touches back.