ABSTRACT
Walker and Evely’s Shaft: A Complicated Man represents space as active and dynamic as it creates a backstory for the eponymous hero of Blaxploitation fame. This graphic novel offers more than a simple rounding out of Shaft’s character. Through the use of a visual medium, Shaft offers a way of reading “space” and “place” as both constructed and constructing. Harlem is not only a backdrop for John Shaft’s sleuthing and revenge; Harlem constructs identity, memory, and it structures conflict, the key that starts the engine of the novel. Space acts as a memory palace crowded with our constructions of personal and social identity.
