First of all, I love your comic. I just finished reading Moby Dick I cannot stop thinking about it, and your adaptation is absolutely incredible. There’s definitely some scenes coming up where I can’t wait to see how you adapt them.
Also, I absolutely love Ahabs characterization in this so much, but here’s the thing: you said there’s no textual support for him being a person of color, but I also read Ahab as probably not white in the text? Not sure if Melville intended for it, but I did. I didn’t have anything specific in my head for his nationality or ethnicity until I read your comic, but I actually pictured him about the way you stated him from the start. Like it’s not specified, but the way his appearance is described, the multiple descriptions of him using that are either indicating that or being generally racist (‘Egyptian chest’ comes to mind’), even “He’s been in college as well as amongst the cannibals” kinda read that way to me tbh. And the way it’s mentioned that he’s Persian can be read as just linking evil with race in descriptions without it meaning much, but I haven’t seen it specifically with a white character being described as less white when they’re being evil with a *specific* race and I’ve read enough to where I’d have probably seen that somewhere. Someone being described as physically dark and exotic to villainize them? All the time. But very seldom is something as specific to a place as that used as specifically in books contemporary to Melville that I’ve read.
And it fits the narrative so incredibly well. There’s a whole discussion in the book about how a lot of sailors and harpooners are immigrants or poc but very few of the officers are (I mean, Ahab was also a harpooner) He’s described as not a Christian good man but a swearing good man, and we outright know Peleg thinks that Christians don’t make good Harpooners and Peleg or Bildad worked with and maybe even hired him when he was younger and originally hired on as a harpooner.
Point is: You’re amazing, your arts amazing, and I think something you said isn’t supported in text actually might be and wanted to know if you had thoughts. Thank you for reading.
So I actually agree with you! I don't think I've ever said that there's No textual support for him being nonwhite (if I have said that then oops, I don't agree with that & never really have) -- what I Do believe is that I don't think Melville intended for Ahab to be nonwhite (which might have been what I meant), but also that if you just treat the text on its own terms, there is a lot of support in the book to read him as such. A lot of the things you mention are exactly what I'd point to as examples of this. I think actually at one point ages ago I started compiling a list of all the times Ahab is referred to with racialized descriptors in the book bc I was gonna make a post about it lol; I never ended up making that post and idk where that list is but i'm sure i have it lying around somewhere.
But yeah, I do think the text itself makes a very good case for reading Ahab as nonwhite. He gets so many racialized markers in the book, like you mentioned, and I also agree that the way he gets treated by other characters can very easily be read as him being nonwhite -- for example, what you mentioned about how Bildad and Peleg talked about him; and also, for another example, I think how Stubb treats him in their very first interaction (in Ch29 "Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb"): I don't think Stubb would have treated his Captain so cavalierly and disrespectfully at the start if he was a white captain! I think it takes Ahab putting him in his place for him to actually understand "okay, this is not someone I can behave like this with." (Obviously, Stubb is characterized as being very cavalier and irreverant in general, but he doesn't outright insult people he perceives as his equals or superiors, just those he considers beneath him, particularly other Black and brown people on the ship. Ahab's rebuttal to him removes him from that category of "people beneath him" and places him squarely back in the place of "his superiors," but it doesn't actually disrupt his hierarchical worldview that underlies it. Anyway side tangent over).
The actual only time Ahab is identified with a racial description that doesn't mark him as nonwhite is specifically in contrast to Pip, where he's called white: "Oh, sir, let old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I will not let this go." (ch125 "The Log and Line," Pip's dialogue to Ahab). I do think it's interesting that the only time Ahab actually gets explicitly called white is when he's contrasted against Pip's Blackness.
I don't think this contradicts reading Ahab as nonwhite (I don't think it even contradicts reading him as Black specifically, because elsewhere Ahab is called "black terrific Ahab" (ch34) and "dark Ahab" (multiple ch's)). Though you could also in fact read from this perhaps that he is lighter skinned than Pip. Either way, I do think it's really interesting; the only times his "whiteness" (or lightness, as the case may be) is affirmed in the text is in contrast to Pip's Blackness. iirc Fred V. Bernard doesn't comment much on this in his essay "The Question of Race in Moby-Dick" (which is the first place I found, years and years ago, arguing for a reading of both Ahab and Ishmael, actually, as half-Black -- and part of the reason why I actually felt like I could justifiably and confidently state my ahab to be nonwhite), except to say that melville is specifically contrasting their skin colors and not their races, but I think there might b worth more digging into there.
But yeah tl;dr I agree with you! i think the text provides a lot of backing for reading Ahab as nonwhite. I don't necessarily think that is what Melville intended, mostly because I can't know Melville's intentions, and also because frankly I dont' know if Melville actually was capable of intentionally creating a character of color that was not at least in some part a racist caricature ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
thank you for your kind words! I really appreciate them waa 💖💖 glad you're enjoying the comic!!
