Hip hop as an art form turns 50 years old in 2023. That means it’s a perfect time for Fantagraphics to release a new hardcover collection of Ed Piskor’s seminal Hip Hop Family Tree, a comic that definitely belongs in any self-respecting rap fan’s library.
To celebrate the release of Hip Hop Family Tree: The Omnibus, Piskor has created a new series of hip hop trading cards inspired by the classic Marvel Comics cards of the early ’90s and featuring a number of iconic artists. Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive first look at this stylish and nostalgia-laden new artwork:
For those who haven’t experienced the series, Hip Hop Family Tree serves as an illustrated history of the genre and the artists, DJs and dancers who defined it. The series was originally published in four volumes, and the Omnibus marks the first time they’re all being collected into one book. Along with that original material, the hardcover features a wealth of bonus material like annotations, covers and brand-new artwork.
Here’s Fantagraphics’ official description of the series:
Ed Piskor’s HIP HOP FAMILY TREE has been a global phenomenon and perennial bestseller since the first (of four) volumes was published in 2013, spawning multiple printings, fourteen comic books, and the author’s wildly popular YouTube comics channel, Cartoonist Kayfabe (co-hosted with fellow cartoonist Jim Rugg). The award-winning comic provides an entertaining and encyclopedic history of hip hop culture, told in comic book form with verve, swagger and style. Piskor’s cartooning crackles like Jack Kirby’s illustrations and takes readers from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late 1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail. The technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted, with a vigorous and engaging Ken Burns-meets-Stan Lee approach. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries Style Wars and Scratch, HIP HOP FAMILY TREE is an essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day.
“When I selected the artists for the card series I wanted to choose some people who were immediately recognizable and maybe hyperbolic in their aesthetics,” Piskor tells IGN. “I needed to come up with something fun on the back covers of the HHFT comic book and these drawings felt like the right approach. Also, the design of the cards, in hip hop fashion, is sampled from the fantastic Marvel Universe Series II card set from around 1991 or 1992, probably the same year that Yo! MTV Rap trading cards. One major exercise with HHFT is to constantly interchange the relationship between comics and hip hop.”
Hip Hop Family Tree: The Omnibus is available in stores now. You can order a copy at the link below:
In other comic book news, at NYCC we learned the current Krakoan Age of the X-Men comics will be ending in 2024. Check out IGN’s full breakdown of everything announced at NYCC.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
