The words "wash day" hold a special meaning to women of color. Whether it meant going to the salon on the weekends or sitting between your mom’s legs as she worked to braid your hair, or even ensuring your job is aware you need Sundays off to perform the ultimate self-love and care task – washing, styling, and caring for your hair.
Wash Day is a slice of life comic that honors the beauty, strength and perseverance of black women and their hair. Jamila Rowser, writer and fangirl who reps the Bronx, teamed up with cartoonist Robyn Smith as well as writer, editor and critic J. A. Micheline to create a 27-page comic. The story follows Kimana, a 26-year old woman living in the Bronx as she follows her Sunday morning rituals of hair care, fresh coffee, ever-rising rent in the city, and time with her girls.
Photo: Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith
Jamila, a black and Latina writer who also co-founded the international meet up, Geek Girl Brunch, was inspired by her own wash-day routine and rituals along with her desire to read more comics for and by women of color. Following the words of Toni Morrison, “If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must be the one to write it,” she took matters into her own hands and wrote the book.
Robyn Smith, a Jamaican cartoonist based in rural Vermont, pursued comics to share the many facets of Black womanhood. “There’s something radical about a story of a black woman taking time for herself and taking care of herself in ways extremely specific to Blackness,” shares Robyn and for that very reason, she was drawn to Wash Day.
There’s currently a Kickstarter campaign that’s running until May 4th, 2018 to help self-publish and cover international shipping for Wash Day. Supporting and backing the project comes with amazing goodies such as digital and print copies of Wash Day, peel-off stickers, and artwork of the book’s characters. Check out more information on Wash Day on washdaycomic.com and enjoy some beautiful illustrations of the comic below.
Photo: Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith