James Spooner is an award winning graphic novelist and filmmaker, and a tattoo artist.  His debut graphic novel, The High Desert was named “Best of 2022” by Publishers Weekly, The Washington Post, and The New York Public Library. The High Desert received the American Library Association's 2023 Alex Award and the Cartoonist Studio Prize. Spooner also co-edited Black Punk Now, an anthology of Black punk writers and comic creators, which was named one of the best music books of 2023 by Pitchfork, and The Guardian, and received a starred review from Kirkus. His latest book, It Starts With Anger (Pantheon), traces the stories, people, and punk scenes that shaped the rise and fall of AfroPunk. 

 

Spooner also directed the seminal documentary Afro-Punk which premiered at national and international film festivals, including Toronto International and The American Black Film Festival. James also co-founded the AfroPunk Festival, which currently boasted audiences in the hundreds of thousands around the world.

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​Spooner’s work has been featured in various outlets, including NPR, The Los Angeles Times, Vice, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, MTV, NBC News and Variety. He was a recipient of the ReNew Media Rockefeller Grant. He is a guest curator for the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, and the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas, and previously programmed for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He was also commissioned to adapt a story by the Scottish Book Trust and is regular contributor to RazorCake Magazine.  

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James continues to screen Afro-Punk around the world, giving talks on punk, comics and Black identity.

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