John Jennings: Build Your World
Exhibition on view June 20, 2026-March 27, 2027
John Jennings: Build Your World explores the extraordinary storytelling and world-building of John Jennings—Mississippi native, NYTimes bestselling graphic novelist, Harvard Fellow, and Hugo- and Eisner Award-winning artist.
In Build Your World, Jennings’s groundbreaking work in Afrofuturism, folklore, and comics is brought to life through multiple creative projects, including Silver Surfer: Ghost Light (Marvel), Kenny Dreadful and the Hainted Hoodie, Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road (Rosarium Publishing), and Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (Abrams ComicArts).
Silver Surfer: Ghost Light
Silver Surfer: Ghost Light (Marvel), Jennings has reinvented a forgotten Black Marvel character as a cosmic guardian tied to African American memory and interstellar mystery. This section offers a comprehensive overview of the complex process of working with a behemoth like Marvel and its creative teams.
TM & © 2026 Marvel and subs. All Rights Reserved.
Kenny Dreadful and the Hainted Hoodie
Kenny Dreadful and the Hainted Hoodie presents a new Southern Gothic tale that blends horror, folklore, and coming-of-age themes through the lens of a magical hoodie haunted by ancestral spirits. As new work, Jennings has complete control over every aspect of Kenny Dreadful’s story. This section will include early concept art, storyboards, and environments created by Jennings, along with annotated sketches that show influences from Mississippi folklore, African spirituality, and horror traditions.
Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road
Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road (Rosarium Publishing) brings the Mississippi myth to life. Here, Frank “Half-Dead” Johnson, a fictional brother of Robert Johnson, seeks to regain his soul while helping others along the way. Visitors to The MAX will see how Jennings’s original watercolors enliven the noir.
Blue Hand Mojo contains mature content.
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Two dozen original drawings show how Jennings built on Octavia Butler’s seminal work of Black science fiction to create new worlds, with different sketch styles and color schemes to differentiate California in the 1970s and antebellum Maryland in the early 1800s.
Together, these sections reinforce the exhibition’s main theme of world building as an act of liberation. Through his work, Jennings transforms the legacy of the South into a platform for liberated futures. The South is not just a place—it’s a portal. This exhibition uses the language of comics and graphic novels to build layered worlds that challenge historical erasure, reframe trauma, and imagine radical futures.
Events
On Display Now: John Jennings – Build Your World
Step inside an immersive new experience from Mississippi native and award-winning graphic novelist John Jennings at the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience (The MAX) in Meridian. Explore Jennings’s groundbreaking work in comics, folklore, and Afrofuturism through original artwork, sketches, storyboards, soundscapes, and interactive installations. ...
Comic Commons
Bring your projects or ideas to our monthly, open-door gathering for comic lovers of all kinds—or come to read, connect, and create in a welcoming, shared studio space. Join us every second Saturday of the month. ...
Story in Blue: Cyanotype Zine Workshop with H.I. Green
Create a handmade zine in this visual storytelling workshop with artist H.I. Green. Using cyanotype printing, collage, found objects, and watercolor, participants will craft imaginative narratives inspired by Mississippi folklore, symbols, and personal experiences. Open to ages 13+ with all materials provided. Workshop Cost: $15 Register Here ...
Monster-Making Workshop with Hector Boldo
Create your own one-of-a-kind ceramic creature inspired by the misunderstood spirits in John Jennings’s Kenny Dreadful and the Hainted Hoodie (from our exhibition John Jennings: Build Your World). Using pre-made ceramic vessels provided by artist Hector Boldo, design your own functional piece of art to serve as a cup, vase, or planter. Finished pieces will […] ...
BET Raised Us: From Mississippi to the World
Join us for a high-energy, after-hours party inspired by BET’s 106 & Park. Featuring a red-carpet entrance, live interviews, performances, and a finale by DJ Sirato, the evening celebrates Mississippi artists shaping culture today. ...
Jackson Comics Experience
Experience Jackson Comics at The MAX, featuring an exhibition of student artwork, a panel discussion with Rodney Mooney, and hands-on workshops led by Jackson Comics artists. ...
A Conversation with Myrna Colley-Lee
Join us for an intimate conversation with Myrna Colley-Lee as we explore her six-decade career in costume design through the lens of world-building. Colley-Lee will share how her life’s work centers the Black imagination to build better futures. ...
Jackson State University Takes Over The MAX
Jackson State University, the alma mater and former teaching home of John Jennings (the artist behind our current exhibition Build Your World), is partnering with The MAX for a showcase of student talent from their College of Liberal Arts, featuring visual art installations, theater, literary works, and musical performances. ...
Make-a-Monster Workshop with Jordan West
Inspired by the misunderstood spirits in John Jennings’s Kenny Dreadful and the Hainted Hoodie (from our exhibition John Jennings: Build Your World), this workshop by Jordan West invites participants to explore the unique wounds and hidden strengths of their own monsters before bringing those supernatural attributes to life with custom puppet creation. ...
About John Jennings
A native of Flora, MS, John Jennings is a graphic novelist, Media Studies Professor, Harvard Fellow, and New York Times bestseller who draws on Black Southern memory to create new worlds.
Perhaps best known as coauthor of the New York Times bestselling graphic novel Kindred, Jennings has also adapted Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, as well as directing Abrams ComicArts’s imprint Megascope, where he publishes graphic novels on the experiences of people of color.
As creator of Marvel’s Silver Surfer: Ghost Light, Jennings has been featured on the Disney+ documentaries Marvel’s 616 and Marvel’s Behind the Mask. Jennings’s forthcoming compendium, My Super Hero is Black, illuminates some of the most important Black creators and characters through Marvel Comics history.
Jennings currently has work on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room.” A collection of interviews, John Jennings Conversations, published by University Press of Mississippi, discusses folklore, systemic racism, Mississippi—and the need for Black heroes. He is co-editor of the Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers), and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem.
