New Graphic Novel Illustrates The West Virginia Mine Wars

This story originally aired in the January 26, 2025 episode of Inside Appalachia.

A new graphic novel tells the story of the West Virginia mine wars. 

The West Virginia Mine Wars occurred in the early 1900s, when the coal miners began organizing in southern West Virginia, while coal companies tried to keep that from happening. Strikes and violent clashes ensued, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. More than a century later, there’s a newfound interest in that history.

Now, the story is being told in a graphic novel. It’s called Black Coal and Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars. It’s written by Raymond Tyler, who grew up in Hall County, Georgia. 

Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with Tyler about the book.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Adams: What was your gateway into comics?

Tyler: I don’t ever remember a time not reading them. I fell in love with them from the moment that I looked at them. We would get the newspaper, and I would go and look at the funnies immediately. I just loved them. I was so lucky that there was a [nearby] town [that] had a comic book store. I think the first time I went to that comic bookstore, I had to be four [years old]. I’d usually walk out with one comic from the 25 cent bin that they would have there, and I never stopped reading them, always loved them. By the time I was 14 years old, I said I wanted to write comics as a living. That’s how much I loved those books. 

Adams: I can appreciate that. I did the same thing with the comic strips, and a lot of my initial understanding of politics was shaped by Doonesbury and Bloom County. 

Tyler: What’s funny is, the thing that got me into political literature in general was comics. It was the work of Alan Moore that I discovered when I was 14 years old. I read one of his books, and I did not understand it. The book was Watchmen. I read Watchmen, and then I went online and I looked up, ‘Who is Alan Moore?” I read that he is an anarchist. What does that mean? I don’t know anything. But whatever it was, he wrote one of the most confusing books to me ever. These “superheroes” weren’t good guys. I was very confused. I was very upset by the ending, so much that I went back to the comic book shop and I was like, “Where’s the rest of the book?” Because I didn’t understand [why] the book ended that way. I just didn’t have that frame. It was just so new. That was a gateway to radical authors and alternative comic books. 

Adams: When did you first become aware of the concept of Appalachia and that you had grown up in part of it? 

Tyer: That would have been when I started to travel around a little bit. I started to see the difference in the culture that I grew up in. I guess everybody has this who grew up in Appalachia. You might think about it, you might know it, but I don’t know if you realize how special or unique it is until you go to other places. I went to Goddard College in Vermont, to an alternative college. It was very counterculture in the ‘60s and the ‘70s, and it’s still counterculture. Everybody who goes to Goddard College has to study social justice. It was there that I started to realize a little bit more about the Appalachian identity, because a teacher at Goddard college was like, “You should write about that. You should think a little bit more about your Appalachian background, and how that pertains to you as a writer.” When you’re growing up in the mountains, you don’t really think too much about it until you leave. 

Adams: How did you learn about the West Virginia mine wars? 

Tyler: I’ve always been a big movie buff, so, of course, I had seen the movie Matewan, by John Saynes. But I think it was actually in college in Vermont that I started to read everything I could about Appalachia. That story just really took hold and became a special interest. My wife regularly jokes that I haven’t shut up about the West Virginia mine wars since she met me. If anybody showed any interest, I would go on a nice, long story about the West Virginia mine wars because it was infinitely interesting to me. I’d been to West Virginia so many times growing up, and it’s one of the most beautiful states, right? I love West Virginia. There’s something that’s always struck me when we were driving through West Virginia, the mixture of the industrial with the beautiful, majestic mountains. That imagery has always stuck in my head, so I think that was a big contributing factor to the special interest of West Virginia. 

Adams: One thing I like about this book is the note in it encouraging that once the reader is finished, don’t just stick it on a shelf, but to pass it on to someone else to read. Who did you write this comic for?

Tyler: It’s for anybody who is interested in history from below and people who are struggling against oppressive systems. But this book is really a love letter to Appalachia and Appalachian resistance. My hope with the book is that after people read it, they pass it on to somebody who might be interested in it. I’ve always thought of comics as an almost folk literature where you take comics when you’re a kid and you share ‘em with other people, right? I don’t know if you ever remember trading comics with people in the neighborhood, but I think adults can still do that too, because anybody can read this book. We even censor some language in the book so that kids could read it. But it is mostly adults who are reading this book right now. My hope with this book is that it could be some sort of continuing folk tradition, of handing this book to somebody who might be interested in these histories of Appalachia.

Adams: Another thing I like about it is the treatment of Mother Jones. Many labor writers mythologize Mother Jones, understandably, but there is a pivotal scene in this book that subverts that and shows the reality on the ground and what it meant for the people who were involved in this struggle. I appreciated that moment. What does this book about a conflict more than 100 years ago have to tell us about the moment we’re living in now?

Tyler: The thing I think is important about this book, and about all labor history books, is the things that we have that we like in our lives today, that make our lives somewhat comfortable, come from a lot of people who have struggled for us, and that struggle isn’t over. The reason that we have the weekend is because of labor struggles. The reason that we have any sort of comfort that we have in our lives today. The reason that private militias don’t gun us down when we’re on strikes is because of so many people who have fought before us. Now they do other things that are bad, and let’s hope we never go back to a time in which private militias are hurting people who are trying to fight for a better life. I mean that with a sense of urgency: let’s hope that we never go back to that time, that we keep organizing to make sure that the rights we have aren’t taken away, and that we can continue in this class struggle for freedom.

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Raymond Tyler is the writer of the new graphic novel, Black Coal & Red Bandanas: An Illustrated History of the West Virginia Mine Wars, illustrated by Summer McClinton. It’s available now from PM Press.