Ron’s Stereo Geeks Log: If you haven’t watched 2025’s astounding vampire film, Sinners, what even are you doing? Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, who brought Black Panther to the screens, Sinners is like no horror film you’ve seen before. I loved it so much when I first saw it, I waited patiently to watch it with Mon when the film came out on VoD. We’re still talking about it and I imagine we will continue to do so for some time to come.

Sinners sees a night of freedom in Mississippi in the Jim Crow era, where twins Smoke and Stake open a juke joint, turn into a nightmare when the festivities are attacked by vampires. No one is safe, least of all the characters the audience is bound to fall in love with.

Starring Michael B Jordan as both Smoke and Stack, the cast includes Wunmi Mosaku as Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner and Smoke’s wife; Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Stack’s former partner who’s now married to a white man. The breakout star of the film is Miles Caton, as Sammie, Smoke and Stack’s young cousin, a musician trying to escape his religious father’s shadow. Also starring Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, a musical legend that Stack recruits for the joint’s opening. And as the vampire antagonist is Jack O’Connell, Remmick, an Irish Vampire.

The first half of Sinners, there are no vampires in sight. Instead, we follow the setup of the juke joint and Smoke and Stack bringing in crucial people to make the launch a success–including catering, music, and signage. As the night progresses, Sammie gives voice to his music, and what a voice he has. So powerful is Sammie’s voice, that he unwittingly summons Remmick to the joint and all hell breaks loose.

Sinners is more than just a horror film or vampire film. It’s a film about North America’s racist roots, about the continuing strive for freedom, about community, and the transformative power of music, for good and bad. Not a single moment of this film can be predicted and every time you watch it, there are more details that you notice.

The film is rightfully getting awards attention but hasn’t won as much as it should have. Which, frustratingly, makes the film’s point–Hollywood continues to be happier with stories about people of colour and Black people told through a white lens. But when Black creatives tell their own stories, Hollywood would rather not reward them.

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of reading Big Jim and the White Boy, a graphic novel that retells the story of Big Jim in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Written by David F. Walker, drawn by Marcus Kwame Anderson, and coloured by Isabell Struble, Big Jim and the White Boy was published in 2024 by Ten Speed Graphic.

If you’ve read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you’ll know that Big Jim comes across as nothing short of a caricature of a Black slave. I read it in preparation for this graphic novel, and hoo boy, does it not hold up. The modern world desperately needs updated versions of these classics and Big Jim and the White Boy delivers in spades.

Spread over three timelines, the book sees a 101-year-old Jim share his adventures with Huck with his descendants, which are shared in flashbacks. In a future storyline, Jim’s descendant, Almena, retells his story.

In this version of the story, Big Jim is no longer the servile and slow protector of young Huck. Instead, he’s a man on a mission–trying to find his way home to his family. He’s very much a person in his own right, strong, intelligent, and aware of the dangers of history being rewritten.

I found Big Jim and the White Boy a gripping read that not only updates a classic story to be more accurate, but also addresses the consequences of whitewashing dark histories. The art is beautiful and adds depth to the story. A tough read at times, which is expected, it’s also deeply moving and hopeful for the future.

You can read Ron’s full review of Big Jim and the White Boy over at WWAC here.

I recently completed the Blanche White series by Barbara Neely, published between 1992 and 2000. The four-book series follows Blanche White, a housekeeper and amateur sleuth who uses the invisibility of domestic service to find clues and solve crimes. The series includes the following books:

I loved this series from the moment I read Blanche on the Lam. Blanche is not the kind of protagonist you expect to encounter, even now. She’s a 40-something, dark-skinned, fat Black woman. She knows she’s beautiful and smart and hard-working, but she’s also been navigating a world where everything she is and looks like is despised. Yet, even while acknowledging the privileges her lighter-skinned and thinner counterparts have, she doesn’t give up being her best self and doing the right thing.

While the first book is a straight up mystery story, Blanche Among the Talented Tenth onwards, the books incorporate more social commentary alongside the sleuthing. There are some pretty hairy moments for our protagonist as the series continues, and the final book, Blanche Passes Go sees her confront the most horrifying moment from her past. 

The series isn’t an easy read at times, and Blanche doesn’t always win the day, but that’s what I love about it. The books feel real, lived-in, and sadly relevant even now. Highly recommended for fans of mystery novels.