Blow by Blow: Muhammad Ali’s Life as Depicted in Graphic Biographies for Young Adults

Muhammad Ali, a Black boxer who won Olympic gold for the United States and was the heavyweight champion of the world on three occasions in the 1960s and 1970s, is a world-renowned figure celebrated for his achievements in the athletic arena and out. Such status has made him the subject of numerous graphic biographies suited for a YA audience. This article presents a multimodal and critical comparative analysis of three such titles – Messenger: The Legend of Muhammad Ali (Bernardin and Salas, 2023), Muhammad Ali (Titeux and Améziane, 2016), and Muhammad Ali: The King of the Ring (Helfand and Sharma, 2012) – to better understand how they differ in terms of visual style, structure, and content. Differences are explored across six domains: artistic styles, organizational structures, catalogs of Ali’s boxing matches, depictions of his marital life, portrayals of him as a father, and representations of his involvement in sociopolitical issues. The emphasis on Ali’s legend as an indomitable athlete and humanitarian on a global stage overshadows details of his domestic life, inhibiting critical engagement with the complexity of Ali as a human being.