Integrity in Ink: A Conversation with Clifford Thompson, Author of Big Man and the Little Men
Interview by Alexus Wall, Content Committee Lead, GW Journal of Ethics in Publishing
“If readers take away anything, I hope it’s that things are often not as simple as we want to think they are.”
Introduction
When a story walks the line between art and ethics, the medium can speak as loudly as the message. Clifford Thompson’s Big Man and the Little Men does just that. Unfolding as both a political thriller and a moral inquiry transforms this graphic novel into a lens. The work follows April Wells, a Black journalist torn between truth and consequence, asking what integrity costs when the truth itself could alter an election. Thompson doesn’t hand readers answers but invites them to wrestle with their own moral thresholds.
When we spoke over Zoom, Thompson was candid, warm, and reflective. He shared how his early love for comics, his passion for film, and his experience as a Black artist converged to shape this work. Our conversation wandered from his early love of comics and film, to the clarity of an outsider’s perspective, to the dangers of misinformation, to the moral crossroads that define both journalism and human experience.
What follows is an edited excerpt from our conversation, condensed for clarity and length.
On Creative Form and Intent
As we began, Thompson reflected on where his storytelling instincts first took root long before Big Man and the Little Men ever came to life.
GWJEP: What compelled you to tell this story through the medium of a graphic novel rather than traditional prose?
Clifford Thompson: The first art form that was my love as a creative person was comics. I loved Peanuts and Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the whole thing, and I loved Marvel comics. I spent my childhood and most of my teens drawing comics; that was my ambition in life. Eventually, I reached a point where my drawing had improved, but I felt like the improvement had kind of tapered off, and I became more interested in prose writing and, much later, painting.
In 2019 I told a friend over drinks that part of me wanted to make a film—but I was too old to learn how. My friend said, “You’re a writer and you do visual art,” and something about that stuck. That moment was like something out of an old movie—where a character says something and another goes, “Wait a minute, say that again.” I thought, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll make a film, but it’ll be in the form of a graphic novel.” That’s how Big Man and the Little Men came to life.
On Ethics and Moral Dilemmas
Our conversation soon turned to the tension at the heart of the novel: how personal conviction and public consequence can collide in unexpected ways.
GWJEP: April, your protagonist, faces a difficult moral choice between truth-telling and political consequence. What conversations about journalistic or personal ethics influenced your approach to that conflict?
Clifford Thompson: We are just more separated as a nation than at any point in my lifetime, and that’s a direct result of the way news is presented. When I was a boy, the most famous and trusted news person was Walter Cronkite. He simply presented the facts. People disagreed in their opinions about those facts, sure, but they were reacting to the same facts. Now, we’re siloed. A character like Lee Newsom can emerge because people have been given misinformation. I wanted April’s story to show that tension; how one’s personal ethics meet a fractured public truth.
GWJEP: My own takeaway was how April’s compromise felt painfully real. It reminded me how creative ethics and moral ethics can collide.
Clifford Thompson: That’s exactly it. April isn’t supposed to be perfect. I wanted her to represent the complexity of doing what feels right even when the result doesn’t look right.
On Character and Identity
GWJEP: You chose to make April a Black woman navigating these moral challenges. How did that choice shape her story?
Clifford Thompson: Because I’m Black and I write fiction, my characters are often Black. But it’s more than that. Black women, in particular, have historically occupied one of the most marginalized positions in this country. That outsider status gives them a view others might not have: a detachment, a clarity about how unfairness operates. April has a touch of imposter syndrome. She’s smart, sometimes sad for reasons she can’t quite name, and she’s learning that things are even more complicated than she imagined. I wanted readers to see her as human first but to understand that her perspective comes from the margins and that matters.
“Black women have historically occupied one of the most marginalized positions in this country… that outsider status gives them a clear view others might not have.”
—Clifford Thompson
GWJEP: You mentioned the Republican candidate, Newsom. Was that name choice intentional? Is there any relation to California’s Governor Gavin Newsom?
Clifford Thompson: Somebody else mentioned that! How I came up with the name was: Lee is inspired by Robert E. Lee, and Newsom is meant to suggest “new-some”, as in a “new version” of something old. So, while the name sounds contemporary, it’s really a commentary on how some old ideas just keep showing up with new faces.
On Media and Cultural Relevance
Thompson’s reflections on character naturally led to a wider conversation about the world his story lives in: a world where truth and perception are constantly at odds.
GWJEP: The novel feels incredibly timely, especially in how it examines media and truth. How do you see it engaging with today’s media environment?
Clifford Thompson: As I mentioned, how the news is presented has separated us more as a nation than ever before. When I was a kid, we all reacted to the same stimuli. Now, not so much. Social media and cable news have become a kind of one-two punch. They feed us what we already believe. The algorithms want to please us, not challenge us, so they show us what we want to see. That comfort dulls our ability to think critically. Big Man and the Little Men is a reflection of that culture.
People want things to be simple. They want to understand things in a way that absolves them of responsibility. But things are often not simple. That’s one of the main takeaways I want people to have: think more.
GWJEP: In your view, has the ease of information access made people better informed, or just more distracted?
Clifford Thompson: Both. It’s wonderful that we can find anything at our fingertips, but the downside is that misinformation spreads just as fast. People don’t always recognize it. When I was young, you went to the library or opened an encyclopedia — now people scroll and stop where they agree. It’s easier than ever to get information and harder than ever to understand it.
On What Readers Take Away
GWJEP: What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing the book?
Clifford Thompson: I hope people understand that as much as we want things to be simple, they rarely are. It’s easy to scapegoat, to find someone to blame, but things are almost always more complex. If readers take away anything, I hope it’s to think more, to be more skeptical. It’s easy to blame other people. But as April finds out, things are often not what they seem.
GWJEP: The last panel left me gasping … it’s powerful. What did you hope would linger for them after that ending?
Clifford Thompson: I wanted readers to realize that moral choices aren’t clean. April’s decision isn’t heroic or villainous; it’s human. The story shows that even with good intentions, outcomes can still wound. That last panel was meant to stay with readers and make them question what they’d have done in her place.
On Teaching and Reflection
GWJEP: If you were to teach Big Man and the Little Men in a course on publishing ethics, what discussion question would you open with?
Clifford Thompson: I’d ask if April did the right thing in the end. Where do journalistic ethics end and personal responsibility begin?
On Upcoming Work
GWJEP: You recently released Jazz June: A Self-Portrait in Essays and have a solo gallery show coming up in 2026. How do these projects connect to Big Man and the Little Men?
Clifford Thompson: Jazz June: A Self-Portrait in Essays brings together work I’ve written over the years about family, race, art, and friendship. Those themes overlap with Big Man in many ways. Both ask what it means to live ethically and creatively in a complicated world. And yes, I have another solo show at Blue Mountain Gallery in March 2026. I’m always trying to explore the intersections between writing and visual art—they feed each other.
Closing Thoughts
As our conversation wound down, Thompson returned to the idea that’s been threaded through all his work: the power of art to make us pause, question, and look closer.
Thompson is currently preparing for his 2026 solo show and continues expanding his creative practice through essays and visual storytelling. Thompson reminds us that ethical questions in publishing are rarely black and white. Big Man and the Little Men challenges readers to confront the gray areas, where truth, identity, and responsibility collide. A reminder of what art can do when it refuses to simplify human truth. His next chapter, like April’s, seems poised to keep asking: what is our responsibility to the stories we tell, and to those who trust us to tell them?
As we said our goodbyes, Thompson’s calm thoughtfulness lingered— the kind that stays with you long after a story ends.
Author Bio: Clifford Thompson's books include What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man's Blues (2019) and Jazz June: A Self-Portrait in Essays (2025). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award for nonfiction and a Pushcart Prize, and his essays and reviews have appeared in Best American Essays, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Commonweal, and the Threepenny Review, among other places. His novel Let Us Go Then, You and I will be published next fall by Running Wild Press.