Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, Hey, here's edition listener.
Speaker 1: It's Roy Chang, correspondent for The Daily Show. You're about
Speaker 1: to hear an episode of one of our original Daily
Speaker 1: Show podcasts, Beyond the Scenes, hosted by Roy Wood Junior.
Speaker 1: It's the podcast where we dive deep into the segments
Speaker 1: and topics from a Daily show with the show's writers, producers,
Speaker 1: and experts. This week, the show is Nerding Out about
Speaker 1: the world of black superheroes. Daily Show writer Ashton Womack,
Speaker 1: Daily Show Senior producer Aaron Lamarb Burlison, and contemporary artists
Speaker 1: Hebrew Brandley joined Roy to discuss how black superheroes can
Speaker 1: bring more authentic Black stories to the big screen. If
Speaker 1: you like the show, check out the Beyond the Scenes
Speaker 1: podcast wherever you get your podcasts, enjoy Welcome to Beyond
Speaker 1: the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes deeper into
Speaker 1: topics and discussions and segments that originally air on the
Speaker 1: Daily Show. Like this is what you gotta think of
Speaker 1: this podcasts. This podcast is like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: how you go to church. You go to church, you
Speaker 1: can go to heaven. This podcast is them little sandwiches
Speaker 1: you get after church. Like you know, you go to
Speaker 1: church and even praise the Lord, but then down there
Speaker 1: in the fellowship hall, they got them a little finger sandwiches,
Speaker 1: and they got all them little the little peppermints. That
Speaker 1: being the bottom of a black, black lady's purse. That's
Speaker 1: what this podcast is. I think that analogy works. This
Speaker 1: Black History Month, we are taking a look at a
Speaker 1: CP time I did not too long ago, about the
Speaker 1: history of black superheroes, and we talked about some of
Speaker 1: the more notable superheroes in black history. Give me a clip.
Speaker 1: Black superheroes are not new. In fact, they've been squeezing
Speaker 1: into spandex for decades. They didn't as far back as
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six when cartoonist Jay Jackson created Speed Jackson
Speaker 1: and the Chicago Defended the newspaper. Speed Jackson was a
Speaker 1: former track star at Howard University who was an excellent fistfighter,
Speaker 1: which may not sound powerful compared to today's superheroes with
Speaker 1: their laser eyes and sticky spider hands, which you have
Speaker 1: to think about it. Like sports, today's best athletes of
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of human physicality, while the best athletes from
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties were just the ones with the least
Speaker 1: polio times change. Jackson used his abilities to fight against
Speaker 1: fascist during the war and right the wrongs of a
Speaker 1: racist society, which is tough because superpowers don't help when
Speaker 1: you're fighting systemic racism. Doesn't matter if you have the
Speaker 1: strength of ten men, if none of those men can
Speaker 1: get a mortgage. To help me dive a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper into this topic, We've got a lot of brothers.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go around the horn here real quick. First up,
Speaker 1: as a certified nerd and stand up comedian and daily
Speaker 1: show writer super nerd Ashton Boer. Are you trying to
Speaker 1: disrespect you? Gangster? Appreciate? I appreciate you. Know you're still Houston.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Yeah? How many times have
Speaker 1: you been on the show? Like? What number is this again?
Speaker 1: Like you have to Like, I think it's like my
Speaker 1: fourth time. Give a tap, give a take. Yeah. Also
Speaker 1: joining us is a comic artist who creates narrative driven
Speaker 1: work and incorporates his own character creations into his work.
Speaker 1: Hebrew Brantley, Hebrew, how you doing today? What's up? Roy?
Speaker 1: I'm great man, I'm glad to be on. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys having well, appreciate you for being smart enough
Speaker 1: to not join us in this hot ass studio, nice
Speaker 1: and air conditioned where you are. Television is torture here,
Speaker 1: it's torture. Also, for the very first time, this man's
Speaker 1: work has helped make this podcast happen. Up until now,
Speaker 1: we have a senior producer and self professed geek of
Speaker 1: all things, Aaron Lamar Brolson. Aaron, how you doing testing
Speaker 1: one too? Wow? This is how it feels like going
Speaker 1: beyond the scene. All right, yes, all right, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: doing great. Or it's a pleasure and honor to be
Speaker 1: on the show with you. Normally you're normally helping to
Speaker 1: produce all these segments and put all the wheels on
Speaker 1: the car so it can go room. But thank you
Speaker 1: for settling in on this one. Because Ashton we was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we talking about black gigs, and Aaron's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say about it. I'll just
Speaker 1: write myself into the episode. Yeah, I was like, you
Speaker 1: should be an episode. What are we here for? So
Speaker 1: I'll go around the horn to the three of you. First,
Speaker 1: I want to know when you first started reading comic
Speaker 1: books and becoming engrossed in the world of comic books
Speaker 1: and when you recognize your first black comic superhero. Because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. For me, I grew up with
Speaker 1: budget limitations, and so you know where I'm from. You
Speaker 1: could really choose one of two things. You could collect
Speaker 1: baseball cards or you could collect comic books. You could
Speaker 1: not afford both, and with a little bit of extra
Speaker 1: money I did have, I would spend that on video
Speaker 1: game magazine, shout out to GamePro, shout out to Electronic
Speaker 1: Game and monthly shout out to Nintendo Power. So I
Speaker 1: never yeah, I was like you speaking to my nerd
Speaker 1: heart right now. So I never I never dealt with
Speaker 1: the comic books. And so there would be kids in
Speaker 1: middle school they have the comic books. But I just
Speaker 1: what I knew if comic books was the cartoons. If
Speaker 1: it didn't have a Saturday Morning cartoon, I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: you anything about it, knew nothing, but I could name
Speaker 1: you who was on the bench for the Cincinnati Rids.
Speaker 1: And so that's a different type of nerds that's still
Speaker 1: in You're still in the house. So but but this
Speaker 1: is but this is a world that I really do
Speaker 1: not have much of a It does not connect to
Speaker 1: my childhood if I'm just being one hunting. So I
Speaker 1: want you all to walk me through how you all
Speaker 1: got connected in the comic books. Actually I'll start with you,
Speaker 1: But how did you get into comic books? And what
Speaker 1: was the first like sense of representation that you saw?
Speaker 1: If I would say, the way I got into comic
Speaker 1: books was I grew up on Fox. They had weekday
Speaker 1: afternoon cartoons and you'll watch x Men, you will watch
Speaker 1: all the superhero cartoons, and that sparked my love for
Speaker 1: comic books. Now, the first superhero, the actual really got
Speaker 1: me truly loving superhero It's always been black superheroes. My
Speaker 1: first superhero I loved was meteor Man. It's not a
Speaker 1: comic book, it's a movie. Robert Townsend, so many famous
Speaker 1: black actors. But I was growing up as a kid.
Speaker 1: We were watching medior Man eighteen thousand times a day.
Speaker 1: So then to that point, Aaron, what did you discover
Speaker 1: because media Man is that's a movie, you know, and Ashton,
Speaker 1: you know, you're kicking back with his pops watching something
Speaker 1: that probably was That movie was a little grown. It's
Speaker 1: a classic. It's a little grown for your five years old.
Speaker 1: What about you Aaron, How did you get into Like
Speaker 1: where did you go to get them? Because yeah, like
Speaker 1: comic books was that was a white side of town
Speaker 1: errand and growing up for me, growing up in Birmingham,
Speaker 1: you did not go to the white side of town
Speaker 1: un Let's say, when classmate had a birthday or unless
Speaker 1: it was time to go Christmas shopping. That was literally
Speaker 1: another universe. Yeah, so where are you even finding the
Speaker 1: comic books too? Like who is your people? How did
Speaker 1: you get into this? You know, I have to give
Speaker 1: a lot of credit for a lot of my you know,
Speaker 1: geekedom in fandom to my older brother Brian. You know,
Speaker 1: he was an avid collector, so he had a bunch
Speaker 1: of G. I. Joe comics. But it was when he
Speaker 1: was growing up and going away to you know, college
Speaker 1: and everything, he let me inherit his comic book collection,
Speaker 1: which had a lot of the nineteen seventies Batman comic books,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and that you know, vintage
Speaker 1: blue and gray jumpsuit and so you get a lot
Speaker 1: of those like seventies and eighties Batman comics. Death in
Speaker 1: the Family where you see the second Robin passing away
Speaker 1: by the hands of the Joker, and so I was
Speaker 1: really fortunate to have an older brother who was into
Speaker 1: a lot of geek stuff, Star Wars, Batman, g I Joe,
Speaker 1: and so it was from inheriting his comics that I
Speaker 1: developed a joint love. In addition, you know, Ashton I
Speaker 1: as well was watching all those weekday cartoons in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: X Men and Batman. The animated series so really developed
Speaker 1: and coalesced through. I mean, I think the animated series
Speaker 1: for Batman is one of the groundbreaking series of all time.
Speaker 1: And so it was really in that pocket that I
Speaker 1: really embraced, you know, my geeked them in a way
Speaker 1: and grew to have such a love affair with this
Speaker 1: art form. Now, Hebrew, you took it to another level
Speaker 1: because you started drawing and actually trying to do something
Speaker 1: with all this stuff, unlike these two shiftless need grows.
Speaker 1: How did representation you know, how did that inspire your work?
Speaker 1: Like did you ever feel a moment and you know,
Speaker 1: and ash and Aaron feel free to jump in this
Speaker 1: as well. Was there ever a character where you're like, oh, damn,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be my through line or that's the one
Speaker 1: that that inspired me to go to the next level
Speaker 1: with this no man. You know, I'm probably a little
Speaker 1: older than you know, the brothers on the panel. And
Speaker 1: I think for me, it was like I came into
Speaker 1: it through my mom. My mom was just a reader.
Speaker 1: My mom would read everything, and she just wanted me
Speaker 1: to be a reader. And I wouldn't connect with anything,
Speaker 1: you know, like I would pick up something started and
Speaker 1: not finished. And then she introduced me to comics books,
Speaker 1: but it was her way. So it was like Archie
Speaker 1: and all that shit that I excuse me, I don't
Speaker 1: know you okay, but but you know this stuff that again,
Speaker 1: it just was a little too white for me, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and it wasn't funny. And then I gravitated
Speaker 1: more towards like X Men and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: I think that, like, you know, my first introduction before
Speaker 1: comics or kind of maybe at the same time, to
Speaker 1: black heroes is a questionable black hero, which is Panther
Speaker 1: from ThunderCats. Yes, yeah, yes, Pantonic. They just always made
Speaker 1: him fix exactly that. And then he had nunchucks, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, NIA just love nunchucks. Let's just
Speaker 1: do that. And it was you know, you know, Panther
Speaker 1: was voiced by the grandfather on the Colomby show. Oh yes, no,
Speaker 1: ye sense yeah, And it was so you know, he
Speaker 1: had that deep black man like, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like as my grandfather talking to me. So and that
Speaker 1: was his character in the show. He was like kind
Speaker 1: of voice of reason. He was, you know, like you
Speaker 1: being a pussy's like come on stop now, like yeah,
Speaker 1: let's stop, let's stop this ship. But um but no,
Speaker 1: but in our sincerity, Like that was sort of my
Speaker 1: way in. And then it was like, you know, the
Speaker 1: eleven year old boy and me saw Storm and that
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, that's this is speaking to me
Speaker 1: on a few a few levels, right, it's not right.
Speaker 1: But you know when it came to my stuff, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't. I think it's just a culmination
Speaker 1: of just like all these things that I've sort of
Speaker 1: ingested over the years, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: these different different heroes, different characters. But you know, I think, man,
Speaker 1: we all were hooked on blonde haired, blue eye Superman
Speaker 1: for the longest time, right, because that's all we were fed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the closest I came to comic books. I
Speaker 1: would read comic strips and the newspaper every day. I
Speaker 1: grew up in a newspaper house, so especially on Sundays,
Speaker 1: we passed the paper around the table and you just
Speaker 1: read all the different sections, and so, you know, to
Speaker 1: that point, Hebrew like I'm trying to think, and you know,
Speaker 1: Birmingham media, especially print media's hell of conservative back in
Speaker 1: those days. So I don't even think I saw the
Speaker 1: Boomdocks until late nineties. But to me, the blackest thing
Speaker 1: I saw in the newspaper was of the Phantom, and
Speaker 1: he was vigilant. He was tan up shit. No. The
Speaker 1: only reason why I thought he was black because he
Speaker 1: was the Jungles all the time, and then the movie
Speaker 1: came out they had Billy's shout out black Panther for all.
Speaker 1: It was such a lack of black characters out there.
Speaker 1: I had to identify with Beasts from The X Man
Speaker 1: because he was blue at least, and so someone that
Speaker 1: you can still see yourself in, because you cann't really
Speaker 1: see yourself in Cyclops. You cann't really even though you
Speaker 1: have Wolverine, he was dope, you couldn't see yourself in that.
Speaker 1: So at least with Beasts being blue, you can still
Speaker 1: kind of see it. A little bit. It's not until
Speaker 1: you get Bishop coming to the X Men two, where
Speaker 1: Bishop is just a strong, like six foot six black
Speaker 1: guy with like wavy jet black hair and had a
Speaker 1: Jerry curl. He had a Jerry Bishop looked like he
Speaker 1: was running back for the race. But but how did
Speaker 1: that make you feel? He ruined Ashton, Like when you
Speaker 1: saw a brother that looked like your uncle from a
Speaker 1: family barbecue in a comic book, because I remember seeing
Speaker 1: for me it was Bo Jackson, Frank Thomas Ken, Griffith
Speaker 1: jen Those were the three black athletes that made me
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, he's doing especially both because he's from
Speaker 1: around the corner Birmingham suburb. So like I remember that
Speaker 1: feeling of man, I can do this because he looks
Speaker 1: like me. Did Was that? Was that your character Aaron
Speaker 1: was Jerry curl man Bishop? Was that? I mean? Because
Speaker 1: at that point you're really grasping for some sort of representation.
Speaker 1: So you get that with Bishop, right, you have a
Speaker 1: who's not from the time period that the X Men
Speaker 1: are taking place, and he's from a dystopian future and
Speaker 1: he's coming back to right the wrongs that kind of
Speaker 1: led way to his horrible future, you know, where he
Speaker 1: isn't happening. So but Bishop was a little bit off
Speaker 1: his rocker, you know what I mean. But it was
Speaker 1: okay because he was He was really cool and militaristic
Speaker 1: in a way. So I really gravitated to that he brought.
Speaker 1: I'll start with you on this question. Do you think
Speaker 1: that black cartoons outside the mainstream get enough credit or
Speaker 1: get enough attention, you know, like within the mainstream culture.
Speaker 1: How much do black cartoons get their props from the
Speaker 1: mainstreams the way that they deserve. Is the tide changing
Speaker 1: ish a little bit? Or is it still kind of
Speaker 1: pick and shoes? I think it's picking shoes, man, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know any I mean, besides, like Boondocks, obviously
Speaker 1: that that had a real moment, right and it still does.
Speaker 1: I think it kind of reverberates, you know, when you
Speaker 1: get people, you know, sort of reposting memes and things
Speaker 1: like that, and how it sort of lived through. But
Speaker 1: you're talking the car we're really more so more so
Speaker 1: the TV show because that's what everybody, you know, like,
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of people found it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And so I think beyond that, man,
Speaker 1: there really hasn't been like we've only just been sidekicks, um,
Speaker 1: you know to the white characters, and I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, we get a proud family every
Speaker 1: now and then, you know, we have little blips on
Speaker 1: on the master there is it's it's here, it's out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really and it's it's good. But again, like we
Speaker 1: don't you know, I think I feel like it's the
Speaker 1: it's the quota situation. It happens in Hollywood all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean few years ago, you know when Hollywood uh
Speaker 1: found out that you know, black was cool, um again
Speaker 1: after Black Panther was profitable. There you go black, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we can make money off these folks. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: It was just that thing of like, let's retro fit
Speaker 1: uh this character who was probably a white it man,
Speaker 1: Let's make him black. But they don't really change anything
Speaker 1: except for just you know, replacing the actor or the person,
Speaker 1: not necessarily reforming the character. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: happens in cartoons and animation all the time, where it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, we have to feel a call,
Speaker 1: right we have how many black kids we have in
Speaker 1: this group? Oh shit, let's get a black kid in here.
Speaker 1: Real quick. You don't care, right, I mean, have y'all
Speaker 1: seen the new Velma TV show No yea yeah, where
Speaker 1: Shaggy's black black, don't smoke weed, he don't even get high.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know what kind of Shaggy that is.
Speaker 1: You know, this is not Shaggy. I Like. It's like
Speaker 1: when it comes to like where you're talking about where
Speaker 1: they re skin white characters for put a black face
Speaker 1: on white characters. We need representation, but that it's it's
Speaker 1: the other side of that. It's like, yeah, I like Shaggy.
Speaker 1: I've been watching Scooby Doo. You know what's wild about
Speaker 1: that too, is that it's one of the things I
Speaker 1: feel like white people and black people both agree because
Speaker 1: black people want their own stories and white people don't
Speaker 1: want to see their favorite characters, you know, dipp in chocolate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. Like, well, listen you say that, and then
Speaker 1: you'd be like, hey, you know, Jesus, that guy might
Speaker 1: have been you might have started off the original Superhero. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then you even take something like say Miles Morality,
Speaker 1: where you have Spider Man into the Spidy verse, right,
Speaker 1: which was an animated film with a black spider Man
Speaker 1: who you know, hold Spider Verse or whatever, and it
Speaker 1: did so well. There was there was rumbling for a
Speaker 1: quick minute, Oh I bet they should do a live
Speaker 1: action Miles Morales, and then it was like, nah, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna get out with Super one time. But I
Speaker 1: feel like that that, you know again, with that listen,
Speaker 1: Miles is one of my favorite characters in comics. Um
Speaker 1: and you know, I love the character, although they've never
Speaker 1: really given him to uh, you know, a decent black
Speaker 1: writer or group of black creators, which they should have.
Speaker 1: But you know, with that movie, I think that movie
Speaker 1: worked because it was just a good movie, right, Like
Speaker 1: they they really honed in on making Miles feel authentic,
Speaker 1: his neighborhood feel felt authentic, his his parents, shit feels
Speaker 1: like Miles, Miles last name is Morales and his dad's
Speaker 1: last name, what's his dad's last name? Right? Like, that's
Speaker 1: that's some real shit, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: that's not even his daddy. My last name, my dad
Speaker 1: last name Lomax. They just having a rhyme. So I
Speaker 1: think I think they did a good job in bringing
Speaker 1: in some authenticity. I think that we will start to
Speaker 1: see more of that. But you know, again, it's like
Speaker 1: where you know, Hollywood's motivated by the dollars and as
Speaker 1: long as you know Peter Parker, like, we'll get the
Speaker 1: black Miles in real time at one point, but you know, white, white,
Speaker 1: white Spider Man is It's still you know, very very thankful.
Speaker 1: But after the break, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I want to talk to all
Speaker 1: of you actually about how we can introduce new black characters,
Speaker 1: new black IP into the world of comic books and
Speaker 1: eventually matriculating into television and profitable movie franchises for you, Hebrew,
Speaker 1: but also the hurdles that you've dealt with and trying
Speaker 1: to break through new concepts and what that world is like.
Speaker 1: This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Beyond
Speaker 1: the scenes. We are back. We are talking the world
Speaker 1: of black superheroes. And while we only get the same
Speaker 1: couple of superheroes remix, even though we got a hold
Speaker 1: universe of black stories waiting in the queue to be told,
Speaker 1: one of our guests has been creating some of these characters. Now, Hebrew,
Speaker 1: walk us through this because I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit this break just about a lot of the
Speaker 1: existing black movie IP and how it came to actual fruition.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk with you first just from
Speaker 1: the ideation of drawing a character, creating the character, creating
Speaker 1: a comic around the character, walk us through that journey
Speaker 1: of what that was like, Because are you writing, are
Speaker 1: you creating a character? Like like with television like Ashton
Speaker 1: I know you know this, Like with television, the trick
Speaker 1: is do you want to write and create a character
Speaker 1: that you know everybody will gravitate towards that They all like,
Speaker 1: are you writing what you like? And then you're making
Speaker 1: people get on board with what you're into. Well, I
Speaker 1: think for me, my journey is really unique in the
Speaker 1: way that I didn't start out trying to create a
Speaker 1: comic or anything like that. You know, I come from
Speaker 1: the world of high art, right, so, like you know,
Speaker 1: paintings for galleries, museums, et cetera, and in do in
Speaker 1: that over the years and trying to find my voice,
Speaker 1: I kind of accidentally landed on this idea. A lot
Speaker 1: of the work that I was doing early in my career,
Speaker 1: it had it had a lot of angst to it.
Speaker 1: You know, it was very pro black or maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit too much, you know, skewed a little too
Speaker 1: dark or heavy handed, so to speak. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, within the gallery world, in that space, you
Speaker 1: kind of have to you know, you have to walk aline.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's you have to be very clever
Speaker 1: about how you say certain things. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, the advice that I got
Speaker 1: from a lot of my my peers was like, man,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to paint things that you know,
Speaker 1: that you're familiar with, the things that feel like you.
Speaker 1: And for me, growing up, you know, a self professor
Speaker 1: sort of black nerd on comics, cartoons, anime, all that shit,
Speaker 1: trying to really figure out what that was. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until you know a few years after college where
Speaker 1: I had found myself in that place that we all
Speaker 1: do where it's like, man, what's what's the next thing?
Speaker 1: And you know, I found a book on World War Two,
Speaker 1: just was thumbing through it and landed on the Tuskegee Airman.
Speaker 1: And with Tuskegee Airman, you know, man, it was just
Speaker 1: it was like a lightning ball that hit me because
Speaker 1: it was like, man, nobody has really touched on these
Speaker 1: brothers from the standpoint of like like their journey was
Speaker 1: so powerful. It struck me in this way because the
Speaker 1: time in which they existed, the time in which they
Speaker 1: were charged with doing certain things, our world was a mess.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that different from where it is now,
Speaker 1: but we're talking, we're talking World War, We're talking, you know,
Speaker 1: within America, Blacks, you know, treated significantly less than right.
Speaker 1: But then they're allowed and tasked to fly these planes
Speaker 1: and they do it successfully. And these brothers are buttoned up,
Speaker 1: and you know, they are the sort of personification of
Speaker 1: what manhood is right and what heroism is. And so
Speaker 1: I found that and I just thought about, like, man,
Speaker 1: like what if there was like this, this, this, this,
Speaker 1: this character or these characters that exist at that time
Speaker 1: just kind of forgot about, right, Like it happens all
Speaker 1: the time, these cartoons that fall off the shelf and
Speaker 1: never get seen. And so I created Flatboy, which became
Speaker 1: sort of my state boy ip, but as kind of
Speaker 1: a lark, like within the high art space, and just
Speaker 1: like creating this show, like presupposing that I found this
Speaker 1: this animation project that never that never saw the light
Speaker 1: of day, and I presented it like that to my
Speaker 1: audience and like some found footage. Yeah, so it was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of you know, just bringing people in
Speaker 1: that way because I felt like that was the easiest
Speaker 1: way then, just to say, you know, hey, I created
Speaker 1: this thing whole claw, checked this out, um and it
Speaker 1: people started to bite, you know, folks come into the show.
Speaker 1: The response was great, But it wasn't just a response
Speaker 1: to like, you know, because there was no narrative behind
Speaker 1: it for real, for real, like there was no story
Speaker 1: through line or anything like that. But people started him
Speaker 1: as a Tuskegee airman. Did you present him as black
Speaker 1: or was he its all goggled up and scarfed up, goggled,
Speaker 1: black faced little kid, you know, with or without superpowers.
Speaker 1: Take it, you know, take it with you will. But
Speaker 1: I think that people were allowed to read into it,
Speaker 1: and I think that there was sort of like this
Speaker 1: message behind it of empowerment that people really you know,
Speaker 1: they they felt. And so as I started doing more
Speaker 1: and more shows, the expectation for more and more of
Speaker 1: these paintings, you know, grew, and people were coming to
Speaker 1: the shows looking for Flyboy. I had people making you know,
Speaker 1: like little Halloween costumes, just you know, cheap little aviator goggles,
Speaker 1: red red scarfs, et cetera, and so it just grew
Speaker 1: into a thing where you know, it wasn't it wasn't
Speaker 1: intended to be, you know, a thing that I continued
Speaker 1: on with. It was intended to just be this moment.
Speaker 1: But as it started to grow and my understanding of
Speaker 1: it started to grow, I started to attach narrative to
Speaker 1: it because you know, nobody knew the origins or they
Speaker 1: weren't coming for that. They were just coming for the
Speaker 1: aesthetics and the messaging behind it. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: a few years back, I finally, uh, you know, created
Speaker 1: a comic. You know, it's my first run, and you know,
Speaker 1: like any junior, you know, novice to a thing, I
Speaker 1: pretty much wrote myself into a corner. By issue two.
Speaker 1: I like, I like killed off one of the main
Speaker 1: characters by issue two, and I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: So I kind of had to like you know, wheel
Speaker 1: it back, but like let those things exist on an
Speaker 1: island by themselves and then sort of retool and and
Speaker 1: and recreate something. But again, all that to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't me intending to make something, uh,
Speaker 1: to make this what it what it what it's become.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a happy accident. But you know,
Speaker 1: again through that has has bared you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of really really really strong fruit. Okay, so then you
Speaker 1: create Flyboy, and then you're you're eventually going to be
Speaker 1: at a crossroads if you aren't already that a out
Speaker 1: of black content creators are going to pay it now
Speaker 1: where you have an idea and the tradeoff for exposure
Speaker 1: and money is new cooks get to come into kitchen
Speaker 1: and tinker with the season and on this dish that
Speaker 1: you've perfected up until this point. How difficult is it
Speaker 1: to try and navigate deciding on how to hold onto
Speaker 1: your ip as things start to grow? Because when we
Speaker 1: talk about this idea that there's this backlog of all
Speaker 1: of these black ideas and black comic strip shows that
Speaker 1: are out there that deserve to be seen and deserve
Speaker 1: to be made in the movies. But how much of
Speaker 1: it is the studios and the labels and distribution networks
Speaker 1: creating an impossible contract that you just possibly can't agree to.
Speaker 1: And is that one of the hurdles that is keeping
Speaker 1: something like say Flyboy from truly expanding to something even
Speaker 1: greater from flying? If you like, like like, how difficult
Speaker 1: is it to try and keep control of your eye
Speaker 1: because you're trying to grow this shit. But then to
Speaker 1: grow it, you got to give it to somebody that
Speaker 1: gets to go, I do whatever I want. If we
Speaker 1: can make flyboyd and give them a sister and Flyboy
Speaker 1: and tell her, let's make them thirty four fly man, No,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's it's it's a task. But
Speaker 1: I think for me, again, my situation is unique in
Speaker 1: the sense that like, this isn't a comic book, right,
Speaker 1: that's you're selling for five bucks, right, these are paintings
Speaker 1: that sell for you know, thousands of dollars. Right, you
Speaker 1: got to take your prices. Don't tell them your price.
Speaker 1: Collectibles a lot of dollars, but you know, these are
Speaker 1: these are collectibles that I've created, in statues that I've
Speaker 1: created that you know are now seen all around the world.
Speaker 1: These are collectibles that you know, go on eBay for
Speaker 1: triple the price. You know, you're talking four or five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for some plastic you know, figurines. And with that,
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of changes my narrative when coming
Speaker 1: into Hollywood because it's like the product is proven, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm only doing this on a smaller level.
Speaker 1: When it comes to you know, I'm keeping it contained
Speaker 1: at a very limited number, but you know it's proven.
Speaker 1: Look these are the numbers here, and this is just
Speaker 1: this is just me doing it. So you know, if
Speaker 1: we start to bring this thing out to the masses,
Speaker 1: you know it's going to obviously change and you're gonna
Speaker 1: you know, get more eyes around it, gain more fandom
Speaker 1: around it, and you know, obviously you know it it's
Speaker 1: able to grow, the IP grows, et cetera. But just
Speaker 1: me being able to do it on my own is
Speaker 1: already I think a lot more than most are able
Speaker 1: to kind of come in the game with. Like most
Speaker 1: folks are coming in with the idea if it's a
Speaker 1: if it's a book, or if it's a script, you know,
Speaker 1: that's not as leverageable as you know, building out a world,
Speaker 1: doing you know, exhibitions. I did an experience mental exhibition
Speaker 1: in Chicago a few years ago called Nevermore Park where
Speaker 1: basically I created the world of Flyboy and you kind
Speaker 1: of walk through in this experience basically through an origin
Speaker 1: story of this character. Right, And you know, we had
Speaker 1: like we had a couple hundred thousand visitors to it.
Speaker 1: I bought like like fifty thousand tickets for CPS students,
Speaker 1: so they were able to kind of come through. You know,
Speaker 1: it really expanded you know, our again our fan base
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and also showed them sort
Speaker 1: of another side because they're only familiar with the paintings,
Speaker 1: and you know, again, having had all of that gives
Speaker 1: me a little bit more leveraged in those conversations with
Speaker 1: different studios, Aston Aaron, Why don't studios accept the fact
Speaker 1: that black superhero hit movies are not an anomaly? It
Speaker 1: irks me that the first Iron Man is credited with
Speaker 1: being the beginning of the Marvel Surisa. It irks me
Speaker 1: when we all know the truth, yeah, is that it
Speaker 1: was Blade. We do we do now. They didn't connect
Speaker 1: Blade to none of the other ship and maybe that's
Speaker 1: why they try not to write it off. Blade had
Speaker 1: a budget of about forty forty five million, if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, grossed about a hundred. It made about a hundred.
Speaker 1: Didn't know it did one thirty It did by one
Speaker 1: thirty one forty it made. It made its money back
Speaker 1: and then another hundred million. Yeah, tify a sequel, right,
Speaker 1: two sequels? Yeah, it got it got sequels and a
Speaker 1: TV series which spiked cancer because they said they couldn't
Speaker 1: afford the special effects. That's a true story. So why
Speaker 1: don't these films like why what? Like, let's just talk
Speaker 1: about the erasure of Blade? Yeah, is there? Do you think?
Speaker 1: Do you even agree with that point? Aaron? Let's just
Speaker 1: start there. So I think we agree. I mean we
Speaker 1: can go a step further, just talk about the erasure
Speaker 1: of Wesley Snipes. But I think, well, he would have
Speaker 1: paid his taxes. I mean, you know him and Ryan
Speaker 1: Reynolds didn't get along a diva. But the thing about
Speaker 1: that story, yeah, it was a lot of it was
Speaker 1: a lot of commotion apparently with that Blade Trinity production.
Speaker 1: But we have to take it back to the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties and understand that before Blade the film, there isn't
Speaker 1: a successful Marvel film adaptation. At that point. You have
Speaker 1: the Captain America film, which is from the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: which is it's not what we have with Chris Evans now,
Speaker 1: and then Punisher failed Dolph Lund Punisher cult classic but
Speaker 1: not a hit by any means. And then you have
Speaker 1: this buried Roger Corman Fantastic four film, um that wasn't
Speaker 1: even released the general public and you can only find
Speaker 1: copies of it at Comic Con. And so Marvel was
Speaker 1: doing this thing of licensing out their characters, not building
Speaker 1: an overall universe, but lightning them out to twentieth century Fox,
Speaker 1: lightning them out to Colombian Pictures, Sony, and just seeing
Speaker 1: what it got. It wasn't as much of a creative
Speaker 1: powerhouse in the film game as it is today. And
Speaker 1: so you get this film called Blade, which is rated R,
Speaker 1: which is bloody violet vampire flick, action flick, and it
Speaker 1: literally it becomes a hit. It becomes a hit because
Speaker 1: of the performance of Blade, because of this representation of
Speaker 1: this black superhero. But it also creates a door for
Speaker 1: us to get X Men in two thousand, for us
Speaker 1: to get Spider Man in two thousand and two, and
Speaker 1: all the various films that come and kind of give
Speaker 1: us modern contemporary visual adaptations of superheroes on film. And
Speaker 1: so I just think it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: where people don't want to get black characters or black
Speaker 1: actors or performers the credit, and it's old fashioned racism.
Speaker 1: They're trying to qualify with different metrics and whatnot. But
Speaker 1: Blade was a hit to generate two more films in
Speaker 1: the film in a series adaptation, but again they want
Speaker 1: something more. But did they go some of the mother
Speaker 1: black characters we got them? Like why didn't Marvel go
Speaker 1: digging the crates? Yeah, because a lot of those characters
Speaker 1: are whack as hell. Yeah, well he black Panther. Think
Speaker 1: about like the one of the hurdles had to overcome
Speaker 1: a black panther was Umbaku's character. He was just a
Speaker 1: racist gorilla in the comic books. He was just straight
Speaker 1: up a gorilla, like a monkey that was his power
Speaker 1: monkey man or something like that. And they had to
Speaker 1: like actually content like make him a modern character for
Speaker 1: today and get rid of the racist trope that he was.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure they go and look through their their
Speaker 1: their a list of black characters, and half of them
Speaker 1: are just stereotypes, even with Black Panther. Black Panther, you know,
Speaker 1: was a character that was created by Jack Kirby. Rest
Speaker 1: in peace. Jack Kirby one of the greatest comic book
Speaker 1: creators of all time. But you know, Jack Kirby's not
Speaker 1: a brother, and I'm pretty sure, like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think Jack had many brothers on his roller decks,
Speaker 1: Like Hey man, I'm this character called the Black Panther,
Speaker 1: and let me get these notes of Also, can I
Speaker 1: just can I just shout this out. This is a
Speaker 1: very very problem moment in my life of nerd them.
Speaker 1: But my my paintings and my figures were in Wakanda
Speaker 1: forever hard. That's hard, and shout out for that. It
Speaker 1: was like the biggest nerve moment. You know. It was
Speaker 1: all quiet in the theater and I saw my ship
Speaker 1: and I just let it. That's fire. You'd be like Joe,
Speaker 1: this movie the greatest movie in the world. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I love this movie. Then let's let's stay on that
Speaker 1: d to it for a second. Then how do you
Speaker 1: get that call? Do you get a call from like
Speaker 1: secret number unknown? And then hello, he is it Samuel L.
Speaker 1: Jackson with an eye passing shield? You get an how
Speaker 1: you doing? Brother? Ryan Coog has to be Nate more
Speaker 1: somebody Nate. Yeah, I know I know Ryan through through Mike, right,
Speaker 1: So I got I got a chance to hang out
Speaker 1: on the first Black Panther, said Michael B. Jordan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mid that was wild. Sorry, I was like Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: you know Michael Jordan's I was like dud. I know, Mike,
Speaker 1: it's somebody. I'm a Mike. We all know, oh oh
Speaker 1: of b Jordan, of the b Jordan's um and so
Speaker 1: you know, I was able to kind of go you know,
Speaker 1: that route. But again the space that I kind of
Speaker 1: moved maneuver in in terms of like you know, black
Speaker 1: visual artists, you know on the on the painting and
Speaker 1: sculpting side, and again playing multiple way, multiple hats. I'm
Speaker 1: one of few, so I think that you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of helps me maneuver and get to get to
Speaker 1: know some of these folks. And um, I saw Ryan
Speaker 1: Coogler in Atlanta when he first was coming back to
Speaker 1: start Black Panther too. We ran into each other the
Speaker 1: hotel and I was like, I was messing with it.
Speaker 1: I was like trying to juice him for you know,
Speaker 1: some gossip. I needed to know what was what was
Speaker 1: going to happen, some script story, give me something. Of
Speaker 1: course he didn't give me shit, but it was cool.
Speaker 1: But I think that, like I would like to think that,
Speaker 1: you know, as Ryan is sculpting this and this is
Speaker 1: so you know, Black Panther is so cultural, right, It's
Speaker 1: not just about Wakanda, But like when you look at
Speaker 1: even Wakanda Forever, like there's lines about fenty beauty in there.
Speaker 1: There's you know, it's it's black culture. It's not just
Speaker 1: this fake African culture. And so I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: they do such a good job of being fully immersive
Speaker 1: and aware of what's going on, you know, outside in
Speaker 1: this world that they bring into this Marvel world to
Speaker 1: make it feel real for us. And I think that
Speaker 1: you know, the character re Re being from Chicago, me
Speaker 1: being sort of, you know, Chicago's you know, you know,
Speaker 1: some of my characters sort of being the mascots in
Speaker 1: certain instances for Chicago. I think that it was just,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things that just really worked.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest with you, and this is gonna
Speaker 1: sound like a flex, but you know, it takes so
Speaker 1: long to make these movies that I forgot they even asked.
Speaker 1: It was like four years ago. Yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's true. So you know, it was like when I
Speaker 1: watched the movie, You're in the movie and then I
Speaker 1: see my shit on her desk in the workshop, and
Speaker 1: then I see my shit in the wall. In a way,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, men, you're different. You show
Speaker 1: me something I did four years ago. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need that. I'm gonna need a sease and desist.
Speaker 1: I need taken down. I need all that. After the break,
Speaker 1: I want to bring it home and talk about how
Speaker 1: we can expand black storytelling, you know, not only in
Speaker 1: comic books, but as it gets into television and what
Speaker 1: it is. What do you think could happen and what
Speaker 1: you think probably won't happen. I got a question for
Speaker 1: all three of you after the break. This is beyond
Speaker 1: the scenes, beyond the scenes. This has been a wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful conversation about black comic books and black superheroes. And
Speaker 1: you know, whether we can get a couple of moments
Speaker 1: screen that aren't remixed versions of old nineteen forty two stereotype.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write me a black super You're gonna be
Speaker 1: called jive turkey. You did, and every time he kills somebody,
Speaker 1: he goes your dig I like that. You tell me,
Speaker 1: I bet you that shit get green lit. By what
Speaker 1: I'm saying now, I'll never be able to go back
Speaker 1: home to Birmingham again. Hero. No, I can't go to
Speaker 1: Essence fast after you. You dig I got another idea.
Speaker 1: It's like teen Titans, but they called the young Bloods. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: how honest? Can the black experience be infused into black
Speaker 1: superhero narratives? Do you think there is still space for expansion? Ashton?
Speaker 1: I mean, now do I think there? I know they're
Speaker 1: space for expansion? Will you get made? Though? I man
Speaker 1: something to us, we gotta me it uth to us.
Speaker 1: We can't let white media or American media control the
Speaker 1: stories that we tell. I feel like one of my
Speaker 1: inspirations is Tony Morrison. I'm pretty sure she was like,
Speaker 1: I tell stories, I don't exclude black people. I mean
Speaker 1: I'll exclude white people. I tell stories from a Black
Speaker 1: experience and therefore black people. That's the kind of superhero story.
Speaker 1: I want to see a story that's truly all around
Speaker 1: made for black people. It involves every aspect of Black culture,
Speaker 1: and it does not have to capitulate to modern mainstream
Speaker 1: America modern society have to, like do Why is it
Speaker 1: always black stories that have to do reach across the
Speaker 1: aisle so everybody else can feel seeing and accept it.
Speaker 1: We ain't never been Nobody reached across the side for us.
Speaker 1: Why can't I talk? It revolves around the dollar. I
Speaker 1: think for me being able to spend a little time
Speaker 1: in you know, Hollywood and having all these conversations, right like,
Speaker 1: you know, studios are I mean, you know, these cats,
Speaker 1: they're not original, and it's the dollars the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to reach back in the catalog of
Speaker 1: things that we've done already that people are familiar with,
Speaker 1: because once upon a time it lived, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: redo that to death and then we ain't got nothing else, right,
Speaker 1: Hopefully we have our our Ryan Coogler's or our you know,
Speaker 1: our Jordan Peels. Those are the only brothers that are
Speaker 1: would be allowed to introduce something new at this moment,
Speaker 1: right like, with a little bit of radicalness to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: approved state approve maybe maybe I think so, I mean,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and yeah, not to exclude Aba at all,
Speaker 1: I think she's absolutely one of those ones. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take someone of that ilk to get that
Speaker 1: thing across. I think, like you look at the time
Speaker 1: in the nineties you talked about somebody mentioned, you know
Speaker 1: medior Man, right, Like, medior Man doesn't get made even
Speaker 1: as a comedy if Robert Townsend doesn't have all that
Speaker 1: good will that he's built up five Hollywood Hollywood shuff right,
Speaker 1: those relationships, Yeah, those relationships that he's built with all
Speaker 1: these phenomenal black comedians and talent where he can get
Speaker 1: you know, get those folks in at a price, so
Speaker 1: he can make his movie at a price. Right, And again,
Speaker 1: it still kind of had to be you know, it's
Speaker 1: not to down Media Man, because I love Media Man,
Speaker 1: but it had to be a comedy, right, It had
Speaker 1: to be a comedy, and it definitely plays on those
Speaker 1: nineties tropes of like the bad neighborhood and the gangs,
Speaker 1: gold laws, right, give me your purse. And unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: thing about Media Man, it was a box office flops, right,
Speaker 1: and so when that happens, Robert Townsend goes into Hollywood jail,
Speaker 1: can't direct for a little bit, or has to go
Speaker 1: make The Parenthood on television, which is a great series
Speaker 1: as well. But so you don't really get that Meteor
Speaker 1: Man too, and so you know, and I think we
Speaker 1: kind of overlooked the importance of Black Panther being that
Speaker 1: it was Marvel's I think it was Marvel's either eighteenth
Speaker 1: or nineteen film at that point, and it was the
Speaker 1: first ever Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture
Speaker 1: and so just Marvel gross to everything that came before,
Speaker 1: you know, and again that's a that's a one part
Speaker 1: in a series of these episodic films that people were
Speaker 1: just Okay, we're doing this film to get to the
Speaker 1: next point. But Black Panther was a cultural moment, it
Speaker 1: was a pen it was a phenomenon really, and then
Speaker 1: Marvel was like, hey, yeah, hey, yeah, look at that,
Speaker 1: Look at what we did. And so it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, you get those hits, but to try to
Speaker 1: get to that level and to maintain that, I feel
Speaker 1: there's way more pressure on black creators. There's way more
Speaker 1: of a ce we told you that it wouldn't sell,
Speaker 1: and then that opportunity gets yanked away when so many
Speaker 1: other folks in Hollywood can take swings and miss but
Speaker 1: still be able to make other films. And so I
Speaker 1: think the playing field for us is very limited, and
Speaker 1: so you got to either get up and hit a
Speaker 1: home or you might knock get that chance. Honestly. One
Speaker 1: of those challenges, though, Aaron, to what you're saying, even
Speaker 1: when you're talking about media man, is that you know,
Speaker 1: we haven't we as as as black folks and folks
Speaker 1: of color, Brian Lars haven't been taught or haven't been
Speaker 1: welcomed into the conversation of science fiction. Right, And so
Speaker 1: you know, I if this hero is playing in theaters
Speaker 1: one through nine and Tyler Perry is playing in theater ten, listen,
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, like I'm off the streets with my lady.
Speaker 1: I'm going on a date. I'm not speaking just with myself,
Speaker 1: but but I'm gonna go with Tyler Perry. That's a
Speaker 1: brand name for me, and it's something relatable, right, And
Speaker 1: I think that, like you know the fact that categorically
Speaker 1: we have not been put into science fiction films in
Speaker 1: that narrative forever, like we had, we'd always be one
Speaker 1: of us, right, Like you know, Billy Dee Wiis is
Speaker 1: the only nigga in space for how long? Right? When
Speaker 1: he finally let LaVar burden in space, he was blind, right,
Speaker 1: he shout out in front of the show. So to
Speaker 1: the creators, to the black content creators and writers that
Speaker 1: are listening to us Hebrew, how do you allow your
Speaker 1: work to be the truest version of yourself? Like you
Speaker 1: have a coffee table book that you've just put together
Speaker 1: that's not a sale at all. Oh, I can already
Speaker 1: tell from the cover of that book, asking that's one
Speaker 1: of the books you put on the table and press
Speaker 1: went press. It could be the only It could be
Speaker 1: the only thing on the table too, next to a
Speaker 1: glade candle. I don't know nothing about candles. Um As
Speaker 1: you look back at all of the work that you've
Speaker 1: done enough to put into a book, which is already
Speaker 1: a crazy accomplishment to think about that you've done enough
Speaker 1: that you went you know what, And I know that's
Speaker 1: not even everything you're done, that's just the hits. How
Speaker 1: did you allow your art to be the truest version
Speaker 1: of yourself and not be influenced by what they might
Speaker 1: buy or what could How did you stay true to
Speaker 1: what you wanted to do versus what you thought people
Speaker 1: wanted to see. I think my artists sort of always
Speaker 1: been a bit of like my own diary, right. My
Speaker 1: art always reflects where I'm at, you know, emotionally, mentally,
Speaker 1: and so I think that, like you know, with art
Speaker 1: starting out, there was not really a big risk. You know,
Speaker 1: you just do a thing. I'm working. I got two
Speaker 1: other jobs over here, making you know, horrible money, being
Speaker 1: a horrible employee, but it wasn't a risk to just
Speaker 1: go make some shit at night and paint and stay
Speaker 1: up all night and create some stuff. So I think
Speaker 1: that like starting out from an honest place and just
Speaker 1: like I just need to express myself. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's an easier upstart than you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: have to start out and from a place of like,
Speaker 1: I have to make things in order to pay the
Speaker 1: bills to survive, so I have to work according to
Speaker 1: everybody else's sort of level or expectation of what is
Speaker 1: good and what's cool. The thing that stuck with me
Speaker 1: a long time ago was most death said, I just
Speaker 1: always wanted to grow up and make cool shit. And
Speaker 1: it's a very simple statement, but that's sort of how
Speaker 1: I lived in that sense of like, if I can
Speaker 1: always be honest with myself in my work, I'll be
Speaker 1: okay no matter what other work I have to do.
Speaker 1: Like I have my outlet, and my outlet has now
Speaker 1: become my career and my occupation. So you know, just
Speaker 1: one of those things that really kind of worked out.
Speaker 1: I'm lucky, how And I'll end with this question to
Speaker 1: all of you. And now we've already kind of talked
Speaker 1: about whether or not we think that there will be
Speaker 1: more black superhero stories. I think that there will. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not they will be able to
Speaker 1: touch on all of the different intricacy that is the
Speaker 1: black experience across the diaspora. You know, that's depending on
Speaker 1: the producer and the level of trust the studio has
Speaker 1: in that director. Blah blah blah. But once these fucking
Speaker 1: shows are on the air, do you think they'll give
Speaker 1: him time to find an audience? Bad? Damn. So there
Speaker 1: was a great show on c W calling Nay. It
Speaker 1: was about a black girl teenager and early team Yeah. Correct,
Speaker 1: And then Michael B. Jordan your excuse me, Mike he
Speaker 1: ep the show on Netflix, Raising, which was about a
Speaker 1: young a single mom raising a black boy with superpoles
Speaker 1: and how you navigate single mother, single parent with superpower
Speaker 1: like being able to turn the genre on its head
Speaker 1: a little bit. But neither one of those shows, Naomi
Speaker 1: got a season. I think Raising Dion got two from
Speaker 1: Netflix if I'm not mistaken. So how do we get
Speaker 1: these places to still just give shows time to find
Speaker 1: their audience or is that just strictly money and we're screwed.
Speaker 1: I think that's just the old days. Man. This is
Speaker 1: this is all of the numbers game, you know, financial
Speaker 1: and and you know viewership. I think it's just there's
Speaker 1: so many people buying for those spots and those slots,
Speaker 1: and you know, the turnaround is just a lot faster
Speaker 1: these days where it's not network, so they don't have
Speaker 1: to invest so much time and energy into a you know,
Speaker 1: look at Seinfeld Man, how many how many seasons did
Speaker 1: it take for seinfeld to actually pick up two? Maybe three? Right?
Speaker 1: He would have been canceled. He That's my fear for
Speaker 1: the story of the black superhero is that even if
Speaker 1: these stories and the diverseness and the disk and the
Speaker 1: difference of all of the types of stories you want
Speaker 1: to tell, even if all that gets greenlit, once you're
Speaker 1: out there and you're on the playing field, are you
Speaker 1: going to get the support, Are you going to get
Speaker 1: the advertising? You know, are you going to be given
Speaker 1: the runway you need to actually finda like if the
Speaker 1: CW won't give you a chance, and nobody home a
Speaker 1: black lightning and to be and that's it, like get
Speaker 1: out of here. Even we gotta put on another season
Speaker 1: of Flash. We just gotta we gotta leverage our white
Speaker 1: allies privilege. Taylor Swift, if you listen to this, I
Speaker 1: know what you did for ticket Master, do that for three.
Speaker 1: But I think you speak to a really important point
Speaker 1: of like there's a pressure for the artists um to
Speaker 1: create that will have a long lasting effect and have success.
Speaker 1: And that's a hard place to come from from an
Speaker 1: artist like he mentioned, he you know, just created, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, He was free to create. He
Speaker 1: wasn't caring about if this character ip that he created
Speaker 1: would one day you know, you know, connect with a
Speaker 1: large He was just doing him. And so I think
Speaker 1: more initiatives and programs for up and coming black voices
Speaker 1: and artists, like the Milestone Initiative for Black Creative for
Speaker 1: Milestone Comics. And I mean we've already so much time
Speaker 1: without even bringing up Milestone Comics, which is basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: like formed by black creators with black characters, more of
Speaker 1: an authentic voice. And so they actually developed not too
Speaker 1: long ago a pipeline program for aspiring black creatives who
Speaker 1: want to you know, create comic book heroes and superheroes
Speaker 1: and play in that world. And so again, like no
Speaker 1: one can forecast the future, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: media in particular. But what we can do is just develop,
Speaker 1: you know, opportunities to identify in spotlight some of those
Speaker 1: up and coming voices who can give us the next
Speaker 1: static shock, who can give us the next you know
Speaker 1: Icon or you know Rocket, someone like that, who were
Speaker 1: featured in milestone comics that gave nuance portrayals of blackness
Speaker 1: in comic books, right like they gave us not just
Speaker 1: this binary approach to life for black people, but so
Speaker 1: much more of it. Gave us that world building aspect
Speaker 1: that you find a lot with Hebrews character Flyboy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just one character, it's a whole world of
Speaker 1: experiences that we're looking to build. And so if we
Speaker 1: can develop more programs like that and identify more up
Speaker 1: and coming voices, I think that's a that's a start.
Speaker 1: But like you said, you know, who knows when it
Speaker 1: comes to television and film, I mean, the bottom line
Speaker 1: is the dollar, and so we're always going to be
Speaker 1: fighting that. Well, I think that's it's a good place
Speaker 1: to end. And also, see w I forgot that you
Speaker 1: gave us a lot of seasons of black lightning. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for raising my voice with that aside. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Ashton Hebrew. Much respect to you. We look
Speaker 1: forward to seeing your work and Black Panther Part three
Speaker 1: and uh, I have my lawyers reach out to you.
Speaker 1: Some of you work in my movie Jib Turkey Turkey,
Speaker 1: Let's go he who might have a proof of concept
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: write myself in as a sidekick, so young Blood could
Speaker 1: be a team of people. Are one person. I'll be here.
Speaker 1: And where can we get the book? He Brew? Where
Speaker 1: can people order the book? Your local bookstore, preferably you
Speaker 1: know people, they still they still exist, folks, Please patronize,
Speaker 1: you know, mom and pop bookshops. But other than that,
Speaker 1: the bald white Man spot mister Bezos can go to
Speaker 1: Amazon and pick one up right there, delivered right to you.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so many weird names of businesses in
Speaker 1: New York that I thought that was a real business.
Speaker 1: I had to say that, all right, Oh man, it's
Speaker 1: a great discussion. That's all the time we have for today.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for going beyond the scenes
Speaker 1: with us. Give me some theme music. Listen to the
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