The Kickstarter for the sure-to-be-controversial six-part comic book series WHITE is almost over!
As of this article, they are shy of the target. Not only did I support the effort by pledging my hard earned ($60 level) I felt compelled to reach out once again and encourage you, kind reader, to dig deep and support this Kickstarter at whatever level you can!
Co-creators Kwanza Osajyefo and Tim Smith III, Inkpot-Award winning artist Jamal Igle, and cover artist Khary Randolph return for “WHITE” the sequel to their acclaimed graphic novel and Kickstarter sensation, “BLACK”.
I had exclusive interviews and review of “BLACK” you can read here.
In “WHITE”, Theodore Mann, whose family exploited empowered blacks for centuries, is now President of the United States. Mann’s administration has exacted controversial measures to deal with the empowered he’s deemed terrorists and is stoking national tensions to win public support for Mann First, a cybernetically-augmented soldier program.
The main person standing in the President’s way is X – once known as Kareem Jenkins – who has become a symbol of resistance against the Mann Administration.
Now, don’t get it twisted!
This is as much for me and mine as Kwanza & Company. I’ve been reading and thoroughly enjoying “BLACK” & “BLACK AF” since inception. My 11-year-old son & 9-year-old daughter read every issue cover to cover.
Awesomely illustrated, keenly plotted tales of superheroic sacrifice, EPIC splash page butt-kicking and thoughtful, un-candy coated expositions on race, class and the socioeconomic realities faced by a plurality of black and brown folks in the Americas.
Featuring well-developed, complex characters with refreshing agency, authentic voices and looked like, spoke like and shared familiar touchstones of “blackness” that weren’t exploitive, but given “flava”.
Produced by a dream team of talented creatives with decades of combined experience at DC, Marvel and other Comic Book publishers large and small, that was challenging, loving and celebratory.
I want more of this!!!
I’m thoroughly invested not only in the story so far within the impressive world they have created but determined that this level of high-quality, representative, independent comic book storytelling continues to remain un-hamstrung by corporate entities.
“BLACK” & “WHITE” are “FUBU” created “For Us, By Us” but has garnered critical acclaim and widespread universal appeal, all while “telling it like it is” to a diverse readership.
I also realize that this isn’t something we as Black consumers of Comics and Pop Culture can afford to take for granted. Despite recent high profile successes, Black creatives and their stories remain only a small tributary to the vast Pop Culture “mainstream”.
Imagine if you will, post Episode 4 George Lucas was told he couldn’t make The Empire Strikes Back for lack of funds to produce it.
What would the ripple effect have been on Pop Culture if he lacked financial support? The countless children inspired by this saga to become creatives themselves.
What would have been lost?
Now.
Imagine George Lucas was Black.
This at the heart of the issue.
How many talented storytellers in Pop Culture media are white?
How many stories do they get greenlit and produced?
How many of those stories feature predominantly white male protagonists geared toward other white men and boys?
Brother Kwanza had this to say recently-
“When only black people have superpowers, one reaction is that slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement would not have happened. Yet the concept of the X-Men as a marginalized minority is easily accepted – it becomes clear what the difference is.
The BLACKSUPERPOWER universe exists because black people need to see our heroism and superhumanity through comics, just the same as everyone else.”
In 2016, the “BLACK” Kickstarter campaign was a crowdfunding sensation, and the campaign and the comic book series’ subsequent publication generated national headlines and coverage including the NEW YORK TIMES, EBONY, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, and THE WASHINGTON POST. For WHITE, the original “BLACK” creative team―Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith III, Jamal Igle, Khary Randolph, Sarah Litt, Derwin Roberson, and Dave Sharpe―will return for the second part of this planned trilogy, and will be joined by inker Juan Castro.
If funded by Kickstarter, “WHITE” will be a 6-part, ad-free periodical comic book series. The first printing will only be available via Kickstarter. Comic book retailers will be able to order standard editions directly from Black Mask after rewards are shipped.
Pledge $60 or more
WHITE + BLACK
Limited edition of the WHITE graphic novel, collecting all six issues with a non-retail variant cover, plus bonus content, plus campaign exclusive of “BLACK” trade paperback with original cover, and 1-year digital access to “WHITE” and entire back catalog of “BLACK” and “BLACK AF” books, plus upcoming content
INCLUDES:
- Shipping included in US
- Digital access starts Aug 2019
- 1-year discount code for 10% merch in thier online store
ESTIMATED DELIVERY
Mar 2020
Where could you get more bang for your buck for $60 dollars?
Pledge US$ 10 or more
PAPERLESS
1-year discounted subscription (valued at $25) to ALL digital comics on blacksuperpower.com
INCLUDES:
- unlimited access to WHITE digital issue releases starting Aug 20
- unlimited access extra content
- 1-year discount code for 10% merch in their online store
Pledge here.
Now I know what you’re thinking you’re thinking “They’re so close, surely it will happen without me chipping in”.
It must be nice, to think this way.
But, being Black and American my whole life, I can’t afford magical thinking.
I’ve learned the hard way never to count my chickens before they’re hatched. No grown person should either.
You did not vote in 2016?
How’s that decision turning out for you?
“We’ve been lucky to build the world of “BLACK” through Kickstarter and at Black Mask Studios, but to continue telling stories the way we want, we need to keep challenging ourselves, and the publishing paradigm, by making these special first printings of “WHITE” exclusively available through this crowdfunding campaign,” said Kwanza Osajyefo.
Now I sincerely hope they succeed and I’d like to enlist your help in ensuring this. If you’re a long time reader of All Things Geek you know that I dwell at the crossroads of politics and Pop Culture. If you are new reader, thank you and welcome.
Over five years now, I’ve written to challenge the Pop Culture status quo, highlighting Women, Creatives of Color, LGBTQ, Gender Fluid folks and others that are part of the sometimes invisible, typically underserved and ofttimes overburdened within fandoms we love, that often, don’t love us back.
Representation matters.
Black heroes matter.
All or nothing at all…
This project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Sun, March 31, 2019, 11:59 PM EDT. Do what you can to ensure my kids and your kids get to continue to experience the amazing world this talented group have labored hard to create.
They strive to entertain, inform and inspire a new generation of creative talent, not typically represented currently in comics.
Define yourself, or be defined by others…
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone is famously quoted saying, –
If you’re not sitting at the table. You end up on the menu.
He wasn’t wrong.
Question: How many slaves were stolen from Africa during the Triangle Slave Trade?
Answer: Zero
People were stolen, real people, with hopes, dreams, and aspirations much like you, I, or anyone else you meet.
People with a thousand different dialects, long proud histories, cultures traditions, and beliefs.
Designating People as “Slaves” commodifies and dehumanizes them.
It puts them on the menu.
Millions of men, women & children, tradesmen, soldiers, builders, politicians, craftspeople, midwives, clergy, farmers, lawyers, physicians, scholars and every other profession under the sun at that time, were stolen by Government sanctioned, European Syndicates for hundreds of years for purely economic gain.
Race is a construct.
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled.”
Race was invented by wealthy landowners as an excuse for treating people like chattel and to divide European and other indentured servants from Africans who shared the bottom rungs of society.
Fearing co-mingling and uprisings, bestowing “whiteness” gave poor dumb crackers the illusion of status, broke poor peoples solidarity and it didn’t cost the wealthy a dime.
A technique European Colonizers perfected across the globe.
Freshly minted “Whites”, eager to improve their lot, believe the hype, were made the overseers and formed slave patrols (the first constabularies, later police departments). Whites brutally raped, beat, lynched & castrated Black people.
They ripped black babies from their mothers breasts to sell them and went to church with a clear conscious.
This shameful racist legacy, along with the unearned societal privileges they enjoy, many whites to this day still deny.
Racism is as American as Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
No?
Who voted for Trump?
*crickets chirping*
Where else but America could a man like Donald Trump get himself elected?
The disparity of daily lived experiences between blacks and whites in this country has never truly been acknowledged nor addressed to this day.
There has been little truth and less reconciliation.
Not all whites are racist. But racism made them white.
Yet somehow, this is ALL on Black and Brown folks to “solve”?
America’s Racism is OUR fault?
If we only did more to “assimilate”. Work twice as hard for only half as much? Be more “American” (White).
And we foolishly continue to bend over backward to make them feel comfortable?
GTFOH!
Our legacies have been stolen. Our minds have been colonized. #reparationsnow ✊🏿
For far too long, the story of Black folks in the Americas has been co-opted, our rich pre-colonial history and culture stripped from our ancestors and replaced with a colonized, superimposed white washed interpretation of “blackness”.
If we can’t control our own narratives, we have no self-determination. We fail to control ourselves, our destinies and most importantly, those of our descendants.
We strive to be seen AND heard.
I’ll let Kwanza have the last word here –
“Unfortunately, people can take real impressions of a race or culture from how they are depicted in books and film. For many people, that will be their only exposure to other groups and ethnicities.
We need black superheroes, not only so young black people can see themselves in these roles but so the rest of the world can see us too”.
Art Credit-Khary Randolph