All Episodes

May 28, 2025 122 mins

In this episode of Black Geek Energy, we’re joined by the brilliant and hilarious Suyi Davies Okungbowa, award-winning author of the Nameless Republic trilogy and the new Marvel novel Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. And trust—this conversation goes everywhere.

Suyi takes us through his origin story, from growing up in Nigeria and writing Bible fanfiction (yes, really), to becoming one of the boldest voices in fantasy and sci-fi. We talk about his life as a professor, what it's like living in a maybe-haunted house in Wales, and the creative energy behind his latest work adapting Ta-Nehisi Coates’ acclaimed Black Panther run into a full-length novel.

It’s equal parts geeky, introspective, and downright spooky in the best way.

Whether you’re a fan of speculative fiction, Black storytelling, or just love a good laugh with your literary insight—this one’s for you.



Email your questions to blackgeekenergy@gmail.com

Music Produced by @prodbyffsmike

Follow us on Social Media!

Spill @blackgeekenergy

Instagram @blackgeekenergy

Facebook @blackgeekenergy

Bluesky @blackgeekenergy

TikTok @blackgeekenergy

Twitter @bge_pod

YouTube @blackgeekenergy

Twitch @blackgeekenergy

Threads @blackgeekenergy

Patreon


Experience the transformative benefits of therapy with the world's largest network of experienced and credentialed therapists, available to you whenever you need it the most.Better Help's skilled professionals specialize in assisting individuals with a range of issues, including depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, and relationships. With their flexible approach to communication, you can access therapy on your own terms and connect with a therapist who perfectly suits your needs. Rest assured, you will receive the same level of professionalism and quality as an in-office visit, but with the added convenience of communicating how and when you prefer. Don't delay your journey towards healing - click now to get matched with the best therapist for you. As a special offer for our valued listeners, visit Betterhelp.com/bgepod to receive a 10% discount. So why wait? Visit our trusted partners at Better Help and start your healing journey today!




Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
So today on Black Geek Energy, we are honored to welcome an
exceptional voice in speculativefiction.
He is an award-winning author. He has been the entire Nameless
Republic trilogy, including someof The Storm and Warrior of the

(00:26):
Wind, which weaves an epic narrative inspired by West
African histories and cultures. His recent work also includes
the science fiction novella LostArc Dreaming, which delves into
themes of climate change and social stratification in a

(00:48):
dystopian future Nigeria. Expanding his repertoire, he has
adapted Tallahassee Coast acclaimed comic book series into
a novel which is Marvel, Black Panther, The Intergalactic
Empire, Wakanda, which brings a fresh perspective to the iconic.

(01:10):
There it goes to the iconic cosmic adventure.
He currently resides in Ontario,Canada, but he's not there right
now. We just found out he where he
shares his expertise as a professor of Creative writing at
the University of Ottawa. Please join us in welcoming Suyi

(01:34):
Okabawa. Oh sorry, Uncle Bunk went to the
show. Yay.
Thank you very much. Your your name.
No, that's OK. I.
Mean you, yeah, you got it rightalready so.
Yes, yes, yes, you. You're going to learn.
I'm not good with names. Even though I get it right one

(01:54):
time, that doesn't mean that I'mgoing to get it right every
time. That's OK, yeah.
But let's go ahead and let's start this show the way we start
every show. How was your previous week?
My previous week, so the the past week has been as, as, as I

(02:20):
just told you, I'm, I'm in NorthWales actually.
So I've been on a writing retreat.
Yeah. Tell us more what is a writing
retreat? This is a long 1.
So I have, I have the final bookof my trilogy coming out, you
know, getting ready and I wantedto, you know, the, the

(02:43):
university term has just ended and I wanted to get some time
away to actually double down andjust finishing everything I
needed to do. So I have this group in the UK
group of writers who when I started writing around 2017,
there was some of like I did my first few workshops of my first
novel with them. So they've sort of been there

(03:04):
and they usually do these getaways to North Wales for a
week for everybody to come together and just, you know, do
whatever they need to do to write, to revise, whatever.
So, so I decided, well, you know, the term was over, the
summer was starting, they were going in May and I was like, can
I come with you all? And, and nice and pretty much

(03:27):
we, you know, they made a place for me and I went up to this
library in North Wales where it's a residential library where
you could live in the library. Wow.
Yeah, it's a, it has like a accommodation as well as like
this, this library attached to it.
So you could actually work thereand stay over.

(03:49):
Yeah. And then that's what my past
week has been pretty much wakingup working, you know, walking
the grounds. It's because it's like the
library's set in the listed largest state.
So it's a small town. So just just sort of like
basking in a bit of quietude andbeing away from that hustle and

(04:11):
bustle of, of, of, you know, everyday Ottawa.
So that's pretty much what my, it's been really nice.
I, you know, if I have to, I have to admit it's been really
nice able to be away and be among books and other writers
and. Yeah, right.
That's. Yeah.
So are you like a lifelong loverof books?

(04:35):
I would say so, yeah. I grew up in, I grew up in the
house with, so I grew up in Nigeria, which is where I was
born and born and raised and my parents are both professors.
So our house is like filled withbooks from day one.
And I've always sort of had themthere.

(04:55):
So I, I wouldn't even say for maybe for a while I took that
for granted, you know? Absolutely.
Yeah. I took it for granted as like, a
thing that was just there. But, you know, now I know how
formative that was because it sort of put me and not just me,
my siblings to all read as a result.
And we're all just people, you know, who grew up reading

(05:18):
because it was just a thing. Our house was filled with books
of different kinds, you know, inreligious texts, science,
scientific texts, mythology, romance, crime, like all the
genres, all the works. A lot of the works I first read
about, you know, African historyor, or, or like literary works

(05:42):
from African authors. I read all of them at home first
before I even like found them, met them in school or something.
So, So in that way, I was sort of raised to be a lifelong
reader lover, storyteller, you know, in a way.
And I don't think I would. I don't think it's a path I can
really ever stray, stray from because of the actors of being

(06:05):
so formative. Yeah.
Yeah, but do you have your own library at your at your house
now? I wish, I want to, I want to,
but I have a three-year old who makes sure that none of the
books ever stay in place. So, so I have AI have a, you
know, series of shelves, but it's like they all start from

(06:27):
the third tier because like the first you can get to them.
And I'm like, OK now. So they, they, yeah, but I'm
building it, you know, my, I'm building that.
I have, I have my bookshelves inmy office as well, but I also
have this habit of giving away my books.
Actually, I give my books away alot.

(06:47):
You know, I'm not very much a hoarder.
I, when I read and I find the book interesting, it actually
even makes me want to give it away more because I'm like,
someone else would love this too.
And then I'll give it out. And but that's also partially
because I also, when I was raised, I also was given a lot
of books by people. And so it's sort of my way of

(07:10):
paying for it. So I give my students books a
lot. OK, very nice.
Yeah, yeah. So.
So do you remember? So do you remember the first
book that got you thinking, oh that was enjoyable, I would like
to do that again. That's a good one.

(07:36):
What what book was that? That's a good one.
I think. I think that might have been so
when I was growing up, we read alot of like books that came
from. So there there was sort of, I
guess remainder books from British libraries or British
bookstores that would then get shipped across the continent and

(08:01):
and you can buy them like secondhand from like the equivalent of
flea markets, right. And so we would go and just
stand and you could you know, you could get books from mostly
big name authors that were in like the crime mystery type
genres. So you could get to thinking,
but there were there were a lot of these books from like British

(08:25):
mysteries that were very much like Sherlock Holmes would be,
but but very many others of themthat were not written by Arthur
Conan Doyle or like authors likethat.
So I remember reading, I think when I was really young, when I
didn't even understand what a closed door mystery was.
I remember reading a closed doormystery from one of those stats

(08:46):
and being like, you know, I was really fascinated by how the by
the structure of it, right. The opening question of like,
you find a murder, but there's amurder, but you don't know who
did it. And yeah, so like the classic
whodunit, but like with a closeddoor, it was the first time I
was encountering it. And I was like, what just
happened? You know, like, how how did I

(09:07):
just how is this just solved? You know, because the structure
is like, folded in on itself andfocusing only in that room.
And and then the detective comesin and, you know, starts picking
at things, finding suspects, youknow, the whole shebang.
But then I wasn't even familiar with, like, the concept of

(09:27):
mystery as a genre or TV, you know, because, you know, the TV
mystery TV wasn't as much as thing, at least for me.
So yeah, I think that was the first time I remember reading
this as probably as a nine year old or 8 year old even being
like, what is this? What just happened?
You know, how was the crime evensolved?

(09:48):
So I remember saying, OK, I willneed to read that again to,
like, really understand what hashappened.
Yeah. I remember just sort of being
carried in the story, getting tothe end and being shutting the
book and be like, what did I just read in that situation?
So I would say that might be theearliest I can remember, but of
course I've had that feeling multiple times.

(10:10):
Yeah, I remember mine was in thethird grade, Miss Powell's
class, because before I had donelike the book it things because
here you can, if you read a certain amount of books, you
could go get a free pizza from Pizza Hut.
So I would read, but I wouldn't really be absorbing what I was.

(10:31):
I would just be reading to get through it.
But it was in Powell's third grade class.
We all had to get this book called The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe. And I remember one time I was
like, well, what happens next? And I turned the page and I just
kept reading all throughout the night.

(10:52):
So then that really started me like, oh, that was fun and
enjoyable. So I actually went into the
library at school and I was like, what else is in here?
And I started reading all of us in the library.
Then I went to the the city library and I started reading

(11:13):
all those was like we have like a bag of novels that I could
read in like 2 weeks. And it was it was bad.
And I then I started buying books and yeah, yeah, it's I
would never get. It was The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe that started me on my way.

(11:35):
But like I don't really read books that are just words
anymore though. I read all the times I read in
comics and manga and Mawa. I don't really read books.
You don't read a lot of novels. Not really not.
Yeah, fair enough. I mean, my most bit of the same,
like I, I started reading like alot younger.

(11:57):
For me, it was the Harry Potter books.
And I would always, I would, I would like finish my work early
in class so I could pull out my big book and just read in in the
class where everybody's finishing theirs.
Yeah, it used to get me in trouble, but I wasn't, I wasn't
putting it down. Yeah, I got in trouble a lot for
reading too, Yeah. Which is crazy.
Like I'm in school, you know? Part of this is like 3.

(12:21):
It's not crazy, but go ahead. Oh no, like my books used to get
confiscated as well. Like what?
What do they have against us reading so we.
See. Why do they know?
Yeah. So you're in Wales right now?
I got to know because I'm a big whore junkie.

(12:45):
Are you in a haunted library? Listen, I can tell, I can tell
you that I'm not sitting in my room right now because I went
somewhere to get a good, like some quiet.
But my, my, my room actually overlooks a library, sorry.
Overlooks A graveyard. Sorry.

(13:05):
Oh. Yeah.
So next door, next door to this library, there's a church and a
graveyard that spans from the, you know, like the side of the
church back so that there's a like a path that you can walk
through the graveyard, which I have walked through.
It doesn't feel haunted though. Yeah, in my opinion.
Actually where I'm staying, so the place I'm staying is called

(13:29):
Gladstone's Library. It's owned by a man called Sir
William Gladstone and he owned, he's owned this property in the
estate it's on for about since the 1800s now.
I think it's part of a charity. But the point The thing is this
massive mansion with many rooms and many hallways and many and

(13:53):
in the library and feels more haunted to me than the graveyard
actually. Yeah, because that's what you're
killing. Takes twice.
I have walked in this, you know,there have been times, you know,
I'm writing late into the night.I, you know, lose track of time.
And I'm like, oh, I need AI, need a drink of water or
something or a Coke. And I go downstairs and it's

(14:17):
this massive hallway that runs through the length of the house
And it's, you know, and it's like 11:30 PM and there's no one
because everyone's either asleepor there's pretty pretty much no
one in the in the house. And I remember this one moment
being like, you know, if if there were ever a time to write
a haunted house story, you're inthe right place and time.

(14:39):
But but yeah, it feels more haunted, you know, in this
place, the, you know, there's, there's so many things, the
grounds and all that. But when I walked through the
graveyard, it actually felt quite peaceful.
Yeah. That's all.
Not to me at least. A lot of people say that
graveyards can be peaceful, but I've never taken a stroll

(15:02):
through what. I think that can be, yeah.
They're usually pretty peaceful.Yeah.
I have a different question for you.
SO we talked about the first book you read that like sort of
like spurred you into reading. Like what was the first thing
you wrote? Maybe not the first book you
published or something like that, but look, the first thing
you wrote, it was like, I want to keep writing for the rest of

(15:24):
my life, but what? I want to keep writing yes for
the rest of my life. I don't know.
I don't even that part of the question yet even.
But yes, the thing that I think,I mean, I have always been
interested in some to some degree, I guess based on, you
know, that upbringing I just described.
But I think so I was raising it.I was raising the Catholic

(15:46):
Church. So.
I think the first thing that made me write was reimagining
that I did of biblical stories that we're told.
Wow. Yeah, to me, or like, you know,
in church or and I was like quite active when I was growing
up because I was like, you know,I was in the choir, I was in

(16:09):
various societies. But so IA lot of these stories
were like sort of like embedded in my consciousness, but I was
always thinking of the like, youknow, the, the alternate version
of it or like what if, you know,so my what?
If David lost. Exactly right.
So like the what if nest that sort of gave rise or at least

(16:30):
bloomed into this speculative writing that I do now may have
started there, right in the sense of but what if this wasn't
how it worked? Or what if I decided to tell the
story of this thing, but from someone else's perspective with
a different, you know. So I remember one of them
specifically was this story of like, so like biblical Jesus on

(16:58):
a, on a donkey, like riding intoa town and you have these palm
fronds being like thrown at his feet so he can ride on a donkey
into the town. And then this back story of that
donkey is that someone actually owned it.
And it was, it was tied somewhere.
And then the disciples went to this person and said, listen, we
have this guy, he's kind of important.

(17:18):
He needs to ride on a donkey into.
And they were, they managed to just convince him to give him,
give them his donkey like these random, give these random guys
his donkey for for someone they had described as a Messiah to
ride into the town. So I remember that story because
I wrote, I rewrote it. I was like, that seems too
straightforward. So let's, let's remix that.

(17:39):
Let's remix that. Let's figure out a way to throw
in some conflict to actually make it quite a journey for them
to get that donkey. And I, that was the first one I
wrote. And then after that I was like,
wait, I can do more of this stuff.
And I remember like giving it tothis this guy who was like the

(17:59):
youth drama coordinator type person.
And so I gave it to him because I was like, he he's the ones
already always directing like the stage plays.
So maybe he'll have something. And he read it And he was like,
this is really good. And then he started to give me
like feedback. I don't, can't remember now if
it was really helpful or not, but just that that interaction

(18:19):
of I did a thing, I give it to someone, they read it, they
thought it was good. So good, in fact, that they were
like, you can actually improve on this, make it even better.
Here are all these pieces of feedback.
And I think that interaction wasjust like, OK, I, I could do
this more, I guess. And I wanted, and I started
doing more of that. But then, of course, like I sort

(18:39):
of moved past that and started doing even more things.
And you know, Long story short, yeah, I am today.
That's really cool you started writing Bible fan fiction.
Yeah, exactly. It was.
Yeah, 100%. That's it.
Bible fan fiction is pretty muchwhat I started.
Yeah. I would love to read some of
that if you have any old storieslaying around you want to listen

(19:00):
to my way. What if Jesus gave in to the
snake? Yeah, Bible fan fiction.
I think it's a it's a good placeto.
Start OK, that's great. So now is the time of the show
where we as our guess if they can put our fans and our

(19:29):
listeners onto something in media.
This could be anything from books, comics, TV, movies,
podcasts, any form of media thatyou recently watched.
And we're going to do it too. And I just want to say that this
segment is sponsored by our goodfriends at MoviePass.

(19:52):
Marcus, can you please? Oh, thank you, Marcus.
Can you please tell them about MoviePass please?
Of course, I'm always having to talk about Movie Pass.
Sui have you heard about Movie Pass?
No. No, I do.
OK, well do. If you like movies, Movie Pass
is the way to go. I don't, I don't know about
where you're at, where you are in Wales or Nigeria, but like

(20:14):
movies in here in America are getting extensive.
You're spending $1520 at movie tickets.
But with MoviePass, their whole thing is making movies more
affordable, more accessible, so that anyone, the regular Joe
Schmoes like us, can just go to the movies whenever they want.
So for a monthly subscription, you're able to get a number of
credits that you can use to watch movies all through the

(20:37):
month. And then how you send your
credits, whether you're going tomovies, see movies opening
night, or whether you're waitingfor like that Tuesday matinee.
You can stretch your, you know, your credits into 3 or 4 movies
per month or even a movie every day, depending on the tier you
buy and everything. So Movie Pass is amazing.
I've been using it for a while. Even before they respond to the
podcast. I was paying for it out of my
own pocket and you use it one time and it pays for itself.

(21:00):
I love Movie Pass and I can't say enough about it.
I just saw Thunderbolts using MoviePass me and my girlfriend
not too long ago. So yeah, check it out if you
haven't. OK.
I mean, I'll definitely consideronce I get back because yeah, I
want to. I want to see more movies.
Yeah, absolutely. But how was Thunderbolts the
Rockies? None of those was good.

(21:20):
It's it's so a lot of people, what I've heard is like it is
the the mental health Avengers, but and that's kind of and
that's kind of true. I feel like they could have went
deeper into like the mental health aspect of it, but I
really enjoyed it. It feels like a new beginning
for Marvel movies in that like like from phase one up until

(21:40):
when they beat Thanos was like really good.
And then like phase four and five was like, like, there's a
lot of mistaken stuff here. This feels like a new beginning.
They're they're refreshing everything and it feels good.
It feels like a good place to like jump in.
And if you especially like, lovethe marble stuff, a good place
to restart watching that. It was also one of those I, I
have seen it and it was one of those that didn't they, there's,

(22:02):
there's no superpowers in this traditional sense.
So it feels a bit more, you know, like it felt more like the
initial, like First Avengers, where it's more gritty and like
on the ground. Yeah, and that's what I really
loved about it too, is because Ithink where they where they've
been going wrong with a lot of these other movies, like they're
trying to make it too big. They're trying to like, you

(22:22):
know, like, oh, we're saving theuniverse from this thing or
something like that. And it's like, yeah, like it's
time to start over. Like we save the universe from
Thanos, give us some new characters, start them on the
ground. And that's exactly what they.
Did here this. Like hey, this this one guy has
problems and we're just trying to solve his problems.
Yeah. OK.
So so do you have anything in media that you want to put our

(22:44):
listeners on to? Is can I do I have to just do
one thing? Oh no, as many as you like.
Yeah, really. OK, OK, OK.
So I'm going to come at you witha boatload of stuff.
I I, I watch a lot of TVI watch some movies.
I read a lot of books, clearly. I will start by saying the thing
though, that I would always put people on and I will probably be

(23:05):
doing for the rest of the year, is the movie that I've just seen
this week here and I went to nearby cinema to see it in IMAX
is Sinners, Sinners. I'll tell you how much I loved
it. The cinema gave me a poster, OK,
And that poster is in my luggagenow.
I'm going to put it in my wall once I get back home starring

(23:30):
Michael B Jordan or in Osaku, Like it's it's one of those I
don't like. It's not the kind of thing I can
easily just describe. But what I will say is this.
I've walked away thinking two things.
One, that film was a love letterto many genres.
That is, you could tell that Coogler loves storytelling,

(23:54):
loves film, and he was putting his love for all these things
into into that film. And then on the second hand is
Coogler loves, you know, he loves himself, he loves
Blackness, he loves black. He loves the black experience in
the US And he was also putting putting this down as a love

(24:16):
letter to, you know, that experience that not that
experience of Blackness in the US, but also the shared
experiences that are attached toBlackness in the US, especially
in the time that the story's set, which is 1931 Mississippi,
right. So that like the genre, you
could you could if if anyone asks what it's in us about or
like what kind of movie it is, it's hard to say.

(24:37):
Is it a horror movie? Yes.
Is it a musical? Also yes.
Is it a historical? Yes.
Is it a crime film? Yes.
Is it a vampire film? Yes.
Is it, you know, like there's somuch you can pack into it.
You know, there are times when I'm in a part of movie I'm like
this reminds me of X thing because it is because it is X

(25:02):
thing. It's just using that aspect for
that duration of the film and then it's often flipping to
something else. So it never it was like 2 hours,
but I remember when it ended I was like, wait, did we just
spend 2 hours plus? Yeah right.
He didn't feel like it because he was always doing something
new each time, which with the material it was working with.
So I would say if I don't know, in the last five years you were

(25:26):
thinking of like a film that sort of was an original thing
that came out and wasn't a remake and it sort of defined
something about the movie makingas you go in experience Sinners.
And Miles Katzen is a fine like he.
The music is phenomenal. The the the the acting

(25:49):
phenomenal. The singing.
Oh, my days, Yeah. His voice is just so, it's like,
amazing. For such a young up and coming
actor too. Like I was I was I was I.
Was flying away, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so sinners I.
Mean an amazing movie. Yeah, TV wise, I've just seen,

(26:10):
I've just finished seeing the Star Wars TV show Andor Oh, I
think it's the most non Star Wars.
It's like, I mean, people call it Star Wars for adults.
It's probably true. Yeah.
In that it is it is the gritty underground version of what's
what what Star Wars this or has done all this time.

(26:30):
It is, in my opinion, the the one that the the show that
manages to insist on taking a hard look on like all the other
stuff, you know, the stuff that's easily waved away in
terms of like, oh, rebellion or whatever.
Like this is like, this is what rebellion actually looks like on
the ground in the daily. And this is what, you know, the

(26:52):
this is what the empire that's being rebelled against looks
like on the ground, you know, the bureaucracy of empire, the
the monotony, the the mundane Ness of evil, you know, that
kind of stuff, Right. So, so and it's just two seasons
and then I think 10 episodes each or something like 12
episodes each. But and though is the is the

(27:13):
other thing I've just finished seeing.
And yeah, I feel like it definitely is the kind of thing
that, you know, somebody who loves storytelling should see at
some point. You know, I saw Andor.
I feel like it's. Too.
You have fun. I I do, I feel like it's too
smart for me. I want some forsteness in there

(27:36):
in my Star Wars as well, and notnecessarily a Skywalker.
I just want some forsteness in there as well.
And I want them to move things with their mind and manipulate
people. And it was just too smart for
me. And like, I remember the first
scene, that whole prison scene, Oh my God, that was amazing.

(27:56):
And there was no amazing settinglike that prison setting.
And this guy is going through a lot and it's like multiple years
that he's going through stuff. So like I'm guessing that like
in the movie terms, like becausethe movie is still going on,
like other things is happening while Andor has is happening.

(28:21):
I'm like, what is going on? I'm I'm lost.
I'm just lost. It's, it's definitely quite like
it. It puts a lot on the viewer.
I will agree. It asks.
It asks a lot of the viewer. And then of course, like you
need to be familiar with like parts of the Canon, which I
wasn't, or I'm not really, I'm not really big on like Star Wars

(28:41):
as a like, I know some of it, but it's one of the few, I think
that you even when they do stuff, you don't kind of need to
know to sort of get into it. But yes, I agree with you
completely. Josh definitely asks a lot of
the viewer, yeah. No, I I saw season.
I haven't watched season 2 of Android.
Yeah, I saw season 1 and I lovedit like very much like you see

(29:02):
like it was. It's it's the other side of Star
Wars. It's not the whole the grand
ghettos like. The Empire is.
Evil and they're taking over theGalaxy.
It's like, yo, this is like the empire is just like a bunch of
people who love me your neighbors that just like work at
this company and the company is.Evil.
You know, that's it. Yeah.
Exactly what? Does that look like day-to-day?

(29:23):
Yeah, exactly. They they, they go to work, they
dress up, they have briefcases, they report, they, they do
meetings, they have reports. That's like, that's what it
looks like. It's not just the Star Troopers,
right? It's like the yeah, it's not
like these guys in all the yeah,storm strippers.
That's the word. Because it's very easy to think

(29:44):
of that, right? You see all these boots on the
ground, but it's like these people in suits in an office
being like, where's your report?Where's your report?
I should have it on my desk before end of day.
That's what it makes me. That's what that's what, you
know, evil can look like. And I, I really like that idea
of it and it really brought homeespecially like with the way the
US is functions now, like a lot of stuff is just really like

(30:06):
signatures, pushing papers, printing documents or these
things that have impacts on the ground that look like the big
flashy things that were used that were used to seeing.
So I really like seeing that behind the curtain, right?
Yeah. Choices, what's driving them.
So yeah, I really like Tando forthat reason, yeah.

(30:27):
Absolutely. OK, now I got to watch it like
well, already. It's already in my queue.
It's on my list to watch now. I got to start.
I got to start it this week. Great.
I'll stop out. I'll stop out.
I was. Going to say you can keep going.
The mic is. What about you?
Do you have something you want to put the listening sounds
here? There's a new season of Love,

(30:49):
Death and Robots that just started and I've been watching
that. I watched the 1st 2 1/2
episodes. The 1st. 1/2 it's not even long
enough for you to pause in the middle.
The mic is. This is mine put you on so let
me put them on I'm. Just asking the questions that

(31:11):
the listeners have right now. Did you say?
Like 15 minutes and then I had to go.
Like I had to go to my listen. Congratulation.
Anyway, you know, the first episode was like the it's just
like an ACDC concert, not ACDC Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And I was like, but it was it was it was well done.
Not what I wanted, not what I'm here to see.

(31:32):
That's not why I come to love love death and robots.
But the, you know, the second one was good.
And then the third one, like I started watching it and it's
about like the spider person or something like that.
But I always love death and robots because it makes you, it
makes you reimagine the world and like reimagine the stories.
And it gives you these stories that are so like out there and
weird and like sort of in like aBlack Mirror way, but like, like

(31:57):
more like even more fantastical,you know?
I like them as a visual form because they all come from short
stories, I'm sure. I don't know if you know this,
but and some of the authors thatwrite them I know.
So one of the authors that writes for them, his name is
Richard Arson. He lives.
He lives in actually, and I see him every now and then in auto.

(32:17):
He visits auto a lot. Yeah.
And and he's written books, but he his specialty, a lot of the
specialists like writing these short stories are very compact,
but also let themselves to like visual telling.
And a lot of the stories they select for love death robots in
that frame. And I really like, I like that
alternate form of storytelling because like we're usually used

(32:40):
to like TV long form storytelling movies.
I really like the idea of like, you know, 15 minutes, you know,
tell me, tell me an impactful, interesting, you know, something
that will pull me in and keep methere for 15 minutes.
You know, it's, it's it's own skill.
And I really like when it when it lands, you know, when it
works. So I think love that robots kind
of like has that down. They know how to do that.

(33:03):
Right, that's the big thing I love too is like I like because
while I love like long form withyou, I love a good movie.
I love a good, you know, long video game TV show book.
But like, I think part of the reason I love comic books is
because like, you know, in 30 pages I get like a full story.
And so love that, like you said,love that the robots does that
same thing in 15 minutes. I get like the, the rising, the

(33:26):
conflict, the, you know, the resolution all.
And it's just, it's so impactfulin such a short amount of time.
You know, I can watch 3 episodesand I'm like, oh, it's only been
like 30 minutes. 2 1/2. Yeah, it's like, it's like a,
it's like a kind of Red Bull. You just tug it right.
You get that real big pump and then you know.

(33:47):
But yeah, I actually like the Red Hot Chili Peppers one
because the animation was so it was so amazing because there's a
lot going on. There was, you know, not only
was there a lot going on, there was like a lot of they were also
on strings. So it's fun to see how the
strings were moving too. And then when they were like

(34:09):
impacted, they were kind of like, it's blown and then come
back. And I, I actually watched that
one twice. That's the only one I watched
twice. So I really liked that show, but
another Netflix show that I willput you on to is Recently.
Since we're talking about librarians, then readers and

(34:33):
English professors, you have a lot in common.
This story is about somebody whodoes all three, who's married
and who has a little child. He's 3.
Like, you have a lot in common with him, but he's also a serial
killer. Now.
He's also a serial killer. Wait.

(34:55):
Wait, wait, what? Yes.
He's also, I knew you were selling me something when you
were like, you have a lot in common.
I was like, where is this going?OK, I see.
Now, yes, I I'm talking about you.
The last season ended very I I think that it ended very well.

(35:15):
It they finished it very well, but that the final season
happened. And then in this season, they
talked on a lot of the red pill influencer people and they
brought them into and then they made the connections between
Joe, who has been a quote, UN quote, champion of women and how

(35:40):
he was also being very misogynist while he was doing
that. So So yes, I, I, I did finish
the last season of you. And if you saw the first three
seasons and go ahead and watch the last season and and because

(36:01):
it ends very well. Yeah, it is a professor, a
reader, a a father. Good news.
I know, it's almost like we should, you know, it's something
we should all aspire to, not, not aspire to.
OK. Do we have an activity for

(36:23):
today? We.
Absolutely have an activity and for those who are doing this for
the first time, the way activities work here on Black
Heat Energy is the markets comesup with the games or activity.
He comes up with the question, the answers, he decides the
winners and the losers. In today's activity, we're going
to play Guess Who Fantasy Edition.
You know, we have an amazing fantasy writer and so I am going

(36:48):
to give you all descriptions of characters from different
fantasy IPS. And I'm using the popular ones.
So it's, you know, fairly easy. And all I need you all to do is
tell me who I am describing. Just name the character and I'm
going to be super forgiving. So you don't have to say the
name exactly, correct? As long as you say the name
close enough to where I can understand that who you're

(37:10):
trying to get at. You got the point.
How's that sound? Understand questions.
No, the first. I'm just waiting to say Gandalf.
That's when I know how much you love the Lord and the.
Rings. Well Jerry, let's hope Gandalf

(37:30):
is on is one of the answers to this question.
Do I get a need as? Well, just to clarify.
Say it again. Do I get to answer these as
well? Oh.
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm gonna like, it's a
competition between you and Jared, so one.
Of those excuse. Me.
So what I need is one of you is both of you to choose a number
between 1:00 and 10:00. 9 I'll go first 7.

(37:57):
OK, 7:00 and 9:00, you said? Yeah, 39.
All right, the number was 10 today, so sweetie, you're going
first. OK all.
Right. Oh, OK.
What do you want me to do next? Do you want me to choose
another? Number or Oh, no, no, no, no.
I'm going to read you ask. Me a question first, OK.
Question #1 Yep. OK, excellent.
All right #1 The brooding Honorable Bastard of Winterfell

(38:21):
rises to lead the Night Watch and discovers his royal lineage.
Lineage. Known for him.
Bravery and sense of duty. He's key to the battle against
the White Walkers. Who is this person?
Jon Snow? Absolutely.
That's right, Jon Snow. Easy peasy, right?
Not hard at all. Jared always says these games
are hard, but I always disagree.I don't ever like know the

(38:44):
characters I just be watching itfor vibes.
All right, Jerry, this one should be easy.
Should be easy as well. An exiled Princess turned dragon
riding conqueror champions Freedom, but her pursuit of
power and justice becomes increasingly complex and

(39:06):
dangerous. Who is this person?
It's the Targaryen, that Daenerys that's.
Correct, Daenerys, That is absolutely right.
B. We're starting out easy.
I don't think these questions get much harder than this so
y'all are doing great. All right, so that's all the
Game of Thrones. I know.
I don't know. Great.

(39:29):
Well, good thing is to you, Sir,and we're not doing any more
Game of Thrones. Stuff.
OK, good. OK.
I mean, I won't guarantee that there may be another Game of
Thrones question later on. We'll see.
Here we go. Question #3A girl with
telekinetic powers who escapes from a secret lab.
It becomes the group's most powerful asset in battling the

(39:50):
horrors of the Upside Down, especially the Demogorgon and.
That's 11. That's absolutely 11 from
Stranger Things. Great job.
Great job. Easy peasy.
You've actually written some Stranger Things stuff, right?
I have, yeah. Yeah.
So that was a Gimme. Yeah.
Excuse. Me, yeah.

(40:12):
So we see who he's favorite in on this.
All right, Gary, this one's for you.
The nerdy, lovable member of theHawkins game, he is smart,
resourceful, and often the firstto piece together supernatural
threats. Plus, he's ADND fanatic and fan
favorite. Who is this person?

(40:36):
Hawkins is this another StrangerThings type of?
It is. It is.
It is a person from Stranger Things, Yes.
OK, well, I don't know anybody else in stranger days, so I'm
just going to say is it the black one?
Because he. Need a name there.
I need because I'm the black 1. So he's the black one, you're

(40:57):
the black one. What are we talking?
About there's only one black onein stranger days.
Everybody knows who I'm talking about.
It's that guy has a mustache now.
They say he's going to be SpiderMan Miles Morales.
You want to read it again, DeMarcus?
I'll read it once more here. Sorry.

(41:21):
Give him a question to Nick Steele.
All right, here we go. The nerdy, lovable member of the
Hawkins gang. He is smart, resourceful and
often the first to piece together supernatural threats.
Plus, he's ADND fanatic and fan favorite.
Sounds like all of them lucky, right?

(41:43):
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
No, no gifts. No.
All right, so you chance to steal.
I must say, if it's not the black one, then I must say
Shaggy from Scooby. Doo, wow, wow, You know, I I sat
here the whole time trying to remember his name, because I do

(42:04):
know who you're talking about. I just his name is.
Let's see. Starts with AW, right?
Start with AW. It does not.
It does not. You tell me.
You tell me. OK, so we have Mike, you have
Will. OK, so it's not doesn't start

(42:24):
with Derby. You're right.
You have Will, you have Lucas and then you have the fourth
guy. That's it's that guy.
Remember his name? You gave me every other name.
Except the name I need except the guy.
How long do we have to think about this?
I'm I'm going to give you guys 10 more seconds and then I need

(42:45):
an answer. 10 seconds. You know his name escapes me.
Hawkins, Will Lucas, M11. And he's one.

(43:09):
All right, sounds I. Remember his name, but yeah.
The answer The answer is Dustin Henderson.
Yeah, I can't remember. Yeah, I feel like he was the
least popular 1 like. He's the nerdy one.
He's the nerdy one. Really.
Yeah. He got on my nerves so much.
He was my he was my least favorite.

(43:31):
Fair enough, all. Right, see, it's your turn.
OK, All right. So marked by lightning shaped
scar. He is brave, loyal and destined
to defeat Voldemort with the help of his friends and Michael
artifacts. Harry Potter.
Absolutely. Harry Potter.

(43:53):
Easy peasy. You know, all right, Was.
The other boy, though, he. Was.
The other boy, you're. Supposed to be Neville.
But yeah, yeah, it's supposed tobe Neville.
Neville. Should I prefer?
Well. Take that out with JK I.

(44:14):
Would never. And that's a good.
One. All right, Next one here for
you. Jarrett and Elvin, Prince and
Master Archer. He is agile, perceptive, and
forms a legendary friendship. Friendship with the dwarf
Ginley. He's iconic for his grace and
combat skills. Who is this person?

(44:38):
The only person I know in Lord of the Rings is Gollum, Gandalf,
Sarah. If it's not one of those three,
I don't know who it is. There's so many other
characters. In there and I you.
Know you watch Lord of the Ringsfor the podcast?

(44:59):
No I didn't. You made me watch that horrible
movie. Those horrible 3 movies, The
Hobbit. It wasn't me.
It was. It was that's whose idea was
don't put it on me. You always do this.
I'm always going to put it on you because the host is not here
and I didn't do it. The Hobbit was horrible.

(45:19):
They keep going into people's houses uninvited, and I just did
not like that. So I'm just gonna say it's are
you talking about? Let me be for it.
Aragon. Aragorn.
That's a guess. That's a good guess.

(45:41):
Yeah. Unfortunately, Aragorn is human.
OK, OK, sweet. Do you have a you have a guess
chance to steal the point? Yeah, it's Lego lost.
It is Lego. Lost.
It is. Legolas the Elvis should have
tipped you off. That should have been.
The. One All right, sweetie, back to
you. A mutated Monster Hunter with

(46:04):
white hair and a dry wit. He battles beasts and wrestles
with the moral Gray areas in a world full of magic, politics
and danger. The Witcher, What is his name?
Henry Cavill. Well.

(46:26):
Yeah, what's his name? Because they're all witches.
They're a lot of different witches, yeah.
That's right. How are my days?
What's his name? The witches.
Wow, I can't remember. I can't believe I've forgotten
his name. I can't remember you.

(46:55):
Can see it. You can see it rhymes with and
it. Yeah, like if.
I oh, oh, I see you. Go ahead.
Yeah. No, sorry you.
You're going to say sorry I. Feel like if I hadn't asked you,
we were just like having a conversation.
It would be at the top of your head.
You would have already been ableto say it.
Yeah. Right, you're right.
Yeah, I I've had, I've had definitely.

(47:16):
But yeah, it's yeah, yeah. A chance to steal.
I actually do know this one eventhough I only watched one season
of the show, but I did play the Witcher 3.
Not to complain, but his his name is Gerald's.

(47:36):
That's. Correct, and his course, his
name is Roach. Roach that I was.
Yeah, that's right. I have played the game.
Oh yeah. Geraldo Rivia, right?
Yeah, yeah. Geraldo Rivia, absolutely
excellent, excellent. All right, Jared, we are back to
you. We have gone through seven

(47:59):
question 8 questions. OK, seven or eight.
I mean, I'll go back through in a second.
So I think this question is #8 All right.
And Jared, this question is for you.
A cold and tyrannical sorceress who casts Narnia into eternal

(48:20):
winter. She represents evil and
temptation, often manipulating others with charm and fear.
Who is this person? After I just said after.
You just said this was the the, the, the, these were the books
that that turned you into a reader.

(48:43):
OK, Ashland was the lion. I know it was a ice queen or the
ice witch. I don't know her name.
I didn't read these things sincethe third grade.
You're so. Close.
Ice. Queen Ice so close.

(49:07):
All I know is that. What, what?
What? What color is she?
Oh, white. She's so she is.
The the White Queen. I'll give you the point anyway.
You you've said all the words even though that they weren't in
order. What was it?

(49:29):
It was the white. Witch The White Witch, Yeah.
And for for reference, her name was Jadis, which I didn't know.
I didn't know she had a name. I thought she was just called
the White Witch. Yeah, same.
I've never read the book, but that's I know those two things.
You know the lion's name. I've seen all the movies.

(49:50):
All right, Sui, we're down to the wire here and I'll give you
I'll give you guys an update on the score.
Jared, you have 3 three, you have 4:00.
So this. You go out of the.
Way you could you could you could cinch the win here, or you
can give Jared a chance to tie it up and make me have to find
another question. OK, 3A powerful wizard and a

(50:10):
member of the Istari. He guides heroes like Frodo and
Dilbo with his deep wisdom and magical might.
He plays a central role in the fight against Salon.
Who is this person? Who is this person?

(50:37):
That's a good question. You don't know us.
I mean, I do. The question is, do I want to
answer or do I let Jared answer?Do you want to be a Do you want
to be a good sport and let the game?
Be Yeah, you know I'm. Gonna remember this me back on
the show. You know, also because like when

(50:58):
you said, you know, when Jared is like, these are the things I
know about like Lord of the Rings, of course I get this
question and Jared does. Thank you.
It's it's just have a cookie crumble, you know?
Yeah, it's. Not.
Anyway, I, I will, I will play the game fair and square and
answer Gandalf. Absolutely.

(51:20):
It is, Gandalf. All right.
And we're down to the last question here.
All right, Jared, Are you ready?OK.
Right. A brilliant witch and one of
Harry's closest allies. He is known for her
intelligence, mastery of spells,and fish loyalty.

(51:44):
She often saved the day through her quick thinking.
Who is this person? Hermione Granger.
Absolutely, Hermione Granger. All right, that's all the
questions. The ending score is 5 to 4.
Sui, you are our winner. Congratulations.

(52:05):
Thank you. First time on the show, first
win. You know, somehow.
Sorry. Go ahead, Jay.
Somehow, every time we have a guess, I lose.
Somehow I don't. I don't know what's happening
behind the scenes, but every time we have a guess, I lose.
Well, Jerry, I think what it is is that you know a lot of

(52:30):
things, but you don't know the specifics.
And a lot of time it's the specifics where you lose points.
Like you don't know folks names,you don't know what the show is
called, but you've seen it and you can describe it and you can
just say, oh, it's the black one.
And it's like, well, it wasn't the black one.
Although he did say he does watch for the vibes which makes

(52:51):
you know. Yeah, which is which?
Makes more vibes question more vibes.
More vibes. Question.
Yeah. Sorry, you asked.
You asked something. Oh Oh no.
Well I was going to just ask howdoes it feel?
How does it feel to get your first win on Black E Chemistry?
I mean, that was actually a verynice game.
I liked it. Thank you very much for that,
actually, because yes, so we don't get asked to do things

(53:14):
like this a lot. Just, you know, sometimes I get
the same questions all the time.I remember, I always remember,
like, I will remember this probably, right?
Yeah. Because because we tend to get,
you know, authors tend to get the same questions or same
similar types of questions. And I've spoken about my work so
much on in different ways that I, I sort of have an angle for

(53:35):
everything. And I always remember, I always
remember like the interviews or,you know, podcasts or anything
where they often do something different.
I remember 1 specifically. And this was a funny one because
it was for, it was for on or so that was sort of like for young
readers at a library or something.

(53:55):
It was a place I didn't expect, but I remember I was asked to do
this or that type thing. This was like years back.
And I was asked, the question I was asked was Kendrick or Drake.
And it was the strangest question, but also the one I
will always remember, of course,for various reasons in the last

(54:16):
year, but also because it was just not the kind of question
that we ever get. This too is another one of those
like, I always remember it because it like nobody ever
says, you know, what's the name of, you know, Gerald or Rivia or
whatever. Yeah.
And. That's what I try to do.
I try to like, you know, I try to for the our games to be

(54:36):
related to wherever conversations we're having on
that. So but also be like fun and
informative. So, you know, if someone's
listening, they can learn something and you know, we can
just have a good time. They are fun and and
informative. There are some of these things I
didn't actually know, like the White Witch.
Actually I didn't know, just like what you said.
So yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you. Great.
All right. OK, so yeah, I want to jump into

(55:03):
your latest book, the retelling kind of of the Marvel's Wakandan
intergalactic saga that Tallahassee coats first put into
our lapstery. Now, this saga was, it was kind

(55:31):
of confusing for me a little bit.
It was kind of confusing for me a little bit when Tallahassee
Coast read it. And I don't know if it was the
fact that I had to wait a month for it to happen or things were
happening again. But can you just kind of set the
scene of, you know, how is therean intergalactic empire of

(55:57):
Wakanda? Yeah.
So the I've heard this describedmany different ways.
Some people will say it's it's Wakanda Star Wars, Some people
will say it's an alternate universe of Wakanda.
But what it is actually is that the the the lore at least, or

(56:21):
the Canon is that challa right? So in the in the actual Wakanda
on Earth, the same 1, you know, we've seen in the comics prior
and in films and etcetera. So Challa, who is at the time
the reigning Black Panther, sortof puts together this team,

(56:42):
right? Like a team that is sent into
the stars to sort of investigatea source of vibranium that is
out there in space because the, the, the vibranium that's in
Wakanda is actually a space rock, or at least used to be a
space rock. So the idea is, you know,

(57:04):
there's this there, they're set to investigate this source of
vibranium, right? The source of that rock, just
figure out if there's more vibranium out there.
And so China sends his team, this team goes out there, but
something happens. They encounter A wormhole and
they they plunge through that wormhole and they show up on
some other side of the Galaxy completely far away from this.

(57:26):
You know, they lose their way pretty much.
So they're sort of out, stuck out there now.
But these people are Wakandans. They've been sort of built, you
know, they've, they've grown up in this Wakandan ethos of like,
you know, the most technologically advanced, the,
the best, you know, the fiercest, the toughest.
And So what they do is say, well, we're sort of stuck out
here. We'll, we'll just establish a

(57:48):
common right. We'll establish A Wakandan
colony in space and they start out that way.
But then of course, what typically happens is when you
have a lot of power, you know, you're encountering a lot of
people who aren't really on the same power spectrum is a lot of
them, some of them, or at least get sort of corrupted by that
power along the way. And then they take that power

(58:10):
and then start to actually take the very ethos of Wakanda, you
know, the the ethos of like striving to always be, you know,
the furthest technologically the, the strongest, you know,
the, the, the most invested in, in building something.
But then they twist those ends to like more sort of more
bellicose ethic that becomes very colonial in its, in its

(58:35):
yeah, that becomes very colonialin its implementation.
And so they start to actually conquer many of these planets
they come across, right? So after establishing their
colony, they start to expand thecolony, conquer more.
They conquer more and more and more and more.
And then, you know, many light years, many years later, right,

(58:58):
you have an intergalactic empirethat starts from that core
colony. So, and of course, the people
who started, you know, they're long gone, but this empire has
sort of bloomed, has become its own thing.
And of course, it does what empires do, which is, you know,
it, it, it, it's very extractive.
It takes a lot. So they, they have found the

(59:19):
vibranium and then they just focus on using that vibranium to
even compromote places, find more of it, etcetera, etcetera.
And that becomes the intergalactic empire volcano.
Now this story starts when a manshows up in this intergalactic
empire, crashes into it. And the people who have been,
you know, sort of conquered by this empire have been telling

(59:41):
themselves tales and say, listen, back in ancient Wakanda,
which is how they think of the Wakanda on Earth, there used to
be a guy, his name was Chala, and he used to be the, the, the
Conqueror, you know, like the, the, the, the person who fights
for free peoples. You know, he, he's like someone
who's a saviour, A Messiah. And there's this law going

(01:00:01):
around like. A challah will come for us in
this intergalactic empire to free us from the hold of this
empire. And so when this man crashes,
you know, we must start going around.
We hear there's a guy. He has all these powers and he
can do all these things. Is he our challah?
But then it becomes the questionof, is he our challah?

(01:00:24):
You know, is he actually challahfrom ancient Wakanda?
That is that's that's the question.
Is he actually telling from a ship Wakanda that actually has
left wage Wakanda and showed up here?
And no one can really answer thequestion.
And so everyone instead is fighting to get this guy on

(01:00:45):
their side, you know, so the rebellion manages to get him,
bring him in from where he's imprisoned after crashing and
then try to, you know, and they're trying to like figure
out is he he he doesn't have anymemories.
The empire takes memories. So the, you know, they're trying
to figure out is he he's trying to figure out am I everybody's

(01:01:07):
trying to figure out who he is. He doesn't have his connection
to bust like that, you know, that that that Tala would have
as the avatar. So there's a lot of pieces
missing. And the rest of the story is
really trying to figure out who he is.
Piece these things together. Answer the question.
Is he our savior or can he even save us?
Even if he is chala or a chala, can he save us from this empire?

(01:01:32):
That's really what the Intergalactic Empire of Rakanda
is about. It's that it's answering that
question of will you be liberated by a chala, possibly
the Chala. That sounds really good.
Is this a, is this a closed doormystery?
Like there's a lot of questions in there.
You were talking about that earlier.
It's a cold. Border most are mystery across 5

(01:01:52):
galaxies. Yeah.
Nice. Do they do they interact with
the Wakanda on Earth a lot or does that still exist and
there's some kind of. Yeah, there's there's a
suggestion that it does, and I try.
This is me trying not to spoil it too much.
Oh yeah. Please don't spoil it because
I'm going to read it. Yeah, there's a suggestion that

(01:02:13):
it does, but the wormhole that brings that to which they can
get to that other side because the galaxy's like way over.
It's like thousands of lightweights away, so the
wormhole that can take them there was an anomaly.
It's not actually a thing that exists.
So it was an anomaly. No one can find a way back
there. So if there was anyone who

(01:02:34):
could, it would be the same guy who crashed landed in this
interior. If he actually is Challa, then
he would be the same person who would find it back.
But he also doesn't remember anything.
He's also lost his memory. So everyone is basically
screwed. So the blind leading the blind.
Yeah. And then, of course, there's a

(01:02:57):
question of, you know, if, if, if a savior or Messiah, a challa
is supposed to be noble. You know, it's supposed to be
this guy. Not like that at all.
It's very brisk. He's very brash.
How can he be challa if he's like this?
He's not. He doesn't even listen to
anybody. He doesn't take instructions,
nothing. He's always doing his own thing,
you know, ruining everything. So.

(01:03:18):
Yeah, I remember when I first read this book and at the end or
the middle, when I first startedseeing what was actually
happening, this was one of the moments where I started looking
at Wakanda as not the best placeon Earth.

(01:03:38):
Like, like think. That, yeah.
Yeah, like, I'm thinking that I would rather 'cause like, you
know, and it when at the end of the original comic, he does come
back and he does, you know, comeback into some hardships in

(01:04:01):
Wakanda, some political unrest. But then I, I started seeing
that the flu unrest started a long time ago, like even before
the tower and Storm were married.
And it just kind of escalated from there.
And I'm just like, you know, Wakanda has this ruler who

(01:04:21):
doesn't really want to be a ruler as much as he wants to be
a worldwide superhero. And then I'm like, and then I'm
like, but and the people are asking for this ruler.
And now they weren't with each other.
And then I'm looking at not veryalike.
And they and they fine, they have no worries in Latvia.

(01:04:44):
They just going about their business, Hail doom and that's
all they do it. So I'm like, of course I would
rather stay in Wakanda, but I don't think I would want to stay
in the main city of Wakanda. Or.
In the offshoot cities, yeah. Because like, yeah, it yeah.

(01:05:06):
Oh, go ahead. Oh, no, like I'm, I'm very much
in agreement with you. Like I, I hadn't read the full
run when, when I came to at least when I was invited to this
project. But of course, one of the first
things they do with this projectis they give you the full run
and say, OK, if you're going to,you know, here you go.

(01:05:26):
And I remember when I started reading it, the first thing, I
was very confused, like you, Jared.
I was like, what is this? Like what?
What do you mean Nokia? Like, what do you mean like the
kid that isn't like that? She doesn't sound like that.
But then after a while I was like, oh, wait, hold on, this is
some other Wakanda. It's somewhere else.
And then it took me a while, butI realized that what, and this
is very much within the now thatI understand a lot of what

(01:05:49):
Tsanahashi does as a person in the world and like as a writer,
I understand why he wrote it exactly the way he did, which is
that it wants you to first of all, come in with the
understanding of what you think Wakanda is.
But then you get to the point you're like, how can Wakanda be
like this? It's not possible.
Then you realize that what he's actually trying to say is that

(01:06:10):
Wakanda is not perfect at all. It has never been.
It's not that bastion of utopia that we think of it as.
Rather, Wakanda is held togetherby like tape.
Exactly. It's like it's held together by
the goodwill of a few people whoare trying so hard to make it

(01:06:32):
remain that way. But it's very fragile.
And then the Galactic Empire shows us what happens when you
don't have that, when you don't have that tape put it holding it
together and how it can easily become something else.
The Wakanda we know can easily this quickly become, you know,
the worst possible thing for Five Galaxies.
And that's exactly what happens because the the ethic under

(01:06:56):
which the ethic under which is running can be good, but that
ethic requires power beneath it to actually work.
And power can go in any direction.
And the minute we move in the direction, it's hard to stop,
especially if it builds on itself.
And the power of Wakanda is not just one thing, right?
They have the the heart-shaped air.

(01:07:17):
They have what you know, vibranium.
They have all these things that together come together to
actually give it this power. So as long as these things now
still there, right in the it's agalactic empire, it's more
vibranium and they keep finding more vibranium.
So how how is the power going togo away?
It's just keeps. Accumulating.
And and that thing just, you know, worsens.
So just like you were saying Jared, about like even the one

(01:07:39):
on earth, right? It's like you have this leader
and he's always like off the places he's not really paying
attention at home. And there are all these people
being like, listen, if this guy won't rule, I'll just take the
I'll just take the throne and doit.
Yeah, and. Not that in a way, like I, I, I
don't, you know, like you're in a comic, you know, clearly this
person is a villain, but you're also thinking, you know, he

(01:08:00):
right, you know. Yeah, why not?
Wrong. Obviously in that chair, like
that chair is yours. Why don't?
Where are you always off to not actually being where people need
you, you know? Right.
Your people need you, right? Exactly.
Your people need you, but you'relike all over in Washington, DC.
Exactly whatever. Whatever it is you're doing, you
know, so I was, I was thinking of that a lot, you know,

(01:08:24):
thinking of I know, you know, like Challa has, you know, he
has a sister, he has all these he has a rural Monroe.
So he has all these people around him.
But at the same time, I'm like, boy, go back and like meet your
people where they're at. Even if these people who are
coming to the table to say I want to rule instead of Challa,

(01:08:44):
well, find out what they want that they're not being given and
like, you know, meet them in like rule, actually rule.
Yeah. Actually rule.
Yeah. So that was what that was that
was what I thought I think that Tanahashi was trying to point
out in that when you don't have that when you when you you know.

(01:09:06):
And the Wakanda on Earth was still holding, but that's only
just holding because, you know, maybe you have these structures
in place, but all of this is tape.
If you have someone who's not paying enough attention, it
could easily become this other thing, this other thing that is
the intergalactic and powerful conduct, which doesn't have good
structure or good rulers or likepeople who are actually there to

(01:09:27):
invest in other people. Instead, what they have is just
the like bare faced, we need to be better, stronger, faster,
more technologically advanced, and that can easily lead to
fascism more, you know, it can easier and rule because even if
those are supposedly good things, if you don't have the
structures to keep them from becoming extractive and

(01:09:49):
destructive, then you have the interactic empire.
And that's pretty much what whatI think he was trying to say.
Like, it's not just having these, you know, desires for
so-called good things. It's the fact that once you hold
power, you have to be really responsible with it and
constantly, constantly being responsible with it and for it
and for other people. Otherwise you're becoming a

(01:10:12):
disempire. You know, that's disruptive and
extractive. So yeah, I really, I really
liked that. He sort of made me think of
that, too. Even while I was writing.
I was like, oh, that's what thisreally is, you know?
So I'm always interested in likethe behind the scenes for things
like this, like what? What's happening that we, the
audience who read the book don'tsee how much of this was written

(01:10:33):
or like, already planned when you were like, invited onto the
project? And then how much was it sort of
taken in your own direction and,you know, apply your own
creative juices to it? Oh, and like nothing, nothing
apart from what Tanahashi has already done.
OK, so this book, this novel is a mix of.

(01:10:57):
So I think it covers this level,covers I think the first 12 or
13 issues. So it's not even the whole run
because the whole run will be take forever, you know?
But yeah, so the first thing we decided as a team, I mean, first
of all, they wanted to know if Iwanted to do the work, but also
if I was interested, I'm always interested in the Black Panther

(01:11:17):
property specifically because ithas a like, special place for
me. And, and also because it was
Tanahashi who had already done like the groundwork.
I I felt like I was being, you know, I was working on something
that had been ushered by like, safe hands.
This makes sense. So I was like, OK, I'm going in
somewhere where, you know, there's an artist I respect,

(01:11:39):
there's a writer I respect. You know, the property is one
I'm interested in. So we first decided what the
scope was to be and we said, OK,we're going to cover this area
specifically. Then the other thing that, and
this is what usually happens with tie insurance, is you will
then be required to bridge the gaps as with comments, as you

(01:11:59):
know, you know between issues, you will have stuff that happens
off page. So then you'll be forced or not
forced, hopefully not forced. You'll be required to sort of
then make what actually happens off stage now happen on stage.
And sometimes there's nothing toshow you what has happened off

(01:12:20):
stage. You then have to figure out,
figure something out. So what what happened was they
didn't give me anything. They gave me the issues, the
scope and said write, write us back with what you think, with
what you think bridges these gaps.

(01:12:42):
And that was what I did. That was the first, you know,
sort of thing I wrote. I wrote, I first outlined what
Tana has he had done and said, OK, this is what he has done.
This is what I am going to do inaddition to this.
But and, and then I, I was like,and then this is what it would
look like in novel form because because transposing forms is

(01:13:03):
also very it's, I mean, if you read comics a lot, you know that
the comics is very different as a medium.
It's it's, I like to call it, it's a static visual.
I mean, that's what it is. It's a static visual medium, but
in the sense that it actually isvery visual.
In my, in my opinion, it's as visual as a, as ATV or film.

(01:13:25):
And it's just that rather than you have moving images, you have
static ones. So things like sound or you
know, things that you would usually put in like ATV script,
you would you wouldn't put thosein a comic script, but the comic
scripts are very, very descriptive.
I have written some comics, so Iknow like how what is the kind
of work that goes into the visual, But then what you're

(01:13:48):
doing in literature is doing theopposite.
You're you're extracting from the visual.
You're not even extracting from the initial script that has been
written. You're extracting.
You're looking at the visual andsaying what is what is backward
thing thinking in that, in that panel, that one panel, you know,
what is he thinking? What is what?

(01:14:09):
What is driving the choice he's going to make in the next panel?
That's what you have to do in literature and sort of spread
that out before you move to the next panel.
You so one panel can last like 3pages of, you know, in a book
because you want to stretch thatmoment.
You can do that with literature.And so I had to pick moments
really OK in this issue, you know, issue 3 or whatever, this

(01:14:30):
is the pivotal moment. This is the moment we're going
to stay with. And then everything else is
going to build on top of toward that moment.
But you have to, you have to read the comic and sort of
figure out which which page, which panel is really doing that
work. Yeah.
Which which which sort of requires an understanding of
both mediums. But yeah, that's that's how I
did it right. I said, OK, these I think are
the core core. This is the core of this these

(01:14:55):
issues. And this is what I think we can
we can use between them to give,you know, dramatic heft or, or
increased tension or built particularly specifically to
expand character because you don't have as much space to do
that. But in literature, you can, you
can expand character, you can talk about back story, you can

(01:15:15):
Add all that stuff. So a lot of that stuff is what I
did and then add added to what was already there.
And then, you know, few notes here and there from the Marvel
team, from the publishers team. And then they were like, OK, we
OK, trust that's 2. Different teams you're having,
you were getting feedback from Marvel ain't getting feedback

(01:15:36):
from the publisher like here's what we want this thing to.
Look like, OK, very cool. Yeah, yeah, the Marvel team, the
Marvel, there's a there's a specific IP team for Marvel
properties. They're going to write in that
they will come, they will bring like they'll tell you the stuff
that needs to be in Canon and stuff that you can play with
outside of Canon or like you canbring in from outside of Canon.

(01:15:56):
And working with that team and then the publishers team is sort
of like thinking more like in the narrative level.
You know what, what's is this, you know, is this character
robust enough? Is the narrative, is the
narrative having enough tension?You know, so they're thinking
more on the editorial level. Yeah.
So you'll be getting that kind of feedback.

(01:16:17):
This will say, oh, oh, IKEA wouldn't do that because blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah happened in like issue 10, blah, blah,
blah. So you can't do that.
Do this instead. Something like is the kind of
notes you get from Marvel. Why my my editor would be like,
I feel like, you know, into DACAwould want this here.
So maybe maybe increase, you know, spread this moment to, to,

(01:16:38):
to two more things or something like that, you know?
Yeah. So that's, that's how it, that's
how it works, yeah. Very cool.
Yeah, nice. Yes, teach, professor, teach
your classes. Must be fun.
Now let's go back to the Empire.You know, there's a lot of moral
ambiguity here. Like, I think that T'challa
starts out as a slave to somebody, which is very, you

(01:17:03):
know, I'm an American and I'm like, hold up now.
And there are a lot of other moral things that, you know,
made me raise my eye at the empire.
But how did you navigate or expand on these moral
complexities within this alternative society?

(01:17:24):
Yeah, I mean that that was definitely a thing I was always
weighing. One of the things I remember
telling myself was this challenge guy sucks.
Yeah. He sucks like, a lot.
So I'm like, how? So I guess the question I really
asked myself in the beginning islike, how do I make this guy a
hero? Yeah, but also why?

(01:17:46):
Like, why? Why?
Yeah, why do I have to make thisguy this guy?
And The thing is, the story sortof starts out that way.
Like in the 1st 10 chapters, he's literally picking fights
everywhere. He's fighting with everybody.
And I'm like, why do they even want him?
And I remember having like, why do they even want him right in
the rebellion? Like he's just.

(01:18:08):
But The thing is, there's a lot of stuff going on.
He has he has a lot of skills which he doesn't even know how
he has them or why he has them, but he just knows that he has
them and he like moves in a certain way in the world.
And they are also raising the question of, well, OK, we have
an asset. This guy, sure, he doesn't
listen, but you know, we need someone like this.
And I started thinking a lot about why people would believe

(01:18:30):
in this guy at all. And that's when we got it coming
up with the questions of like, well, it's less that they
believe in this man standing in front of them, but more that
they believe in the law surrounding this guy or like
they believe in something biggerthan the man.
And so they can, they're willingto give the man a lot of rope so
he can become that thing and so he can grow into that thing.

(01:18:52):
And so that's why we started building this belief system
around it. And, and here's the thing you'll
find out, as you probably know, belief systems actually allow
people to play with a lot of moral ambiguity because they
can, they can say that's OK because there's a there's a
longer game or there's a bigger thing that we believe in.
And it's OK if he does this one thing that sucks kind of
situation. And after a while, even Chawla

(01:19:15):
starts to be like, OK, maybe maybe it's a bit much from me,
but yeah. And it's not just him too, you
know, there's more ambiguity on even like the size of their
allies and stuff like that. But yeah, overall, I really, I
was really asking that question always like, what makes these

(01:19:36):
people believe in the things that they do?
And sometimes things the reasonsthey believe are not great.
And I they have to learn. I think the most important thing
for me was like, they have to learn at some point that the the
basis of their beliefs are not, are not good things.
Maybe they need to revise them. And I think that's what I'm
trying to do for most of them inthe end, then revising their

(01:19:57):
beliefs in the end. So yeah, that's that's that's
how I tackle. Yeah, and you're definitely
correct. At the beginning of the comic
book, I was like, this guy's like Cora, He's always, that's
annoying. He's just annoying and he's not
doing the right thing and he's destroying the spirit world.

(01:20:21):
But yeah, I, I. Destroy him, the Spirit.
World, he was like, he was like a little loser indeed.
I don't really remember the comic book point for point, but
didn't he always like lose everything or I know he was
winning because that's why the rebellion got him, but he was
always picking fights with people and they didn't turn out

(01:20:41):
right or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wasn't too happy. But for the readers who are
unfamiliar with the comic book and and the original story, how
are you ensuring that the novel stands on its own while also

(01:21:05):
honoring the source material? Yeah, that, that was a tough one
as well. We sort of, we tried to, we
tried to do like a framing for the opening.
So the, the, the, the novel sortof opens with a prologue that
says with Bast, right? The goddess Bast sort of
speaking, saying this deal you're about to read is blah,
blah, blah. Yeah.

(01:21:27):
And then which, which the comic doesn't have, but we decided to
use that sort of lay the ground to say, well, if you know, you
know, if you know about Black Panther, you know about Wakanda,
then Bast is here saying, well, this is not quite that.
This is sort of something beyondthat.
And so you sort of know. And then the book also opens
without saying who that guy is or that, you know, some guy that

(01:21:49):
people are going to think at some point is possible, possibly
Chala or the Chala rather. It's just like some guy.
It just really opens as some guy.
But then when he starts to do stuff, people start thinking,
wait, is he you know? And then that's when the reader
is brought into, oh, there's a law surrounding this guy.
The other confusing thing, and Ithink this is probably what

(01:22:12):
you're referencing, Jared, is the new intergalactic Empire
then has all these people name themselves after people from
ancient Rakanda. Yeah, yeah.
So, so you're getting Baku into Dhaka, you know, Nokia, but they
they're not, there are people from ancient Wakanda or the

(01:22:33):
Wakanda Prime, rather, they're just completely different
people, you know, So you're like, wait, what is what is
happening? But they're, they're sort of
like there are names that bestowupon themselves as like in
honour of the place we came from.
So there. And and this is pointing back to
your point, Jared, about Tanahashi referencing like

(01:22:56):
enslavement in, you know, of course, drawing parallels from
America, but also like the reclamation of the name.
Because what the empire does fora lot of people it conquers is
erase their memories. So they have no.
And so the one thing they have aconnection to all of them
eventually is like this ancient Wakanda that they can't quite
remember, but they have oral tales passed down, stuff that

(01:23:18):
the empire can't quite take. And so they, they start, they
keep linking themselves back to it over and over by saying,
well, you know, I take on the name Nokia now because I want to
be connected to something that Idon't yet remember, right.
Yeah, I've, I'm caught up in a way from a lineage, but I want
to be connected to it. I want to retrain my connection

(01:23:39):
to it. And so they have these names as
a result. And and so that gets explained
at some point down the line, much earlier in the book than it
is in the comics. But that was that's the that's
one way I sort of said This is why you're hearing all these
names. But they don't, they don't
overlap with like the ones, you know, in ancient Wakanda because
these people are trying to remain connected to Wakanda

(01:24:01):
Prime via this, you know, distance over this distance
this, these light years. Yeah.
And and the names in a way, are there hope that they will be
saved at some point and then reinstated.
Yeah. So.
OK, see I didn't get that in thecomic book.
Yeah, yeah, I did not. Get that?
In the comic book, the comics really don't, you know, like

(01:24:22):
it's a very short space, so I get it.
But but I could see that and that was something I developed
in the in the novel. Yeah.
And another thing that is in a comic, but like when you're
reading a comic, but of course you're seeing the pictures too,
and the Black Panther looks liket'challa t'challa prom.
But like, I really think that inyour book it may be better

(01:24:44):
because it's just a blank slate.Man, Yeah, yeah.
So I think that would be really,really better.
But at first I think 5 chapters he doesn't even have a name He's
called he he called the dreamer because he's the chapter opens
with him dreamy. And then after that he's called
the rebel because he rebels a lot like that.
You know, for a while until someone actually bestows the

(01:25:06):
name T'challa on him because they think they're like, you
know, so the captain of the rebellion says you might be the
T'challa we've been waiting for,so I'm going to give you a name
of child. And then he starts answering
that name throughout the rest ofthe book.
But then of course, in the reader's mind, they're like, is
this a mistake? Yeah, Yeah, yeah.

(01:25:27):
OK. OK.
That makes a lot, a lot of sense.
So. I got another question for you.
So what? And I guess it's more matter not
so much about the story, but like, what do you find when you
written comics and novels? Like what do you what do you
find specifically with this, this story?
Like what has been the best partor the difference and some of

(01:25:51):
the some of the best differencesbetween the comic and the and
the story you've written the novel?
Like what have you been like? Oh, like I love the novel
because it does this, or I love the comic before because it does
that, or vice versa. Yeah, definitely.
What I like about the comic is this.
You're not writing the final thing.

(01:26:11):
You're right. You're writing the thing that
you're going to suggest to somebody to make.
So actually, your script is a series of suggestions.
OK. Yeah.
It's like, here, do this thing is really what it's like, a
series of instructions. And I say suggestions because
the artists will still render ithowever they wish, well,
according to their style or anything.
So you'd never actually know what you're going to get, which

(01:26:33):
means when you're thinking aboutthe story with a comic, the
process is much longer. First I have to think about the
story, then I have to think about how to represent it in, I
don't know, 10 panels. You know, it's like 10 panels.
That's all you get go. And then you have to think, OK,
you know, or 7 pages or 10 pages, something like that.
And then a lot of the choices you make on the comic is

(01:26:56):
something like, how many panels can I have in this page?
Do I want this to be a big blow up?
You know, like a centerpiece. Why?
What part of the story would lend itself to a centerpiece?
For instance, one of the comics I just wrote is a retelling of a
British comic called My Tech theMighty.
It's about, it's sort of like a giant robot gorilla that's

(01:27:19):
called My Tech. So like King Kong butt robot?
OK. And then and then and then.
In the issue I was writing, it'sfighting off this giant like
mechanical Python type thing. And I was, I was thinking, you
know, so I, I remember emailing and so I was like, where, where
are the spreads in the pages? I think I was to write 10 or

(01:27:41):
something. I was like, where is the spread?
Because I was thinking of a partwhere I needed to have a big top
to bottom image of like the, the, the gorilla grabbing the
mechanical Python And then like tossing each other just right at
the middle of the page where you'd like have the spread.
So I was asking where's the spread so I could write in a way
that would place that. So that's what you're really

(01:28:02):
thinking a lot like. You're thinking about narrative
structure also like page structure.
How many panels per page? Is this a big, is this a big
shot? Is this a small shot?
Is this an instant? Is this off page or on page
dialogue? You know, stuff like that.
And then as I said, all of this is just instructions.
Then someone has to interpret that and put it on the page.
But with literature, you think something just write that like

(01:28:26):
you know it's a more Direct Lineto.
What you're thinking exactly? OK.
Yeah. But also because of that Direct
Line, you then have to be very like, you have to do a.
It's very iterative. You write the thing and say, OK,
that's the thing I've written down.
Now what do I actually want to say?
Then you like that thing, you edit it, you cut it, cut it, cut
it until you get to the heart ofthe thing that you're trying to

(01:28:46):
say. It's OK.
That's what I want to be on the page, actually.
And then, you know, there are there are other things.
Literature allows you to play with time, go back and forth
without, you know, moving through time in a, you know, no
way that you can't really do with comics where you have to
stay. You have to keep the reader in a
space. If you move too much to get
confused, things like that. You can really play with time in

(01:29:09):
literature. You can play with, you know,
internal thoughts without it, you know, you can move in and
out of internal thoughts and dialogue without it being too
clumsy. But with you have to think a
lot, you know, in comics. Do I want this to be an internal
thought? Do I want them to speak it out
loud? Do I want it to just be body
language? And if if it's body language,
how do you, how do you show bodylanguage statically?

(01:29:30):
No movement, no movement, you know, stuff like that.
OK. But I love, I love both forms.
I think they ask different things of you.
Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like a man
you're really deep into, like the answers you're giving just
like that. You've done both these things a
lot. You've put a lot of thought into
it. Yeah.
How many times do you think you've rewritten pieces of this,

(01:29:51):
the Black Panther novel, like you, you say like the way you
describe it is super interesting.
Like you write what you you write what you want and then you
say, what do I actually want to say?
And then you like, what's what I'm trying to say?
So how many times do you like rewrite things?
I mean, as you can tell, like asas a professor of creative
writing, this is literally what I'm most trying to get.

(01:30:11):
People to do. To write, to write and then
rewrite, I find that the, the process of typing makes it
quicker for you to just like putdown the word that has come to
your head. So I find often that when I'm
just like writing, I think of itas like, I'm just getting the
thing that I want to say down orthe thing that the story down.

(01:30:33):
And then I after that I then come back and say, OK, what is
the actual thing that needs to be on the page?
What, what, what can I skip? What is, you know, what's useful
for the story, that kind of stuff.
And so I, I do a lot of revisions in that way.
I often would write in a different device and move it
into the actual place where I want the story to be.

(01:30:55):
I use Scrivener, so I move it toScrivener and then when it's in
Scrivener, that's when I rewriteit.
So I write it often in a different form.
I'm like, OK, and I usually write with AI, write with an
electronic keyboard. I don't know if you know these
alpha smarts. They're like these really old
ink screen keyboard type things that.

(01:31:16):
We have. Like one or two lines at a time.
There's no Internet. Nothing.
No, no backlights. So I, I write with that.
Usually I draft there because I don't want any distractions.
Oh, nice. Very cool.
But then then I move it to the computer and then I'm like, OK,
now what do I, you know? Then I edit that.
That's often how I, Yeah. So I do that a bit.

(01:31:36):
I mean, minus the time that the editors give me notes, but
that's usually what my process looks like, Yeah.
Very cool. Yeah, Scriven up, OK.
All right, now is the time you have completed the interview
portion of the Black Geek Energyepisode that you have committed

(01:31:58):
yourself to being gone. OK, now is the time where it's
almost at the end. We are going to ask you 17
questions. These questions are a quick fire
so you don't have to answer themall the way, but you know we
would like for the full answer if you.

(01:32:20):
Know. We are going to ask you these 17
questions that they are based onprevious shows.
They are based on, you know, thethings you said today, and they
are based on, you know, some other things that we want to
know. So yeah, let's start number one,
what superpower would you have if you could have a superpower?

(01:32:45):
Teleportation. You could always go to haunted
castles in Wales. Anywhere.
Exactly. Exactly.
Then travel. Travel is not.
It's not cheap. So yeah.
Absolutely. Who was right, Professor X or
Magneto? Oh, that's a tough one.

(01:33:09):
I think I don't know who's right.
Can I say both? I I would go with Professor X on
the sense of in the sense of like, I would make that choice.
But honestly, I think Magneto isprobably would have been a man
for our times. I'm with you there.

(01:33:30):
OK, who is your favorite black playable character in video
games? Who, what, what video game is
this? I actually don't play that many
video games, though. Yeah, in the last five years

(01:33:51):
I've played just three and I, I don't think they have played
black playable characters. And that's a bad thing, by the
way. It's a horrible.
Thing, but I have not played oneexcept for a character I design.
I have to design in what's the word 1 of it's it's one of the

(01:34:14):
DND games the where you build the world and you like you build
a character and I have one myself.
Yeah, that's that's the last barbers game.
Sorry, no, it's the wild. Is it wild it has to the logo's
like 3 or something? I can't.
Remember yeah, Barber Skate 3, right?

(01:34:36):
Is it? Yeah.
Where You can It came out in 2023 in August.
Oh no, that's definitely too. Recent.
Too recent not. Yeah, yeah.
But anyway, but I had like, it was one of those where you make
like a Drury character or a dwarf.
Yeah. And I just, you know, I created
one. Of course I created a black

(01:34:57):
character, which I usually always do, so that's the last
time. So not not a existing playable
one at. Least.
OK, OK, OK, so your favorite black character was yourself?
Yes. Correct.
Let me see. Something's happening with my.
My. Your video.

(01:35:18):
My video, let me change it. OK, cool, let me see what next.
Now this is a good one. The Storm and Black Panther
relationship. Are you here for it or no?

(01:35:38):
You know, I, I kind of dig it. I kind of dig it.
No explanation necessarily. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think
it's it's one of those that justmakes sense.
I think it's just like I said, no explanations necessary.
It was just one of those things I saw.
I was like, yeah, that's right. And yeah, I dig it.

(01:36:03):
I dig it. Until until what kind of gets
flooded I guess is. Yeah, OK, don't get me started.
So what would you rather be, a werewolf or a vampire?
Vampire mostly. I mean, I don't, I don't, I

(01:36:26):
don't really dig the mortality part actually.
I would rather like to die. I would really like to die at
the end of the day, one day. Yeah.
So the the idea of like stretching on forever and I
don't really dig it, but I also don't really dig like the
metamorphosis, I guess. Like it's painful.
The transformation is painful. You buy new clothes every formal

(01:36:49):
or whatever. Like too many roots clothing,
pieces of clothing, show it, youknow, waking up in strange
places. I don't want any of that.
So OK, vampire. What's your favorite Star Trek
or Star Wars? It's Star Trek Lower Decks.

(01:37:13):
OK. I love lower decks.
Yeah, Lower Decks actually, it'snot any of the other.
If it's Star Wars, I would say Ando clearly, because I've
already said that Star Trek, though, it's Lower Decks.
I just, I don't know, it just manages to be.
And maybe this is me moving toward the OK.
I get all the big stuff happening over there, but I want

(01:37:34):
the smaller thing happening. Yeah.
Lower Decks is really that for Star Trek, in my opinion at
least. I like that it's an animation,
too. OK.
It gives them room to do so many, you know, funny, exciting
things. It's actually funny, not just
fun. Yeah.
So yeah, Lower Decks it is for me.

(01:37:56):
OK, OK, OK. What's a better TV show, Fresh
Prince or Martin? OK, that's a good one.
I I think maybe. So this is how I think of both.
I think of Martin as the adult show and Fresh Prince as the
family show. So.

(01:38:17):
So I'll go with Fresh Prince because I can watch it with my
family, with kids. Yeah, Martin.
Yeah, a bit more risk and, and Iliked it, you know, I enjoyed it
too. Well, at least when I it was on
or when I was watching reruns. But maybe Fresh Prince just
because it, you know, it does, you know, it's a, it's a family

(01:38:37):
show, you know, and I'll always take the family show.
Yeah. OK, OK, OK.
Who is your favorite rapper who turned into an actor?
Favorite so So do they have to be my favorite in terms of like
the acting or the music? It it turns out the acting they

(01:39:00):
have to be your favorite. Favorite that turned into Oh,
that's a good one. I haven't thought about this.
I think the the person that's coming to my mind actually is
Will Smith. Even if I do not.
Yeah, I do not actually like his.

(01:39:21):
I wouldn't say I particularly like his music.
Like I don't go out be like, give me some Will Smith music.
But I have actually thought thathis acting has been for a long
time. He was very much in his element
and on his game, you know, and he really played his parts well.
You know, I could pinpoint so many films I am Legend or or the

(01:39:45):
one with the concussion or like there was always something I
could like, oh, he's doing this or the pursuit of happiness or a
hitch or there's always something.
So I think in that era, right, twenty 10s or like 2020 tens
thereabouts, he was really doinghis work.
And I kind of respect that. It's not it's not easy to be
like a black man in Hollywood and be long in a game as as you

(01:40:08):
know, various leads and many films like that.
And he was he's still like a decent musician.
He's not even like. Yeah, he, he like in, in the
time he was making music as his primary thing, he was actually
one of the people who he'd be like, oh, listen to Will Smith's
new jam, So Will Smith. He just he dropped the album
that's longer. Yeah, that's I heard, yeah.

(01:40:30):
All right, now I got to do some explaining for this one.
I just started playing the Marvel Multiverse Tabletop
role-playing game. My first game was last night.
So there are three people who are actually from the
intergalactic empire of Wakanda,and I am just a lowly mutant

(01:40:56):
here on Earth who's trying to become a superhero so that he
can get money after college. So I they know that I want some
conflict between me and the three and I just don't know
where to really begin. So any tips on where to begin?

(01:41:21):
And one of the intergalactic people, she is actually half
mutant, half for. No, she's Cohen and she's from
the Empire. She has both in her bloodline.
So I'm thinking if I could ask you for some tips on how can I
introduce some conflict for my character.
Well, I do have some questions if that's OK.

(01:41:41):
The first one is the the integratic Empire folks.
Are they in the Integratic empire and the other person on
Earth is on Earth? Yes.
So they came to for some type ofmission or something?
OK, OK, great. Well, I mean, I think the
conflict is straightforward for the for the person already on

(01:42:03):
earth, they have a goal and the goal is get money goal.
Is it get money after college oryes to pay for college?
No, after college I. Mean it could be both because
like get money after college to pay student loans or whatever.
Yeah. And so that's a very concrete
goal. It's like I need to get money to

(01:42:25):
say, let's say it's pay off student loans, right?
Because that seems very relatable.
And I'm a mutant and you know, it could be anything.
Maybe you take on small time superhero work, right?
And then you could just have these intergalactic empire
people on their own mission completely away from this person
show up to get in the way of those plans in any way.

(01:42:50):
It could be, you know, if I'm a small time super mutant, if I'm
a small time mutant, I want to be a superhero.
Maybe the job I'm doing is some sort of, I don't know, public
construction. It could be anything, but I'm
trying to like get up there and,you know, show my, you know, be,
be recognized by my superior or by the public to be like, oh,
that guy's good, let's make him a superhero.
And then you have these three people show up and basically

(01:43:13):
rain on my parade in some way That would that could be, that
could be, that's my that would be my villain origin story.
I mean. So.
Like I would have it out for them if they if they killed my
dream at that moment. Maybe I never get the money to
pay off my student loans ever. Maybe I'm drowning in debt.
Maybe I become house. I could completely see that

(01:43:33):
becoming like, oh, I need to, I need to these people need to pay
for ruining my life type situation.
It's a very easy one. Sorry, I say easy, but like it's
it's one that I could easily seea line being drawn between.
I'm going to come after these three superheroes as, as a sort
of, you know, they're, if I'm going to ruin their situation,

(01:43:56):
it's a very human, human, human tendency, I think.
OK, OK. Thank you for that.
I will incorporate that into my character.
I. Mean, this tells me, by the way.
I mean, I know it makes you a villain of some sort, by the
way. Well, OK, so we so we're on the
same team, so I'm not trying to be a villain too much, but.

(01:44:18):
Exactly. So maybe morally great.
More, yeah. Oh, he's definitely morally
great. OK, great.
That's that's a good, that's a good place to start.
Yeah. OK, aliens come to earth and
it's their no and it's your job to make them love movies.
What movie do you make them watch?

(01:44:40):
Oh wow, that's a good, that's a good question.
That's a good question. That's an excellent question.
So I will make them watch a movie.
I don't think it's I don't thinkit's a good movie.
I don't like it, but I think thealiens will.

(01:45:02):
OK. That movie is Love.
Actually, I don't I don't think like it's not a movie I would
like recommend, but I think it'sexactly the kind of movie that
that demonstrates like the partsof humanity that aliens would

(01:45:24):
dig. Excuse me, I think, I think I
think it demonstrates like and it demonstrates them very much
on the surface too. So it's like here, look, look at
all the beautiful things we can be even when we're at our worst.
And I think that's what Love Actually is trying to do.
I mean, I don't think it succeeds, but I.
Don't. Think it succeeds?

(01:45:46):
OK, what are some of the TV shows that you let your child
watch? OK, let's see.
What are these ones? There's one called, I mean,
there's the one that pretty mucha lot of parents know. 9 There's
an Australian show called Bluey.Everyone loves that show.

(01:46:09):
Yeah, I know. Even because it's not, I don't
think like it's for kids, but I think as an adult you could
watch it. Yeah, very.
Good. Narratively, I think so.
He watches Bluey, he watches. He watches Peppa Pig a lot
because he has cousins in in theUK who we visit and are always
watching Peppa Pig. And now he watches Peppa Pig.

(01:46:31):
So that's another one. The third is an Irish show
called Puffin Rock. These birds who live like in on
this island. He likes it because I don't
know. I don't know why he likes it.
I mean, he likes. And the last one is ATV show
called Simon, which is about twobrothers who are really rabbits,

(01:46:55):
but two brothers who sort of getup to all sort of, you know,
mischievous stuff. He really likes that one too.
So yeah, Simon, Louis, Puffin Rock, Peppa Pig.
OK, nice. Yeah, we were talking about how
all the good TV shows that we used to watch are no more and.

(01:47:16):
Yeah, yeah, many of them are gone and I try to find them on
like YouTube or something, but yeah, it's quite hard, you know?
OK, what is the best book to read for a first time reader?
Wow, it's a it's a tough one. First time reader of fiction or

(01:47:38):
first time reader of books? You tell me.
First time reader, so let's let's assume.
Let's set some parameters. Let's say this is someone who is
interested in getting getting into reading maybe novels.

(01:48:02):
That's a good one. I will say, I will say if it's a
young person and they're starting into starting their
reading journey, I would say middle grade novels of the kind
that and in fact, I will say theperson I think who writes the
best kind kind. I say kind because all his

(01:48:24):
novels I like this, but also because they have this very
strong voicy elements where thatthey're very interesting to read
as well as like experience. It's Kwame Mbalia.
He writes, he's a he's a black author of like young adult

(01:48:44):
novels and pretty much any one of his novels is like, would be
a good entry point. If I like like I think of me as
like a young black man wanting to like get into novels that
have like young black boys. That's the centre of
protagonists getting off to ventures.
Quamen Ballia is like where I would like.

(01:49:06):
I would definitely give my kid at Quamen Ballia novel to start
getting into novels for like young readers.
OK, awesome. Yeah, his his, his first book is
called something like Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the
World or something like that. Oh, OK.
Yeah. So it's like, it's all about
like having these, you know, powers, deities, superhero

(01:49:26):
stuff. It's very interesting.
Yeah. Yeah.
OK, very. What is your favorite adult?
Cartoon. Cartoon or just like animations
in general? Yeah, just animation.
OK, animations in general, you know, I, I, I would say what has

(01:49:50):
now become my favorite is something I watched very
recently. Actually, I, I've, I've not, I
wouldn't have really said that Ihave a long running cartoon or
animation thing that I've been watching for a long time.
But recently I watched ATV show called Scavengers Ring.

(01:50:11):
OK. And I I I think for a long time
that's that's going to be kind of what I'm holding a lot of
stuff next to. It's weird, strange, excellent
storytelling. Yeah.
It's like for adults too, like it's mature work, but it's

(01:50:32):
really just about humans who aregoing off on an expedition, but
something happens to their spaceship and the, the, the
mission sort of fails and they crash land on this alien planet
and then everything from there. And, and it's not alien planet
in the way we think of it in terms of like, oh, Predator or
alien. No, it's like.
Stuff. Happens.

(01:50:52):
Yeah, stuff happens, is all I can describe it as.
But not all the stuff is what. In fact, almost none of what
happens is what you expect. No, no.
So yeah, Scavengers Reign is what I'm holding a lot of stuff
up to these days, so I would saythat's my favorite as of this
time. Yeah, and you should really
watch the cartoon by that same studio called Common Side

(01:51:17):
Effects. I have watched common side
effects as well and I and I watched it because of Scavengers
Rain, same studio. Yeah, it's common side effects.
It's excellent. I enjoyed it, enjoyed it a lot.
It's a ugly, ugly animation, butit's an ugly yeah.
Honestly, it is ugly, yeah, but it's it's so real, so visceral,

(01:51:39):
so I don't know, for an animation it packs a punch.
So yeah. Who is your favorite Disney
villain? Ursula.
That's a good one, OK. Ursula because she's a vibe.

(01:52:01):
OK. Yeah, yeah.
Who's your favorite black superhero besides the Challah?
Besides the Challah, of course, I think, you know, for a while,
for a while it was, and I say, and it's probably going to

(01:52:21):
Marvel because I, I got a lot ofMarvel stuff when I was growing
up, mostly because that was the stuff that was available in
these second hand trade places, marketplaces.
And then I could trade with people.
And I ended up liking War Machine a lot as a, as a kid, of
course, having like no idea whatI mean, literally those words

(01:52:46):
meant or what War Machine like in the larger, you know, scheme
of things. I was like, oh, this guy's so
cool. You know, of course I can.
But then later I was like, wait,what?
Like U.S. Army or I was like, no, no, no,
yeah, so so now it is actually being more of the Falcon at
least, which is not necessarily that much different from war

(01:53:09):
machine. But there's that element of like
him trying to re re revisit yourbasis, you know, of like his
existence as de Falcon, a Falcon.
And now as we're seeing as like the Captain America that shows
up after Rogers. So so right now I'd say I'd say

(01:53:32):
Falcon slash Captain America is like.
OK, OK, who is your favorite black character that isn't
black? And like some of the things that
we said was like a lion, not lion of a Panther from down the
cast, the new teenage movie, theturtles are all black.

(01:53:54):
So who is your favorite character?
So favorite character? Favorite black character that's
not black? Yes, yeah.
And they're just not portrayed as a black person, but they are
very black coded. Coded.
OK, so black coded. Oof.
And this isn't what in. Anything.
Anything. Oh this is a good one.

(01:54:21):
Can I, can I think of any like the the show I'm thinking of is
Atlanta because because there were many characters that I was
like, you know, I like, I could immediately think, wait, this
person sounds black to me, even if they're not played by a black

(01:54:41):
person. But now I can't actually pick
pinpoint. I can't pinpoint the exact, an
exact character. I know the show that gave me the
most vibes in that way was Atlanta.
I pretty much saw pretty much every episode in that season.
But I can't, I can't be specific.

(01:55:05):
Yeah, I can't be specific. Well, at least that's the one
that's coming to my brain right now.
I don't know if I've told you this was like it's like 10:30
PM. Yeah.
Yeah, one more question. So I'm like, yeah, but anyway,
some of the characters in Atlanta.
OK. Yeah, OK.

(01:55:27):
Final question 'cause we gotta let him go.
And this is a popular question. Whose side are you on, Kendrick
or Drake? Doesn't that doesn't that answer
itself? Finally, I feel like that
answers. I mean, the answer I gave back

(01:55:47):
then when I was asked was clearly, was clearly Kendrick
Lamar. But even then I hadn't even
moved to Canada also. And Canadians don't like Drake.
Like Canadians, yeah, actively don't dislike Drake.
They think he like doesn't. I don't know.
There's a, there's a whole baggage around like Canadians

(01:56:09):
and Canadian artists that like move to the US.
And then there's also specific baggage about like Canadian
artists from Toronto who, you know, then who like become
Torontonian first and then become American after.
So there's like there's a whole,there's a whole baggage there.
But Drake falls like Drake hits like all the bingo squares for

(01:56:31):
white people don't like. So a lot of Canadians don't like
Drake. And that was even before I moved
there. But I just generally I don't, I
don't get his music. Yeah, Kendrick Lamar's music I
completely understand because I grew up on hip hop.
I grew up on like, you know, so I was like, I this I can see the

(01:56:51):
lineage. I get it, you know, that I was
like this whole thing. No, I don't I don't know what
this is. And so it has always been
Kendrick Lamar for me, not necessarily because I'm like a
Kendrick Lamar fan, but it's just like, I understand this
music. I see the the roots, I see the
lines, I see where he's drawn from, you know, West Coast, I
get it. This other guy, though, I'm not

(01:57:13):
sure what this chameleon thing he has going on is.
Kind of like, yeah, wherever he is.
Yeah, I'm not sure what it was. My my my wife loves listen to
Drake for a long time, at least when we're, you know, when we're
younger. But but yeah, Long story short,
30 obviously, Andrew. All right, guys, that is the end

(01:57:38):
of our show. You can e-mail all your
questions to blackgeekenergy@gmail.com.
You can follow us on Spell, Instagram, Facebook, Blue Sky,
TikTok, YouTube, Twitch and threads at Black Geek Energy and
you. We can also are on Twitter at BG
under score Pod. And did you know, DeMarcus, that
we have a Patreon? It's only three.

(01:58:00):
Dollars. I knew we had a Patreon.
Did you know it was only $2.00 amonth?
$0.10 a day. Yeah, I just said, OK, well,
$0.10 a day. Yeah, $0.10 a day, so.
You know, you, you switch to a from a large property to a
medium and that's our Patreon. You get to hear all of the, you
know, more in depth conversation.
You can see some of our DND games if we play them.

(01:58:21):
A lot of fun stuff is on there. Check it out.
Yeah. Suyi, we want to thank you for
coming on our little small show.We want to like your repertoire
of books and what you do for theculture and how you represent

(01:58:43):
your African heritage. It all it's, it's all
outstanding what you are doing for like literary media and you
are really somebody that needs to be watched.
And I love the fact that you're a professor because the way you
talk today, I know that you are putting in a lot of gems that

(01:59:07):
these young Jim C Ripper snappers won't find on the Tic
Tac. So.
So thank you, thank you, thank you for everything.
Thank you for coming on this show.
We really enjoyed you. And yeah, that is it on today's
episode of Black Geek Energy. Thank you, thank you, thank you,

(01:59:29):
thank you. Thank.
You so much for coming. It's been great.
Love it, loved it. Thank you very much.
I really really enjoyed enjoyed my time.
Yes, yes, yes. And that's all.
We'll see you next week. Bge out.

(01:59:50):
Yay. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for coming.
I'm sorry we went over long. Oh.
No, no, no, I'm not. I'm not actually like in a
hurry. I'm just, you know.
But I this I mean clearly I havebeen enjoying any minute.
I didn't even know it was that late.
So yes, I didn't know either. I didn't either.
Yeah, it started at 8:30 here, so you know, it's already like

(02:00:14):
dark outside and stuff. But but yeah, this has been
excellent. Thank you for inviting me
mostly, mostly I like always love to like go on, you know,
black podcast, black nerd podcast because like I barely
get the opportunity to do as andI want to like talk to other
people, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Who are not just doing the work because, you know, you talked

(02:00:36):
about, you're talking about thisJared, about like the work I'm
doing, but I also see the work that folks like you, Jared and
the markets are doing And like without that work, right?
That, you know, there's nobody on the other side that I, that I
feel like I'm talking to or like, I feel like it's, you
know, receiving my work there. So like, I, I love that this
podcast exists. I love that.

(02:00:57):
Yeah. You folks have the all these
channels. Yeah, yeah.
I'm, I'm really, you know, happyto have been like, I'm happy
that you reached out because youfolks reached out, right like.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So I'm really I'm really glad that you did.
So this is this is actually, this is the only podcast I'm
doing, I think. Wow.
Because. Yeah, because I I didn't want to

(02:01:19):
do as much because I was like away.
So I told them I wasn't going tobe around.
But when when you emailed, well,when you messaged, I was like,
no, I will do that one. Yeah, that.
One I will. That's great.
Yeah, so we. Appreciate it so much man,
Absolutely. Yeah, I had, I had excellent
time. Yeah, this is, this is great.
Well, thank you. And you were wonderful.

(02:01:40):
And you can come back anytime you want.
It's another book. Oh, it can.
Can we use you as like a profession 'cause you're a
professor, you're a college educator.
So we may bring you back in as aprofessional literary expert, a
talking head or something like that.
So, yeah, yeah. I'd be down for that, yeah.

(02:02:02):
OK. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. This is amazing.
All right, so now me and DeMarcus got to do the Patreon.
So, OK, just thank you. We'll let you go.
We'll let you go. Thank you very much, have a good
one. Enjoy the rest of the Patreon.
I know you must be tired it's been 2 hours but.

(02:02:22):
This is the job. Yeah, it's.
The job but thank you again and enjoy the haunted house.
Thank you, I will.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.