March 12, 2023 • 52 mins
Superheroes inspire us and help us believe we can do all that we set our minds to. Black superhero stories, however, don’t always reach mainstream audiences, leaving young Black children few characters to identify with. Host Roy Wood Jr. sits down with Daily Show writer, Ashton Womack, Daily Show senior producer, Aaron LaMarr Burleson, and contemporary artist, Hebru Brantley, to discuss how Black superhero stories have more capacity to bring authentic Black experiences to the big screen.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, Hey, here's edition listener.
It's Roy Chang, correspondent for The Daily Show. You're about
to hear an episode of one of our original Daily
Show podcasts, Beyond the Scenes, hosted by Roy Wood Junior.
It's the podcast where we dive deep into the segments
and topics from a Daily show with the show's writers, producers,
(00:21):
and experts. This week, the show is Nerding Out about
the world of black superheroes. Daily Show writer Ashton Womack,
Daily Show Senior producer Aaron Lamarb Burlison, and contemporary artists
Hebrew Brandley joined Roy to discuss how black superheroes can
bring more authentic Black stories to the big screen. If
you like the show, check out the Beyond the Scenes
(00:41):
podcast wherever you get your podcasts, enjoy Welcome to Beyond
the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes deeper into
topics and discussions and segments that originally air on the
Daily Show. Like this is what you gotta think of
(01:03):
this podcasts. This podcast is like you know, you know,
how you go to church. You go to church, you
can go to heaven. This podcast is them little sandwiches
you get after church. Like you know, you go to
church and even praise the Lord, but then down there
in the fellowship hall, they got them a little finger sandwiches,
and they got all them little the little peppermints. That
being the bottom of a black, black lady's purse. That's
what this podcast is. I think that analogy works. This
(01:28):
Black History Month, we are taking a look at a
CP time I did not too long ago, about the
history of black superheroes, and we talked about some of
the more notable superheroes in black history. Give me a clip.
Black superheroes are not new. In fact, they've been squeezing
into spandex for decades. They didn't as far back as
(01:48):
nineteen thirty six when cartoonist Jay Jackson created Speed Jackson
and the Chicago Defended the newspaper. Speed Jackson was a
former track star at Howard University who was an excellent fistfighter,
which may not sound powerful compared to today's superheroes with
their laser eyes and sticky spider hands, which you have
(02:10):
to think about it. Like sports, today's best athletes of
the pinnacle of human physicality, while the best athletes from
the nineteen thirties were just the ones with the least
polio times change. Jackson used his abilities to fight against
fascist during the war and right the wrongs of a
racist society, which is tough because superpowers don't help when
(02:30):
you're fighting systemic racism. Doesn't matter if you have the
strength of ten men, if none of those men can
get a mortgage. To help me dive a little bit
deeper into this topic, We've got a lot of brothers.
We're gonna go around the horn here real quick. First up,
as a certified nerd and stand up comedian and daily
show writer super nerd Ashton Boer. Are you trying to
(02:54):
disrespect you? Gangster? Appreciate? I appreciate you. Know you're still Houston.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah? How many times have
you been on the show? Like? What number is this again?
Like you have to Like, I think it's like my
fourth time. Give a tap, give a take. Yeah. Also
joining us is a comic artist who creates narrative driven
(03:14):
work and incorporates his own character creations into his work.
Hebrew Brantley, Hebrew, how you doing today? What's up? Roy?
I'm great man, I'm glad to be on. I appreciate
you guys having well, appreciate you for being smart enough
to not join us in this hot ass studio, nice
and air conditioned where you are. Television is torture here,
(03:36):
it's torture. Also, for the very first time, this man's
work has helped make this podcast happen. Up until now,
we have a senior producer and self professed geek of
all things, Aaron Lamar Brolson. Aaron, how you doing testing
one too? Wow? This is how it feels like going
beyond the scene. All right, yes, all right, yeah, I'm
(03:59):
doing great. Or it's a pleasure and honor to be
on the show with you. Normally you're normally helping to
produce all these segments and put all the wheels on
the car so it can go room. But thank you
for settling in on this one. Because Ashton we was like, yeah,
we talking about black gigs, and Aaron's like, well, you know,
I have a lot to say about it. I'll just
write myself into the episode. Yeah, I was like, you
should be an episode. What are we here for? So
(04:23):
I'll go around the horn to the three of you. First,
I want to know when you first started reading comic
books and becoming engrossed in the world of comic books
and when you recognize your first black comic superhero. Because
I'm gonna be honest. For me, I grew up with
budget limitations, and so you know where I'm from. You
(04:43):
could really choose one of two things. You could collect
baseball cards or you could collect comic books. You could
not afford both, and with a little bit of extra
money I did have, I would spend that on video
game magazine, shout out to GamePro, shout out to Electronic
Game and monthly shout out to Nintendo Power. So I
never yeah, I was like you speaking to my nerd
(05:05):
heart right now. So I never I never dealt with
the comic books. And so there would be kids in
middle school they have the comic books. But I just
what I knew if comic books was the cartoons. If
it didn't have a Saturday Morning cartoon, I couldn't tell
you anything about it, knew nothing, but I could name
you who was on the bench for the Cincinnati Rids.
And so that's a different type of nerds that's still
(05:27):
in You're still in the house. So but but this
is but this is a world that I really do
not have much of a It does not connect to
my childhood if I'm just being one hunting. So I
want you all to walk me through how you all
got connected in the comic books. Actually I'll start with you,
But how did you get into comic books? And what
was the first like sense of representation that you saw?
If I would say, the way I got into comic
books was I grew up on Fox. They had weekday
(05:50):
afternoon cartoons and you'll watch x Men, you will watch
all the superhero cartoons, and that sparked my love for
comic books. Now, the first superhero, the actual really got
me truly loving superhero It's always been black superheroes. My
first superhero I loved was meteor Man. It's not a
comic book, it's a movie. Robert Townsend, so many famous
(06:12):
black actors. But I was growing up as a kid.
We were watching medior Man eighteen thousand times a day.
So then to that point, Aaron, what did you discover
because media Man is that's a movie, you know, and Ashton,
you know, you're kicking back with his pops watching something
that probably was That movie was a little grown. It's
a classic. It's a little grown for your five years old.
(06:33):
What about you Aaron, How did you get into Like
where did you go to get them? Because yeah, like
comic books was that was a white side of town
errand and growing up for me, growing up in Birmingham,
you did not go to the white side of town
un Let's say, when classmate had a birthday or unless
it was time to go Christmas shopping. That was literally
another universe. Yeah, so where are you even finding the
(06:55):
comic books too? Like who is your people? How did
you get into this? You know, I have to give
a lot of credit for a lot of my you know,
geekedom in fandom to my older brother Brian. You know,
he was an avid collector, so he had a bunch
of G. I. Joe comics. But it was when he
was growing up and going away to you know, college
and everything, he let me inherit his comic book collection,
(07:17):
which had a lot of the nineteen seventies Batman comic books,
you know what I mean, and that you know, vintage
blue and gray jumpsuit and so you get a lot
of those like seventies and eighties Batman comics. Death in
the Family where you see the second Robin passing away
by the hands of the Joker, and so I was
really fortunate to have an older brother who was into
a lot of geek stuff, Star Wars, Batman, g I Joe,
(07:40):
and so it was from inheriting his comics that I
developed a joint love. In addition, you know, Ashton I
as well was watching all those weekday cartoons in the afternoon,
X Men and Batman. The animated series so really developed
and coalesced through. I mean, I think the animated series
for Batman is one of the groundbreaking series of all time.
And so it was really in that pocket that I
(08:02):
really embraced, you know, my geeked them in a way
and grew to have such a love affair with this
art form. Now, Hebrew, you took it to another level
because you started drawing and actually trying to do something
with all this stuff, unlike these two shiftless need grows.
How did representation you know, how did that inspire your work?
(08:23):
Like did you ever feel a moment and you know,
and ash and Aaron feel free to jump in this
as well. Was there ever a character where you're like, oh, damn,
that's gonna be my through line or that's the one
that that inspired me to go to the next level
with this no man. You know, I'm probably a little
older than you know, the brothers on the panel. And
(08:44):
I think for me, it was like I came into
it through my mom. My mom was just a reader.
My mom would read everything, and she just wanted me
to be a reader. And I wouldn't connect with anything,
you know, like I would pick up something started and
not finished. And then she introduced me to comics books,
but it was her way. So it was like Archie
and all that shit that I excuse me, I don't
(09:05):
know you okay, but but you know this stuff that again,
it just was a little too white for me, you know,
and and and it wasn't funny. And then I gravitated
more towards like X Men and all that stuff. And
I think that, like, you know, my first introduction before
comics or kind of maybe at the same time, to
(09:26):
black heroes is a questionable black hero, which is Panther
from ThunderCats. Yes, yeah, yes, Pantonic. They just always made
him fix exactly that. And then he had nunchucks, you
know what I mean, NIA just love nunchucks. Let's just
do that. And it was you know, you know, Panther
was voiced by the grandfather on the Colomby show. Oh yes, no,
(09:49):
ye sense yeah, And it was so you know, he
had that deep black man like, you know, I feel
like as my grandfather talking to me. So and that
was his character in the show. He was like kind
of voice of reason. He was, you know, like you
being a pussy's like come on stop now, like yeah,
let's stop, let's stop this ship. But um but no,
but in our sincerity, Like that was sort of my
way in. And then it was like, you know, the
(10:09):
eleven year old boy and me saw Storm and that
was like, oh, okay, that's this is speaking to me
on a few a few levels, right, it's not right.
But you know when it came to my stuff, I think,
you know, it wasn't. I think it's just a culmination
of just like all these things that I've sort of
ingested over the years, you know what I mean, like
(10:30):
these different different heroes, different characters. But you know, I think, man,
we all were hooked on blonde haired, blue eye Superman
for the longest time, right, because that's all we were fed. Yeah,
you know, the closest I came to comic books. I
would read comic strips and the newspaper every day. I
grew up in a newspaper house, so especially on Sundays,
(10:53):
we passed the paper around the table and you just
read all the different sections, and so, you know, to
that point, Hebrew like I'm trying to think, and you know,
Birmingham media, especially print media's hell of conservative back in
those days. So I don't even think I saw the
Boomdocks until late nineties. But to me, the blackest thing
(11:17):
I saw in the newspaper was of the Phantom, and
he was vigilant. He was tan up shit. No. The
only reason why I thought he was black because he
was the Jungles all the time, and then the movie
came out they had Billy's shout out black Panther for all.
(11:39):
It was such a lack of black characters out there.
I had to identify with Beasts from The X Man
because he was blue at least, and so someone that
you can still see yourself in, because you cann't really
see yourself in Cyclops. You cann't really even though you
have Wolverine, he was dope, you couldn't see yourself in that.
So at least with Beasts being blue, you can still
kind of see it. A little bit. It's not until
you get Bishop coming to the X Men two, where
(12:01):
Bishop is just a strong, like six foot six black
guy with like wavy jet black hair and had a
Jerry curl. He had a Jerry Bishop looked like he
was running back for the race. But but how did
that make you feel? He ruined Ashton, Like when you
(12:24):
saw a brother that looked like your uncle from a
family barbecue in a comic book, because I remember seeing
for me it was Bo Jackson, Frank Thomas Ken, Griffith
jen Those were the three black athletes that made me
feel like, oh, he's doing especially both because he's from
around the corner Birmingham suburb. So like I remember that
(12:44):
feeling of man, I can do this because he looks
like me. Did Was that? Was that your character Aaron
was Jerry curl man Bishop? Was that? I mean? Because
at that point you're really grasping for some sort of representation.
So you get that with Bishop, right, you have a
who's not from the time period that the X Men
are taking place, and he's from a dystopian future and
(13:04):
he's coming back to right the wrongs that kind of
led way to his horrible future, you know, where he
isn't happening. So but Bishop was a little bit off
his rocker, you know what I mean. But it was
okay because he was He was really cool and militaristic
in a way. So I really gravitated to that he brought.
I'll start with you on this question. Do you think
that black cartoons outside the mainstream get enough credit or
(13:28):
get enough attention, you know, like within the mainstream culture.
How much do black cartoons get their props from the
mainstreams the way that they deserve. Is the tide changing
ish a little bit? Or is it still kind of
pick and shoes? I think it's picking shoes, man, Like
I don't know any I mean, besides, like Boondocks, obviously
(13:49):
that that had a real moment, right and it still does.
I think it kind of reverberates, you know, when you
get people, you know, sort of reposting memes and things
like that, and how it sort of lived through. But
you're talking the car we're really more so more so
the TV show because that's what everybody, you know, like,
that's where a lot of people found it, you know
(14:10):
what I mean? And so I think beyond that, man,
there really hasn't been like we've only just been sidekicks, um,
you know to the white characters, and I'm not you know,
it's just you know, we get a proud family every
now and then, you know, we have little blips on
on the master there is it's it's here, it's out. Yeah,
(14:31):
it's really and it's it's good. But again, like we
don't you know, I think I feel like it's the
it's the quota situation. It happens in Hollywood all the time.
I mean few years ago, you know when Hollywood uh
found out that you know, black was cool, um again
after Black Panther was profitable. There you go black, Yeah, exactly,
(14:52):
we can make money off these folks. Um. You know.
It was just that thing of like, let's retro fit
uh this character who was probably a white it man,
Let's make him black. But they don't really change anything
except for just you know, replacing the actor or the person,
not necessarily reforming the character. And I feel like that
(15:13):
happens in cartoons and animation all the time, where it's
just like, you know, we have to feel a call,
right we have how many black kids we have in
this group? Oh shit, let's get a black kid in here.
Real quick. You don't care, right, I mean, have y'all
seen the new Velma TV show No yea yeah, where
Shaggy's black black, don't smoke weed, he don't even get high.
(15:38):
And I don't even know what kind of Shaggy that is.
You know, this is not Shaggy. I Like. It's like
when it comes to like where you're talking about where
they re skin white characters for put a black face
on white characters. We need representation, but that it's it's
the other side of that. It's like, yeah, I like Shaggy.
I've been watching Scooby Doo. You know what's wild about
that too, is that it's one of the things I
feel like white people and black people both agree because
(16:00):
black people want their own stories and white people don't
want to see their favorite characters, you know, dipp in chocolate. Yeah,
I agree. Like, well, listen you say that, and then
you'd be like, hey, you know, Jesus, that guy might
have been you might have started off the original Superhero. Yeah.
(16:22):
But then you even take something like say Miles Morality,
where you have Spider Man into the Spidy verse, right,
which was an animated film with a black spider Man
who you know, hold Spider Verse or whatever, and it
did so well. There was there was rumbling for a
(16:43):
quick minute, Oh I bet they should do a live
action Miles Morales, and then it was like, nah, we're
just gonna get out with Super one time. But I
feel like that that, you know again, with that listen,
Miles is one of my favorite characters in comics. Um
and you know, I love the character, although they've never
(17:03):
really given him to uh, you know, a decent black
writer or group of black creators, which they should have.
But you know, with that movie, I think that movie
worked because it was just a good movie, right, Like
they they really honed in on making Miles feel authentic,
his neighborhood feel felt authentic, his his parents, shit feels
(17:25):
like Miles, Miles last name is Morales and his dad's
last name, what's his dad's last name? Right? Like, that's
that's some real shit, you know what I mean? Like
that's not even his daddy. My last name, my dad
last name Lomax. They just having a rhyme. So I
think I think they did a good job in bringing
(17:46):
in some authenticity. I think that we will start to
see more of that. But you know, again, it's like
where you know, Hollywood's motivated by the dollars and as
long as you know Peter Parker, like, we'll get the
black Miles in real time at one point, but you know, white, white,
white Spider Man is It's still you know, very very thankful.
(18:08):
But after the break, I want to talk to you
a little bit more. I want to talk to all
of you actually about how we can introduce new black characters,
new black IP into the world of comic books and
eventually matriculating into television and profitable movie franchises for you, Hebrew,
but also the hurdles that you've dealt with and trying
(18:31):
to break through new concepts and what that world is like.
This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Beyond
the scenes. We are back. We are talking the world
of black superheroes. And while we only get the same
couple of superheroes remix, even though we got a hold
universe of black stories waiting in the queue to be told,
(18:54):
one of our guests has been creating some of these characters. Now, Hebrew,
walk us through this because I want to talk a
little bit this break just about a lot of the
existing black movie IP and how it came to actual fruition.
But I want to talk with you first just from
the ideation of drawing a character, creating the character, creating
(19:16):
a comic around the character, walk us through that journey
of what that was like, Because are you writing, are
you creating a character? Like like with television like Ashton
I know you know this, Like with television, the trick
is do you want to write and create a character
that you know everybody will gravitate towards that They all like,
(19:38):
are you writing what you like? And then you're making
people get on board with what you're into. Well, I
think for me, my journey is really unique in the
way that I didn't start out trying to create a
comic or anything like that. You know, I come from
the world of high art, right, so, like you know,
paintings for galleries, museums, et cetera, and in do in
(20:00):
that over the years and trying to find my voice,
I kind of accidentally landed on this idea. A lot
of the work that I was doing early in my career,
it had it had a lot of angst to it.
You know, it was very pro black or maybe a
little bit too much, you know, skewed a little too
dark or heavy handed, so to speak. And I think,
(20:20):
you know, within the gallery world, in that space, you
kind of have to you know, you have to walk aline.
You know, there's there's you have to be very clever
about how you say certain things. And so for me,
it was like, you know, the advice that I got
from a lot of my my peers was like, man,
you know, you have to paint things that you know,
that you're familiar with, the things that feel like you.
(20:42):
And for me, growing up, you know, a self professor
sort of black nerd on comics, cartoons, anime, all that shit,
trying to really figure out what that was. And it
wasn't until you know a few years after college where
I had found myself in that place that we all
do where it's like, man, what's what's the next thing?
And you know, I found a book on World War Two,
(21:04):
just was thumbing through it and landed on the Tuskegee Airman.
And with Tuskegee Airman, you know, man, it was just
it was like a lightning ball that hit me because
it was like, man, nobody has really touched on these
brothers from the standpoint of like like their journey was
so powerful. It struck me in this way because the
time in which they existed, the time in which they
(21:27):
were charged with doing certain things, our world was a mess.
I mean, it's not that different from where it is now,
but we're talking, we're talking World War, We're talking, you know,
within America, Blacks, you know, treated significantly less than right.
But then they're allowed and tasked to fly these planes
and they do it successfully. And these brothers are buttoned up,
(21:48):
and you know, they are the sort of personification of
what manhood is right and what heroism is. And so
I found that and I just thought about, like, man,
like what if there was like this, this, this, this,
this character or these characters that exist at that time
just kind of forgot about, right, Like it happens all
the time, these cartoons that fall off the shelf and
(22:08):
never get seen. And so I created Flatboy, which became
sort of my state boy ip, but as kind of
a lark, like within the high art space, and just
like creating this show, like presupposing that I found this
this animation project that never that never saw the light
of day, and I presented it like that to my
audience and like some found footage. Yeah, so it was.
(22:31):
It was kind of you know, just bringing people in
that way because I felt like that was the easiest
way then, just to say, you know, hey, I created
this thing whole claw, checked this out, um and it
people started to bite, you know, folks come into the show.
The response was great, But it wasn't just a response
to like, you know, because there was no narrative behind
(22:51):
it for real, for real, like there was no story
through line or anything like that. But people started him
as a Tuskegee airman. Did you present him as black
or was he its all goggled up and scarfed up, goggled,
black faced little kid, you know, with or without superpowers.
Take it, you know, take it with you will. But
I think that people were allowed to read into it,
and I think that there was sort of like this
(23:13):
message behind it of empowerment that people really you know,
they they felt. And so as I started doing more
and more shows, the expectation for more and more of
these paintings, you know, grew, and people were coming to
the shows looking for Flyboy. I had people making you know,
like little Halloween costumes, just you know, cheap little aviator goggles,
red red scarfs, et cetera, and so it just grew
(23:35):
into a thing where you know, it wasn't it wasn't
intended to be, you know, a thing that I continued
on with. It was intended to just be this moment.
But as it started to grow and my understanding of
it started to grow, I started to attach narrative to
it because you know, nobody knew the origins or they
weren't coming for that. They were just coming for the
(23:58):
aesthetics and the messaging behind it. And so, you know,
a few years back, I finally, uh, you know, created
a comic. You know, it's my first run, and you know,
like any junior, you know, novice to a thing, I
pretty much wrote myself into a corner. By issue two.
(24:20):
I like, I like killed off one of the main
characters by issue two, and I was like, oh shit,
So I kind of had to like you know, wheel
it back, but like let those things exist on an
island by themselves and then sort of retool and and
and recreate something. But again, all that to say that,
you know, it wasn't me intending to make something, uh,
(24:42):
to make this what it what it what it's become.
It was sort of a happy accident. But you know,
again through that has has bared you know, a lot
of really really really strong fruit. Okay, so then you
create Flyboy, and then you're you're eventually going to be
at a crossroads if you aren't already that a out
of black content creators are going to pay it now
(25:03):
where you have an idea and the tradeoff for exposure
and money is new cooks get to come into kitchen
and tinker with the season and on this dish that
you've perfected up until this point. How difficult is it
to try and navigate deciding on how to hold onto
(25:24):
your ip as things start to grow? Because when we
talk about this idea that there's this backlog of all
of these black ideas and black comic strip shows that
are out there that deserve to be seen and deserve
to be made in the movies. But how much of
it is the studios and the labels and distribution networks
(25:45):
creating an impossible contract that you just possibly can't agree to.
And is that one of the hurdles that is keeping
something like say Flyboy from truly expanding to something even
greater from flying? If you like, like like, how difficult
is it to try and keep control of your eye
(26:06):
because you're trying to grow this shit. But then to
grow it, you got to give it to somebody that
gets to go, I do whatever I want. If we
can make flyboyd and give them a sister and Flyboy
and tell her, let's make them thirty four fly man, No,
I mean, you know, it's it's it's a task. But
I think for me, again, my situation is unique in
the sense that like, this isn't a comic book, right,
(26:29):
that's you're selling for five bucks, right, these are paintings
that sell for you know, thousands of dollars. Right, you
got to take your prices. Don't tell them your price.
Collectibles a lot of dollars, but you know, these are
these are collectibles that I've created, in statues that I've
created that you know are now seen all around the world.
(26:51):
These are collectibles that you know, go on eBay for
triple the price. You know, you're talking four or five
thousand dollars for some plastic you know, figurines. And with that,
you know, it kind of changes my narrative when coming
into Hollywood because it's like the product is proven, and
you know, I'm only doing this on a smaller level.
When it comes to you know, I'm keeping it contained
(27:13):
at a very limited number, but you know it's proven.
Look these are the numbers here, and this is just
this is just me doing it. So you know, if
we start to bring this thing out to the masses,
you know it's going to obviously change and you're gonna
you know, get more eyes around it, gain more fandom
around it, and you know, obviously you know it it's
(27:34):
able to grow, the IP grows, et cetera. But just
me being able to do it on my own is
already I think a lot more than most are able
to kind of come in the game with. Like most
folks are coming in with the idea if it's a
if it's a book, or if it's a script, you know,
that's not as leverageable as you know, building out a world,
(27:56):
doing you know, exhibitions. I did an experience mental exhibition
in Chicago a few years ago called Nevermore Park where
basically I created the world of Flyboy and you kind
of walk through in this experience basically through an origin
story of this character. Right, And you know, we had
like we had a couple hundred thousand visitors to it.
(28:18):
I bought like like fifty thousand tickets for CPS students,
so they were able to kind of come through. You know,
it really expanded you know, our again our fan base
in a lot of ways, and also showed them sort
of another side because they're only familiar with the paintings,
and you know, again, having had all of that gives
(28:41):
me a little bit more leveraged in those conversations with
different studios, Aston Aaron, Why don't studios accept the fact
that black superhero hit movies are not an anomaly? It
irks me that the first Iron Man is credited with
(29:04):
being the beginning of the Marvel Surisa. It irks me
when we all know the truth, yeah, is that it
was Blade. We do we do now. They didn't connect
Blade to none of the other ship and maybe that's
why they try not to write it off. Blade had
a budget of about forty forty five million, if I'm
(29:25):
not mistaken, grossed about a hundred. It made about a hundred.
Didn't know it did one thirty It did by one
thirty one forty it made. It made its money back
and then another hundred million. Yeah, tify a sequel, right,
two sequels? Yeah, it got it got sequels and a
TV series which spiked cancer because they said they couldn't
(29:46):
afford the special effects. That's a true story. So why
don't these films like why what? Like, let's just talk
about the erasure of Blade? Yeah, is there? Do you think?
Do you even agree with that point? Aaron? Let's just
start there. So I think we agree. I mean we
can go a step further, just talk about the erasure
of Wesley Snipes. But I think, well, he would have
(30:07):
paid his taxes. I mean, you know him and Ryan
Reynolds didn't get along a diva. But the thing about
that story, yeah, it was a lot of it was
a lot of commotion apparently with that Blade Trinity production.
But we have to take it back to the nineteen
nineties and understand that before Blade the film, there isn't
(30:29):
a successful Marvel film adaptation. At that point. You have
the Captain America film, which is from the nineteen nineties,
which is it's not what we have with Chris Evans now,
and then Punisher failed Dolph Lund Punisher cult classic but
not a hit by any means. And then you have
this buried Roger Corman Fantastic four film, um that wasn't
(30:50):
even released the general public and you can only find
copies of it at Comic Con. And so Marvel was
doing this thing of licensing out their characters, not building
an overall universe, but lightning them out to twentieth century Fox,
lightning them out to Colombian Pictures, Sony, and just seeing
what it got. It wasn't as much of a creative
powerhouse in the film game as it is today. And
(31:11):
so you get this film called Blade, which is rated R,
which is bloody violet vampire flick, action flick, and it
literally it becomes a hit. It becomes a hit because
of the performance of Blade, because of this representation of
this black superhero. But it also creates a door for
us to get X Men in two thousand, for us
to get Spider Man in two thousand and two, and
(31:32):
all the various films that come and kind of give
us modern contemporary visual adaptations of superheroes on film. And
so I just think it's just one of those things
where people don't want to get black characters or black
actors or performers the credit, and it's old fashioned racism.
They're trying to qualify with different metrics and whatnot. But
Blade was a hit to generate two more films in
(31:54):
the film in a series adaptation, but again they want
something more. But did they go some of the mother
black characters we got them? Like why didn't Marvel go
digging the crates? Yeah, because a lot of those characters
are whack as hell. Yeah, well he black Panther. Think
(32:16):
about like the one of the hurdles had to overcome
a black panther was Umbaku's character. He was just a
racist gorilla in the comic books. He was just straight
up a gorilla, like a monkey that was his power
monkey man or something like that. And they had to
like actually content like make him a modern character for
today and get rid of the racist trope that he was.
(32:36):
So I'm sure they go and look through their their
their a list of black characters, and half of them
are just stereotypes, even with Black Panther. Black Panther, you know,
was a character that was created by Jack Kirby. Rest
in peace. Jack Kirby one of the greatest comic book
creators of all time. But you know, Jack Kirby's not
a brother, and I'm pretty sure, like I don't I
(32:57):
don't think Jack had many brothers on his roller decks,
Like Hey man, I'm this character called the Black Panther,
and let me get these notes of Also, can I
just can I just shout this out. This is a
very very problem moment in my life of nerd them.
But my my paintings and my figures were in Wakanda
forever hard. That's hard, and shout out for that. It
(33:22):
was like the biggest nerve moment. You know. It was
all quiet in the theater and I saw my ship
and I just let it. That's fire. You'd be like Joe,
this movie the greatest movie in the world. I don't know,
I love this movie. Then let's let's stay on that
d to it for a second. Then how do you
get that call? Do you get a call from like
secret number unknown? And then hello, he is it Samuel L.
(33:44):
Jackson with an eye passing shield? You get an how
you doing? Brother? Ryan Coog has to be Nate more
somebody Nate. Yeah, I know I know Ryan through through Mike, right,
So I got I got a chance to hang out
on the first Black Panther, said Michael B. Jordan. Yeah,
mid that was wild. Sorry, I was like Michael Jordan,
(34:10):
you know Michael Jordan's I was like dud. I know, Mike,
it's somebody. I'm a Mike. We all know, oh oh
of b Jordan, of the b Jordan's um and so
you know, I was able to kind of go you know,
that route. But again the space that I kind of
moved maneuver in in terms of like you know, black
(34:33):
visual artists, you know on the on the painting and
sculpting side, and again playing multiple way, multiple hats. I'm
one of few, so I think that you know, that
kind of helps me maneuver and get to get to
know some of these folks. And um, I saw Ryan
Coogler in Atlanta when he first was coming back to
start Black Panther too. We ran into each other the
(34:55):
hotel and I was like, I was messing with it.
I was like trying to juice him for you know,
some gossip. I needed to know what was what was
going to happen, some script story, give me something. Of
course he didn't give me shit, but it was cool.
But I think that, like I would like to think that,
you know, as Ryan is sculpting this and this is
so you know, Black Panther is so cultural, right, It's
(35:15):
not just about Wakanda, But like when you look at
even Wakanda Forever, like there's lines about fenty beauty in there.
There's you know, it's it's black culture. It's not just
this fake African culture. And so I think that, you know,
they do such a good job of being fully immersive
and aware of what's going on, you know, outside in
this world that they bring into this Marvel world to
(35:38):
make it feel real for us. And I think that
you know, the character re Re being from Chicago, me
being sort of, you know, Chicago's you know, you know,
some of my characters sort of being the mascots in
certain instances for Chicago. I think that it was just,
you know, it's one of those things that just really worked.
And I'll be honest with you, and this is gonna
sound like a flex, but you know, it takes so
(35:59):
long to make these movies that I forgot they even asked.
It was like four years ago. Yeah, oh my god,
that's true. So you know, it was like when I
watched the movie, You're in the movie and then I
see my shit on her desk in the workshop, and
then I see my shit in the wall. In a way,
I'm like, oh my god, men, you're different. You show
(36:21):
me something I did four years ago. I'm like, I'm
gonna need that. I'm gonna need a sease and desist.
I need taken down. I need all that. After the break,
I want to bring it home and talk about how
we can expand black storytelling, you know, not only in
comic books, but as it gets into television and what
it is. What do you think could happen and what
you think probably won't happen. I got a question for
(36:45):
all three of you after the break. This is beyond
the scenes, beyond the scenes. This has been a wonderful,
wonderful conversation about black comic books and black superheroes. And
you know, whether we can get a couple of moments
screen that aren't remixed versions of old nineteen forty two stereotype.
I'm gonna write me a black super You're gonna be
(37:07):
called jive turkey. You did, and every time he kills somebody,
he goes your dig I like that. You tell me,
I bet you that shit get green lit. By what
I'm saying now, I'll never be able to go back
home to Birmingham again. Hero. No, I can't go to
Essence fast after you. You dig I got another idea.
(37:31):
It's like teen Titans, but they called the young Bloods. Yeah, okay,
how honest? Can the black experience be infused into black
superhero narratives? Do you think there is still space for expansion? Ashton?
I mean, now do I think there? I know they're
(37:52):
space for expansion? Will you get made? Though? I man
something to us, we gotta me it uth to us.
We can't let white media or American media control the
stories that we tell. I feel like one of my
inspirations is Tony Morrison. I'm pretty sure she was like,
I tell stories, I don't exclude black people. I mean
I'll exclude white people. I tell stories from a Black
(38:13):
experience and therefore black people. That's the kind of superhero story.
I want to see a story that's truly all around
made for black people. It involves every aspect of Black culture,
and it does not have to capitulate to modern mainstream
America modern society have to, like do Why is it
always black stories that have to do reach across the
(38:34):
aisle so everybody else can feel seeing and accept it.
We ain't never been Nobody reached across the side for us.
Why can't I talk? It revolves around the dollar. I
think for me being able to spend a little time
in you know, Hollywood and having all these conversations, right like,
you know, studios are I mean, you know, these cats,
(38:55):
they're not original, and it's the dollars the bottom line.
So I'm going to reach back in the catalog of
things that we've done already that people are familiar with,
because once upon a time it lived, and we're gonna
redo that to death and then we ain't got nothing else, right,
Hopefully we have our our Ryan Coogler's or our you know,
(39:16):
our Jordan Peels. Those are the only brothers that are
would be allowed to introduce something new at this moment,
right like, with a little bit of radicalness to it. Yes,
approved state approve maybe maybe I think so, I mean,
(39:37):
but yeah, and yeah, not to exclude Aba at all,
I think she's absolutely one of those ones. But you know,
it's gonna take someone of that ilk to get that
thing across. I think, like you look at the time
in the nineties you talked about somebody mentioned, you know
medior Man, right, Like, medior Man doesn't get made even
(39:57):
as a comedy if Robert Townsend doesn't have all that
good will that he's built up five Hollywood Hollywood shuff right,
those relationships, Yeah, those relationships that he's built with all
these phenomenal black comedians and talent where he can get
you know, get those folks in at a price, so
(40:20):
he can make his movie at a price. Right, And again,
it still kind of had to be you know, it's
not to down Media Man, because I love Media Man,
but it had to be a comedy, right, It had
to be a comedy, and it definitely plays on those
nineties tropes of like the bad neighborhood and the gangs,
gold laws, right, give me your purse. And unfortunately, the
(40:47):
thing about Media Man, it was a box office flops, right,
and so when that happens, Robert Townsend goes into Hollywood jail,
can't direct for a little bit, or has to go
make The Parenthood on television, which is a great series
as well. But so you don't really get that Meteor
Man too, and so you know, and I think we
kind of overlooked the importance of Black Panther being that
it was Marvel's I think it was Marvel's either eighteenth
(41:10):
or nineteen film at that point, and it was the
first ever Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture
and so just Marvel gross to everything that came before,
you know, and again that's a that's a one part
in a series of these episodic films that people were
just Okay, we're doing this film to get to the
next point. But Black Panther was a cultural moment, it
(41:31):
was a pen it was a phenomenon really, and then
Marvel was like, hey, yeah, hey, yeah, look at that,
Look at what we did. And so it's kind of like,
you know, you get those hits, but to try to
get to that level and to maintain that, I feel
there's way more pressure on black creators. There's way more
of a ce we told you that it wouldn't sell,
and then that opportunity gets yanked away when so many
(41:51):
other folks in Hollywood can take swings and miss but
still be able to make other films. And so I
think the playing field for us is very limited, and
so you got to either get up and hit a
home or you might knock get that chance. Honestly. One
of those challenges, though, Aaron, to what you're saying, even
when you're talking about media man, is that you know,
we haven't we as as as black folks and folks
(42:12):
of color, Brian Lars haven't been taught or haven't been
welcomed into the conversation of science fiction. Right, And so
you know, I if this hero is playing in theaters
one through nine and Tyler Perry is playing in theater ten, listen,
I mean seriously, like I'm off the streets with my lady.
(42:35):
I'm going on a date. I'm not speaking just with myself,
but but I'm gonna go with Tyler Perry. That's a
brand name for me, and it's something relatable, right, And
I think that, like you know the fact that categorically
we have not been put into science fiction films in
that narrative forever, like we had, we'd always be one
(42:55):
of us, right, Like you know, Billy Dee Wiis is
the only nigga in space for how long? Right? When
he finally let LaVar burden in space, he was blind, right,
he shout out in front of the show. So to
the creators, to the black content creators and writers that
(43:16):
are listening to us Hebrew, how do you allow your
work to be the truest version of yourself? Like you
have a coffee table book that you've just put together
that's not a sale at all. Oh, I can already
tell from the cover of that book, asking that's one
of the books you put on the table and press
went press. It could be the only It could be
(43:39):
the only thing on the table too, next to a
glade candle. I don't know nothing about candles. Um As
you look back at all of the work that you've
done enough to put into a book, which is already
a crazy accomplishment to think about that you've done enough
that you went you know what, And I know that's
not even everything you're done, that's just the hits. How
(44:00):
did you allow your art to be the truest version
of yourself and not be influenced by what they might
buy or what could How did you stay true to
what you wanted to do versus what you thought people
wanted to see. I think my artists sort of always
been a bit of like my own diary, right. My
(44:22):
art always reflects where I'm at, you know, emotionally, mentally,
and so I think that, like you know, with art
starting out, there was not really a big risk. You know,
you just do a thing. I'm working. I got two
other jobs over here, making you know, horrible money, being
a horrible employee, but it wasn't a risk to just
go make some shit at night and paint and stay
(44:44):
up all night and create some stuff. So I think
that like starting out from an honest place and just
like I just need to express myself. You know, it's
it's it's an easier upstart than you know, I didn't
have to start out and from a place of like,
I have to make things in order to pay the
bills to survive, so I have to work according to
(45:06):
everybody else's sort of level or expectation of what is
good and what's cool. The thing that stuck with me
a long time ago was most death said, I just
always wanted to grow up and make cool shit. And
it's a very simple statement, but that's sort of how
I lived in that sense of like, if I can
(45:26):
always be honest with myself in my work, I'll be
okay no matter what other work I have to do.
Like I have my outlet, and my outlet has now
become my career and my occupation. So you know, just
one of those things that really kind of worked out.
I'm lucky, how And I'll end with this question to
all of you. And now we've already kind of talked
(45:48):
about whether or not we think that there will be
more black superhero stories. I think that there will. I think,
you know, whether or not they will be able to
touch on all of the different intricacy that is the
black experience across the diaspora. You know, that's depending on
the producer and the level of trust the studio has
in that director. Blah blah blah. But once these fucking
(46:11):
shows are on the air, do you think they'll give
him time to find an audience? Bad? Damn. So there
was a great show on c W calling Nay. It
was about a black girl teenager and early team Yeah. Correct,
And then Michael B. Jordan your excuse me, Mike he
(46:32):
ep the show on Netflix, Raising, which was about a
young a single mom raising a black boy with superpoles
and how you navigate single mother, single parent with superpower
like being able to turn the genre on its head
a little bit. But neither one of those shows, Naomi
got a season. I think Raising Dion got two from
Netflix if I'm not mistaken. So how do we get
(46:56):
these places to still just give shows time to find
their audience or is that just strictly money and we're screwed.
I think that's just the old days. Man. This is
this is all of the numbers game, you know, financial
and and you know viewership. I think it's just there's
so many people buying for those spots and those slots,
(47:19):
and you know, the turnaround is just a lot faster
these days where it's not network, so they don't have
to invest so much time and energy into a you know,
look at Seinfeld Man, how many how many seasons did
it take for seinfeld to actually pick up two? Maybe three? Right?
He would have been canceled. He That's my fear for
the story of the black superhero is that even if
(47:42):
these stories and the diverseness and the disk and the
difference of all of the types of stories you want
to tell, even if all that gets greenlit, once you're
out there and you're on the playing field, are you
going to get the support, Are you going to get
the advertising? You know, are you going to be given
the runway you need to actually finda like if the
CW won't give you a chance, and nobody home a
(48:04):
black lightning and to be and that's it, like get
out of here. Even we gotta put on another season
of Flash. We just gotta we gotta leverage our white
allies privilege. Taylor Swift, if you listen to this, I
know what you did for ticket Master, do that for three.
But I think you speak to a really important point
(48:26):
of like there's a pressure for the artists um to
create that will have a long lasting effect and have success.
And that's a hard place to come from from an
artist like he mentioned, he you know, just created, you
know what I mean, He was free to create. He
wasn't caring about if this character ip that he created
would one day you know, you know, connect with a
(48:48):
large He was just doing him. And so I think
more initiatives and programs for up and coming black voices
and artists, like the Milestone Initiative for Black Creative for
Milestone Comics. And I mean we've already so much time
without even bringing up Milestone Comics, which is basically, yeah,
like formed by black creators with black characters, more of
(49:09):
an authentic voice. And so they actually developed not too
long ago a pipeline program for aspiring black creatives who
want to you know, create comic book heroes and superheroes
and play in that world. And so again, like no
one can forecast the future, especially when it comes to
media in particular. But what we can do is just develop,
you know, opportunities to identify in spotlight some of those
(49:32):
up and coming voices who can give us the next
static shock, who can give us the next you know
Icon or you know Rocket, someone like that, who were
featured in milestone comics that gave nuance portrayals of blackness
in comic books, right like they gave us not just
this binary approach to life for black people, but so
much more of it. Gave us that world building aspect
(49:53):
that you find a lot with Hebrews character Flyboy. You know,
it's not just one character, it's a whole world of
experiences that we're looking to build. And so if we
can develop more programs like that and identify more up
and coming voices, I think that's a that's a start.
But like you said, you know, who knows when it
comes to television and film, I mean, the bottom line
is the dollar, and so we're always going to be
(50:14):
fighting that. Well, I think that's it's a good place
to end. And also, see w I forgot that you
gave us a lot of seasons of black lightning. I'm
sorry for raising my voice with that aside. Thank you
so much, Ashton Hebrew. Much respect to you. We look
forward to seeing your work and Black Panther Part three
(50:36):
and uh, I have my lawyers reach out to you.
Some of you work in my movie Jib Turkey Turkey,
Let's go he who might have a proof of concept
Right now, I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to
write myself in as a sidekick, so young Blood could
be a team of people. Are one person. I'll be here.
(50:57):
And where can we get the book? He Brew? Where
can people order the book? Your local bookstore, preferably you
know people, they still they still exist, folks, Please patronize,
you know, mom and pop bookshops. But other than that,
the bald white Man spot mister Bezos can go to
Amazon and pick one up right there, delivered right to you.
(51:19):
You know, there's so many weird names of businesses in
New York that I thought that was a real business.
I had to say that, all right, Oh man, it's
a great discussion. That's all the time we have for today.
Thank you all so much for going beyond the scenes
with us. Give me some theme music. Listen to the
(51:40):
Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore more shows from
the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show
wherever you get your our podcasts. Watch The Daily Show
(52:02):
weeknights at eleven tenth Central on Comedy Central, and stream
full episodes anytime on Fairmount Clubs. This has been a
Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow, Hey, here's edition listener.
It's Roy Chang, correspondent for The Daily Show. You're about
to hear an episode of one of our original Daily
Show podcasts, Beyond the Scenes, hosted by Roy Wood Junior.
It's the podcast where we dive deep into the segments
and topics from a Daily show with the show's writers, producers,
(00:21):
and experts. This week, the show is Nerding Out about
the world of black superheroes. Daily Show writer Ashton Womack,
Daily Show Senior producer Aaron Lamarb Burlison, and contemporary artists
Hebrew Brandley joined Roy to discuss how black superheroes can
bring more authentic Black stories to the big screen. If
you like the show, check out the Beyond the Scenes
(00:41):
podcast wherever you get your podcasts, enjoy Welcome to Beyond
the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes deeper into
topics and discussions and segments that originally air on the
Daily Show. Like this is what you gotta think of
(01:03):
this podcasts. This podcast is like you know, you know,
how you go to church. You go to church, you
can go to heaven. This podcast is them little sandwiches
you get after church. Like you know, you go to
church and even praise the Lord, but then down there
in the fellowship hall, they got them a little finger sandwiches,
and they got all them little the little peppermints. That
being the bottom of a black, black lady's purse. That's
what this podcast is. I think that analogy works. This
(01:28):
Black History Month, we are taking a look at a
CP time I did not too long ago, about the
history of black superheroes, and we talked about some of
the more notable superheroes in black history. Give me a clip.
Black superheroes are not new. In fact, they've been squeezing
into spandex for decades. They didn't as far back as
(01:48):
nineteen thirty six when cartoonist Jay Jackson created Speed Jackson
and the Chicago Defended the newspaper. Speed Jackson was a
former track star at Howard University who was an excellent fistfighter,
which may not sound powerful compared to today's superheroes with
their laser eyes and sticky spider hands, which you have
(02:10):
to think about it. Like sports, today's best athletes of
the pinnacle of human physicality, while the best athletes from
the nineteen thirties were just the ones with the least
polio times change. Jackson used his abilities to fight against
fascist during the war and right the wrongs of a
racist society, which is tough because superpowers don't help when
(02:30):
you're fighting systemic racism. Doesn't matter if you have the
strength of ten men, if none of those men can
get a mortgage. To help me dive a little bit
deeper into this topic, We've got a lot of brothers.
We're gonna go around the horn here real quick. First up,
as a certified nerd and stand up comedian and daily
show writer super nerd Ashton Boer. Are you trying to
(02:54):
disrespect you? Gangster? Appreciate? I appreciate you. Know you're still Houston.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah? How many times have
you been on the show? Like? What number is this again?
Like you have to Like, I think it's like my
fourth time. Give a tap, give a take. Yeah. Also
joining us is a comic artist who creates narrative driven
(03:14):
work and incorporates his own character creations into his work.
Hebrew Brantley, Hebrew, how you doing today? What's up? Roy?
I'm great man, I'm glad to be on. I appreciate
you guys having well, appreciate you for being smart enough
to not join us in this hot ass studio, nice
and air conditioned where you are. Television is torture here,
(03:36):
it's torture. Also, for the very first time, this man's
work has helped make this podcast happen. Up until now,
we have a senior producer and self professed geek of
all things, Aaron Lamar Brolson. Aaron, how you doing testing
one too? Wow? This is how it feels like going
beyond the scene. All right, yes, all right, yeah, I'm
(03:59):
doing great. Or it's a pleasure and honor to be
on the show with you. Normally you're normally helping to
produce all these segments and put all the wheels on
the car so it can go room. But thank you
for settling in on this one. Because Ashton we was like, yeah,
we talking about black gigs, and Aaron's like, well, you know,
I have a lot to say about it. I'll just
write myself into the episode. Yeah, I was like, you
should be an episode. What are we here for? So
(04:23):
I'll go around the horn to the three of you. First,
I want to know when you first started reading comic
books and becoming engrossed in the world of comic books
and when you recognize your first black comic superhero. Because
I'm gonna be honest. For me, I grew up with
budget limitations, and so you know where I'm from. You
(04:43):
could really choose one of two things. You could collect
baseball cards or you could collect comic books. You could
not afford both, and with a little bit of extra
money I did have, I would spend that on video
game magazine, shout out to GamePro, shout out to Electronic
Game and monthly shout out to Nintendo Power. So I
never yeah, I was like you speaking to my nerd
(05:05):
heart right now. So I never I never dealt with
the comic books. And so there would be kids in
middle school they have the comic books. But I just
what I knew if comic books was the cartoons. If
it didn't have a Saturday Morning cartoon, I couldn't tell
you anything about it, knew nothing, but I could name
you who was on the bench for the Cincinnati Rids.
And so that's a different type of nerds that's still
(05:27):
in You're still in the house. So but but this
is but this is a world that I really do
not have much of a It does not connect to
my childhood if I'm just being one hunting. So I
want you all to walk me through how you all
got connected in the comic books. Actually I'll start with you,
But how did you get into comic books? And what
was the first like sense of representation that you saw?
If I would say, the way I got into comic
books was I grew up on Fox. They had weekday
(05:50):
afternoon cartoons and you'll watch x Men, you will watch
all the superhero cartoons, and that sparked my love for
comic books. Now, the first superhero, the actual really got
me truly loving superhero It's always been black superheroes. My
first superhero I loved was meteor Man. It's not a
comic book, it's a movie. Robert Townsend, so many famous
(06:12):
black actors. But I was growing up as a kid.
We were watching medior Man eighteen thousand times a day.
So then to that point, Aaron, what did you discover
because media Man is that's a movie, you know, and Ashton,
you know, you're kicking back with his pops watching something
that probably was That movie was a little grown. It's
a classic. It's a little grown for your five years old.
(06:33):
What about you Aaron, How did you get into Like
where did you go to get them? Because yeah, like
comic books was that was a white side of town
errand and growing up for me, growing up in Birmingham,
you did not go to the white side of town
un Let's say, when classmate had a birthday or unless
it was time to go Christmas shopping. That was literally
another universe. Yeah, so where are you even finding the
(06:55):
comic books too? Like who is your people? How did
you get into this? You know, I have to give
a lot of credit for a lot of my you know,
geekedom in fandom to my older brother Brian. You know,
he was an avid collector, so he had a bunch
of G. I. Joe comics. But it was when he
was growing up and going away to you know, college
and everything, he let me inherit his comic book collection,
(07:17):
which had a lot of the nineteen seventies Batman comic books,
you know what I mean, and that you know, vintage
blue and gray jumpsuit and so you get a lot
of those like seventies and eighties Batman comics. Death in
the Family where you see the second Robin passing away
by the hands of the Joker, and so I was
really fortunate to have an older brother who was into
a lot of geek stuff, Star Wars, Batman, g I Joe,
(07:40):
and so it was from inheriting his comics that I
developed a joint love. In addition, you know, Ashton I
as well was watching all those weekday cartoons in the afternoon,
X Men and Batman. The animated series so really developed
and coalesced through. I mean, I think the animated series
for Batman is one of the groundbreaking series of all time.
And so it was really in that pocket that I
(08:02):
really embraced, you know, my geeked them in a way
and grew to have such a love affair with this
art form. Now, Hebrew, you took it to another level
because you started drawing and actually trying to do something
with all this stuff, unlike these two shiftless need grows.
How did representation you know, how did that inspire your work?
(08:23):
Like did you ever feel a moment and you know,
and ash and Aaron feel free to jump in this
as well. Was there ever a character where you're like, oh, damn,
that's gonna be my through line or that's the one
that that inspired me to go to the next level
with this no man. You know, I'm probably a little
older than you know, the brothers on the panel. And
(08:44):
I think for me, it was like I came into
it through my mom. My mom was just a reader.
My mom would read everything, and she just wanted me
to be a reader. And I wouldn't connect with anything,
you know, like I would pick up something started and
not finished. And then she introduced me to comics books,
but it was her way. So it was like Archie
and all that shit that I excuse me, I don't
(09:05):
know you okay, but but you know this stuff that again,
it just was a little too white for me, you know,
and and and it wasn't funny. And then I gravitated
more towards like X Men and all that stuff. And
I think that, like, you know, my first introduction before
comics or kind of maybe at the same time, to
(09:26):
black heroes is a questionable black hero, which is Panther
from ThunderCats. Yes, yeah, yes, Pantonic. They just always made
him fix exactly that. And then he had nunchucks, you
know what I mean, NIA just love nunchucks. Let's just
do that. And it was you know, you know, Panther
was voiced by the grandfather on the Colomby show. Oh yes, no,
(09:49):
ye sense yeah, And it was so you know, he
had that deep black man like, you know, I feel
like as my grandfather talking to me. So and that
was his character in the show. He was like kind
of voice of reason. He was, you know, like you
being a pussy's like come on stop now, like yeah,
let's stop, let's stop this ship. But um but no,
but in our sincerity, Like that was sort of my
way in. And then it was like, you know, the
(10:09):
eleven year old boy and me saw Storm and that
was like, oh, okay, that's this is speaking to me
on a few a few levels, right, it's not right.
But you know when it came to my stuff, I think,
you know, it wasn't. I think it's just a culmination
of just like all these things that I've sort of
ingested over the years, you know what I mean, like
(10:30):
these different different heroes, different characters. But you know, I think, man,
we all were hooked on blonde haired, blue eye Superman
for the longest time, right, because that's all we were fed. Yeah,
you know, the closest I came to comic books. I
would read comic strips and the newspaper every day. I
grew up in a newspaper house, so especially on Sundays,
(10:53):
we passed the paper around the table and you just
read all the different sections, and so, you know, to
that point, Hebrew like I'm trying to think, and you know,
Birmingham media, especially print media's hell of conservative back in
those days. So I don't even think I saw the
Boomdocks until late nineties. But to me, the blackest thing
(11:17):
I saw in the newspaper was of the Phantom, and
he was vigilant. He was tan up shit. No. The
only reason why I thought he was black because he
was the Jungles all the time, and then the movie
came out they had Billy's shout out black Panther for all.
(11:39):
It was such a lack of black characters out there.
I had to identify with Beasts from The X Man
because he was blue at least, and so someone that
you can still see yourself in, because you cann't really
see yourself in Cyclops. You cann't really even though you
have Wolverine, he was dope, you couldn't see yourself in that.
So at least with Beasts being blue, you can still
kind of see it. A little bit. It's not until
you get Bishop coming to the X Men two, where
(12:01):
Bishop is just a strong, like six foot six black
guy with like wavy jet black hair and had a
Jerry curl. He had a Jerry Bishop looked like he
was running back for the race. But but how did
that make you feel? He ruined Ashton, Like when you
(12:24):
saw a brother that looked like your uncle from a
family barbecue in a comic book, because I remember seeing
for me it was Bo Jackson, Frank Thomas Ken, Griffith
jen Those were the three black athletes that made me
feel like, oh, he's doing especially both because he's from
around the corner Birmingham suburb. So like I remember that
(12:44):
feeling of man, I can do this because he looks
like me. Did Was that? Was that your character Aaron
was Jerry curl man Bishop? Was that? I mean? Because
at that point you're really grasping for some sort of representation.
So you get that with Bishop, right, you have a
who's not from the time period that the X Men
are taking place, and he's from a dystopian future and
(13:04):
he's coming back to right the wrongs that kind of
led way to his horrible future, you know, where he
isn't happening. So but Bishop was a little bit off
his rocker, you know what I mean. But it was
okay because he was He was really cool and militaristic
in a way. So I really gravitated to that he brought.
I'll start with you on this question. Do you think
that black cartoons outside the mainstream get enough credit or
(13:28):
get enough attention, you know, like within the mainstream culture.
How much do black cartoons get their props from the
mainstreams the way that they deserve. Is the tide changing
ish a little bit? Or is it still kind of
pick and shoes? I think it's picking shoes, man, Like
I don't know any I mean, besides, like Boondocks, obviously
(13:49):
that that had a real moment, right and it still does.
I think it kind of reverberates, you know, when you
get people, you know, sort of reposting memes and things
like that, and how it sort of lived through. But
you're talking the car we're really more so more so
the TV show because that's what everybody, you know, like,
that's where a lot of people found it, you know
(14:10):
what I mean? And so I think beyond that, man,
there really hasn't been like we've only just been sidekicks, um,
you know to the white characters, and I'm not you know,
it's just you know, we get a proud family every
now and then, you know, we have little blips on
on the master there is it's it's here, it's out. Yeah,
(14:31):
it's really and it's it's good. But again, like we
don't you know, I think I feel like it's the
it's the quota situation. It happens in Hollywood all the time.
I mean few years ago, you know when Hollywood uh
found out that you know, black was cool, um again
after Black Panther was profitable. There you go black, Yeah, exactly,
(14:52):
we can make money off these folks. Um. You know.
It was just that thing of like, let's retro fit
uh this character who was probably a white it man,
Let's make him black. But they don't really change anything
except for just you know, replacing the actor or the person,
not necessarily reforming the character. And I feel like that
(15:13):
happens in cartoons and animation all the time, where it's
just like, you know, we have to feel a call,
right we have how many black kids we have in
this group? Oh shit, let's get a black kid in here.
Real quick. You don't care, right, I mean, have y'all
seen the new Velma TV show No yea yeah, where
Shaggy's black black, don't smoke weed, he don't even get high.
(15:38):
And I don't even know what kind of Shaggy that is.
You know, this is not Shaggy. I Like. It's like
when it comes to like where you're talking about where
they re skin white characters for put a black face
on white characters. We need representation, but that it's it's
the other side of that. It's like, yeah, I like Shaggy.
I've been watching Scooby Doo. You know what's wild about
that too, is that it's one of the things I
feel like white people and black people both agree because
(16:00):
black people want their own stories and white people don't
want to see their favorite characters, you know, dipp in chocolate. Yeah,
I agree. Like, well, listen you say that, and then
you'd be like, hey, you know, Jesus, that guy might
have been you might have started off the original Superhero. Yeah.
(16:22):
But then you even take something like say Miles Morality,
where you have Spider Man into the Spidy verse, right,
which was an animated film with a black spider Man
who you know, hold Spider Verse or whatever, and it
did so well. There was there was rumbling for a
(16:43):
quick minute, Oh I bet they should do a live
action Miles Morales, and then it was like, nah, we're
just gonna get out with Super one time. But I
feel like that that, you know again, with that listen,
Miles is one of my favorite characters in comics. Um
and you know, I love the character, although they've never
(17:03):
really given him to uh, you know, a decent black
writer or group of black creators, which they should have.
But you know, with that movie, I think that movie
worked because it was just a good movie, right, Like
they they really honed in on making Miles feel authentic,
his neighborhood feel felt authentic, his his parents, shit feels
(17:25):
like Miles, Miles last name is Morales and his dad's
last name, what's his dad's last name? Right? Like, that's
that's some real shit, you know what I mean? Like
that's not even his daddy. My last name, my dad
last name Lomax. They just having a rhyme. So I
think I think they did a good job in bringing
(17:46):
in some authenticity. I think that we will start to
see more of that. But you know, again, it's like
where you know, Hollywood's motivated by the dollars and as
long as you know Peter Parker, like, we'll get the
black Miles in real time at one point, but you know, white, white,
white Spider Man is It's still you know, very very thankful.
(18:08):
But after the break, I want to talk to you
a little bit more. I want to talk to all
of you actually about how we can introduce new black characters,
new black IP into the world of comic books and
eventually matriculating into television and profitable movie franchises for you, Hebrew,
but also the hurdles that you've dealt with and trying
(18:31):
to break through new concepts and what that world is like.
This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Beyond
the scenes. We are back. We are talking the world
of black superheroes. And while we only get the same
couple of superheroes remix, even though we got a hold
universe of black stories waiting in the queue to be told,
(18:54):
one of our guests has been creating some of these characters. Now, Hebrew,
walk us through this because I want to talk a
little bit this break just about a lot of the
existing black movie IP and how it came to actual fruition.
But I want to talk with you first just from
the ideation of drawing a character, creating the character, creating
(19:16):
a comic around the character, walk us through that journey
of what that was like, Because are you writing, are
you creating a character? Like like with television like Ashton
I know you know this, Like with television, the trick
is do you want to write and create a character
that you know everybody will gravitate towards that They all like,
(19:38):
are you writing what you like? And then you're making
people get on board with what you're into. Well, I
think for me, my journey is really unique in the
way that I didn't start out trying to create a
comic or anything like that. You know, I come from
the world of high art, right, so, like you know,
paintings for galleries, museums, et cetera, and in do in
(20:00):
that over the years and trying to find my voice,
I kind of accidentally landed on this idea. A lot
of the work that I was doing early in my career,
it had it had a lot of angst to it.
You know, it was very pro black or maybe a
little bit too much, you know, skewed a little too
dark or heavy handed, so to speak. And I think,
(20:20):
you know, within the gallery world, in that space, you
kind of have to you know, you have to walk aline.
You know, there's there's you have to be very clever
about how you say certain things. And so for me,
it was like, you know, the advice that I got
from a lot of my my peers was like, man,
you know, you have to paint things that you know,
that you're familiar with, the things that feel like you.
(20:42):
And for me, growing up, you know, a self professor
sort of black nerd on comics, cartoons, anime, all that shit,
trying to really figure out what that was. And it
wasn't until you know a few years after college where
I had found myself in that place that we all
do where it's like, man, what's what's the next thing?
And you know, I found a book on World War Two,
(21:04):
just was thumbing through it and landed on the Tuskegee Airman.
And with Tuskegee Airman, you know, man, it was just
it was like a lightning ball that hit me because
it was like, man, nobody has really touched on these
brothers from the standpoint of like like their journey was
so powerful. It struck me in this way because the
time in which they existed, the time in which they
(21:27):
were charged with doing certain things, our world was a mess.
I mean, it's not that different from where it is now,
but we're talking, we're talking World War, We're talking, you know,
within America, Blacks, you know, treated significantly less than right.
But then they're allowed and tasked to fly these planes
and they do it successfully. And these brothers are buttoned up,
(21:48):
and you know, they are the sort of personification of
what manhood is right and what heroism is. And so
I found that and I just thought about, like, man,
like what if there was like this, this, this, this,
this character or these characters that exist at that time
just kind of forgot about, right, Like it happens all
the time, these cartoons that fall off the shelf and
(22:08):
never get seen. And so I created Flatboy, which became
sort of my state boy ip, but as kind of
a lark, like within the high art space, and just
like creating this show, like presupposing that I found this
this animation project that never that never saw the light
of day, and I presented it like that to my
audience and like some found footage. Yeah, so it was.
(22:31):
It was kind of you know, just bringing people in
that way because I felt like that was the easiest
way then, just to say, you know, hey, I created
this thing whole claw, checked this out, um and it
people started to bite, you know, folks come into the show.
The response was great, But it wasn't just a response
to like, you know, because there was no narrative behind
(22:51):
it for real, for real, like there was no story
through line or anything like that. But people started him
as a Tuskegee airman. Did you present him as black
or was he its all goggled up and scarfed up, goggled,
black faced little kid, you know, with or without superpowers.
Take it, you know, take it with you will. But
I think that people were allowed to read into it,
and I think that there was sort of like this
(23:13):
message behind it of empowerment that people really you know,
they they felt. And so as I started doing more
and more shows, the expectation for more and more of
these paintings, you know, grew, and people were coming to
the shows looking for Flyboy. I had people making you know,
like little Halloween costumes, just you know, cheap little aviator goggles,
red red scarfs, et cetera, and so it just grew
(23:35):
into a thing where you know, it wasn't it wasn't
intended to be, you know, a thing that I continued
on with. It was intended to just be this moment.
But as it started to grow and my understanding of
it started to grow, I started to attach narrative to
it because you know, nobody knew the origins or they
weren't coming for that. They were just coming for the
(23:58):
aesthetics and the messaging behind it. And so, you know,
a few years back, I finally, uh, you know, created
a comic. You know, it's my first run, and you know,
like any junior, you know, novice to a thing, I
pretty much wrote myself into a corner. By issue two.
(24:20):
I like, I like killed off one of the main
characters by issue two, and I was like, oh shit,
So I kind of had to like you know, wheel
it back, but like let those things exist on an
island by themselves and then sort of retool and and
and recreate something. But again, all that to say that,
you know, it wasn't me intending to make something, uh,
(24:42):
to make this what it what it what it's become.
It was sort of a happy accident. But you know,
again through that has has bared you know, a lot
of really really really strong fruit. Okay, so then you
create Flyboy, and then you're you're eventually going to be
at a crossroads if you aren't already that a out
of black content creators are going to pay it now
(25:03):
where you have an idea and the tradeoff for exposure
and money is new cooks get to come into kitchen
and tinker with the season and on this dish that
you've perfected up until this point. How difficult is it
to try and navigate deciding on how to hold onto
(25:24):
your ip as things start to grow? Because when we
talk about this idea that there's this backlog of all
of these black ideas and black comic strip shows that
are out there that deserve to be seen and deserve
to be made in the movies. But how much of
it is the studios and the labels and distribution networks
(25:45):
creating an impossible contract that you just possibly can't agree to.
And is that one of the hurdles that is keeping
something like say Flyboy from truly expanding to something even
greater from flying? If you like, like like, how difficult
is it to try and keep control of your eye
(26:06):
because you're trying to grow this shit. But then to
grow it, you got to give it to somebody that
gets to go, I do whatever I want. If we
can make flyboyd and give them a sister and Flyboy
and tell her, let's make them thirty four fly man, No,
I mean, you know, it's it's it's a task. But
I think for me, again, my situation is unique in
the sense that like, this isn't a comic book, right,
(26:29):
that's you're selling for five bucks, right, these are paintings
that sell for you know, thousands of dollars. Right, you
got to take your prices. Don't tell them your price.
Collectibles a lot of dollars, but you know, these are
these are collectibles that I've created, in statues that I've
created that you know are now seen all around the world.
(26:51):
These are collectibles that you know, go on eBay for
triple the price. You know, you're talking four or five
thousand dollars for some plastic you know, figurines. And with that,
you know, it kind of changes my narrative when coming
into Hollywood because it's like the product is proven, and
you know, I'm only doing this on a smaller level.
When it comes to you know, I'm keeping it contained
(27:13):
at a very limited number, but you know it's proven.
Look these are the numbers here, and this is just
this is just me doing it. So you know, if
we start to bring this thing out to the masses,
you know it's going to obviously change and you're gonna
you know, get more eyes around it, gain more fandom
around it, and you know, obviously you know it it's
(27:34):
able to grow, the IP grows, et cetera. But just
me being able to do it on my own is
already I think a lot more than most are able
to kind of come in the game with. Like most
folks are coming in with the idea if it's a
if it's a book, or if it's a script, you know,
that's not as leverageable as you know, building out a world,
(27:56):
doing you know, exhibitions. I did an experience mental exhibition
in Chicago a few years ago called Nevermore Park where
basically I created the world of Flyboy and you kind
of walk through in this experience basically through an origin
story of this character. Right, And you know, we had
like we had a couple hundred thousand visitors to it.
(28:18):
I bought like like fifty thousand tickets for CPS students,
so they were able to kind of come through. You know,
it really expanded you know, our again our fan base
in a lot of ways, and also showed them sort
of another side because they're only familiar with the paintings,
and you know, again, having had all of that gives
(28:41):
me a little bit more leveraged in those conversations with
different studios, Aston Aaron, Why don't studios accept the fact
that black superhero hit movies are not an anomaly? It
irks me that the first Iron Man is credited with
(29:04):
being the beginning of the Marvel Surisa. It irks me
when we all know the truth, yeah, is that it
was Blade. We do we do now. They didn't connect
Blade to none of the other ship and maybe that's
why they try not to write it off. Blade had
a budget of about forty forty five million, if I'm
(29:25):
not mistaken, grossed about a hundred. It made about a hundred.
Didn't know it did one thirty It did by one
thirty one forty it made. It made its money back
and then another hundred million. Yeah, tify a sequel, right,
two sequels? Yeah, it got it got sequels and a
TV series which spiked cancer because they said they couldn't
(29:46):
afford the special effects. That's a true story. So why
don't these films like why what? Like, let's just talk
about the erasure of Blade? Yeah, is there? Do you think?
Do you even agree with that point? Aaron? Let's just
start there. So I think we agree. I mean we
can go a step further, just talk about the erasure
of Wesley Snipes. But I think, well, he would have
(30:07):
paid his taxes. I mean, you know him and Ryan
Reynolds didn't get along a diva. But the thing about
that story, yeah, it was a lot of it was
a lot of commotion apparently with that Blade Trinity production.
But we have to take it back to the nineteen
nineties and understand that before Blade the film, there isn't
(30:29):
a successful Marvel film adaptation. At that point. You have
the Captain America film, which is from the nineteen nineties,
which is it's not what we have with Chris Evans now,
and then Punisher failed Dolph Lund Punisher cult classic but
not a hit by any means. And then you have
this buried Roger Corman Fantastic four film, um that wasn't
(30:50):
even released the general public and you can only find
copies of it at Comic Con. And so Marvel was
doing this thing of licensing out their characters, not building
an overall universe, but lightning them out to twentieth century Fox,
lightning them out to Colombian Pictures, Sony, and just seeing
what it got. It wasn't as much of a creative
powerhouse in the film game as it is today. And
(31:11):
so you get this film called Blade, which is rated R,
which is bloody violet vampire flick, action flick, and it
literally it becomes a hit. It becomes a hit because
of the performance of Blade, because of this representation of
this black superhero. But it also creates a door for
us to get X Men in two thousand, for us
to get Spider Man in two thousand and two, and
(31:32):
all the various films that come and kind of give
us modern contemporary visual adaptations of superheroes on film. And
so I just think it's just one of those things
where people don't want to get black characters or black
actors or performers the credit, and it's old fashioned racism.
They're trying to qualify with different metrics and whatnot. But
Blade was a hit to generate two more films in
(31:54):
the film in a series adaptation, but again they want
something more. But did they go some of the mother
black characters we got them? Like why didn't Marvel go
digging the crates? Yeah, because a lot of those characters
are whack as hell. Yeah, well he black Panther. Think
(32:16):
about like the one of the hurdles had to overcome
a black panther was Umbaku's character. He was just a
racist gorilla in the comic books. He was just straight
up a gorilla, like a monkey that was his power
monkey man or something like that. And they had to
like actually content like make him a modern character for
today and get rid of the racist trope that he was.
(32:36):
So I'm sure they go and look through their their
their a list of black characters, and half of them
are just stereotypes, even with Black Panther. Black Panther, you know,
was a character that was created by Jack Kirby. Rest
in peace. Jack Kirby one of the greatest comic book
creators of all time. But you know, Jack Kirby's not
a brother, and I'm pretty sure, like I don't I
(32:57):
don't think Jack had many brothers on his roller decks,
Like Hey man, I'm this character called the Black Panther,
and let me get these notes of Also, can I
just can I just shout this out. This is a
very very problem moment in my life of nerd them.
But my my paintings and my figures were in Wakanda
forever hard. That's hard, and shout out for that. It
(33:22):
was like the biggest nerve moment. You know. It was
all quiet in the theater and I saw my ship
and I just let it. That's fire. You'd be like Joe,
this movie the greatest movie in the world. I don't know,
I love this movie. Then let's let's stay on that
d to it for a second. Then how do you
get that call? Do you get a call from like
secret number unknown? And then hello, he is it Samuel L.
(33:44):
Jackson with an eye passing shield? You get an how
you doing? Brother? Ryan Coog has to be Nate more
somebody Nate. Yeah, I know I know Ryan through through Mike, right,
So I got I got a chance to hang out
on the first Black Panther, said Michael B. Jordan. Yeah,
mid that was wild. Sorry, I was like Michael Jordan,
(34:10):
you know Michael Jordan's I was like dud. I know, Mike,
it's somebody. I'm a Mike. We all know, oh oh
of b Jordan, of the b Jordan's um and so
you know, I was able to kind of go you know,
that route. But again the space that I kind of
moved maneuver in in terms of like you know, black
(34:33):
visual artists, you know on the on the painting and
sculpting side, and again playing multiple way, multiple hats. I'm
one of few, so I think that you know, that
kind of helps me maneuver and get to get to
know some of these folks. And um, I saw Ryan
Coogler in Atlanta when he first was coming back to
start Black Panther too. We ran into each other the
(34:55):
hotel and I was like, I was messing with it.
I was like trying to juice him for you know,
some gossip. I needed to know what was what was
going to happen, some script story, give me something. Of
course he didn't give me shit, but it was cool.
But I think that, like I would like to think that,
you know, as Ryan is sculpting this and this is
so you know, Black Panther is so cultural, right, It's
(35:15):
not just about Wakanda, But like when you look at
even Wakanda Forever, like there's lines about fenty beauty in there.
There's you know, it's it's black culture. It's not just
this fake African culture. And so I think that, you know,
they do such a good job of being fully immersive
and aware of what's going on, you know, outside in
this world that they bring into this Marvel world to
(35:38):
make it feel real for us. And I think that
you know, the character re Re being from Chicago, me
being sort of, you know, Chicago's you know, you know,
some of my characters sort of being the mascots in
certain instances for Chicago. I think that it was just,
you know, it's one of those things that just really worked.
And I'll be honest with you, and this is gonna
sound like a flex, but you know, it takes so
(35:59):
long to make these movies that I forgot they even asked.
It was like four years ago. Yeah, oh my god,
that's true. So you know, it was like when I
watched the movie, You're in the movie and then I
see my shit on her desk in the workshop, and
then I see my shit in the wall. In a way,
I'm like, oh my god, men, you're different. You show
(36:21):
me something I did four years ago. I'm like, I'm
gonna need that. I'm gonna need a sease and desist.
I need taken down. I need all that. After the break,
I want to bring it home and talk about how
we can expand black storytelling, you know, not only in
comic books, but as it gets into television and what
it is. What do you think could happen and what
you think probably won't happen. I got a question for
(36:45):
all three of you after the break. This is beyond
the scenes, beyond the scenes. This has been a wonderful,
wonderful conversation about black comic books and black superheroes. And
you know, whether we can get a couple of moments
screen that aren't remixed versions of old nineteen forty two stereotype.
I'm gonna write me a black super You're gonna be
(37:07):
called jive turkey. You did, and every time he kills somebody,
he goes your dig I like that. You tell me,
I bet you that shit get green lit. By what
I'm saying now, I'll never be able to go back
home to Birmingham again. Hero. No, I can't go to
Essence fast after you. You dig I got another idea.
(37:31):
It's like teen Titans, but they called the young Bloods. Yeah, okay,
how honest? Can the black experience be infused into black
superhero narratives? Do you think there is still space for expansion? Ashton?
I mean, now do I think there? I know they're
(37:52):
space for expansion? Will you get made? Though? I man
something to us, we gotta me it uth to us.
We can't let white media or American media control the
stories that we tell. I feel like one of my
inspirations is Tony Morrison. I'm pretty sure she was like,
I tell stories, I don't exclude black people. I mean
I'll exclude white people. I tell stories from a Black
(38:13):
experience and therefore black people. That's the kind of superhero story.
I want to see a story that's truly all around
made for black people. It involves every aspect of Black culture,
and it does not have to capitulate to modern mainstream
America modern society have to, like do Why is it
always black stories that have to do reach across the
(38:34):
aisle so everybody else can feel seeing and accept it.
We ain't never been Nobody reached across the side for us.
Why can't I talk? It revolves around the dollar. I
think for me being able to spend a little time
in you know, Hollywood and having all these conversations, right like,
you know, studios are I mean, you know, these cats,
(38:55):
they're not original, and it's the dollars the bottom line.
So I'm going to reach back in the catalog of
things that we've done already that people are familiar with,
because once upon a time it lived, and we're gonna
redo that to death and then we ain't got nothing else, right,
Hopefully we have our our Ryan Coogler's or our you know,
(39:16):
our Jordan Peels. Those are the only brothers that are
would be allowed to introduce something new at this moment,
right like, with a little bit of radicalness to it. Yes,
approved state approve maybe maybe I think so, I mean,
(39:37):
but yeah, and yeah, not to exclude Aba at all,
I think she's absolutely one of those ones. But you know,
it's gonna take someone of that ilk to get that
thing across. I think, like you look at the time
in the nineties you talked about somebody mentioned, you know
medior Man, right, Like, medior Man doesn't get made even
(39:57):
as a comedy if Robert Townsend doesn't have all that
good will that he's built up five Hollywood Hollywood shuff right,
those relationships, Yeah, those relationships that he's built with all
these phenomenal black comedians and talent where he can get
you know, get those folks in at a price, so
(40:20):
he can make his movie at a price. Right, And again,
it still kind of had to be you know, it's
not to down Media Man, because I love Media Man,
but it had to be a comedy, right, It had
to be a comedy, and it definitely plays on those
nineties tropes of like the bad neighborhood and the gangs,
gold laws, right, give me your purse. And unfortunately, the
(40:47):
thing about Media Man, it was a box office flops, right,
and so when that happens, Robert Townsend goes into Hollywood jail,
can't direct for a little bit, or has to go
make The Parenthood on television, which is a great series
as well. But so you don't really get that Meteor
Man too, and so you know, and I think we
kind of overlooked the importance of Black Panther being that
it was Marvel's I think it was Marvel's either eighteenth
(41:10):
or nineteen film at that point, and it was the
first ever Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture
and so just Marvel gross to everything that came before,
you know, and again that's a that's a one part
in a series of these episodic films that people were
just Okay, we're doing this film to get to the
next point. But Black Panther was a cultural moment, it
(41:31):
was a pen it was a phenomenon really, and then
Marvel was like, hey, yeah, hey, yeah, look at that,
Look at what we did. And so it's kind of like,
you know, you get those hits, but to try to
get to that level and to maintain that, I feel
there's way more pressure on black creators. There's way more
of a ce we told you that it wouldn't sell,
and then that opportunity gets yanked away when so many
(41:51):
other folks in Hollywood can take swings and miss but
still be able to make other films. And so I
think the playing field for us is very limited, and
so you got to either get up and hit a
home or you might knock get that chance. Honestly. One
of those challenges, though, Aaron, to what you're saying, even
when you're talking about media man, is that you know,
we haven't we as as as black folks and folks
(42:12):
of color, Brian Lars haven't been taught or haven't been
welcomed into the conversation of science fiction. Right, And so
you know, I if this hero is playing in theaters
one through nine and Tyler Perry is playing in theater ten, listen,
I mean seriously, like I'm off the streets with my lady.
(42:35):
I'm going on a date. I'm not speaking just with myself,
but but I'm gonna go with Tyler Perry. That's a
brand name for me, and it's something relatable, right, And
I think that, like you know the fact that categorically
we have not been put into science fiction films in
that narrative forever, like we had, we'd always be one
(42:55):
of us, right, Like you know, Billy Dee Wiis is
the only nigga in space for how long? Right? When
he finally let LaVar burden in space, he was blind, right,
he shout out in front of the show. So to
the creators, to the black content creators and writers that
(43:16):
are listening to us Hebrew, how do you allow your
work to be the truest version of yourself? Like you
have a coffee table book that you've just put together
that's not a sale at all. Oh, I can already
tell from the cover of that book, asking that's one
of the books you put on the table and press
went press. It could be the only It could be
(43:39):
the only thing on the table too, next to a
glade candle. I don't know nothing about candles. Um As
you look back at all of the work that you've
done enough to put into a book, which is already
a crazy accomplishment to think about that you've done enough
that you went you know what, And I know that's
not even everything you're done, that's just the hits. How
(44:00):
did you allow your art to be the truest version
of yourself and not be influenced by what they might
buy or what could How did you stay true to
what you wanted to do versus what you thought people
wanted to see. I think my artists sort of always
been a bit of like my own diary, right. My
(44:22):
art always reflects where I'm at, you know, emotionally, mentally,
and so I think that, like you know, with art
starting out, there was not really a big risk. You know,
you just do a thing. I'm working. I got two
other jobs over here, making you know, horrible money, being
a horrible employee, but it wasn't a risk to just
go make some shit at night and paint and stay
(44:44):
up all night and create some stuff. So I think
that like starting out from an honest place and just
like I just need to express myself. You know, it's
it's it's an easier upstart than you know, I didn't
have to start out and from a place of like,
I have to make things in order to pay the
bills to survive, so I have to work according to
(45:06):
everybody else's sort of level or expectation of what is
good and what's cool. The thing that stuck with me
a long time ago was most death said, I just
always wanted to grow up and make cool shit. And
it's a very simple statement, but that's sort of how
I lived in that sense of like, if I can
(45:26):
always be honest with myself in my work, I'll be
okay no matter what other work I have to do.
Like I have my outlet, and my outlet has now
become my career and my occupation. So you know, just
one of those things that really kind of worked out.
I'm lucky, how And I'll end with this question to
all of you. And now we've already kind of talked
(45:48):
about whether or not we think that there will be
more black superhero stories. I think that there will. I think,
you know, whether or not they will be able to
touch on all of the different intricacy that is the
black experience across the diaspora. You know, that's depending on
the producer and the level of trust the studio has
in that director. Blah blah blah. But once these fucking
(46:11):
shows are on the air, do you think they'll give
him time to find an audience? Bad? Damn. So there
was a great show on c W calling Nay. It
was about a black girl teenager and early team Yeah. Correct,
And then Michael B. Jordan your excuse me, Mike he
(46:32):
ep the show on Netflix, Raising, which was about a
young a single mom raising a black boy with superpoles
and how you navigate single mother, single parent with superpower
like being able to turn the genre on its head
a little bit. But neither one of those shows, Naomi
got a season. I think Raising Dion got two from
Netflix if I'm not mistaken. So how do we get
(46:56):
these places to still just give shows time to find
their audience or is that just strictly money and we're screwed.
I think that's just the old days. Man. This is
this is all of the numbers game, you know, financial
and and you know viewership. I think it's just there's
so many people buying for those spots and those slots,
(47:19):
and you know, the turnaround is just a lot faster
these days where it's not network, so they don't have
to invest so much time and energy into a you know,
look at Seinfeld Man, how many how many seasons did
it take for seinfeld to actually pick up two? Maybe three? Right?
He would have been canceled. He That's my fear for
the story of the black superhero is that even if
(47:42):
these stories and the diverseness and the disk and the
difference of all of the types of stories you want
to tell, even if all that gets greenlit, once you're
out there and you're on the playing field, are you
going to get the support, Are you going to get
the advertising? You know, are you going to be given
the runway you need to actually finda like if the
CW won't give you a chance, and nobody home a
(48:04):
black lightning and to be and that's it, like get
out of here. Even we gotta put on another season
of Flash. We just gotta we gotta leverage our white
allies privilege. Taylor Swift, if you listen to this, I
know what you did for ticket Master, do that for three.
But I think you speak to a really important point
(48:26):
of like there's a pressure for the artists um to
create that will have a long lasting effect and have success.
And that's a hard place to come from from an
artist like he mentioned, he you know, just created, you
know what I mean, He was free to create. He
wasn't caring about if this character ip that he created
would one day you know, you know, connect with a
(48:48):
large He was just doing him. And so I think
more initiatives and programs for up and coming black voices
and artists, like the Milestone Initiative for Black Creative for
Milestone Comics. And I mean we've already so much time
without even bringing up Milestone Comics, which is basically, yeah,
like formed by black creators with black characters, more of
(49:09):
an authentic voice. And so they actually developed not too
long ago a pipeline program for aspiring black creatives who
want to you know, create comic book heroes and superheroes
and play in that world. And so again, like no
one can forecast the future, especially when it comes to
media in particular. But what we can do is just develop,
you know, opportunities to identify in spotlight some of those
(49:32):
up and coming voices who can give us the next
static shock, who can give us the next you know
Icon or you know Rocket, someone like that, who were
featured in milestone comics that gave nuance portrayals of blackness
in comic books, right like they gave us not just
this binary approach to life for black people, but so
much more of it. Gave us that world building aspect
(49:53):
that you find a lot with Hebrews character Flyboy. You know,
it's not just one character, it's a whole world of
experiences that we're looking to build. And so if we
can develop more programs like that and identify more up
and coming voices, I think that's a that's a start.
But like you said, you know, who knows when it
comes to television and film, I mean, the bottom line
is the dollar, and so we're always going to be
(50:14):
fighting that. Well, I think that's it's a good place
to end. And also, see w I forgot that you
gave us a lot of seasons of black lightning. I'm
sorry for raising my voice with that aside. Thank you
so much, Ashton Hebrew. Much respect to you. We look
forward to seeing your work and Black Panther Part three
(50:36):
and uh, I have my lawyers reach out to you.
Some of you work in my movie Jib Turkey Turkey,
Let's go he who might have a proof of concept
Right now, I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to
write myself in as a sidekick, so young Blood could
be a team of people. Are one person. I'll be here.
(50:57):
And where can we get the book? He Brew? Where
can people order the book? Your local bookstore, preferably you
know people, they still they still exist, folks, Please patronize,
you know, mom and pop bookshops. But other than that,
the bald white Man spot mister Bezos can go to
Amazon and pick one up right there, delivered right to you.
(51:19):
You know, there's so many weird names of businesses in
New York that I thought that was a real business.
I had to say that, all right, Oh man, it's
a great discussion. That's all the time we have for today.
Thank you all so much for going beyond the scenes
with us. Give me some theme music. Listen to the
(51:40):
Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore more shows from
the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show
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(52:02):
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