“Free Comic Book Day is about you, O person who hasn't set foot in a comics shop in years, or ever. It's the industry's attempt to change that state of affairs: Walk into a participating shop this Saturday, and they will hand you a bunch of free comics. Or maybe just one free comic. Or maybe they'll let you pick from a table heaped with piles of free comics. The point is: Free comics! Woo!”
—Which Comics Should I Get? Your Free Comic Book Day Cheat Sheet : Monkey SeeRemember Erika Alexander From TV’s ‘Living Single?’ She Writes Graphic Novels Now
blackthespian.comErika was best known for her role as Maxine Shaw on the show and we recently found out what she’s been up to; she’s been putting her efforts into creating a graphic novel series called Concrete Park.
According to ClutchMagOnline.com, Erika teamed up with her husband, Tony Puryear, and her brother, Robert, to create the series set in the future where humanity is threatened to be demolished by gangs. Concrete Park features two female leads: Luca, a gang leader and her lesbian partner, Lena, along with a host other multicultural characters who struggle to survive their harsh environment.
In a Q&A with Comic Book Therapy, Alexander says she’s been writing for 20 years, but the idea for her graphic novel came from movies and works by Octavia Butler.
“Tony, my brother and I share the co-creator credit,” said Alexander. “We just made something we wanted to see. We were all inspired by films like City of God. Octavia Butler’s work was a big influence. Another important touchstone for us is old soul music.”
When asked if Concrete Park will ever make its way to the big screen, Alexander said, “We are filmmakers. So we think in moving pictures, but right now we are focused on making Concrete Park the best graphic novel we can for our publisher and our fans.”
This sounds succulent and juicy! “We are livinnn..sin-gle…”
5 Things Faith Erin Hicks Learned While Drawing NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG
1) Robot fight scenes are the hardest things to draw ever.
Over the past five years of working fulltime in comics, I’ve drawn a wide variety of things. Summer camps, creepy alien birds, graveyards, ships, ghosts, schools, ponies …. but nothing is as difficult to draw as two killer robots fighting to the death. Robots are hard enough to draw when they’re standing still, but drawing them flying through the air to do battle? I may have broken down weeping over my drawing desk a few times.
2) It’s important to escape the drawing desk every now and then.
I really love my job of making comics. I probably love it a little too much, because when I’m away from my drawing desk and not making comics, I’m mostly thinking about all the comics I’m going to make when I get back to the studio. This is kind of terrible and unhealthy! I got serious about running while drawing Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, and can now jog 8 kilometers at a pretty good clip. I’d like to jog 10 kilometers at some point this summer. I hate jogging in the winter (I live in the often freezing cold Canadian city of Halifax), but in the summer it’s wonderful to get outside and spend some time with things that aren’t comics. Like the sun, and grass, and the ocean and even other people! Then I can go back to making comics.
3) I need to do better with diversity in my comics.
I was on a panel at a recent comic festival about diversity in comic books, which is a huge issue. Comics struggle a lot with representing different people, different ethnicities, different sexualities, and it’s something I want to do better. One thing that was brought up at the panel was the idea that diversity shouldn’t mean just making sure that “your group” is represented, it should be that all people are represented. I thought that was really important and useful. I’ve been very focused on women in comics (we are pretty underrepresented), and I feel I’ve been successful in making lots of comics with women and girls in them, and encouraging my fellow Lady Cartoonists. Now I need to look beyond that, and do a better job of representing the diversity of the world around me.
4) Collaborating is great fun.
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is the first adaptation I’ve done of someone else’s story. It was really fun to dive into a fully formed story where I didn’t have to do too much reshaping, and just start drawing. Prudence did most of the heavy lifting for me already! All I had to do was beat her story into graphic novel shape.
5) I am a sucker for a cute boy and a geeky girl.
So, spoilers, but two characters in Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong get together in the end. That was not in Prudence’s original story, but I snuck it in at the end because I am a geeky girl, and I like seeing the geeky girl get the cute boy. Also I may secretly want Prudence to write a Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong fanfiction (can you do fanfic of your own book?) about Nate and Holly dating. Because that would be hilarious.
Find out more about the graphic novel at the official website for Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong.
On sexism in comics - in class argument
- Dude 1: I don't get why we have to consciously hate or even notice comics that have sexy female superheroes. I mean, it's not like she's OVER sexual (about black widow, btw)
- Dude 2: It's not about comics as a thing, it's how women are portrayed everywhere! FFS you have a sister, would you like seeing her in this pose? If this weren't oversexualized you wouldn't mind, now would you? In fact, would you like to see your sister being any female superhero?
- Dude 1: That's different, she's nine years old
- Dude 2: Nine year old boys wear spiderman costumes
- Dude 1: ...
- Class: *breaks into applause*
