What was the problem with Toys r us?

When we came out with Brotherman it was groundbreaking at the time because no one was doing what we were doing. We weren’t waiting for distributors to get Brotherman in the stores. We were going directly to the major U.S. cities doing all these tours and book signings and selling like thousand of books so the comic industry could never trace our sales because we didn’t sell solely thru Diamond and Capital and all those distributors. We were selling more books at a black expo in a weekend than a major comic distributor would order. After a while, we’d be at the black expos picking up new distributors and Toys ‘R Us used to go to the expos. They’d send sales people to look at new products to see if they could carry it in stores. In ‘91 we met a rep who dug Brotherman and said they were starting a comic book division in Toys R Us. So they ordered a whole bunch of comics from us and they said sales were brisk and Brotherman was flying off the shelves at Toys ‘R Us. Then all of a sudden, there was a freeze put on the sales of Brotherman and they were coming back with some lame excuses. They said someone didn’t like the book or said the book was racist and they were coming with all these different reasons which tells you there was no reason. Someone else said it was violent but I said our book basically has no violence. Someone said it was profane but there was no profanity in the book because it was geared towards families. I was like you guys gotta come up with a real excuse. Once our fans found out what was going on they were protesting around the country about it and radio stations led some of the boycotts. A lot of the same people who were doing press on Brotherman were investigating and calling Toys R Us. Then they tried to say we’ll carry the books in the store but we get to censor your material but there was nothing to censor. I said what about Tales from the crypt? I said you guys have all kinds of stuff in there and the bottom line is it’s a black comic book and a black company owns it. If Marvel or DC owned it, I know it will be a different story. It was one of the cases where it became a big mess but at the same time it didn’t stop us so I don’t harp on things like that. But there were a lot of things like that which were happening. A lot of people were trying to stop our company and slam our product and it was prevailing regardless. One of the main reasons we stopped publishing it is because my parents passed away and it was a family business. Because it was a family business, it was hard to separate that. They passed a year apart from each other so for me I wanted to go on hiatus from working on Brotherman because it was strenuous. A lot of the issues were drawn [in a van]. My brother might be driving and I’d be in the back of the van going thru the Tennessee mountains on the way to an expo working on the next issue. I never drew the book in the atmosphere that I do now. I go into Cartoon Network now [and] nobody bothers me so I can make the drawings real tight. I can clean them up and all that and I always think it would have been nice if I could have worked on Brotherman like this. It was more like guerilla tactics working on Brotherman. That’s why now where I’m at I can’t wait to get back into doing production because I think the re-release of it is going to look totally different. It will still have the original feel but there are so many things I learned that I’m going to apply to the book to make it stand out. But I’m not really focused so much on comic books I’m thinking more in terms of multimedia, internet, animation, music production. We make our own tracks and voiceovers because we are a full-fledged production company. I look at comic books as a vehicle to sell a concept relatively cheap and then after you get people hooked on that you hit them with the merchandising and the multimedia elements later on.

We noticed that book was in black in white was that for financial reasons or were you trying to make a statement?

It was kinda a combination of the two. Brotherman came out on a shoestring budget. I quit my computer graphics job in 1989 to be this entrepreneur. So the money I made from my graphics job I invested and said we are gonna make this thing happened. I didn’t know anybody who did comic books expect this one brother from Philly. His comics were in black and white so I didn’t even know how full color comics were made back then. All I knew about full color was airbrushing and acrylic painting and it was much more costly to do color back then. So we went the black and white route and then I kinda liked the look of black and white because my mindset then was I’d rather be compared to MAD magazine than Marvel comics because their art was more loose but the characters felt more real and that’s what I always admired. I never thought of Brotherman being in the category of Batman, Superman or the Hulk. I think now if I came back with it [now though] I would do it in color.

I noticed a lot of pictures that you drew like the exaggerated high top fades and the huge earrings sold by Gaudy Jewelers. Were you taking shots at materialism in the hood or is that just what you felt was humorous?

I don’t look at it as taking a shot at it. I look at it for what it is. [It’s] the whole concept of being flamboyant. I don’t look at it as something bad. If that’s their thing that’s their thing but I always look at things differently. I would look at things in terms of who’s getting paid on the other end. Like with the earrings it’s a gaudy look its not really taking a shot at it, it’s a play on it and an exaggeration. I didn’t want things to look ordinary so I would over exaggerate everything. I didn’t get a chance to put it in the book but I had cars with sound systems falling out the windows with giant rims and the amps were so fat it may drag the back of the car and the vibration of the bass would make it bounce instead of hydraulics. That’s how I used to think it would look on film. I wanted everything to be exaggerated to the max, like the police drive four to a car because there is not enough money for every officer to have their own car so some of them have to pair up. The city he lived in is supposed to be the epitome of corruption.

A lot of the stuff you did back then is still relevant today and it’s still just as funny. One of the things I remember is the billboard on how you can get credit and then the next billboard was about how creditors are coming to take your stuff. That’s funny but that’s really how it is it seems.

Yea it was a father, mother and kid, they have the car, they’re all happy, and in the next billboard they’re in barrels taking the subway. Me and my brother Guy would just come up with tons of stuff. I think its relevant [now] because we wanted to deal with timeless issues. I remember when we first came out people asked if Farrakhan in the book and I said he doesn’t exist. It has nothing to do with anybody that exists in our world because it’s a fictitious world. There may be somebody like him in there and if there was I wouldn’t be making fun of him it would just be someone that has his persona. Farrakhan is timely because he is real.

Since Brotherman was a family business what were some of the positives and negatives working with family?

I like working with family when you have people who can play the role they are supposed to play and you know that person. My brother Guy and I have been doing stuff for years where he always wrote stuff and I did the pictures. I’ve worked with other writers and it was a bit more of a challenge to get into their head but with my brother when he says something I already know what he is saying. He might be like remember the dude who used to live across the street from us back in the day and [its like] say no more. I know what he is talking about because we have a shared history and that was the plus. [On the other hand] sometimes I wanted to branch out because I had my views on things and a particular direction I’m going and my brother may have a direction he’s going and at a point you have to say you gotta do your thing and I have to do my thing. That might be a downside but those things happen.

What inspired you to develop the “Drawing From the Soul” instructional art video?

That actually goes back to when I went to Tyler School of Art in Philly. I didn’t finish school for a couple of reasons. One was financial and the other was that I didn’t feel like I vibed with the environment. I learned a lot from dudes that didn’t go to art school. I was a fine arts major all thru high school. But after high school when I started doing the airbrushing I was meeting graffiti writers all over the city and me and this one brother donamecci used to paint denim jackets. I learned a lot about painting from him that I didn’t learn from my art teacher in high school. This brother just learned from painting on walls and he was forcing colors to work that I was told you weren’t supposed to do. He kinda help me strip away those concepts of what you’re supposed to do and what you’re not supposed to do. I always remembered him for that. Other brothers like him used to come along and it started as challenges. Some guys that I’m real cool with now when we met it was like sketchbook challenges. You would go down with your sketchbook and say can you get with this. Then I’d have to go home and meet up with them next week and be like ahh now look. It was all fun and we used to talk about it and say I wish there was an art school where we can be more expressive about who we are as opposed to feeling we have to do the whole traditional way of learning. I remember talking to my father about that and he said you may have to be the one to do it. And I said alright I guess I will and it was a long journey. It was always in my mind and that’s when the seed was planted. In ‘95 I had my first art classes where I was teaching kids in the neighborhood and it went over real well because I was teaching them the basics because I understood them. I don’t try to defy perspective, compositions or gesture drawings. I have them do all of that and try to show them the significance of it. At the same time, I tried to get them to be more expressive, dig into their experiences, talk about what they are and what they want to do. When I started getting more into African history, I started understanding why I connected with that brother don amechi. Maybe he did not recognize it at the time but it was really his African self coming out. He was doing what was innately in his soul so I started bringing that aspect into the classroom. They were learning more about African history and how it related to who they are now and the things that they want to produce. They want to draw the baggy jeans and what’s hot [and] I’m telling them understand what you’re drawing underneath the jeans. You have to understand how the human body works because the baggy jeans are a fad. Styles change and you don’t want to focus just on drawing jeans, you want to know how to draw people so that way when styles change all you have to do is draw different styles. I finally got out the “Drawing From the Soul” video in 2001 and Now after the first episode I’m even more refined in how I teach. [For episode 2] I plan on going to DVD. The responses I am getting is real positive. I have distributors who distribute [the video] to schools all-around country. A lot of individuals get it and call me up and say their children love the video and like the approach saying it is easy to learn and easy to follow which makes me feel good because it is going to be a continuing series. I’m working on the second installment and I have a whole vision statement laid out in terms of the growth of the project

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Posted by Halftime on Sunday, December 14th, 2003 and is filed under SLICK TALKIN'.