Kerry Washington Throws Black Actresses Under the Bus

Kerry Washington Throws Black Actresses under The Bus

Actress Kerry Washington, star of ABC’s hit show Scandal says there’s a need for more LGBT roles in Hollywood.

Let me get this straight: We have a Black actress telling media we need more Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender roles. When there are next to no quality roles for Black women in film and television these days.

The Bed Wench is strong in this one.

Hollywood needs more Gay Lesbian, Transgender and Bisexual roles like it needs more roles for White heterosexual males.

The truth is there have been LGBT roles in Hollywood since its inception. The movie Gilda Starring Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth back in the 1940s had heavy homosexual overtones. And movies like Some Like it Hot featured cross-dressing and homosexual undertones as well.

 Back in the 1970s Mark Hamill played a gay soldier on M*A*S*H. Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family was gay. The movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar featured a gay/bisexual man in the final act. And I Shot Andy Warhol is a film about Valerie Solanas, the Lesbian feminist who stalked and harassed artist Andy Warhol.

And let’s not forget recent feature films like the Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain. And all those gay male best friends in those romantic comedies featuring White Women and thrillers like Single White Female.

And there have been TV movies featuring like The Price of Love which centered around a gay male prostitute serving up fresh ass in Hollywood.

On television characters like Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Bill Brochtrup’s PAA character on NYPD Blue were cast regulars who regularly explored Gay and Lesbian relationships and storylines. On Roseanne, there was a gay relationship between Roseanne’s boss and another man. Steve Carey From the Drew Carey Show was a cross-dresser. Ellen Came out of the closet in 1997 of her show. And Miranda From Sex and the City was a lesbian in the later seasons of the show.

There have even been TV series featuring gay characters in lead roles. Tony Randall’s short-lived Love Syndney on NBC was a TV series revolving around a gay man. Not to mention the cable series Queer as Folk.

There have been LGBT actors since the inception of Hollywood who worked regularly. Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Raymond Burr, Caesar Romero, Jim Nabors, Liberace, Rock Hudson, Sheila James, Robert, Reed, George Takei and Tony Randall all worked regularly in top-rated television shows even during the McCarthy era of the 1950s and into the 1960s. While actors like Paul Winfield and Dick Sergeant, worked regularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Some even worked into the 1990s.

Even today openly Gay actors like Wentworth Miller work on hit TV shows like The Flash and no one blinks.

Kerry Washington in her statement shows how ignorant she is regarding LGBT issues in Hollywood. There have been plenty of roles featuring LGBT characters in Hollywood. And there have been plenty of opportunities for LGBT actors in Hollywood. Many of the executives who work behind the scenes are themselves LGBT and make every effort to look out for their friends and families.

The truth is there haven’t been many quality roles for Black women over the last 40 years. And Kerry Washington should be using her platform to discuss the shortage of quality roles for Sistas. But if she were to speak out about the lack of quality roles for Black actreses she’d be shown as the hypocrite she is. Here she is playing a Bed Wench on Scandal, a show produced by Shondra Rhimes, a Black woman who has made millions degrading the image of the Black woman on that show and the Viola Davis vehicle, How to Get Away With Murder.

And I doubt Gays Lesbians, Transgenders and Bisexuals need a heterosexual Black woman speaking for them. Gays like George Takei and Lesbians like Sheila James have been representing their own issues in Congress for decades. LGBT have been a strong economic and political force in America for the last two decades. Thanks to the resources they’ve used to lobby Congress with, they’ve been able to get legislation passed such as gay marriage and get their platform heard by the President of the United States. A President who enthusiastically advocated Gay marriage in the 2012 election.

Black actresses on the other hand have remained at the BOTTOM. Even with the success of Scandal and Empire, the Black actress remains the least paid and the least bankable at the box-office. So for Kerry Washington to NOT speak for the sistas says how much she hates herself.

With Black actresses like Kerry Washington putting their feet in their mouths it makes it that much more harder for quality projects for Black actresses to get greenlit. When the star of a top-rated television show tells the world that LGBT roles are more important than Black roles it shows how FUBAR things are in Black Hollywood.

What Solution Really Means To The Negro

As a manager and a publisher my job is to solve problems. However when it comes to the Black community I realize that most Negroes just don’t want the solutions to solve their problems.

To understand why the Negro does not want solutions, one has to understand the psychological disorder of co-dependency. What is Co-dependency? Co-dependency is when one partner relies excessively on another partner.

In this dysfunctional relationship one partner usually carries most of the emotional and in a lot of cases the financial load. Because one person is doing all the heavy lifting, both partners feel like they’re not getting their needs met.

The Negro is in a Co-dependent relationship with the White liberal. In this relationship the White liberal is his abuser. And the Negro is the victim. Like the abusive husband and his wife the co-dependent and the abuser participate in a vicious cycle of abuse and apologies over and over again.

Usually the co-dependent cycle between the Negro and the White Liberal runs like this: The White liberal abuses the Negro through his racist and White Supremacist policies.  The victimized Negro protests. The White liberal apologizes, tells him it’s not his fault and offers some sort of compensation such as a government program, or whatever crumbs he decides to toss from his table to pacify his Negro partner’s whining.

Seventy percent of Negroes come from single mother households where they saw a co-dependent relationship modeled for them with their parents. Even some of these Negroes from two-parent homes came from a home where co-dependency was their model for relationships.

The Co-dependent Negro does not want solutions. Why? Because being a victim is how a co-dependent person gets their needs met.

Solution means that things are done. The problem is solved. Game over. Finished Both people have to move on with their separate lives.

But a co-dependent person doesn’t want to move forward. The co-dependent person wants to continue going around and around in the vicious cycle of victim and abuser. Because they think that the only person who can help them get their needs met is the White Liberal.

Again solution means that the Negro no longer can go back to the master’s table to beg. The problem is solved. The person has to move on, go out and stand on his or her own two feet.

For the Negro, the victim is a position of power. It’s a way they believe they can gain leverage on their abuser. As they blame and shame them for their wrongs they can get “apology” gifts and other compensation from them.

Unfortunately, in the real world with the rest of the White and nonblack people who aren’t co-dependent; the position of the victim is not a position of power. It’s a position of weakness.

In the real world a victim is a powerless person. They are unable to meet their own needs or take control their own lives. They are unable to make choices about their own future. When people have to pull their weight in addition to their own both partners are slowed down and their growth is impeded. As the relationship progresses both partners reach a point where their lives stagnate.

The goal of problem solving is to get a person to a situation where they can become able to function on their own. Once the problem is solved, people can go on to focus on other issues. But with the Negro things often remain stagnant. He or she just never wants to move on. Because moving on means Change.

And a co-dependent person does not like change. Change means venturing into the unknown. Having to take responsibility for oneself. Having to take responsibility for the decisions one makes. Focusing on other issues that take priority now that the issue has been solved.

The Negro does not want solutions because that means his or her life paradigm will change. As long as they have that White racist straw man to blame for all their problems they can go back to his table and beg for whatever crumb that are dropped to him as part of the blame n’ shame game. Being a victim means they believe they can remain fed, clothed and cared for.

Instead of caring for themselves. Self-reliance is a journey into the unknown. And Co-dependent people don’t like anything that’s not guaranteed.

The natural process for a victim of a tragedy is to transition to a survivor. With counseling, survivors learn from their experiences, put the past behind them, and move forward. But the Negro’s journey stagnates at the victim stage so they never move forward. Thanks to White liberals, Black Pastors, and Pro-Black AFROSIMPTRICKS enabling the Negro with their excuse filled rants and diatribes they’ll never get to the point where they start making the steps towards recovery.

This cabal of enablers makes a majority of their money at the expense of keeping the Negro a victim. As long as The Negro believes they can’t do for themselves they can reap profits from doing for them. While the individuals in this Unholy Trinity argue amongst themselves they promote programs, job training and other grant money hustles to enrich themselves at the expense of the Negro’s ongoing victimization.

The co-dependent relationship between the Negro and his enablers is the real reason why the Black community has not grown in the last 50 years. In fact now it’s actually impeding the progress of White America. Co-dependency is a race to the bottom where both victim and abusers blame and shame game of finger pointing usually ends two ways when one or both individuals hit rock bottom or when either the abuser or victim die.

Rock bottom is a hard and horrible place. But I believe it’s the only solution for many of these co-dependent Negroes out here. Rock bottom is where people have no other place to go but die. It’s a place with no crutches, no excuses, and no point of return. A person cannot be a victim at rock bottom, it’s either get up and fight or die. Those who fight back survive and rise to the top. And those who won’t wind up falling on their knees.

When a person hits rock bottom they push past the enablers the excuse makers and the bullshitters and start doing the hard work of rebuilding their lives. I think it’s only when the Negro and Whites finally hit a true rock bottom they’ll finally start working on solutions to the issue of race in America.

Why Ghetto Gaggers Needs to GO

There’s a site where Black women are abused, degraded and even pretend to be raped by White racists. Some are forced to sit in their own filth while they are slapped, beaten and called nigger. What’s the name of this site? Ghetto Gaggers.

Now pornography is fake. But the racism expressed in the Ghetto Gaggers website is what makes it obscene. The mix of sex, racism and violence is what would disgust even the most hardened person in almost any community across this country.

Now the First Amendment of our Constitution allows for free speech and freedom of expression. But According to the law, what is obscene is based on community standards here in America. And when one looks at the Ghetto Gaggers website it clearly is obscene based on most middle American community standards. A site where Black women are called niggers, beaten like slaves, forced to perform oral sex until they vomit, brutalized during sex, simulating rape and forcing women to sit in their own waste goes beyond a fetish. It’s clearly what most Americans would consider obscene.

I believe if this were a site with White women being brutalized and portrayed as being called cracker bitches, slapped, forced to suck large penises until they vomited and pretending to be raped and sodomized by big muscular Black brutes it’d be shut down in less time to take to click on a the red X of a virus-free computer. Most webhosts would consider such a site obscene. And they’d make every effort to make sure that it wouldn’t be on their server.

So why is Ghetto Gaggers still online after so many years? Why is the Negro community so silent?

*Shawn is still trying to figure that one out.*

It’s funny how all these Black women find a blog I write discussing my reasons for why 70 Percent of Black women being single but will give this site a complete PASS.

Where are all the Negro leaders to protest this website? You know, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and the NAACP? Oprah Winfrey? Halle Berry? Angela Bassett? Queen Latifah? The Black queens of the Entertainment industry? Don’t any of these celebrities care about the image of the Black woman being TARNISHED this way?

Nope. Probably too busy degrading the Black woman’s image themselves by Buckdancing and being minstrels in their own Hollywood productions like Empire and The Butler.

And how about the Black feminists like bell hooks, Angela Davis, and Alice Walker? You know the “Skrong Independent Ejumukated Black women who are supposed to be the leaders of the Black community? Here’s a website degrading the image of the Black woman and all these Skrong Independent Ejumukatated women who are supposed to speak for the sistas are SILENT as a rat pissin on cotton.

But I guess they don’t want to offend their White husbands or their White girlfriends. Maybe they use Ghetto gaggers as inspiration for role-playing in the bedroom.

And what about your Black sororities? You know like AKA? Wouldn’t they be as offended about these White men abusing Black women like they were when rapper Nelly swiped a credit card between a Black woman’s butt cheeks in 2003? Shouldn’t there have been protests all over campuses across the country?

Funny how when it’s white men degrading Black women they’re silent as a rat pissin on cotton.

I guess most of those Black women are probably making an ass out of themselves on shows like Sorority Sisters. Or standing in line waiting to audition for this filth.

And how about your red, black and green beret wearing Pro-Black AFROSIMPTRICKS who pump their fist in the air? You known the revolutionaries always looking for a fight against the White Man? Don’t the Pro-Black AFROSIMPTRICKS™ want to look out for their Queens and goddesses? I guess they were picking up their made in Taiwan™ Kufis and Dashikis at the dry cleaners. Again, silent as a rat pissin’ on cotton.

Most of these revolutionary Negroes are too busy building imaginary empires with Korean Made Shea butter bricks bought on a White Woman’s dollar.

Or they’re sitting on that same White Woman’s sofa in front of a laptop arguing on Facebook, YouTube, and other social media with other Negroes trying to prove their intellectual superiority through shaming tactics and strings of fifty-cent words. Funny how when it’s time to actually take on a White man they hate so much these Pro-Black AFROSIMPTRICK Negroes are nowhere to be found. Their continuing SILENCE shows how serious they are about protecting the “goddesses and Queens” in their community.

How about the White feminists? You Know, Gloria Allred, Gloria Stienem and the big time advocates for Women’s rights? Don’t they want to look out for the rights of the Black woman? Don’t they have an issue with the depiction of violence against women?

Oh wait, these are Negro women. They’re whores by nature. So these White Women don’t give a shit. 

Or how about the big time Black YouTube and social media shines? Outside of a few voices of concerned brothers like RickScorpio back in the day, the more popular YouTubers haven’t had time to discuss this site on their channels or their four-hour Blogtalk radio shows filled with HOT AIR. Most of these Black males and females were too busy having their beefs and wars with each other to deal with a site that promotes the worst images about the Black woman. Shows you how much they care about the Sisterhood.

Now I meant to write this blog a while back, but I got caught up between books. And I’d hoped in that time all of these more popular Negroes on social media would use their influence to come together and mobilize the Black community to take action to get this site shut down. But since none of these Negroes in any of these groups who are so concerned about the Black community will say take any action to deal with the content on this obscene website, I guess I’ll have to discuss why it needs to be shut down before I write a letter to their webhost.

Yes, porn is protected by the First Amendment. And I’ve watched my fair share of it. Isis Nile, Milf Hunter, Milf Seeker and even Big Sausage Pizza. And while the Milf porn is cheesy fantasy based on a theme, the sex is always portrayed as consensual between the performers. However, the Ghetto Gaggers website features sex based on violence. There’s nothing sexually stimulating about portraying any woman being raped or humiliated.

And it’s the racism and violence aspects of Ghetto Gaggers that makes it obscene by a community’s standards as outlined in federal law. Showing a White man slapping, beating and calling a Black woman a nigger and forcing her to sit in her own filth is not something that can even be classified as adult entertainment. Heck, it can’t even be classified as a fetish. In any community regardless of race that had standards they’d classify these kinds of sexual acts depicted on film as obscene.

Unfortunately, the Black community has no standards. Which is why no one outside of a few decent Black men have protested against this website and discussed ways to get it shut down.

Any two-bit lawyer in a local municipality could easily use the points I made to argue to why Ghetto Gaggers should be shut down. And the site would be closed down on the order of the court because in any community the violence would make them consider it obscene.

But no one even has to go to court. What’s even crazier is that the standard for the World Wide Web for community standards is lower than a local municipality. All the host needs is a couple of thousand letters from people all over the world stating any of the facts I presented here and they’ll take the site off their servers. The last thing a webhost wants is a threat of a boycott of their other sites. Websites need foot traffic generated from clicks to sell advertising dollars to businesses. If one business costs the other sites on their servers to lose money, then they take that site off their servers. 

But because the Negro is too busy arguing over Junior High school nonsense on social media, they can’t take the time to use that same social media go after a website that degrades the image of the Black woman they profess to love so much. But I guess their continuing silence is how much they show a Black life matters to them.

Shawn James, The Lightskin/Darkskin Issue, and the Isis/E’steem Kickstarter

Last Saturday I was invited to a Facebook group  to promote my new Kickstarter. In minutes I had Negroes talking about how Isis and E’steem looked like White women. Then when I said E’steem was inspired by on Salli Richardson and Osiris was inspired by Samuel L. Jackson all of a sudden it devolved into a lightskin/darkskin argument. 

Needless to say I will not be coming back to that group again.

Seeing the way many of the Negroes reacted I thought of what YouTuber David Caroll said in one of his classic videos: The Negro does not want solutions.

Now I came to the page to promote the Kickstarter. To get donations for my project like I was invited to do so. But all that got LOST because the Negroes in that group I had the displeasure of dealing with had NO CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS.

I’m finding the so-called Lightskin/Darkskin issue is a Straw Man argument many Negroes use to minimize something that doesn’t fit into the narrative their DNC White Liberal Slave masters regard as Black. Unable to digest the ideas presented to them on my plate, they go for a breadcrumb or onion ring garnishing it and use it to pick apart the meat of the concept instead of trying the new and different ideas that are presented to them about being Black.

Instead of taking the time to look at my Kickstarter video and proposal, these Negroes decided to take a single promotional image and turn it into a scarecrow to try to tear down my work. Using the deflection of Lightskin/Darkskin as an excuse to not participate in helping me with the Kickstarter. Showing me that these Negroes out here don’t want to participate in the solution. All they want to do is complain about a problem unrelated to it.

Or better yet get me to stop talking to them about my issue. If I pressed these Negroes to put money on the table for that same Kickstarter all I’d get is a bunch of emotional excuses about how Isis and E’steem don’t look like them, It’s not their definition of Black or a bunch of AFROSIMPTRICK Slowtep Egyptian ideologies so far away from Egyptian Mythology it’s not funny. Some will even insist on talking to me changing my concept before they shelled out any money.

A character created like Isis created by a Black man rooted in Black history and Black culture not considered Black by Negroes but characters like Storm who are created by White men like Len Wien and Dave Cockrum are considered Black by Negroes.

Only in the Black community is where this kind of logic makes sense.

And while these Shines come to me insisting on arguing with me about a character’s skintones before they spend a dime on a Kickstarter, they’ll go out and spend $200 on Air Jordan Tennis shoes, buy $400 PS4s, $500 big screen TVs, $2000 designer purses, 40 ounces, and 2-piece chicken dinners from Whites and foreign business owners and never once ask them ONE single question about the quality of the substandard products they receive.

Oh, The Negro will have money ready for his White Liberal Slave Masters. But no money for a Black man like Shawn James. No, all the Negro has for Shawn are excuses. These same cowards will go to a message board far away from my Facebook page, official blog, or YouTube Channel to complain about book covers. But when I offer them an opportunity to help me solve the problem:

*CRICKETS*

Proving to me most of these Negroes do not want solutions. So they try to deflect by going into semantics to keep from discussing the heart of the matter. The resistance I ran into was not about light skin or Dark skinned Black characters. The resistance was to the idea of Black women who do not fit the stereotype narrative that their DNC White Liberal Slave masters present to them in minstrel shows like Empire, Scandal, and Tyler Perry movies. Women Black males can’t beat up on and say are the bitches and hoes oppressing them and Women Black females can’t turn into victims that have to be “strong and independent” because these Negroes can’t do shit for them.  

Because I am presenting a concept outside of the Negros’ co-dependent way of thinking they have to find some way to devalue it so they can go back to being the victim they believe themselves to be. Any person Black or White who dares present the Negro with an image or idea that a Black man can do for himself is someone the Negro does not want to deal with. Because people Black, White and nonblack may start asking that Negro to start taking responsibility for himself and doing for himself as well.

I ran into this same resistance and same Negro cowardice a year ago when I presented the Kickstarter for the Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddess cover. After that Kickstarter failed, I sold parts of my personal toy collection to get that cover done, some people talked about my accomplishments on a message board far, far away from my blog.

But no one bought the book. Most of the Negroes stayed AWAY from that book ALL SUMMER when I showed I could solve the problem by doing for myself. In fact, most people didn’t start downloading the book until I offered it for FREE on Kindle Unlimited as part of my holiday campaign. 

Again, showing me the Negro truly DOES NOT WANT SOLUTIONS.

I’m coming to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do for many Black people like the Negroes in the Facebook group I’m leaving. I’m trying to move forward so I don’t have time to argue and go back and forth with those who want to remain on the White liberal DNC slave plantation. I’m trying to build a business and reach those who want to connect with me and my work. I’ve reached people all over the world with the Isis series books, but sadly the Negro is the only one who won’t accept a story with a character designed in his own image by a Black man. He or she is too busy debating skintone to understand Black is Black and the perpetuation of any image made by us that is NOT a stereotype helps Black people move forward.

Lightskin or Darkskin, a person is still BLACK in here in White Supremacist America. And the Black Experience is as varied as the shades of brown in the spectrum. My mission as a writer and a publisher is to write and publish those stories about the African-American experience and show the world there’s more than one narrative to our stories. It’s a shame these Negroes in the TMI group got so caught up in the color of a characters’ skin that they couldn’t take a moment to read the Isis series stories and see the content of the characters.

When it comes to this Facebook group I’m going to shake the dust off my feet Hit the Leave group button and move on. I don’t have time for Negro nonsense.

STOP SIMPIN SECOND EDITION COMING MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND!

I’ve been real busy on the Stop Simpin Second Edition. The first draft of the eBook is about 75% complete. I’m planning a Memorial Day weekend release for it. Just in time for the Summer dating season.

Like the other books in the Simp Trilogy, The second edition of Stop Simpin will be FREE on Smashwords. My goal is to reach as many men as possible with this title and help them learn how to break free of the Simp paradigm. I know a lot of men don’t have fathers in their lives and they don’t have other men like uncles or older brothers around them to teach them these valuable lessons in manhood. So I make every effort to share the information in these books with readers at no cost.

Unfortunately, Kindle and Nook users will have to pay $2.99 due to their policy which forces me to set a price. Like Why 70 Percent of Black women are Single, the reason for the price increase is because I had to do a lot of research on this one, like reading Dr. Robert Glover’s No More Mr. Nice Guy, Steve Harvey’s ridiculous Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, the Eliot Rodger Manifesto (A plethora of data on the mind of a SIMP and how they think), watching several movies like The Last American Virgin again, and I even picked up some interesting facts from the reality show Snapped and ABC’s 20/20. The game is always changing and I wanted to make sure I had the most up-to-date information on the Simp and Trick Paradigm.

The Stop Simpin Second Edition will be JAM PACKED with ALL NEW content. Almost 95% of the eBook is BRAND NEW text. The first Stop Simpin was a rough eBook put together around some of my earlier blogs.  But I wanted the theme and tone of the new eBook to be consistent with my other more popular nonfiction eBooks like Manginas: They Think Like Men But they Act Like Ladies, The Misadventures of Captain-Save-A-Hoe, and Why 70 Percent of Black women are Single. Those eBooks were planned out and had much more comprehensive information.  

With all the new content I’m also pondering a title change. I learned a lot more about Simps and Tricks over the last few years and all that information is why the book is more thorough and comprehensive. The book is so different in tone and style than the original Stop Simpin which was a bit more basic and designed for teens and tweens who were starting to date. I believe the earlier boys learn about the Simp and Trick paradigm the faster they’ll break free from the cycle. If possible maybe they won’t even start Simpin.

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from men all over the world on the Simp Trilogy and even some ladies. People have hit me up on Facebook, Twitter and social media telling me how the books in the Simp Trilogy have helped them in their lives. That means a lot to me and is one of the reasons I’m so motivated to keep writing these kinds of books and blogs. 

Bring On The Bad Guys- How a Villains have an IMPACT on Comic and Fantasy Storytelling

Corresponding video on YouTube: 

If you read many superhero comics today many feature it’s super-heroes spending 20 pages fighting other superheroes. In this gray area one hero will spend an entire issue fighting another hero to stand for their ideologies and personal beliefs. With “good” guys fighting other “good” guys one has to wonder: What happened to the Super-Villain in American Comics?

Thanks to the gray area, most of today’s superhero comics are downright confusing. “Good” guys fight each other. “Bad” guys fight for good. “Good” Guys sometimes go bad. There is no clear sense of right or wrong and no clear line of demarcation between good and evil. That makes a comic universe like Marvel or DC’s a pretty confusing place to be in and impossible for the new reader to access.

From what I’ve seen from many modern creators they spend almost all of their time focusing on their heroes. They give them a great costume, amazing powers and a fantastic origin. However, while they focus all their effort on developing their protagonist, they don’t spend as much time and energy on developing their antagonist or building a rogues gallery. And because they don’t take the time to develop their bad guys oftentimes their comic falls apart before the first word of the first story is written.

Superhero comic creators and writers need to understand that villains are just as important as the hero in a comic book story paradigm. And if the villain doesn’t get as much character development as the hero does the entire story collapses. When the bad guy has no real motivation to take on the good guy or they have a faulty motivation to challenge the hero the story just doesn’t work. Because many writers just don’t know how to write a strong villain, they cover up their lack of craft by having to have two heroes fight each other.

Why are villains important to the comic book paradigm? Because villains create conflict. And conflict is what drives a story to its conclusion. In some cases the villains’ conflict is what creates the inciting incident, the event that starts the story and introduces the main character and the obstacles they face in achieving their goal.

From a story perspective villains make the reader ask questions. What is their master plan? Why do they think it’ll work this time? Why are they trying to take over the world? Why are they targeting the hero? Why do they hate the hero?  Why do they want to make them pay? And how will the hero overcome the obstacles the bad guy throws in front of them?

And most importantly they make the reader ask why should we CARE? If the antagonist can’t establish a great conflict from the first few pages then there’s no incentive for the reader to have the motivation to continue reading the comic or even finish the storyline. The hero may get people to BUY a comic but it’s the villain who SELLS comics. If they can’t make us EXCITED about the obstacles they throw in the heroes’ way then there’s no incentive for the reader to keep buying a comic series.

Villains also create contrast. A well-crafted heel is often the polar opposite of the hero. They represent a twisted mirror image of the heroes’ ideologies and approaches to life. They show us what could possibly happen if the hero made that “wrong” choice instead of that “right” choice to do the right thing.

Villains also form relationships with the hero. The contrast between heroes and villains often forms many of the core relationships that drive the story in a comic series. As they fight to stand for their ideologies and approaches to life in their struggles for and against Truth and Justice it often leads to leads to great chemistry being built between the hero and the villain. This usually creates the “heat” in a feud or series of feuds which keeps readers coming back to read more of the heroes’ adventures.

It’s this “heat” in these feuds that lead to the formation of an archenemy or a rogues gallery. As these feuds intensify they build a characters’ popularity. 

One of the biggest mistakes comic creators make is making their bad guys one-dimensional. They spend so much time focusing on making the hero great, that the villain is usually seen as a one-dimensional punching bag they use to showcase how powerful the hero is. But bad guys need character development and backstory too. While most creators want people to identify with the hero and their struggles people also need to identify and relate to villains’ struggle too. People need to like the bad guy just as much as they like the good guy. It may sound crazy, but some people like bad guys. And they like them because they can do the things they want to do but can’t. Watching them break all the rules allow them a form of catharsis.  

When I start writing a story these days for the Isis series I usually start writing my outline with the villain first. Why? Because the bad guy is the one who drives the conflict. Their motivation to get what they want usually gives Isis the major obstacle she has to overcome in the story.

Sometimes I use the villains in the Isis series to establish the story. In stories like Isis: The Ultimate Fight I’ll use a villain like Nemesis to create the inciting incident and their goal is what creates the obstacles that’ll get in Isis’ way as she fights to stand for what she believes in.

In other cases I’ll use the villain’s relationship with Isis to establish the story in their feud. In Isis: The Beauty Myth, it was Raheema Sanders an atheist, became jealous of Isis when she learned she was a goddess. Things got downright personal as the two women fought to stand for their beliefs and core values. This relationship was further developed in Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddess as Raheema sought to use science to prove that she could attain the same power as a god escalating the feud between the two women. And at the end of both stories, readers saw what defined Isis as a hero as she overcame the challenge of the Cybergoddess.

In most cases I do whatever I can to make the bad guys just as likeable and relatable as Isis herself. The way I see it, readers need to love the hate the bad guy just as much as they love rooting the good guy. I make every effort for people to see the humanity in the bad guy and understand how they’re feeling so the reader can connect with them in the same way they connect with Isis. I want readers to have the most objective picture of the story and come to a conclusion why the bad guy lost and why the hero won at the end of the story.

The way I see it a good rogues gallery is filled with memorable bad guys with strong personal motivations for disliking or even hating the hero. It’s these motivations that keep people coming back to buy more comics and read more stories. The cornerstone to a good comic or fantasy/Sci-fi story are the bad guys and I urge aspiring writers to focus developing them first. Because without the bad guy to focus on the heroes’ weaknesses, we’ll never see how truly strong they are as a character. 

Kickstarter Update: Isis: Night of the Vampires Cover Concept Art

 In late February I announced the Isis/E’steem series Crossover Kickstarter. And I’ve been busy promoting the event and the Isis series books. If I can get one thousand people to donate one dollar we can meet this goal!

I’ve been doing concept art for the Isis: Night of the Vampires cover. The first concept using my Isis and John Haynes custom action figures is close to the concept I want the artist to use. In the concept I want the artist to draw Isis and John would be posed together in the center dressed in formal wear and the Vampires would be surrounding them to attack. The concept would feature about five to six figures and feature lots of action!  

I still have a lot of art to do. Like this model sheet of Isis in a little black dress. I still have model sheets of formal John Haynes and the vampires Lilith, Carlotta and Vance to do along with D’lilah’s model sheet. 

I also have to do a draft of the E’steem: Undercover cover. That’ll be up on the next update.

Both the Isis: Night of the Vampires and E’steem: Undercover manuscripts have been finished since January 2015. The pages have been laid out and the PDFs have been uploaded to Amazon’s CreateSpace and Amazon’s KDP. The only thing I need to do is get a quality cover from a professional artist for both books. The response to Bill Walko’s Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddes cover was extremely positive last year. And I’d like to take that momentum into this year’s Isis/E’steem crossover event.

If the Kickstarter gets funded, and I can hire an artist to design both the covers, both Isis: Night of the Vampires and E’steem: Undercover should get scheduled be released around June in paperback. Both books will be part of KindleUnlimited by then and available for anyone to borrow with Prime. When the 90-day term ends Isis: Night of the Vampires and E’steem: Undercover will head to a broader release on Smashwords and Nook.

 I’ll try to get all the paperback books for the rewards shipped to everyone by the July 4 weekend at the earliest and August at the latest. That’s a lot earlier than the September 2015 deadline.

I’ve heard a lot about how people use Kickstarter as a hustle and ripped off donors, but I’m not one of those guys. When the Isis: Wrath of the Cybergoddess Kickstarter failed last year, I sold parts of my toy collection to pay for the cover and I delivered the paperback and featured it on several YouTube Videos. The same way I built up a positive reputation on eBay with I want to build up one on Kickstarter. I will do everything in my power to make sure that everyone gets their books if this project gets funded. 

I really need everyone’s support on this project. Again If one thousand people donate one dollar a piece I can still meet this goal. With everyone’s help I can make this year’s Isis/E’steem crossover a success!

Creating Black Comic Book Characters Vs. Creating Comic Characters That are Black

In the Comic book industry there are often complaints about the lack of diversity in between the panels of the funny books. And the result is publishers usually creating “Black” characters to fill the void in the seemingly all-White world of Comics. Unfortunately the result of creating these “Black” characters is usually an ancillary token character most readers of any race don’t relate to or identify with outside of the color of their skin. Walking, talking stereotypes or underdeveloped supporting characters that get next to no direction and really don’t grow past a certain point. Characters whose dialogue can be exchanged with another Black character and they could say the exact same thing.

 However, when a writer and creator like myself creates a character who is Black we see the content of their character. That allows the reader to have a richer more multi-dimensional reading experience as they develop and evolve in a story.

What’s the difference between creating a Black character and a character who is Black? A big one in the creative process for writers like myself. When a writer is creating a character who is Black there is more of a focus on the content of their internal character traits than the color of their skin. A writer focuses more on personality, “voice” and the internal components of the character more than the race of the character.

And when these internal components of the character are pushed to the forefront readers relate to and identify with a character on a personal level. And instead of race, they start seeing people they can connect with and experiences that are just like theirs. From my experience seeing characters from this perspective has a direct impact on the story and how it’s told.  

I started writing using this technique with a screenplay I wrote called All About Marilyn in 2007. And as I applied this technique I saw a significant change in how I was telling the story. As I focused more on the internal content of Marilyn Marie’s character her “voice” was a lot stronger than that of previous Black characters I’d created and the character had a lot more depth and dimension.

Because of the focus on the content of Marilyn’s character readers were drawn in and became more immersed in the story than previous stories I had written. Literary elements like irony, foreshadowing and symbolism became a lot clearer for the reader to see and the story being told was a lot clearer for the reader to see. The end result was a richer, more multi-dimensional reading experience. When I published the All About Marilyn paperback in 2009 readers of all races were able to relate to and identify with her story and connect with her on a human level.  

Over the years I refined this writing technique on fantasy novels such as The Temptation of John Haynes, contemporary novels such as The Thetas and the books in the modern Isis series. In every book the result was a richer reading experience for readers where readers saw Black characters as people, not their skin colors.

Just recently when I used this technique on Isis :Wrath of the Cybergoddess I found myself so immersed in the story that the characters came to life as I wrote them! “voices” of the characters were strong, and the action scenes practically wrote itself. And instead of it being a story with “Black” Characters it became a story about people.

When a writer writes a story seeing characters as Black they aren’t watering down their creative process. Yes, a writer is still talking about Black issues and Black culture in the characters’ adventures. But the primary focus is telling a characters’ individual story not telling the story of the entire Black race. So the pressure is OFF the writer or creator in making a Black character that represents ALL Black people to the world. They can just tell their stories without thinking it is going to be THE story of the Black experience or THE character that represents all Black people, but one of many stories about Black people and the many Black cultures in America.

The big problem with creating just “Black” characters is that they are designed to represent one monolithic view of Black people and Black culture. And oftentimes due to a nonblack creator having limited experiences with Black people the result is a very underdeveloped character that comes from a very general view of Black culture. That really limits diversity when it comes to story. There are many unique and different experiences and stories that never get any exposure in this model, and that prevents readers from getting the diversity that will give them a broader perspective on the Black culture and the Black experience.

But when a writer or creator like myself designs characters that are Black they get that broader perspective on Black culture and the Black experience. Readers get to see a diverse world of Black people who share different views and different perspectives. That diversity gives them an insight into how others see the world.

When I apply this process to my character creation and character development the result usually are balanced humanized characters that have a lot more depth and dimension than a traditional Black character. Characters that are Black evolve into people the reader wants to be their best friend or their girlfriend. Readers form relationships with people they like and care about and they want to spend more time with them when they read my books. Some even ponder if that character will be back for another story!

With African-American characters I find there’s a desperate need for balance in their creation and design in the comic book and fantasy industry. When a writer or creator like myself focuses more on the content of a character’s internal character traits rather than the color of their skin it allows readers to see them as people instead of stereotype caricatures. From the different viewpoints the characters express the reader gets to experience true diversity that flows organically into a universe and makes the stories in that world all that more richer.