The Underepresentation Of Black Women In Animation Manga, Comics, Fantas...

SJS DIRECT 2018 BOOK UNBOXING & 2019 SNEAK PREVIEW!

An Offer To Write Comics I Had To Refuse

Are Novelists Better At Storytelling than Comic Book Writers?

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Some people say that writing novels is better than writing comic books. That being a novelist is better than being a comic book writer.

I don’t know about that.

I’m a novelist. And I’m a screenwriter. And I’m also a blogger. And over the last 25 years as I’ve written and published over eight novels, six nonfiction books, two screenplays, scripts for two seasons of a TV series, three series of novelettes and hundreds of articles I always held out hope that one day I’d finally get the opportunity to write a comic book.

I never thought it was a step down writing comics like some elitists in the literary crowd believe them to be. I never thought that novels were better than comic books.  For me, comics, novels, and movies were all the same thing: stories.  

As I see one medium isn’t better than another. It’s how a writer tells a story in that medium that makes it great. A great writer can use the same storytelling approaches in comic books that they use in a novel. And they can utilize many of the great story elements like irony, foreshadowing, symbolism and in a comic book the same way they do when they’re writing a novel. It’s the skill of the writer that makes the story great, not the medium they tell that story in.

A bad novelist like E.L. James can give us the Fifty Shades books. While a great comic writer like Alan Moore can give us Watchmen.

When I was four years old, my brother’s comic books were my gateway to reading. And as I got older they were my motivation to start writing. The main reason why I started writing when I was nine because I couldn’t draw the pictures in comic books. So I made the pictures with words. And as I learned how to translate the pictures I imagined in my head into words on a page I always wondered what they’d look like on the page of a comic book.

When I couldn’t break into the comic book industry in my twenties I spent over two decades refining my craft writing novels, screenplays and blogs working towards the goal of writing comics one day. The way I see it writing novels, nonfiction, screenplays and blogs over the last 25 years doesn’t make me a better writer than a comic book writer. It doesn’t put me in higher position than a comic book writer. It’s just how I learned the craft of storytelling.

What most people don’t know is most of my characters like Isis, John Haynes and E’steem were originally supposed to be comic book characters. But because I couldn’t get work in the industry I wound up turning them into characters in novels instead.

Over the last four years I got a chance to see what my words would look like as pictures in a comic book on all the covers that Bill Walko designed for the Isis series and the covers Mike Williams designed for The Legendary Mad Matilda and JohnHaynes: A Conversation With Death. The story for those covers came from the words I wrote (and crappy drawings) I drew. And those stories got comic fans and everyday people paying attention to my stories and buying my work.

Seeing the stories being told on Bill and Mike’s covers showed me that I could use all the skills I learned from working on novels and screenplays to tell a story in the comic book medium. And I believe could be part of a team that told a great story in a comic book if given the chance. As I was writing Isis: All That Glitters novelette I took everything I learned from screenwriting and writing novels and started working on my first comic script. And with the Isis: All That Glitters Graphic novel I wanted to give readers a comic that was like an Isis series book come to life in pictures. I studied everything I could about comics as I worked on that script so that it could be as well crafted as one of my Isis series books.

What I’m working towards now with the upcoming Isis indiegogo is the opportunity to finally see how one of my stories would be told from comic panel to comic panel.  With the reimagining of the oldschool bank robber comic book story in Isis: All That Glitters I want to give readers the action-packed all-ages comic book I used to read when I used to go to the grocery store in Junior High and the newsstand at Times Square when I was 14. The kind of comic that turned me into a lifeflong comic fan. And the kind of comic I hope will make readers longtime Isis fans.

The way I see it, a good story will translate from one medium to the next. And with the Isis Indiegogo I’m hoping to finally see Bill Walko turn my words into the pictures I couldn’t draw. I’d love to see this project gets funded next year so I can finally share one of my stories in the comic book I wanted to write ever since I was nine years old.

Isis: All That Glitters and E’steem Goddess of? Covers by Bill Walko

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Last week I got the final cover art for Isis: All That Glitters And E’steem Goddess of?  from Bill Walko and they look AWESOME!

Bill did an AMAZING job on both these covers. The action on the Isis: All That Glitters cover is just like I imagined it in my head when I wrote the confrontation between Isis and Golden Shine in the first chapter. The evil grin on Golden Shine’s face has me worried for the goddess next door! How’s she gonna get out of this one?

I love all the little details in this picture that tell the story, from the broken silver safe to the contrasting gold walls and the sparkling floor to the worried people looking out the window. The scared little girl and her mom and the people recording the upcoming carnage tell a compelling story in a single image that screams BUY ME to the customer. And you definitely want to buy this one because it’s an updated take on the old superhero vs. bank robbers story!

All I can say about the E’steem Goddess Of? cover is that it’s a MASTERPIECE. This one reminds me of the old 1970s Marvel Comics I used to read in my brother’s comic collection.

There’s a great story in this picture. The Island of Solitude looks serene, but the action between E’steem and Avarisk The Tormentor is intense! With this cover Bill took an idea I imagined and took it to another level!

 You literally feel like you’re on vacation in the South Pacific looking at this cover. The bikini clad E’steem looks like an animated version of Salli Richardson Whitfield (the actress who inspired E’steem) and Avarisk, The Tormentor’s costume POPS off the page like an oldschool Marvel super-villian. This cover screams BUY ME to the reader and tells them come back for the next book and the back issues too!  

Looking at Bill’s work on both these covers has me anticipating what his work would look like in the pages of an Isis Graphic novel. Bill tells a great story with pictures and his images are so dynamic it’s like they’re animated! I would love to see what he does with 62 pages of a comic book! I’m hoping everyone donates to the upcoming indiegogo for the Isis graphic novel next year, because the comic I want to share with you is going to be a CLASSIC!

Isis: All That Glitters and E’steem Goddess of? Will be available in spring of 2019 in paperback and KindleUnlimited. And if we can get the indiegogo funded the Isis graphic novel will be available in 2019 too!

Crunching The Numbers On The Isis Graphic Novel Indiegogo

Coming in 2019!

Over the last few weeks as I’ve been packing boxes for my move from Morrisania to Parkchester I've been working out the logistics and crunching the numbers for the Isis Graphic novel.  And I’m definitely gonna have to do an indiegogo to raise the money to publish it.

I definitely want to hire Bill Walko to do the art for the Isis graphic novel. Bill has done an AMAZING job on all the Isis and E’steem series covers and people just love his work. His art is bold, dynamic and puts a smile on readers’ faces. I believe if we work together on this project we can tell a great story that showcases my writing and his art.

To comission Bill it works out to about $9300.

After Bill does the art, I also have to hire a colorist to color Bill’s work. Most colorists charge about $100 a page. That’s another $6200.

In addition to I have to hire a letterer to do the special effects and the word ballons. That’s about $50 a page. That’s about $3100.

Then I have to hire a proofreader to look the finished files over. Their rates can be anywhere from $10-100 an hour depending on who I hire.  

Once I’ve hired the creative team and they’ve finished their work, I have to get the books printed and shipped to all the donors. So that’s another couple of thousand dollars. More if international buyers who have read my work in places like the UK and Germany pick up the book.  

Crunching the numbers I’m going to need to raise about $30,000 to publish the first Isis graphic novel on indiegogo. If I can raise more than $30k, I’d love to set up  some stretch goals like a variant cover or a couple of posters and prints. I’d love to offer a Josh Howard variant cover or a couple of prints with the book, he’s an artist I’ve been eager to work with for YEARS!

It’s been a challenge laying the foundation for the Isis graphic novel and I’m learning a lot as I go. Writing and publishing Comics is completely different than novels, screenplays or nonfiction. I’ve always wanted to work in comics ever since I was nine years old, and people say my Isis series stories read just like comic books.  I’d love to finally see one of my stories turned into a comic book by one of my favorite artists.

I’m hoping to launch the Isis graphic novel indiegogo in 2019. And I’m hoping it’s as successful as Josh Howard’s T-Bird & Throttle, Ethan Van Sciver’s Cyberfrog or Richard C. Meyer and John Mailin’s Jawbreakers: Lost Souls.

--> The comic version of  Isis: All that Glitters is going to be an oldschool all-ages superhero story that’s filled with action adventure and FUN, and I want to be able to bring it to you next year!  

Black Characters by Black Creators Vs Black Characters by White Creators

Marve & DC Dump Trades at Liquidators The Collapse of the Comic Book Ind...

Isis: Imitation of Life Now Available in Paperback & Kindle Unlimited!

The second book that will be part of SJS DIRECT Fantasy Flashback Fall will be Isis: Imitationof Life. Inspired by the classic 1934 film, Isis: Imitation of Life is set in 1930s Jim Crow America and deals with how Isis was a hero in those tense racial times. While White heroes and heroines like Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman And Green lantern could have fantastic adventures where they used their super powers, I wanted to tell a story of how Isis fought a different battle in an era where Black people were second class citizens.

With Isis:Imitation of Life I wanted to pay homage to Golden Age comics and pulp heroes like Doc Savage. And I wanted to show my respect to the greatest generation of Black people, the everyday men and women who made every effort to show that Black people had dignity and respect in an era where racists made every effort to dehumanize Black men and Black women. These were our heroes, the Black mothers, the black fathers, the Black teachers, Black business owners, and Black professionals who fought to give Black people a fighting chance in a separate but unequal society.

I wrote Isis:Imitation of Life back in 2016, but I held back on its publication until now because I wanted to show my respect for the greatest generation of Black Americans by putting a great cover on the book. And Drew Swift did an AMAZING job designing the Imitation of Life cover. The art does a beautiful job showing us the two worlds Isis lives in, the goddess underneath the clothes of the woman and how she’s a hero at heart.

Isis: Imitation ofLife is available in Paperback on KindleUnlimited right now. You definitely want to get this one, it’s a powerful story that tells a story that teaches about Black history and shows how everyday Black men and women were heroes during the darkest time in American history.

Shawn Reviews Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3

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 I’d been hearing a lot of good things about Daredevil Season 3. And after watching it, I can say it definitely lives up to the hype. If you own the DVD of the 2003 Daredevil with Ben Affleck you can throw that in the trash. Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3 is the definitive adaptation of the character.

Daredevil Season 3 starts off dealing the aftermath of the events of the dreadful Defenders series. As Matt recovers from his injuries from the building being dropped on him in that awful storyline he starts working towards getting his life back on track with the help of the nuns and priests of the Hell’s Kitchen orphanage who raised him. After revealing his secret identity to Karen Page, he has decided to give up being Matt Murdock and be Daredevil full time.

While Matt works towards rebuilding his life, Agent Ray Nadeem is trying to get a promotion in the FBI. Denied a promotion by his supervisor because she believes he’ll be compromised due to the medical bills he’s paying for a family member, Nadeem pushes for Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin to be removed from prison and put into house arrest. After Fisk is shanked in prison, and gives up some Albanians, he’s moved from the jail he’s been residing since the end of season 1. On the way to that new hotel, Fisk’s convoy is ambushed by Albanians out to kill him. By the end of the first episode Agent Ben Poindexter quickly kills the Albanians with precision and sets up the origin for Bullseye in a brilliant fashion.

In the beginning it appears that the FBI is in charge because Ray Nadeem thinks he’s running things. But as the series progresses we find out that Ray is just a pawn on Wilson Fisk’s chessboard. And he’s been manipulating people like Ben Poindexter from minute one. As Matt Murdock learns about Wilson Fisk’s plan to become the Kingpin, we learn that how heavily connected he is. And with Poindexter’s Daredevil as his Knight making power moves (nice reference to Marvel Knights) he looks like he’s unbeatable. Dressed in Black sweats Matt Murdock has to overcome his fears and insecurities along with the fear everyone has of Fisk as he plays a game of chess to save the city from Fisk’s reign of terror.

And that 13^th Episode is WOW. Just WOW.  

Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3 is a BRILLIANT adaptation of the comic and captures the heart and spirit of the Frank miller run of the 1980s. Over the course of 13 episodes which adapt Born Again Guardian Devil storylines. As Matt Murdock finds a new purpose as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen he transforms into a Man Without Fear. In this adaptation we get lots of twists, turns and suspense as Matt Murdock has to play a game of chess With Wilson Fisk where people’s lives are in the balance. Every character in the story represents a player on the chessboard and has their place in a very intricate and complex story where you don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Daredevil Season 3 is well-crafted adaptation of the comics. Not as PERFECT as Luke Cage Season 2, but it does an amazing job of translating the characters from the comics to the screen. While things are different in the MCU’s Daredevil’s world, they stay true to the spirit of who they were in the comics. I loved the way Poindexter becomes Bullseye and I loved the subtle references to Bullseye being a baseball player in the comics in one scene and the nuanced references to Fisk becoming the Kingpin. Not to mention references to Karen Page’s drug addiction and the nuanced reference to her giving away Daredevil’s secret identity. Seeing those little references showed how much love the showrunners had for Daredevil as a character and how passionate they were in their efforts to translate the comics to the screen. I only wish Matt had his costume on when he was perched on top of the church steeple instead of being in those sweats, that would have been AMAZING climax to the final episode. But maybe we’ll see Matt back in costume and that Bullseye costume in Season 4.

If there is a season 4. Netflix and Disney are feuding.

 While Daredevil Season 3 is rock solid in it’s storytelling I did have some issues as related to production. Like many Netflix series there were some problems with the pacing. In many episodes there were some scenes that should have been left on the cutting room floor like many of the scenes in the episode where Daredevil is trying to escape the prison riot or the scene where Fisk beats a guy to death in the car he’s riding in. And the entire expository sequence regarding Karen Page’s origin in Karen was just 45 minutes of filler to meet the 13-episode quota. Netflix really needs to learn how to edit their shows, if they just tightened up their editing and their pacing on some of the episodes in Daredevil Season 3 it could have been a CLASSIC.  

My other issue with Daredevil Season 3 was the gynocentrism and the simping that started to creep in to several episodes. I wasn’t a fan of Pondexter’s obsession with a woman. Nor was I a fan of Fisk Simping on Vanessa. While I understood Fisk’s love for Vanessa being his motivation for becoming the Kingpin, putting Vanessa on a pedestal sucked a lot of energy out of the climax of the story.

All in all I really enjoyed Daredevil Season 3. It gets my highest recommendation and I urge you to go check it out. This is a season YOU CANNOT MISS! 

Mourning The Passing Of Stan Lee

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Stan Lee passed away today.

Nuff said.

We didn’t just lose an icon of comics with Stan’s passing, we lost a legend. Stan Lee was the man who created characters like Spider-man, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and co-created characters like Iron Man, Daredevil and the X-Men. And as he ushered in the Marvel Age of comics in the 1960’s he created a modern mythology that defined American culture in the 20^th century.

As a kid who was born in the early 70s, I grew up on the Marvel Comics featuring many of the characters Stan Lee created or co-created. Marvel Comics were how I learned to read when I was 4 years old. I knew who all the Avengers were before I started Kindergarten. I grew up on Hanna Barbera’s Fantastic Four in syndication on Channel 5 on weekdays in the early 80s and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on Saturday Mornings, The X-men cartoon in the 90’s and Marvel Action Universe which featured Stan doing an intro before an episode of Iron Man or Fantastic Four started.  

In most of Stan Lee’s comics he opened the imaginations of readers of all ages as he took heroes on fantastic adventures. And in those stories he made brilliant social commentaries about ordinary people in extraordinary situations overcoming incredible challenges. What made Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics so popular was the fact that in spite of the incredible powers the heroes he created had they were people just like you and me. His Marvel was the world outside our window, and his heroes and villains had the same struggles as everyone else.

At heart The Fantastic Four were a family, Spider-man was a teenager trying to learn how to be a responsible adult. Iron Man was a rich man reconnecting with the world of people he became so distant from, Daredevil was a man learning not to be afraid of a world he was taught to fear, Thor was the god who learned how to serve the people by walking among them, The X-men were fighting to overcome racism and prejudice. We all knew people like the characters in a Marvel Comic, and we all related to those heroes on a human level as we read those fantastic adventures.

Stan Lee’s legacy will have an impact on generations to come. The Marvel Age of comics he ushered in during the 1960s was the gateway to millions of kids learning to read, to them learning how to open up their imaginations and seeing the possibilities of the impossible. The mythology he created in the Marvel comics teenagers in the 1960s 1970s and 1980s read has evolved into the cartoons of the 1990s and the live action movies of the 2000s and 2010s. Showing us how the stories he helped create transcend mediums as they are passed on from generation to generation.

Over the course of his career, Stan was blessed by God to see something grand, he saw the comic book industry from its inception in the Golden Age of comics to the dark days of the 1950s to the Marvel Age of comics and the evolution of the superhero movie in the 1990s and 2000s. He literally saw characters and stories he created evolve from images on a page into live images on the silver screen. Not many comic creators get the opportunity to see their characters come to life once in any form of media, but Stan saw his come to life multiple times over his lifetime. God blessed Stan to live a rich and full life and in the 95 years he was on this earth. gvuThe comics he wrote and published had an impact on the lives of millions of kids like me. They gave me hope when I was growing up in the worst part of the Bronx. Iron Man comics taught me how to persevere after my brain aneurysm operation at 7, and how not to let that childhood tragedy define me. From those Iron Man stories I read in Origins of Marvel Comics and the David Micheline/Bob Layton Run of Iron Man in my brother’s collection, learned how to turn tragedy into triumph and not let myself be limited by someone’s idea of who they thought I could be, but become the man I wanted to be.

Thanks for all your contributions to the comic book industry Stan. It was an honor to be there to see you usher in the Marvel Age of Comics. It was an honor to get a chance to buy the comics you created at the newsstand and the comic shop. Thank you for all the great comics and all the great stories you wrote over the years.

Shawn Will Be on Obsidian Radio Tomorrow To Talk About THE MAN CRISIS

Shawn ROASTS TALES FROM THE HOOD 2

I had been eager to take a look at Spike Lee and Rusty Cundeiff’s Tales From the Hood 2 because the way Keith David portrays the Devil is similar to the way I wrote Lucifer in TheTemptation of John Haynes. Unfortunately, in Rusty Cundieff and Spike Lee’s attempt to make social commentary in between their tales of terror they produce a film that’s so filled with social justice narratives that it’s practically propaganda for the Democratic Party.

I never thought Black filmmakers could produce a movie more racist than minstrel shows of the 1920s.  But here we are.

Tales From The Hood isn’t a horror movie. It’s far left propaganda masquerading as a horror movie. The film opens on The Devil driving in an Escalade to see Dumass Beach, a politician and businessman who is Spike Lee’s and Rusty Cundieff’s stand in for Donald Trump. Beach is developing the RoboPatriot a robot who will be the future of Law enforcement that will make America Great Again. But to make the RoboPatroiot really great it needs to hear some stories from The Devil. Because it’s a learning robot it’ll imbibe the information it gets and use it to go after all those pesky Nigras.  

The first tale Good Golly… Good Gravy. I can’t believe a Black man made this. In their attempt to tell a story about Black racism, Rusty Cundieff and Spike Lee make a story so racist it’s not funny. The story features a white girl and her black friend who go to visit a Black museum filled with racist propaganda. And during the visit the white girl has a fixation on the Golliwog doll, a doll that’s a representation of an old racist stereotype of the Antebellum South. The old man talks about Branding in a sequence that is well, done, but Cundieff’s heavy handed storytelling makes the story fall apart as the White girl, her black friend and her brother go to steal the doll. As the story progress the brainless bedwench and the Whie boy get killed and the White girl…Has sex with the Golliwog doll. And To conclude the story nine months later she dies as she births a bunch of Golliwog dolls in a sequence that isn’t horrific in a scary sense, just horrific in the fact that a Black man produced something this racist and put it onscreen.

The second tale is a disjointed one that involves thugs who kill a reformed pimp. To get at the man’s fortune, the thugs invade the home of a fraudulent psychic. The psychic actually gets powers and kills the guys, then goes out to pimp the white folks in the new body he possesses.  

I guess the moral of the story of this one is that in order for a Black man to achive success he needs to be…White?  Who knows? But the movie goes on as The Devil continues to tell racist tales to make Dumas Beach’s robot get a better understanding of Nigras and why they are bad.

The third tale features a pair of sexually deviant beta Black and Hispanic males who decide to pose as Hollywood agents, drug some women and attempt to rape them. Only to find when they are making their video the women are…Vampires. And instead of the guys becoming undead on the first bite, the women decide to feed them to their past victims.

Clearly someone didn’t do their research.  And they don’t know the difference between Vampires and Zombies. People become vampires after being bitten by a vampire. Zombies eat human flesh to live.

But Cundieff and Lee are so caught up in their zeal to malign Donald Trump they can’t put the basic components together for a vampire story.

Good Gravy.

The fourth tale is the one that REALLY Pisses me off. These bastards drag the name of the late Emmitt Till through the mud to make their commentary about Black people supporting Conservatives and Donald Trump.

Rod Serling this ain’t. In the most heavy handed preachy and misinformed tale, we have a Black conservative with a pregnant White wife who is shamed by family and the ghost of Emmitt till, the four girls who died in the church bombing and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  As the Klan patrol in white outfits and Nazi helmets comes to beat him up, Emmit and the victims of Jim Crow tell him he has to make a sacrifice. And that sacrifice is to die committing to….The Democratic Party.

WHAT THE FUCK?

If only Rusty and Spike knew that the racists who were running the Jim Crow South like Bull Connor were DEMOCRATS. And Jim Crow’s racist policies that made Blacks second class citizens in the country they built were created by DEMOCRATS.

It was towns filled with DEMOCRATS who made up the all-white jury who acquitted the men who murdered Emmit Till. And 60 years later it was a DEMOCRATIC President Barack Obama who did NOTHING when his attorney General let George Zimmerman get away with the murder of Trayvon Martin by refusing to file federal civil rights charges against him. And it was DEMOCRATS who didn’t pursue federal civil rights charges against Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantaleo for the murders of Michael Brown or Eric Garner.  And it was a DEMOCRAT who recently convicted Bill Cosby for sexual assault.

BuBut Cundieff and Lee give those DEMOCRATS a Pass for their continuing and ongoing racism…Because Trump is EVIL.

This was the story that pissed me off the most. I’m no Trump supporter, but if Cundieff and Lee wanted to make a Serling-esque commentary they should’ve used Tales From The Hood to take Eric Holder for his cowardice or take a shot at George Zimmerman by having a character who is praised as a hero for murdering a so called thug followed by the ghost of the boy he murdered.

But that kind of storytelling requires objectivity and imagination. Something that the producers of Tales From The Hood don’t have. They’d rather use the horror genere as a way to shame Black people for making what they believed was the wrong choice in the 2016 election.

FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH THAT BULLSHIT. I came here for a Black horror movie, not a lecture on who to vote for. We don’t get that many Black horror movies and Cundieff and Lee BLOW the one rare chance we get by turning a Black Horror movie into a propaganda platform.

As the stories end we get the conclusion of the wraparound story. And Dumas Beach announces his greatest creation the RoboPatriot. And it…looks like the retarded bastard child of the 1990s’ ToyBiz My Pal 2 and Robocop’s ED-209. I knew the budget for this movie was LOW. But that Robo Patriot is a special brand of fucked up when you see it onscreen. Even Robbie the Robot From Forbidden Planet would laugh his ass off seeing that thing.

Thanks to The Devil’s tales the Robo Patriot identifies criminals, illegal immigrants and…then turns on its white Slave Masters. Kiling all the White folks and making A DUMBASS BITCH out of Dumas Beach. Who believes he’s escaped the carnage by getting in The Devil’s Escalade where Satan drives him straight to HELL!

To be taken to the lake of fire by two of the worst demons I ever saw in a movie. Good Gravy. I ain’t seen special effects makeup that bad since the Halloween section of Party City on November 1^st.

Yeah, there’s horror onscreen in Tales From The Hood 2. But it doesn’t provide many chills or scares to the viewer. In this disjointed and uneven anthology, Spike and Rusty are too busy beating people over the head with their Anti-Trump propaganda that we don’t get many scares or social commentary in these horror tales, instead all we get is a lot of unresolved feelings regarding the 2016 Presidential election thrown up onscreen.

The great Irony of Tales From The Hood 2 is in their attempt to make their commentary they promote some of the most racist stereotypes about Black people and promote the worst images of Black people on film. While they take jabs at Trump in Tales From the Hood, they tell stories that reinforce many of the ideas that White Supremacists have regarding Black people. 

The greatest horror of Tales From the Hood 2 is seeing once great filmmakers like Rusty Cundieff and Spike Lee falling from grace by giving us this abomination of a movie. Instead of giving us a solid story and well-developed characters like they did in classic movies like Do The Right Thing and the original Tales From the Hood from the 1990’s, Cundieff and Lee go full SJW by pushing identity politics in the most heavy handed fashion possible in a series of poorly written tales that aren’t very hood or present Black people in a balanced way like the original Tales From The Hood did.  

After Watching Tales From The Hood 2 I’m convinced Keith David could be a great Lucifer in a Temptation of John Haynes Movie. And I’m convinced that with a great script and great co-stars like Salli Richardson-Whitfield and Michael Ealy he could probably make playing the devil his signature role in a Temptation of John Haynes Movie. But after watching Tales From The Hood 2, I can’t recommend this movie. It’s pure unadulterated trash that belongs in a dumpster fire. The only place Tales From The Hood would be considered quality entertainment is in the Ninth level of Hell right after a Who’s the Boss Marathon. Yeah, it’s THAT BAD.

8000 YOUTUBE SUB Q& A

Sana Amanat's LIES AT NYCC 2018 About Getting Work At Marvel

E'steem: The Sands of TIme Now Available in Paperback & Kindle Unlimited

ISBN: 978-1984223753

$12.00 Paperback. $3.99 Kindle Edition (Kindle Unlimited subs read for FREE!)

Time! In an effort to prevent the adult John Haynes from being a threat to Lucifer’s future, Decadia, an agent of Cronus hopes to hide his death of in the Sands of Time. Thrown four thousand years into the past, a 14-year old John lands in Ancient Egypt where he meets Princess E’steem, a 14-year old aspiring priestess. Can these two teens from two different times thwart Decadia’s assassination plans and prevent her from destroying the space-time continuum?

You definitely If you like Disney Princess stories, You’ll love E’steem The Sands of Time! In this fantasy Flashback story readers will get a chance to see what Princess E’steem was like before the tragic events that led to her becoming a she-demon. As she helps a time displaced John Haynes find his way home readers will see how heroic she was when she was younger in this terrific teen time travel romance.

I wrote E'steem: The Sands of Time  so Black girls could have their own Princess story. Yeah, I know Disney did Princess & The Frog, but I have issues with that story. First, Tiana isn't a Princess from a royal bloodline. E'steem was the Princess of Katia and as the adopted daughter of Osiris she's a real Princess.

Second, I wanted to show Black-on-Black Love. In Princess & the Frog Tiana's love interest is a nonblack man. With Sands of time we see E'steem a Black woman falling in love with John Haynes, a Black man. I wanted to show that Black-on-Black love transcends time and can overcome the greatest challenges.

You can pick a paperback edition of E’steem: The Sands of Time on Amazon.com and other online booksellers or pick up a Kindle edition. If you have a KindleUnlimited subscription you can read E’steem: The Sands of Time for FREE! 

Netflix Cancels Luke Cage….Sweet Christmas.

For Some bizarre reason Netflix has decided to cancel Luke Cage.

Sweet Christmas.

Now I can Netflix see cancelling Iron Fist because it was an absolute shit show. But this has to be the most boneheaded thing Netflix has done.

Luke Cage was the most popular series on Netflix. The first season literally CRASHED Netflix’s servers. And the second season was the best thing Marvel Studios EVER produced. With storytelling, acting and directing on the level of DC’s The Dark Knight It BLEW THE DOORS off the mediocre Avengers: Infinity War, subpar Ant Man and The Wasp and average Black Panther. And with the MASTERPIECE ending we got showing Luke Cage becoming a Power Man and about to be tempted by his new role as the Sherriff of Harlem to become corrupt everyone was anticipating a Season 3.

But because Marvel and Netflix couldn’t come to an agreement the show is ending without giving us what could’ve been a CLASSIC third season.

Some comic fans are speculating that the cancellation of Cage and Iron Fist means we’re gonna get a Heroes For Hire series.

I don’t think so.

With the way both series ended, a Heroes For Hire Series would be just as disjointed as Netflix’s dreadful Defenders series. In order to create a Heroes For Hire Series there needed to be an organic ending to the Sherriff of Harlem Storyline and the Immortal Iron Fist storylines set up in Cage Season 2 and Iron Fist Season 2.

Others are speculating that it’s because Disney wants to have exclusive content for its streaming service.

I don’t think that’s the case either. Daredevil got a Season 3 and Jessica Jones as HORRIBLE as it was got a season 3. And with Disney still smarting after making the BONEHEADED mistake of canceling Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing, a PROFITABLE TVshow that was WINNING its timeslot due to political reasons, the last thing they want to do is hand ANOTHER HIT SHOW to COMPETING network like they Did when Last Man Standing Went over to FOX and became a HIT.

Not to mention putting Luke Cage on Disney’s streaming service would leave a SOUR taste in most comic fans’ mouths. Taking a POPULAR show from a streaming service most people are subscribed to in an effort to get them to buy yours is a DICK MOVE that would ALIENATE customers.  

Plus the Hard R content on Luke Cage doesn’t really fit into Disney’s image. Nothing like characters dropping F-Bombs and having sex to rile up the ire of all those people who watch Disney Princesses, Zack & Cody reruns and Doc Stuffins.

From what I’ve read I’m thinking Marvel wanted to change the narrative of the show. I’m thinking executive producer Cheo Hodari Coker and Netflix wanted to keep the series dark and gritty like the comics, but Marvel wanted to find some way to shove their gynocentrism and identity politics into the show. With Netflix taking a hit on Iron Fist thanks to the gynocentric narrative, identity politics and the complete emasculation of Danny Rand, Netflix just decided to pull the plug on the show rather than produce a poor quality product they couldn’t sell.

That’s the reason I believe Luke Cage got cancelled so abruptly. Coker was already planning and writing season 3 but Marvel’s exexcutives had their own plans. Plans that would have emasculated Luke Cage over 10 episodes and made him a bigger BITCH than his modern comic book counterpart.

I’m thinking Marvel is the real villain here. The whole idea of a strong masculine heterosexual Black man as a hero who leads and protects his community makes many of the people who work at Marvel uncomfortable. The Luke Cage like Cheo Hodari Coker was presenting in his adaptation refuted many of the ideas many whites and nonblacks had about Black men and the stereotypes presented in the old Power Man comics. Coker’s Cage presented a narrative made by Black men for Black men that promoted a positive portrayal of Black manhood, Black masculinity and Black leadership.

That made many of the people at Marvel uneasy.

While Marvel and Disney had their grievances with Black Panther becoming popular they didn’t mind promoting him because he promoted a gynocentric narrative that appealed to Black women and emasculated Black men. But Luke Cage promoted a positive idea of Black manhood made by Black men for Black Men that showed the POWER Black men had in their communities and a way to use that POWER to take back their communities from the criminals that terrorized it.

White Supremacist media ain’t gonna have that on their platforms. No, the whole idea of promoting a strong Black man who LEADS his community on HIS TERMS on their platforms runs counter to White Supremacy. They’d rather have us watch cucked Black Panther in White Man’s Wakanda, butler John Diggle or bumbling stumbling Mr. Terrific or James Olsen be the Guardian of the Friendzone who hopes, wishes and prays that Kara Zor-El lets him get a look at what’s under her red Supergirl skirt than See Luke Cage literally take CONTROL of his Life and CONTROL of his community.  

It’s a shame to see Netflix’s Luke Cage end so abruptly. Luke Cage was the best thing Marvel ever produced. But because Marvel’s racism we’re not gonna get a Season 3 that will show us how Luke Cage is the Power Man, and how the Power Man protects the Black community from those who would threaten it.   

The cancellation of Luke Cage shows me why it’s important for Black men to own and control our own characters and our own media. Luke Cage was Marvel’s property. And because Marvel didn’t like the narrative that Cheo Hodari Coker was telling with their character they decided to make efforts to change it. It didn’t matter about how profitable or how popular the show was it was all about the agenda Marvel had and the identity politics they were trying to push regarding Black people. Marvel wanted their Luke Cage property to tell their kind of story, not one that the audience wanted.

This is why Black men need to own and control their own characters like I do with John Haynes. When I publish my John Haynes Stories like The Temptation of John Haynes, TheMan Who Rules the World or John Haynes: A Conversation With Death, I control the media and the narrative. And because I control the property I can tell the story of a Black man from a Black man’s perspective without having anyone to make efforts to censor it.

While I’m sad to see Luke Cage get cancelled I see an opportunity for Cheo Hodari Coker to take his craft to another level on another project. If Mr. Coker and Netflix ever wanted to produce a John Haynes series or a Temptation of John Haynes movie to fill the void Luke Cage has left, I’m game. Everything Cheo Hodari Coker did with Luke Cage I do in my John Haynes stories. And I think his production style would be a PERFECT fit for the character. So if he’s up for adapting the adventures of The Man Who Rules The World, I’m game. I think if we worked together we could produce something that can crash the Netflix Servers again. 

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SUPPORT BILL WALKO’s HERO BUSINESS GRAPHIC NOVEL ON KICKSTARTER & JOSH HOWARD’S T-BIRD & THROTTLE ON INDIEGOGO!

Two of my favorite comic artists are crowdfunding to get their books published. And I want to help get the word out about their awesome projects!

This week Bill Walko is launching a Kickstarter to print the Hero Business Season 2 graphic novel. The Hero Business is a FUN webcomic that’s The Avengers Meets NBC’s The Office and reminds me of the late great Dwayne McDuffie’s classic Marvel comic Damage Control. I never miss a Hero Business strip, and here’s a GREAT opportunity for you to find out how awesome this comic is!

A few years ago I backed the first season graphic novel for The Hero Business, and I’m backed this one on the first day it was launched! When you support Bill’s Kickstarteryou’ll have a chance to get both the first and second season in paperback or digital or you can opt to donate on one of the higher reward tiers for one of the variant covers, the Hero Business mug and the new AWESOME Hero Business pins!

And Josh Howard is raising funds on indiegogo to publish the second issue of T-Bird & Throttle. Having read and reviewed the #0 and first issues I can honestly say this is one of the BEST comics of 2018. After reading those first two issues I was so eager to find out what happens next in this story, I made my donation on the first day the project was launched!

Along with the second issue, Josh is offering the first and #0 issues and some awesome extras like variant covers and commission sketches if you decide to pledge on one of the higher reward tiers.

Bill’s Kickstarter just launched yesterday and is ¼ of the way to getting funded!

Josh’s indiegogo is half past there and has been extended for two more weeks. I really want to see both these GREAT artists get their projects funded, because I want to get great comics in the hands of readers and both these GREAT artists build a larger audience of readers!

You can donate to Bill’s Kickstarter until November 15^th.

And you Can donate to Josh’s indiegogo Until the end of October. Let’s get these AWESOME projects funded!  

Netflix Cancels Iron Fist-THANK YOU

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 This Friday Netflix announced that it’s cancelling Iron Fist, one of the five series based on Marvel Comics superheroes on the streaming service.

And I’d have to say this was a mercy killing. After completely emasculating Danny Rand over the course of 10 episodes there was place for Iron Fist to go after Season 2 but downhill.

It’s hard to find a reason to keep watching a show after the lead character has been turned into a complete BITCH. Danny Rand was too PASSIVE to be a hero, letting every character push him into the background of his own show. And when he gave away his own power to Colleen Wing, it just was the last straw.

The show was supposed to be called IRON FIST. But Danny Rand acted like IRON WIMP. Instead of having BALLS of STEEL his NUTS were crumpled like TIN FOIL and dropped in a pocket of Colleen Wing’s purse.

Yeah, Season 3 promized Orson Randall and the Immortal Iron Fist. But the problem was Danny Rand wasn’t presented to be the MAN he needed to be in the first two seasons. For all the setups, there was no PAYOFF in Danny learning how to be the MAN who used his martial arts skills to protect those in his community from those who would threaten it.

It was hard to see Iron Fist someone as a hero when he couldn’t even protect himself. When writers have Iron Fist, the world’s greatest martial artist hiding behind WOMEN and having women help him fight his battles, viewers has no reason to CARE about watching his series.

The biggest problem with Netflix’s Iron Fist is that the writers just didn’t understand MEN. From the start, Danny Rand was written from a gynocentric perspective and that made him too passive and too unassuming to be a hero. He radiated no masculine energy and had no masculine presence.  Heroes are supposed to be written with confidence, self-assurance, and intelligence and even a bit of cockiness.

Yeah, I get that Danny Rand is supposed to be this Martial artists raised by humble disciplined martial arts masters. But I’d like to believe even the most disciplined American martial artist would have some swagger. Former Power Rangers, Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and Jason David Frank are humble guys. But they still had swagger. Confidence. And their strong masculine presence gave us a reason to watch Power Rangers in the 1990’s. 

When I think of Iron Fist I think of type guy in the style of Austin St. John, Jason Frank, or 1980s B-Movie star Michael Dudkioff’s Joe from the American Ninja movies. Joe was the kind of guy who was quiet and humble, but could throw out some playful one-liners as he used some oldschool American resourcefulness in his martial arts fighting style to beat his foes. Like Joe in the American Ninja movies we needed to see Iron Fist BEATING THE SHIT out of 20 guys in 10 seconds, in fast-paced martial arts sequences like Austin St. John, Walter Jones and Jason Frank did on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

With Iron Fist I wanted a show that was 1993’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on steroids. A show that featured fast paced marital arts and BIG action sequences with lots of chumps getting WRECKED and boss villains getting their asses kicked. A show that spent its three episodes showing how a lost Danny Rand wound up in K’un L’un, grew up being taught by those Masters the discipline he’d need to get home, working towards EARNING the Iron Fist. Then as the season progressed, he’d leave K’un Lun, return to earth making money in cage fights, starting a dojo with Colleen Wing tagging along as he actively laid out a strategy to take his company back, then started dealing with the Meachums using strategies he learnd from those masters.

Then as season 2 went on we would have had the Steel Serpent Storyline. With a big muscular Tong Po looking dude from the 1980s Kickboxer movies playing Davos, not that Beta Incel they cast to play him. After Danny beat Davos with the help of Shang-Chi he would learn about Orson Randall coming to the city looking for him.

That show would have EASILY gotten a season 3. But because the writers wrote Iron Fist as a passive, unassuming Beta Male who let himself get overshadowed in his own show by EVERY MEMBER of his supporting cast that’s why Iron Fist got cancelled.

The lesson here for Netflix and Marvel Studios regarding the failure of Iron Fist is to let the HERO be the CENTER of his show. If a show is called IRON FIST we need to see IRON FIST doing all the cool shit, not side characters like Colleen Wing. People want to see the MAIN CHARACTER doing THEIR THING in a show with their name on it. In an ACTION show we want to see the HERO being ACTIVE taking the LEAD and TAKING CHARGE in their OWN STORIES. 

What’s sad about Iron Fist is that the show never actualized its potential because the writers and producers couldn’t execute on concept. Every episode of Iron Fist should have been a martial arts movie with big superhero movie special effects, but the producers just gave us a meandering cop show with no story and no substance. Then as the second season progressed they decided to push girl power on Danny Rand’s show, minimizing and emasculating their own hero.

Giving us every reason to Change the channel. Or click out and watch someone else like Luke Cage. Everything Luke did in Season 2 Danny should have been doing in Iron Fist.

Iron Fist should have been an action packed martial arts show with fast paced martial arts, intriguing stories about an American applying far eastern philosophy in the west as he adjusts to life in America. With the right writer Iron Fist could have been a martial arts classic. But due to incompetent showrunners with a jumbled vision all we got was a mess of a superhero show. Thankfully, Netflix put this show down before viewers could suffer another season of terrible writing, terrible acting and piss poor production values.

I want to thank the executives at Netflix for cancelling Iron Fist. You did us all a great service by ending this horrible show. When a TV show shows no signs of improving you just pull the plug.