Meet the Creators: Xmen 92

If you have been with @brothascomics for a while, you know we are huge fans of Xmen the animated series from the 90's.  Its one of our favorite shows and we live tweet it from time to time.
So when I was at the comic book store and saw Marvel was producing a book called Xmen 92 I was intrigued but I didn't pick it up! More than anything, I thought it would be hokey and I didn't want it to tread on my love of the animated series.

So when we got to South Carolina Comic Con and I saw the writers of the book were there, I stopped to talk to them and they were real funny dudes.  They are a writing team( Chris Sims and Chad Bowers) and they were so entertaining at their booth, I stopped by again to interview them and of course I bought the book.

The book is great! The artwork is outstanding and the dialogue is true to the characters in the comics, but also with a 90's nod to the tv show.  Now the book is not a rehash of the tv show.  Its more of the backdrop, along with Xmen comics from the 90's. The stories are all new and original!  Definitely check out the book if you get a chance.

As far as the writers go, their chemistry as a team is evident from the start.  Very funny and you can tell they are lifelong friends as well as writing partners.  Check out the interview below you can follow Chris on Twitter at his handle @theisb

The Producer

Please shut the fuck up!

So the trailer dropped for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story the other day.  Normally that would've been something I would've done  a trailer review for and all that but I didn't.  Honestly, as much as I loved The Force Awakens, I am wary of Disney churning out Star Wars movie annually. I do believe too much is too much sometimes and diluting Star Wars with excessive movies could turn it into Star Trek and I would hate to see that happen.

None the less, my issue was not the trailer.  It was the fan boy( white) reaction to the trailer.  Once again, just like the TFA, white, male fans are upset that the star and lead protagonist of this movie was not a white male.  Like much of the hate directed towards Ray and Finn, its based on the fact that they believe the new creators of these movies are diversifying Star Wars too much and its based on some racial bias against white males and pushing a feminist agenda.

Word? This is how you gonna play this?  Now I could dive into how ridiculous the argument is and how pushing one character does not diminish anything from previous characters or movies, but I'm not gonna do that. Or I could dive into this idea of believability of a movie with space ships and Wookies in it, but Im not gonna do that either. I am going to tell those fans to shut the fuck up visually!  Possibly they can only learn through pictures because reading is clearly not fundamental.

In the picture box below are the sci fi films from 2015- just last year and a box of the sci fi films for 2016. I took out superhero movies- which are also almost exclusively white males, but lets just see what the films of the last year and half look like in sci fi.

This is not a comprehensive list for 2015, but the movies are overwhelmingly white male fronted and if you have seen most of these movies, the lack of people of color in them is startling.  Oh but maybe it was just last year right?  Yeah because #OscarSoWhite?  look at the slate for 2016 thus far

So there is a wide variety of movies over the past 16 months and there are no people of color.  Like none!  Yes, there are a few franchises that have white female leads, but the overwhelming majority are white, male led movies. And this is just the last year and half. Do you really want to go back in time to see how many movies and franchises are led by white males?  Is your ego and masculinity so fragile that you are threatened by less than 2% of the movies being made being led by a female?  Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit!  If anyone should be upset, its people of color who are constantly overlooked or marginalized in sci fi.  And its even worse for females of color in this genre. I am still waiting for a Black female to have s significant role in Star Wars.  I mean its only been 30 plus years and 8 movies already.

So cry me some white male tears on this one.  The audacity to be upset that 2 movies of your beloved series is not fronted by a white dude.  Man, you got 6 movies of that from Star Wars already. Let some other people shine.  None of this takes away from Luke or Han or Annakin or Obi Won. See that, I just listed 4 main white heroes.  This is on top of Padme and Leia.  And you give me "Lando" or "Mace" I may smack you if we meet.  One person does not equal diversity!! Learn that shit! Live that shit! Love that shit! Its not like there are no white people in The Force Awakens or Rogue One and they are all not bad guys! Get over yourself!

I'm sorry, not sorry for the rant but nothing angers me more than ridiculous, unfounded rage.  You want to be upset, don't watch then.  Ban the movies, sign your petition to bring back George Lucas.  But remember, George is chilling in his mansion like this!

The Producer

Meet the Creators: Deon Brown

This is our 2nd time featuring Deon and the Battle of Ozellberg.  I met Deon at the Middle Georgia Con in April. I interviewed him there and picked up a copy of his book.  I read it, liked it, and was mad at myself that I did not get another copy.  I found him later on Facebook and was happy to see he was going to be at South Carolina Comic Con so I could finish the series run on Battle of Ozellberg. Such a fun book and the art work by Steve Myers is outstanding.

To recap, its a retelling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  Our two principal characters are the same with Red and the Big Bad Wolf.  But the wolf is more deceitful than the fairy tale and Red is a warrior to be reckoned with.  Watch their journey and the battle between humans and wolves play out over the last two issues.

In our interview, Deon talks about the ending of the book and what he has coming up.  As well as his anticipation of going o see Batman V Superman the night of this interview.

Good dude and a good book.  Check it out and like and follow him on Facebook!

Follow Deon on Facebook

Battle of Ozellberg on Facebook

South Carolina Comic Con Pictures

Here is the feed of pictures on our flickr

South Carolina Comic Con Pictures

Meet the Creators: Orchard Organiss

While at the South Carolina Comic Con I was able to meet and interview numerous creators about their current projects.  One of the first interviews I did was with the creators of the on-line comic Orchard Organiss.  The book is about a mother earth type figure and about sustainability.  The creators make all their products related to their character 100% organic and its a big reason as to why they created the character and to why the book is on line( to save some trees) This is not your typical super hero stuff and the art work is amazing! The on line content updates once a month and the next update comes out at the end of April.

Please check out their website
Orchard Organiss

You can also follow/like them on Facebook at
Orchard Organiss on Facebook

South Carolina Comic Con Review

@brothascomics is just unpacking and debriefing after the South Carolina Comic Con.  We just wanted to give a review of the con and our experience. First off we want to say thank you to the organizers who were kind enough enough to leave us press passes for the event.  This allowed us access to creators for interviews and content for our website.

The Location
South Carolina Comic Con is located in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina- which was about a two hours drive from Atlanta for us.  The con was located in a large enough facility at the TD Convention Center.  There was plenty of parking which was cheaper than most cons ( $5) and access to the main hall from different locations helped with lines and crowds. The con was also reasonably priced at only $15 for a Saturday Pass or $20 for the weekend.  Great prices for the quality of the convention.

The Badge Process
This is one of the most frustrating part of any comic con- Badge distribution.  Now, we did not do enough research heading to SCCC. This is a fairly large comic con- they probably did close to 15,000 people this weekend.  So when we got there, the line was long for entrance about 15 minutes before the doors opened.  Now we had passes at Will Call and that line was pretty long, too.  But the biggest difference I saw was that there were workers/volunteers making sure people were in the correct lines and helping them get to the proper lines if they were misplaced.  Also, the volunteers kept the people in line up to date on the process and about how long it was going to take.  That was huge for me as I was travelling with my 10 and 9 year old.  Once we got our badges, it was a smooth entrance into the main hall so I give the badge process major props and kudos.

The Main Hall
The Main Hall was spacious enough for people to move through without much hassle.  The layout was logical and there was space enough for you to find a wall to lay up against to take a break or pack away all the stuff your bought.  The was a wide variety of vendors with many nerdly goodies from comics, the toys, Gundam, anime, etc.  Whatever you wanted to find, you could find it in the Main Hall.

The Guests and Creators
There were some major MVP's at this Con- Neal Adams, Greg Capulo, and George Perez are literal comic book gods and the lines to get to them were as long as you would think.  I was there with my kids so doing an hour line was not going to happen for me, but I was able to meet all three and get pictures with them.  Plus my press pass allowed for me to get an interview with Neal Adams which was a real boss. Plus, there was a diverse list of creators on the floor.  Often, Cons can be absent of women and people of color in Creators Alley and that was far from the case at SCCC!  That diveristy played out in the attendance as well as you saw many POC and their families attending the con.

The Cosplay
Now Sunday they had a Cosplay contest, but on Saturday you got a few players and it was pretty good. Deadpool has really taken over the world of Cosplay, but there were a few very good cosplayers all around.

Overall
This is a great medium/large sized con for families.  If you have ever been to Dragon Con here in Atlanta, its a huge con!  At points its so overwhelming with people and traffic, it can become less fun- especially if you have younger kids.  SCCC was a good sized con with all the perks of a larger con without all the craziness and its very family friendly.  I was very impressed and will be recommending SCCC to all my friends that live in the southeast and I will definitely be back next year!  Be sure to check back during the week as we will update with interviews and pictures from SCCC!

The Producer

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Why can't we have nice things?

As the Twitter streets run red with the blood of blerd on blerd violence since Batman V Superman was released,  I was drawn back to reality when I saw the trailer for a new movie this weekend called, Meet the Blacks.  It stars Mike Epps and is a parody ( I guess) of the Purge movies as a new family( Black) moves from Detroit to Beverly Hills after they come into some money.  Except the night they move in is the night of the annual Purge of 12 hours where people can commit crimes without consequences.  The title of the movie made me pause because its so blatantly uncreative and obvious and because I had never heard anything about this movie prior to seeing that commercial.

This got me thinking to myself... Why can't black movie goers have nice things?  Over the course of 2016, there have been 4 major motion pictures released with predominantly Black casts and I would say none of them are of high quality.

Ride Along 2 was a less funny and less successful sequel to a movie that was not a great movie to begin with and Fifty Shades of Black was a continuation of parody movies from the Wayans of a genre that has been dead for quite some time.  Race, was a whitesplaing movie of a pivotal moment in American History, and Perfect Match was a romantic comedy that had little to no advertising and most people did not even know when it was actually being released. And look, these movies should be able to exists in the film market.  The quality of these movies can be debated, but you can say that about all movies  The biggest issue is since there is a lack of quantity of films with people of color, the quality of the films that actually get made( you would hope) should be higher.  But that is just not the case.

The question becomes why?  Why do films with predominantly black casts struggle to get made? And why is the quality of these movies so poor?  First and this has to be said- often times Black people do not support black film and television and often what we support appeals to our lowest common denominator which causes more and more of those types of films to be made. Look at the films since 2016 began, 3 comedies and only 1 drama and the most successful one, Ride Along 2, is a retread of buddy cop movies with more racial tropes than you can count.  And 50 Shades of Black is half a step above a minstrel show with the Wayans.  Where are the Black horror movies, drama, science fiction, super hero, murder mysteries, etc? Often when these types of movies get made, our people wont support the movie which leads to more Ride Along's and 50 Shades of Black.  As it is, the next predominantly Black film coming up is Barber Shop 3- which, Ima be honest, I was done after the original Barber Shop.  My fade was tight! I don't need a Fresh Cut!

And therein lies the rub for Black movie goers.  Do I support these Black films because there are Black people in the movie- even tho it might not be any good?  Or do I hold onto my loot, with the hopes the quality of films released will increase even tho my lack of support may lessen those chances? This is a real dilemma and something white movie goers never have to concern themselves with.  They know, in a given month, there will be a wide variety of films across different genres in that same month. Shit sometimes in the same week.  These films were all released  the last two weekends.

Secondly, Hollywood does a terrible job( and often purposely I believe) in not advertising Black films to wider audiences. Production budgets are one thing, but to get people into the movie theater, they need to know who are the stars and when is the movie coming out.  Black films are often reduced to poster advertising and very few print, radio, or tv advertising and often these movies get lost in the Hollywood Shuffle.  Then when they movie fails, Hollywood will claim that the movie was not supported when in actuality, no one knew anything about the movie.

Now since #OscarsSoWhite, there are films being released that are outside of the comedy genre. Will Black people support them?  Will they get the advertising and support and push that their white counter parts receive?  A movie like Miles Ahead seems like a great movie with a great actor attached- but will it be supported?

Look, the color that matters most to people in Hollywood is green and if a movie does not make green they will not fund future movies for people of color.  Black writers, directors, and producers and Black moviegoers often only get one shot and if we all don't make it count, it becomes a more difficult struggle to get quality films made!

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