When Eric Jerome Dickey was a young man growing up in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 60s and early 70s, he, like many other young boys of his age, got hooked on the comic book craze that swept the nation for nearly three decades. Not only did Dickey become an avid tax collector, but he had something else in common with many of the young boys back then, including yours truly, that he tried to create his own comic books with his own hands.
Little did he know that three decades later he would not only gain international fame as an acclaimed author of fiction, but that he would one day fill the comic book true fantasy.
In an exclusive interview, Dickey shared his thoughts and feelings about being chosen by Marvel Comics to produce an exciting new six-comic series that will be released during Black History Month and places it in two special colors.
Dickey comments on his history with comics and tells how he initially found out about having a surprising interest in him. write a new series.
“I’m going to go back with my history with comics. I go back to the 1960s when I was a kid reading comic books,” Dickey said. “Rujan Jayatilleke at Mirari got in touch with my manager. We were just kind of talking and they had some projects coming up and it was like a conversation thing, but it was just general talk. They wanted to know if I had any favorite characters. or if I had any ideas. I was in the middle of a deadline for another book and I’m thinking, ‘The only ideas I have now is to try and finish this it’s funny that I’m still buying all Wednesday comics, but as a true reader was the relation.
After that initial conversation with Mirare, Dickey’s interest in the show is palpable. When it happened to surprise him a second time, the foundation of the series was laid by two black characters.
“We talked again, we started talking about doing a thing with Storm from the X-Men … Aurora … when she was a teenager and Black Panther (T’Challa),” Dickey said. “I remember X-Men number one. I mean, my gosh when it came out, you knew the original X-Men and then there was this giant fairy tale introduction of these new X-Men and here on the cover is this brown-woman Tita and I remember when I picked it up, every character It had like an intro page and I remember being like, ‘I want to know more about Storm.’
Dickey went on to emphasize the importance of seeing the character of young people who have the same physical appearances as themselves.
“This just shows you the power when they can see someone, report or someone who looks like them on the pages,” he said. “At the same time, he was someone who was powerful; I would certainly say that he survived and was a good role model and very beautiful.”
Dickey went on to describe some of the challenges of writing a comic based on the relationship between the two characters that were created decades ago.
“In a Chris Claremont issue years ago, they established that Storm and T’Challa (Black Panther) met as teenagers while T’Challa was on his walk. It’s been admitted…nothing specific about him and him was said. I basically went in and I made a story to fill the gap. It (the new series) gives a better view of what they’re facing and introduces some new villains, which are always fun later in the universe, if they’re bad guys, it’s already history,” he said.
“I couldn’t stray too far from the characters” of the previous story. It was already established that there would be a huge difference between what I do when I create my books or whatever for my characters. writers) had done before me. You can’t even watch the fans and continue to work together as teenagers. ”
Dickey said that the change to writing comic from the amateur writing genres has been surprisingly enjoyable.
“It was a delightful change. It was great. When write a novel, it can be finished. I write in the first person more time when I write a novel. If I’m doing third person, only third person finite, which is first person with ‘we’ if you want,” he said. “With a comic book, you can pop from scene to scene… There’s a lot of freedom there. I can jump from schools in Africa to a shot in New York to a shot here and a shot there. It was fun and I was like, ‘Wow, I wish the new one was this easy.’
Although Dickey doesn’t have any plans to produce more work because he certainly couldn’t be surprised, he ruled out the possibility and actually sounded like he was writing a comic book. /a> in the future.
“We talked about it (future efforts). For me it just kind of depends on … I love it. It was a wonderful experience. If I could find something that I could approach and do justice to, I would love it,” he said. “There’s always something that we, as adults, wish we had done when we were kids. For me, this was it. I can’t tell you the number of authors or artists who sat around sketching people trying to draw comics. I mean books, throwing a sheet around your neck and around the house trying to fly I’m writing a story, which becomes a wonderful part of the world, is quite wonderful.
Dickey went on to explain in detail what he was trying to achieve with this particular series and talked about the research that went into writing it.
“In a sense, I went back and gave him some of his origin. Then I found other articles that were not touched because I wanted to open to other possibilities, if another writer comes after me. 20 years and this is what they say when they look at them, then they can, ‘Oh this is what he did,” he said, laughing. “The first thing that bothered me was not the characters but writing about Africa itself. Suddenly it’s all like “Well, I don’t know anything about Africa. I write a lot about places in my novels, I want to drive there and try to get a sense of five places.
Dickey said that he tried to interject an element into his story that had never been used by Marvel writers before, but one that could be used decades later.
“I was reading about their things (African) and I just didn’t have much time. ‘t torn’ he said. “I thought… these are what I really love and what I wanted to feel, to go. I know that she is a beautiful grown woman, but I wanted a 13-year-old whose body is going through changes; “I don’t think she’s cute, which is not enough for her beauty, but any other girl looks better on her for some reason,” he said. comfortable with his body. I wanted him who was very active, but everyone else could do this. tag/lock-picking”>grab the damn hair. I wanted someone who couldn’t jump off buildings, do a triple flip and land on her feet…someone who was a little afraid of heights. I wanted to feel human. I wanted her to feel like… “Heeeey, I can break my leg. I can break my arm.”
Finally, Dickey shared his feelings on the idea of writing this series specifically in time for Black History Month.
“My mind has always been this. I’m African-American every month so…,” he trailed off with a laugh. “I think it’s a really great idea and I hope that some young people of color will be inspired and realize that they can do anything their heart desires.
