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Black Representation: B. Dave Walters

Day Four: B. Dave Walters

B. Dave Walters is a Storyteller & proud Scoundrel American. He is best known as the writer of Dungeons & Dragons: A Darkened Wish for IDW comics, writer of Electropunk (available online), content creator for Wizards of the Coast, online tabletop RPG streamer, and director/writer for a new documentary: Dear America, From a Black Guy.

“The Black experience in America has been a brutal one, and survival has always required one thing more than anything else: Pragmatism. Keep your head down, and do what it takes to survive. It’s still like that now: If you’ve ever heard of “code-switching,” it’s the practice of consciously mitigating our own blackness to make white people comfortable.

Sci-fi and fantasy were safely relegated to the realm of “white people stuff;” daydreaming was a luxury the average Black person could not afford. This was the prevalent belief all the way up to the release of Black Panther in 2018. 

“White People Stuff” and the Evolution of Black Fandom. Talkhouse. Sept 10, 2020.

What advice for PoC creators who want to bring change to our community?
“Just keep speaking your truth. One of the biggest problems we have as a nation right now is what we all believe about those people. In the case of Black people, we’re ‘thugs’ and ‘animals.’ The more we are publicly seen in all our diasporic beauty, the harder it becomes to maintain those lies.”

B Dave Walters Interview. The Geek Lyfe.

B Dave Walters hosting “The Rundown”

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Black Comics: Black | Osajyefo & Smith 3

In a world that already hates and fears them – what if only black people had superpowers? After miraculously surviving being gunned down by police, a young man learns that he is part of the biggest lie in history. Now he must decide whether it is safer to keep it a secret or if the truth will set him free.

Day Two: BLACK | Osajyefo & Smith 3

www.kickstarter.com/projects/kwanzer/black-1

BLACK looks at the “outsider” trope, the characters that are outside of society and not accepted even in their secret identity. Like the X-Men characters who are palatable examples of what discrimination looks like.

The project that followed, WHITE, examined a wider look at the world BLACK is set in. To explore the reactions which make up the many facets that uphold racism. The aspects that quietly ignore uncles telling racist jokes at Thanksgiving every year, and thinking it is okay to wear blackface at costume parties.

BLACK CONTENT CREATORS
Creator and writer of BLACK, Kwanza Osajyefo is a former digital editor at Marvel and DC Comics. Co-creator and designer, Tim Smith 3 (A.K.A TS3), has been working in the comic industry for over 15 years. Recipient of the 2011 Inkpot Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comic Art, Jamal Igle has penciled everything from indie faves to Marvel & DC hits.

LATEST NEWS:
Warner Bros. Boards Feature Adaptation Of ‘Black’ Comic From Studio 8

What if people of color had super powers?  | NYC Comic-Con 2017
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Black Comics: Black Panther

Representation Matters
The characters we show, the stereotypes we reinforce, the artists we hire, the writers and directors we support – it makes a world of difference. There’s almost no way for a white American to identify with that, but I have seen its impact on those I care about. For Black History Month, we’re swiping a concept DIRECTLY from a college friend of mine and highlighting some Black figures and creators in the comic space.

Day One: T’Challa – Black Panther

Black Panther, introduced in Fantastic Four #52 in 1966, Marvel Comics.

Adilifu Nama, Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes
“What makes the Black Panther such a significant figure in American popular culture—as well as Black popular culture—is its groundbreaking representation of Blackness as more than a stereotypical and racist trope of inferiority. We have to keep in mind the historical context of the superhero’s first emergence—in 1966, against the backdrop of the civil rights and burgeoning Black Power movement. That becomes important because in many ways [the emergence of a Black superhero]…marks a racial transformation happening on a political and social level.”

1990 Interview with Co-Creator Jack Kirby:
“I came up with the Black Panther because I realized I had no blacks in my strip. I’d never drawn a black. I needed a black. I suddenly discovered that I had a lot of black readers. My first friend was a black! And here I was ignoring them because I was associating with everybody else. It suddenly dawned on me — believe me, it was for human reasons — I suddenly discovered nobody was doing blacks. And here I am a leading cartoonist and I wasn’t doing a black. I was the first one to do an Asian. Then I began to realize that there was a whole range of human differences. Remember, in my day, drawing an Asian was drawing Fu Manchu — that’s the only Asian they knew.”

Marvel Studios’ Black Panther behind-the-scenes Chadwick Boseman tribute video.
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