- 2 months ago
Hilton George, founder of Blerdcon in conversation with Keith Knight
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🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00:00boom hey what's going on guys this is hilton george with afropunk and blurred con is here
00:00:22with our section of the afropunk planet afropunk event and i have got the distinct pleasure
00:00:30of uh of interviewing and having discussion uh with my fellow blurred and and artist friend
00:00:37mr keith knight uh how you doing keith uh great excellent uh happy to be here i'm just so excited
00:00:45because you know afropunk is like it's it man it's it i'm happy to be here yeah well i'm gonna give you
00:00:54a little bit of accolades here because uh for any of you guys out there that don't know uh you know
00:01:01keith knight has been uh part of the black cartoon scene the black art scene for a very very very
00:01:09long time i used to see you keith uh at the cons i used to come by your table we've probably even
00:01:15had some short conversations over the years uh but you know i'm sure my face is just one of the
00:01:20many that have come by and you know not necessarily uh stuck in your in your head but you know when
00:01:26the show came out it was just like everything came full circle you know this brother in case you guys
00:01:32don't know uh he is an author he is an illustrator he is a commentator on issues of race and human
00:01:40rights and you know in an autobiographical way uh you know he is part of the black art community and
00:01:48the black uh creative community uh physically going to you know nerd conventions and artist conventions
00:01:54while also doing uh guest speaking engagements and interviews on social issues you know like civil
00:02:01rights like human rights especially at times like this where we're talking about subjects like police
00:02:06brutality profiling uh and uh you know equality under the law in the in the era if you want to call
00:02:13it that of black lives matter uh he also has a new show uh that is out on hulu called woke and it is so
00:02:21appropriately titled if you know this brother if you've had any conversations if you've ever seen
00:02:26him speak it is the perfect title of a show that is semi-autobiographical of him and his experience
00:02:34uh as an artist and uh i had a chance to watch it uh about a month or so ago and it was just you know
00:02:41i i as a black nerd i it spoke to me in ways that i don't know if everybody else would get but it just
00:02:47had so many different layers and so many different levels and uh so that's who we're here to talk about
00:02:53and talk to so uh keith uh i'm gonna just open right up and uh and tell you that i am a fan of
00:03:03the genre that you use so brilliantly and i would like for you to kind of explain uh to people who
00:03:10maybe don't look at you know comics in the newspaper or books of you know storyboard comics uh with you
00:03:20know jokes and that kind of stuff that are commentary and just kind of explain a little bit
00:03:24about you know what it is you've done what it is you do and uh where we can find you and and the
00:03:29stories you tell oh wow that's a lot um uh well i i when i started in the industry i it and thank you
00:03:39for all the nice things you said um i've been i am the old man at the con right like i i've been doing
00:03:45this for a super long time and i'd say about 28 years uh i've probably been doing the k chronicles
00:03:53and the k chronicles is sort of my flagship it's a semi-autobiographical strip that i started i
00:03:59originally started in college but um but i really got my name uh it grew when i moved to san francisco
00:04:07and um started getting into the local papers there and then i started to self-syndicate it all over the
00:04:13place but yeah i come from a tradition of newspaper cartoonists i was raised on like checking out all the
00:04:21cartoons in the newspaper but um um i grew up in boston and i remember looking at the comics on the
00:04:29comics page but i also remember looking through the paper and seeing comics on the editorial page
00:04:35and seeing comics on the sports page and seeing comics in parade which were by jules pfeiffer who had
00:04:41you know made his name in the village voice so i was singing all these different cartoons and some
00:04:46were about politics and some were uh about just like completely different like a different style
00:04:54and a different mentality and i i just was fascinated by it and so i would always search search all through
00:05:01the newspapers uh for more and more cartoons and i just felt like i never i don't think like that was
00:05:11it that's what i wanted to do was draw cartoons and i didn't know how i'd be able to do it but i just
00:05:16knew that's what i wanted to do so in school i just i just did that i did my own version of mad
00:05:22magazine when i was in fourth and fifth grade um i would incorporate um cartoons into my schoolwork
00:05:29and i would get higher grades in everything except except math you can't you can't try to
00:05:35you know make pretty up what is it about artists and math it's just the right side left side of the
00:05:42brain i don't know yeah it's like right or wrong that's it but a couple of things happened to me
00:05:46in high school which were really huge which was um i never had any black teachers in grade school
00:05:54at all but i had one substitute teacher who was a black teacher and he was uh he was in his 20s
00:06:04and he would have a study class um but here's the thing he was an aspiring cartoonist so he would sit
00:06:12at his uh desk and doodle and he would let me move my chair next to the his desk and we would doodle
00:06:20together and we would talk about how to draw trees and cars and this and that and just him existing
00:06:26and just me seeing somebody that looks like me who wants to do what i do meant the world to me
00:06:34and it made me think that i could do it and the second the second one uh was a teacher my english
00:06:41teacher um and he assigned us uh animal farm and animal farm georgia was at animal farm um it was the
00:06:51first book book i truly read from front to back and it's because none of the other books ever spoke
00:06:58to me and i realized it's this like we receive more books where the protagonists are animals than we do
00:07:08where the protagonists are people of color like you know uh uh animal farm and all those uh jack london
00:07:18books and you know beowulf and like all these different animal things but like you know where
00:07:24is the representation so uh so this is the only thing i even remotely identified with
00:07:32which were farm animals so i said to my english teacher i said i can't do justice i can't do a
00:07:39regular book report can i do a comic book report and uh he said sure go ahead so i did a parody of
00:07:46animal farm so instead of farm animals taking over the farm and kicking out the farmers i did
00:07:51um high school students taking over my high school and kicking out all the teachers and i was the lead
00:07:58pig i was the uh lead student and you know i made uh uh rules like under 18 good over 18 bad and i
00:08:07drew caricatures i made fun of all my teachers in it and my teacher loved it so much that he kept it
00:08:13in the teacher's lounge the show and and i was surprised because no one i was making fun of lots
00:08:22of people and and they were just happy to just be in it like i was like you don't want to kick my ass
00:08:29and they're like no no this is really cool so um and my teacher gave it back to me and said you
00:08:35gave me an a plus plus and he said uh you capture the essence of animal farm perfectly but more
00:08:40importantly you should be uh doing a syndicated comic strip so that was the first time anyone
00:08:46said syndicated comic strip to me and this was an english teacher this wasn't your art teacher
00:08:51my art teachers discouraged me from doing cartoons they thought it was lowbrow and my english teachers
00:08:58were way into it which was really really interesting but the the last teacher and i say this during my
00:09:05slideshows the last which was my first great my first black teacher uh was a junior in college and
00:09:14it was american literature and he assigned us ralph ellison richard wright maya angelou and james baldwin
00:09:21um for american literature when someone said why are you giving us all black writers he said i'm giving
00:09:27you all american writers and that was like boom blew my mind and and i loved it because he was
00:09:35working within the system to subvert the system and show us that you know american literature isn't just
00:09:42mark twain you know so um from that moment on i was like you know what like i want to do this
00:09:49autobiographical strip that you know we were all hip-hop fans um in the late 80s early 90s and they
00:09:57kept on you know in the media it was like oh if you're into rap you're in a gang or you're this you're
00:10:02that and it's like that reflected none of me and my friends so i want to represent anybody who is like
00:10:09into hip-hop but was also into other music you know so like i was into punk music i was into
00:10:15into just anything like you can't just be put in in a box so i just want to represent that and um
00:10:25and thankfully it it resonated with a lot of people and it just took off from there and so um yeah and
00:10:33we were just talking about before we got on um you know one black kid is one of my favorite strips
00:10:40that i've ever done and it's you know dedicated to this one black kid whose hair people want to touch
00:10:45all the time the one black kid who is not into hip-hop in high school the one black kid you know
00:10:50this thing that we all experience and i just remember looking at the original afropunk and it
00:10:58i mean that is one black kid in a movie you know yeah um so i just i'm i'm just happy to be a part of
00:11:09this and um and be talking here with you about this stuff because well i mean listen to this you
00:11:15know i'm hearing your your story and i'm familiar with it but to hear you recall recount it i i i feel
00:11:21you there in these spaces and it and what it what it says to me is that it's even more important that
00:11:29you're conveying all of these different uh you know episodes in your lives through the k chronicles
00:11:35for instance as one because they're funny but at least half or more than half of them are stemming
00:11:43from some type of painful or even traumatic experiences that you were having as that one
00:11:51black kid you know coming up in an era where you didn't have any black teachers or you know you were
00:11:56the one black kid in the class and had to represent all blackness and you know people wanting to touch
00:12:01your hair and and that that sense of of of isolation or otherness you know but you you package it in a
00:12:08way that that people walk away kind of hit the humor button and it kind of opens them up to to hearing
00:12:15the message behind it in a way that is i think is unique uh yeah yeah and you know i i and i gotta tell
00:12:24you like i i you know we it's funny because we grew up in the black section of my of my town and what
00:12:34happened is we went to uh my sister and i got uh we got into some special school where we went for
00:12:42three years and we were the only black students there and that's where we really sort of experienced that
00:12:47that um had that experience uh but it was at that school we all we did were plays puppet shows like
00:12:57presentations we did all this super creative stuff and wow it's just like it's the type of school that
00:13:05everybody should be going it's the type of school that everyone should have been experiencing and it
00:13:10shouldn't have been just this special school for three years but even just coming from that and then
00:13:16leaving that and then going back into the regular school system you know we were we were uh we were
00:13:22oddballs and um but i i think just everybody there amongst all you know all my friends all my black
00:13:30friends we all you just experience that you always especially in boston where it's it's even
00:13:36weirder and quirky quirkier but um i'm just fortunate to have you know have this medium
00:13:45to work with and and sort of work through all this stuff that you experienced because um i i can't
00:13:55imagine what it's like now not to have an artistic outlet with all the bs that's going on right now
00:14:01you know my gosh it's so nice to be able to just sit down and and draw whatever you want and that's
00:14:07what's so great about the medium is all you need is a pen which is about a dollar and a piece of paper
00:14:14which is about 50 cents and you can do anything absolutely anything you don't have to worry about
00:14:20oh i can't set it in outer space or in egypt or you know or in my stomach because uh i don't have
00:14:28the money for special effects or the budget but no you can do it because you just have a pen and a piece
00:14:34of paper and i think that's i think that's what draws people to the medium is it can be anything and you
00:14:41could be anything and talk about anything and you definitely do and i've seen your presentations
00:14:48i've seen you know your interviews uh and you're talking to you know what look like mixed audiences
00:14:55but there's a some you know you're talking to white people black people you know you're there's no
00:15:00you know difference in your talk depending on who you're talking to there's no code switching
00:15:04it's all the same keith right and one of the things that i i i read one of your pieces that
00:15:12really really stood out and i i was when i first saw it i was like how could i fit that on a shirt
00:15:17right and it's the one with the 41 bullets yeah and you know there's just frame after frame after
00:15:25frame of blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam blam and and just the horror
00:15:33especially now with police brutality being just kind of front and center with black lives matter
00:15:38george floyd i mean you know the list goes on you know on one hand as i go from frame to frame
00:15:44you know my my trigger button is going off no pun intended in my head and i'm just like you know
00:15:49getting that that anxiousness that you would expect anyone going into this subject you know would go
00:15:54into but then your character uh who's who's being told or or witnessing the shots looks at at at a watch
00:16:04like okay we're still shooting like all right and then you have this this comic exchange after which
00:16:12is both meaningful where i believe the cop says you know if you you know if you guys would lighten up
00:16:18we wouldn't have to do this or something along those lines yeah uh is a perfect example of being
00:16:24able to carry a message that you know everybody can be taken down the the step-by-step of the
00:16:30discussion and end up at the conclusion without their defenses up or without shutting down and it's
00:16:36so crystal clear what's happening but it's still packaged in this this piece of artwork that is both
00:16:42humorous and disarming and you know very very sincere and heartfelt how do you maintain that
00:16:50in piece after piece after piece after piece after i would imagine that that would be as exhausting as
00:16:57talking about it you know all day every day which we definitely want to do but it's still
00:17:00you know it takes a lot out of you yeah i well i remember that strip i did that after the
00:17:06amadou diallo murder um and that was you know 20 20 plus years ago and i remember just when when
00:17:15those cops were found innocent and that they're they basically used the um there they said that
00:17:24they were defending themselves that that's that was the point of how they got off they were defending
00:17:29themselves against one unarmed black male and so what i wanted to do with those blams was you know
00:17:38at what point with those 41 shots does it go from defense to offense so i just wanted to spend all those
00:17:45times with those shots like at what point does it are you done defending yourself but now you're trying
00:17:53to kill somebody and you know i i remember being so angry doing that and and um and i i didn't have
00:18:03the punchline i just did it all the way to the panel where it said don't you think that's a little
00:18:09excessive i want to pause right there for a second so you went into doing a piece to which you knew that
00:18:18it's somewhere you had to insert humor or what you would normally insert humor but you went into
00:18:23angry without a punchline yeah no i just i knew i wanted to get those blams up there but i had no
00:18:31idea how to end it like you know at that time i was so angry i would have been you know i would have
00:18:37been like f you f you f you but uh so i just let it sit on my drawing table for a day and a half and i
00:18:45remember being on the bus and just it coming to me like listen you people could avoid getting into
00:18:52these situations if you would just lighten up once that hit me i was like boom that's it that's it
00:18:58and you know that resonated with me so much that we use that lighten up thing in the show you know
00:19:0520 years later it's art it's it's one of the main lines in woke and um so you know it's uh i i love the
00:19:15idea that the work that i do on paper can translate so well to another medium to television
00:19:23and um and it's just it's just a joy to have that opportunity to do it and for people to see
00:19:32like a much bigger audience to see it well your work as far as your artwork has always been uh from
00:19:39what i've seen very timely you know you're you're talking about things that are contemporary to the
00:19:45piece being incepted you know you're you know you you could go forward in time backward in time and
00:19:51and talk about the past talk about the future but wherever moment that you're you're in you know you're
00:19:57you're able to kind of distill that in real time and and put it out there which i think is kind of the
00:20:02mark of of any great artist is that you reflect your time and your voice to the audience that
00:20:08you're you're you're speaking to and you know the thing about you know the the the medium that
00:20:14you're in is that the discussions you're able to you're able to broach through your art are
00:20:21discussions that we struggle to try and have even in formal settings where we're supposed to have
00:20:26those discussions you know in government and in public forums and debates you know in our living room
00:20:33some people over the you know dining room table at thanksgiving you know can't get that far into the
00:20:39meat of the subject over hours and hours and hours and voices and voices and voices and you have five
00:20:45frames and it's like full circle you know uh which i this which is one of the things about it that just
00:20:51really strikes me well i i mean that's that's the best of what cartooning could do right like we
00:20:57talked about this we we are modern day court jesters and and the fact that we speak truth to power but we
00:21:05use these disarming techniques of humor and of illustration and of metaphor and hopefully we
00:21:13take these complex issues and put them in a simplified way that you know mass amounts of
00:21:19people can understand it in a in a different way and um you know one of the pieces that uh that i show
00:21:26in my slide show is about um you know the the don't ask don't tell uh law that was in the in the
00:21:31military and i i just did a a sunday strip that's like you know if i'm if you know gay people can be in
00:21:41the military this this is this law's gone now but they could be gay um but they just can't tell anybody
00:21:49like like you can't which is you know and and and the the fact that this person is risking their life
00:21:57alongside you and they can't tell you they cannot tell you the person waiting for them back home like
00:22:05you know is is wrong and and i so i put it in this comic strip and and i just got so many military
00:22:14people writing to me saying you just changed my mind don't ask don't tell wow and yeah yeah like
00:22:21and again i i say tell them about the obama slide tell them about the obama slide well yeah no i just
00:22:30that's that's part of the joke everything's gonna have a joke in it but my strip ran in the washington
00:22:35post and and um and i have a picture of obama in the in the oval office and he has the sunday
00:22:42comics on his desk so he clearly reads the comics so i i sort of connect the dots and say like he
00:22:50read my comic and then a few months later he dismantled don't ask don't tell you know i'll i'll
00:22:57take it it's it's silly it's silly but what i found in my slideshow is when i'm talking about all this
00:23:06serious stuff i like when i first did the slideshow it was such a downer that like halfway through it
00:23:14i was like oh my goodness i i admitted it like this is a big downer so i really had to like
00:23:20i had to make people laugh make people laugh and then punch them in the face and make people laugh
00:23:26so uh um so that's what i try to do now and um and anyone out there who's who's watching this who's
00:23:36just getting familiar with keith knight and his work he does have a lot of his talks and his
00:23:42presentations are on youtube i assume you also have some content on your website uh i highly highly
00:23:48highly recommend if you haven't had the opportunity to see one of his presentations to do so it it really
00:23:55does exactly what it says you know joke joke joke gut punch joke joke joke which is kind of the way
00:24:00that you you can you can have these discussions and they're being used in classrooms and colleges
00:24:07and universities are are asking for these discussions to be brought in as a way i guess
00:24:12to proctor a discussion that they might not be able to have on their own just to bring someone like
00:24:17you to kind of introduce those subjects uh with a little humor and and a nice backstory and and even
00:24:23after you leave you know everything might be a little more elevated than it was before
00:24:28yeah the next one i'm doing is actually uh for charlottesville uh for uva and charlottesville so
00:24:34that you know uh is one of the ones i'm looking forward to you know um hopefully a decent amount of
00:24:42people will jump onto that so it's cool that's there could not be more poignant a place in time to
00:24:48to have that discussion especially during an election season where everybody is having all of
00:24:54these conversations about you know who who are you voting for and here are the issues and where is
00:25:00your empathy and how does it manifest in your in your your politics and all those sorts of things and
00:25:05this is you know what i think is so special about having your show on hulu be such a i i don't want to
00:25:15say accurate because it's not directly biographical it's not an autobiography there are chunks of the
00:25:22story even as you told here that are in the show but you know it is a little bit amped up because it's
00:25:27comedy and and there's a lot of snappy dialogue and it's really entertaining uh and uh you're able to
00:25:35now have some of the same discussions that you're using in your art or or implementing through your art
00:25:42into you know a tv show that's going to reach people that may not look at comic art or may not look at
00:25:49newspaper uh commentary and things like that so you know how did you take what i mean everything that
00:25:56we just discussed up to this point is a story that you know a lot of artists have taken as far as their
00:26:02track you know your art has been quality it's gotten published but now you're on hulu like how did
00:26:08that happen where did that that that bridge come from um well i was in san francisco and i watched
00:26:15sort of you know watch the internet sort of destroy the print newspaper print industry and uh firsthand so
00:26:26i just i just remember um just saying to my wife like i think we need to get out of here and go down
00:26:36to la and see if i can develop something for television because um you know if i if we continue this
00:26:43just trying to get into newspapers it's just all going to go away and um so and also also you can
00:26:51see with san francisco um the the rise of the tech companies and everything um you just i didn't want
00:26:59to be a bitter old san franciscan and my rent control department and saying oh man san francisco
00:27:07used to be so cool blah blah blah right right so we got out we left in uh 2007 i think but uh we
00:27:15moved down to la and um it took a while to you know i was in san francisco for 16 years and la is a
00:27:21completely it runs a completely different way you have to have a car i didn't have a car i didn't have
00:27:27a car for the first three years uh but um but then i started to meet like people that were uh
00:27:35really enjoyed the work that i was doing and um i met just a really great guy named john will who was
00:27:42a producer a young producer who was like yeah man let's see if we can try to get this you know
00:27:48something made or something you know sold to something uh optioned at least and he just he
00:27:55introduced me to uh eric christian olsen who's an actor from ncisla who like had his own production
00:28:03company he passed it on to another guy who it's bigger will gluck at olive bridge and they had a
00:28:10deal with sony so sony was like yeah let's do it so they optioned it and uh they paired me up with
00:28:16marshall todd who was a co-writer on the original barbershop and um so he had experience you know with
00:28:23screenwriting and we just sort of you know bounced around a bunch of ideas and we settled on the
00:28:31idea we had both been profiled by the police and um his happened during i don't know if you remember
00:28:38the eric donner um case in in los angeles but he was an ex-lapd oh yeah yeah like and yeah he was
00:28:48when he was on the loose like lapd was they were paranoid i mean they shot up any anything that
00:28:56looked remotely like his vehicle they shot up like and there and and marshall is bald he's big he's a
00:29:05former college football player so yep um so he walked out of his house and suddenly like it was a
00:29:12slut woman with a gun in his face and it was like completely insane you know mine was i was hanging
00:29:19up flyers for my band and uh sfpd came in on me so we we started with that idea and um and sort of what
00:29:29would happen with a traumatizing incident with this cartoonist like if his third eye opened what would
00:29:36that look like and we just thought of inanimate objects animating yeah um and here's the thing
00:29:42like uh and i said this all the time i said if we're going to do a a a show about a cartoonist
00:29:48there's nothing more boring than watching a guy sitting at a desk and drawing like we have to somehow
00:29:54make it as it you know about being a cartoonist that's visually interesting more than just him
00:30:02sitting at a desk so the fact that these inanimate objects start animating um was i thought really a
00:30:11great idea but it wasn't till mo miracle uh the director came on and he said i don't think it should
00:30:19be 2d animation it should be puppetry it should be like real objects that that move and okay and that
00:30:28was the thing that took it from here like to way up here because i think the magical realism of it
00:30:35if everything was flat and 2d i don't i think it would look cheap i would have looked i don't think it
00:30:41would have uh it would have worked right right what he brought to it just made it and he he his look
00:30:50book they you know directors come with a look book they say this is what i want it to look like and
00:30:55they have samples photographs or pictures or examples of movies and he his look book contained
00:31:03um amelie eternal sunshine of the spotless mind sorry to bother you and do the right thing
00:31:10so he basically came to me with everything i was just like man this is like and in the show you've
00:31:19got these elements in there you know now that you're mentioning it there is that moment that
00:31:24is from do the right thing and and then there is that moment that is from amelie and you know i
00:31:28didn't if i had not known that i wouldn't have even picked those out but i'm just like okay you know
00:31:33this this makes sense now it's coming full circle yeah i mean they're all in somehow some way some of my
00:31:40favorite films or my wife's favorite films so just uh i was just so happy to just a team of people
00:31:50that came together and and elevated the stuff and made it greater than i could have ever hoped
00:31:57or imagined and the fact that all these amazing actors jumped on board yes it's like you know jb
00:32:05smooth you got cedric the entertainer oh the voice actors yeah voice actors you know you're like i
00:32:10recognize that voice and then there's lamorne morris who's who's playing you yeah yeah i mean if you
00:32:17don't know him you're not paying attention yeah and he just he said the moment he read the script
00:32:22he just he's like this is me i i you know i want to be a part of this and it's so great because he's
00:32:29always been sort of uh one of the part of an ensemble and he's always been not the lead and so this is a
00:32:37chance for him to be the lead and you get to see he gets to do things not just funny stuff but just go
00:32:44through the ringer and uh you get to see that he's so talented and has so many he has so much range
00:32:51um and then just i mean sashir zamata is just like amazing sashir uh rose t murph blake anderson
00:33:01everybody in it is is great so um we we just hope hope we get a season two let's just just hope that you
00:33:11well you know specific to the black nerd experience which is kind of where i i live as a
00:33:17con runner and as a show runner you know of blurred con there is so much familiarity in the world that
00:33:25is built in the show uh which as i said in the opener is similar to the world that you and i both
00:33:31occupy which is why we've probably crossed paths a half a dozen times you know over the last 10 years
00:33:36or five years and and it was just you know kind of being in the same environments and that kind of
00:33:40thing um where there is this sense of awkwardness and you know maybe something less than comfortable
00:33:47in your own skin at some point and he hits this wall which is you know where he does get knocked
00:33:55down by the police and he does get profiled and then he he's he's still kind of making his way
00:34:01but he still has that awkward black nerd you know underpinning behind his exploration of even the
00:34:10new world that he's you know discovering yeah and i was saying to myself you know with the art that
00:34:16you're doing and with the stories that you're telling uh of being that other and being that you
00:34:22know weird black kid who likes you know punk music and rock music and black sabbath you know during a
00:34:29time where people were probably telling you that you're not supposed to listen to that that's for
00:34:33white people or that's not for black people etc etc uh the whole storyline resonated with me
00:34:39and i think resonates with a lot of people who are watching it and are going to watch it
00:34:43so what i want to know is with the show's success and it being out there especially during a time where
00:34:50a lot of people are watching you know online platforms like hulu and and they're not secondary
00:34:56platforms like they might have been two years ago or three years ago you know what does this do for
00:35:01the the creative and operational process that you had around your print art you know are you
00:35:07going to have to divide your energy are you going to have to play a double role now are you going to
00:35:12be channeling that creativity from one side to the other so you can keep telling these stories that are
00:35:18poignant and timely like you've been doing uh i'm in this weird transitional thing where i'm trying to
00:35:25figure that out like you know what what i could give you know i i want to spend more and more time on
00:35:33the creative and less time on you know filling book orders and stuff like that which right you know
00:35:41like it it it jumped like 400 500 percent once the show came out and people were like oh this is a real
00:35:49guy like and so then they'd go to my site and and just like it's just been crazy non-stop and so that you
00:36:01know i i will always do the k chronicles the k chronicles to me is like my diary and it wasn't until after i had
00:36:09kids um where i realized like oh wow like i you know i can they can look at my stuff and read my comics
00:36:19you know decades of comics and just get to get a little insight into why daddy's so weird you know
00:36:27um but it's so funny that um you know you just jarred a memory about an interaction i had up in seattle
00:36:37which you know my my k chronicles is generally a very wordy strip and so i have samples of um
00:36:47my comic that i would always give to people and and i know that their eyes glaze over when they see
00:36:55all the writing and i always say i know it's wordy but but just give it a try you know um and i always
00:37:03say that i know it's wordy but if you read it you'll like it and i remember this black kid coming up to me
00:37:10and i handed this to him and i said i know it's wordy but like you know uh if you give it a try
00:37:17you'll like it and he snapped back at me he's like i can read but and it was the first time
00:37:25that ever happened to me of giving these samples out for like a decade or you know and he was so
00:37:33defensive like assuming that i i would think that he wouldn't be able to read it and i like i totally
00:37:42stumbled over my words after that like you know i did not mean that like this you know but it was
00:37:49such an interesting uh interaction and and sort of i know when i pitched the character in the show
00:37:59i i i would describe as the charlie brown of activism so when he is trying to do the right
00:38:09thing like he's stumbling and he he he's gonna lose more than he wins and um and i just feel like
00:38:19that i always kept on saying on on the on the set like this is like a charlie brown christmas
00:38:27you know just it's gonna be charlie brown is trying to get things done and people are
00:38:35somewhat you know microaggressions kissing them all this stuff there's gonna be a little moment
00:38:43there's gonna be a linus moment you know where linus like says some deep thing you know every
00:38:48episode is gonna have that deep thing and there's gonna be some funky music and and stuff like that so
00:38:54you know it was great to have stanley clark compose music for the show and it was great to have we had
00:39:00isa ray's uh record company um music company they're the ones who did they're the ones who did all the
00:39:09needle drops um um outside of the morgan rhodes did the first did the pilot but then after that it was
00:39:16piece of ray's company and they were so great um you know we had certain things that we wanted to
00:39:24make sure we got in there public enemy uh bill withers um there were certain things every time i
00:39:31wanted to get something in like i fought the law or rainy days of mondays i wanted to look for the black
00:39:38a black artist who covered it you know like right like an r&b version or reggae version and um and they
00:39:47they were just so good at all that stuff and um and i love the fact that people talk about the soundtrack
00:39:56to that because i mean you know afropunk was definitely a huge influence on how we wanted to do
00:40:06the music and i said you know it was important that we show the character in a dead kennedy's t-shirt
00:40:14right from the beginning so people will look at it and say okay he's one of us yeah this is going to
00:40:20be a little different like you know the music that first opens the show it's going to be a little
00:40:25different and people aren't this is going to be something that you haven't seen before so um so
00:40:32excited and and all that the sound the images everything plays a role in that so you and i had
00:40:40a phone conversation maybe it was a week or two ago um yeah we kind of know each other but we we had
00:40:47a conversation about you know the imagery of the show because it is set in san francisco but it wasn't
00:40:58shot in san francisco and even i was shocked to find that out because it did such a good job
00:41:05of someone who's actually been there i really legit thought that i was looking at that as the backdrop
00:41:11and the music you know and aside from that the music and the visuals really did set a tone for the
00:41:21movement of the story and the characters in a way that i thought was really deliberate uh and i always
00:41:26feel like the soundtrack is what makes uh makes a movie or a tv show great or not great i you might
00:41:32remember there was this uh the short meme if you will of star wars scenes without the soundtrack
00:41:40and you know these are scenes that you know nerds like me like you know there are like tearful moments
00:41:45of in movie history that when you take the john williams soundtrack out you're like this is horrifying
00:41:52like what in the hell is going on here and so i know the importance of that and just knowing that
00:41:57isa ray had a role in it just gives it a whole other layer of storytelling depth uh do you anticipate
00:42:05uh having more uh of a character if you want of the music being a part of the show going into hopefully
00:42:14a second season uh in the same way that you did here in this first season oh totally totally i mean
00:42:20that's one of the things that that really worked i mean we're you know we're looking at what really
00:42:26worked and just amping that up if we get a second season and um and also just you know what we can
00:42:34improve on and so we will yeah that's i mean that was part of the fun of it was was listening to songs
00:42:43and and just analyzing what why this one works and this one doesn't and also working within the budget
00:42:50because right a lot of budget constraints and so you know there was some i you know uh i think we had
00:43:01some issues we we had to make some concessions but it was great because because then you go to bands
00:43:11that are up and coming that may not be as expensive and you're you're giving them um some play and i
00:43:18love the idea that you know i was just telling them i said if if i've heard of it i don't want it on the
00:43:26soundtrack because you know i'm like i'm an old man so like if i've heard of it it's already
00:43:32pretty pretty well and um but i mean unless it was very specific again i wanted rainy days and mondays
00:43:41off i fought the law uh fight the power um and in a lovely day like those are the the songs that i want
00:43:50to make sure that were in there um and they're all favorite like in some way shape or form favorite
00:43:57stuff of mine um but it was yeah i mean all of it what i love about a production like this is it's a
00:44:06it's a team effort you know it's such a great um contrast to being a cartoonist where you're just by
00:44:15yourself and you're you control everything so it's nice to balance that with like being into
00:44:21in a writer's room where there are all these different ideas and voices and then working with
00:44:26the directors and the producers and then it was i had such a great time when we landed in in in
00:44:34vancouver and going to the production office and seeing all the people who were working and i love the
00:44:42fact that you and so many others even people from the bay area were fooled um and thought that like
00:44:51we might have shot in san francisco which is unbelievable um but i love it and um we it was
00:44:59just so important for me i was just so worried about that and um but we found that vancouver's
00:45:07chinatown sort of reminded me of the inner richmond in san francisco you know not san francisco's
00:45:15chinatown right like the inner richmond and it was just enough and i knew
00:45:21something was special going on because the main street that we shot on was keifer street k-e-e-f-e-r
00:45:28and you know how appropriate yeah and the bus the bus that was driving down the street on it
00:45:34was the night bus k-n-i-g-h-t 22 plus yeah so oh man okay we all saw that and we were like
00:45:43in the right place it's gonna work out exactly i want to switch gears for a second and go
00:45:49toward you know your personal journey now you have a take and an eye on racism and race relations it's
00:45:59kind of your brand it's kind of your experience and you know some of the places that you have lived
00:46:05uh have different connotations when it comes to race like people who've never been to boston or
00:46:12don't know that much about boston think because it's in the northeast that it's somehow less racist
00:46:17than maybe in the south and people who've never been to san francisco or california may not think
00:46:23that the brand of racism or the existence of racism there is the same as the classic racism that
00:46:30we think of when we watch you know you know uh civil rights documentaries etc etc you've lived
00:46:37in these two very disparate parts of the country and then you relocate to chapel hill north carolina
00:46:46you know which i i just can't think of three places in this country that have a different or more
00:46:54different relationship or image or brand of racism uh for the people who are who are novel to to those
00:47:03areas so has that experience informed your take on you know these these these stories that you're
00:47:11telling and these perspectives that you're you know you're kind of espousing both in the show and in
00:47:16your work oh totally totally um you know i i never felt i could comment on the south um in my
00:47:24comics because i'd never been to the south i've been to flor i've been to disney world in florida
00:47:29i've been to new orleans which is its own country in and of itself oh yeah but but i'd never been to
00:47:36the south south and so now once i moved here then now i feel like i can comment on it and um i i will say
00:47:47this you know places like the northeast places like the west coast you know everybody uses the the south
00:47:58as like uh well what about the south at least we're not as racist as the south and you know that may be
00:48:06true um in certain aspects of it but just the sort of well you know so does that mean it's okay
00:48:16for you to be as racist as you are you know like because because somewhere in the south it's more
00:48:23racist um that's why i think it was important to set woke in san francisco because um i think
00:48:31there's something about sort of liberal white liberal white moderate racism um that needs to be pointed out
00:48:40uh a lot more um and i think i think it's easy to point at the south and be like you know because
00:48:50for what it's worth the five years i've been here we moved here from los angeles the five years i've
00:48:55been here i've learned more about the black experience in the u.s than all the schooling i had
00:49:02in massachusetts all the time i've lived in california and it's because you know it's there is a spirit
00:49:11here that you can't ignore and when you see certain things like um in durham right near us is the stag
00:49:19milk plantation and at one time it had the most um the largest slave population in the south i think
00:49:26and um so you go there and the spirits are there man um but you learn a lot of you learn a lot of
00:49:37things there um there's the generic um the people that have to talk and they don't want to make white
00:49:45people feel bad so it's a generic type of thing but you do the research on it and you learn about the
00:49:52real deal and and they they have a large they have an agriculture an agricultural building that they
00:50:00built that the slaves built with no nails with no plans they just did it um like like almost like a
00:50:09lincoln log type of thing and at one time was the largest agricultural building in the south
00:50:15and there's a pride that you have that you come away with saying these folks who are our ancestors went
00:50:26through the absolute worst situation you could possibly possibly possibly be in and yet still managed to
00:50:35to learn when it was illegal to love when they could and still and survive
00:50:44long enough to to produce us and so we come from the strongest most resilient people
00:50:55like that this nation has ever had and there's a pride in that that you don't have in other parts of
00:51:06of the the the united states and and either way you don't learn about any of this stuff you know you
00:51:15don't learn about wilmington north carolina where in 1898 there was a coup and you know because white
00:51:23people were mad because there was a blacks and whites governing and wilmington it was a successful city
00:51:29and they got mad you know it's just like telso oklahoma and all these other places and it takes
00:51:35comics like the watchman series to for most people to learn about telso oklahoma and um i mean that just
00:51:44shows you the power of comics but i just there you know you can there's more home black home ownership
00:51:52in the south there's um uh less um black unemployment in the south um there there are there are cases to
00:52:02make there was a lot of screwed up stuff here but i just know this uh i was able to buy a house on
00:52:10cartoon money here and i can't do that in la san francisco or boston so you know oh man that is perfectly
00:52:21said because i mean i you know i probably should have stated but i'm from north carolina and and
00:52:27you know durham raleigh chapel hill you know sanford you know those were all the places i even went
00:52:35i went to college at north carolina central so like the the defining years of my life you know even
00:52:41though i've lived other places are in north carolina for the most part and i and it's always been
00:52:47because i've lived in philly you know i've lived in michigan uh i've lived you know in virginia
00:52:53it's just a different brand of racism you know it's the south is just very overt you know if there's
00:53:00racism you know in small town north carolina they'll maybe have a clan march that happens to go a block
00:53:08away from your house you know there's and and the hoods are off you know where you can see their faces
00:53:12you know that kind of a thing uh whereas you know in other parts of the country it might be a little
00:53:17more subtle yeah more nuanced a little maybe a little less mean which you know like i said in one of
00:53:23your presentations you know you really put it well that you know people mistake racism versus the lack
00:53:32of racism based on oh i'm not being mean to black people and therefore i'm not racist and they think
00:53:39that they are somehow elevated because you're in new york or you're in boston or chicago or something
00:53:44along those lines whereas down in the south you know it's uh you know there's a sign for that you
00:53:50know even though the laws may be the same you know the signage might be different and the attitudes
00:53:55around it might be a little more overt you know so it's interesting to hear you make that distinction
00:54:00and i i hearken to one of your pieces which is for me personally and this is not for anyone else
00:54:08to to judge but i think it is both your most dangerous or or or painful piece while subsequently
00:54:19and i think the reason for this is is this former your funniest piece and you have the black man you
00:54:26know standing on you know a stoop or whatever he's standing on and they are they've put a rope around
00:54:31his neck and they are on the process of heaving him up and lynching him and he looks down at you
00:54:37know the one of the white lynch mobs and he says it's because i'm black isn't it and the the guy gets
00:54:43offended yeah here you go bringing race into it again i mean you know that is the kind of you know stuff
00:54:51you would you would you would get you know in the south is you know being strung up by a lynch mob
00:54:56more so and being an overt thing as opposed to the north but uh did you just out of my own curiosity
00:55:02did you have that piece was that created after you moved to the south or was that oh no no that was
00:55:08that was i definitely did that before oh okay i thought it would be poetic but she did yeah no no um
00:55:15yeah it's i mean it's a fine line between comedy and tragedy and and that's why i think
00:55:22there have been so many great comedians that can't you know come out of out of the black experience and
00:55:30black folks like you have to laugh at at some of this stuff because if you don't you'll you'll just cry
00:55:37and it's it's so funny because um you know at the end of my slideshow it's all the time white people
00:55:47are always like well you know i would love to have conversations but i'm afraid i might offend somebody
00:55:55or make somebody mad and um and i always say to them i said listen they they said they're afraid of
00:56:03saying the wrong thing i say listen you you you folks have been saying the wrong thing for hundreds
00:56:08of years and if we haven't gotten mad already you know like i i say black people are the most forgiving
00:56:17people in the world because you know all the guys who are all the white people who are packing their
00:56:24guns like ready to start you know think there's a race war coming like you know they're they're the
00:56:31ones who were expected it but like black people just want you know they just want a decent job and
00:56:39you know and like not to be shot by the police like that's it and um so it's uh they're getting ready
00:56:49for something that um that isn't coming you know like if it does come it's going to be them fighting
00:56:58themselves and we just heard um the news just came out that the the minneapolis police station that was
00:57:05that had a big that was shot upon like uh it was it was the boogaloo boys the boogaloo boys came and shot
00:57:12up the the precinct and of course blm got blamed for it yeah of course of course and and it's just like
00:57:19this has always been the case it's always been the case that the civil rights marchers were the
00:57:27violent people and horrible like and you know the the black people are always like crazy and violent
00:57:35and people smoke marijuana are crazy and violent and jazz musicians and this and that
00:57:40yet all you see are like lynching photos you know of white people lynching people constantly and and
00:57:50supposedly where the crazy violent ones where the the uh nutty horrible people and it's like the evidence
00:58:01is there it's just we don't teach any of it because because i mean frankly you know white people are
00:58:10elevated in this systemic you know the system that we have and and anybody else you know i say it in
00:58:19my slideshow if white people didn't invent it uh aliens must have done it you know like the pyramids
00:58:28you know they know white people didn't do it so aliens must have come down and made it so it's crazy
00:58:35it's crazy you know the the funny part of this is uh that i i i we're talking about how history ends up
00:58:45being kind of in this cycle where you know they have basically canonized martin luther king's memory
00:58:53but not the real man right in the same way they did to to you know reagan you know on the republican side
00:58:59but you'd say to people like you know these same people in the same position 50 years ago would have
00:59:07been saying the same things about you know the naacp and dr king and all this stuff that they're
00:59:12saying about kaepernick and and blm and you know and it's just you know the fact that we're not very
00:59:19good at teaching history and civics and you know that that true story of black history as you as you
00:59:26made uh made note of just does not does not work so you know i i'm really glad we had this
00:59:33conversation because i want i'm just so glad that we've had an opportunity to introduce you to the
00:59:37world of afropunk and the black nerds uh you know you've done some just really amazing work and and i
00:59:45i really really want you the people who are watching this and will be watching this to get you guys to
00:59:52watch the show go online check out his work uh you know he's got some amazing stuff that you can
00:59:58purchase online i mean it's not a pitch for sales but it's the way in which you can connect with what
01:00:03he has created because there aren't a whole lot of in-person conventions and art shows where you can
01:00:09run into this brother who's very very very accessible uh outside of covid obviously and keith i really want
01:00:17to thank you uh for coming out taking this time you could not be busier if you know they're just
01:00:24one of the busiest guys i know but you've been so generous with your time and i'm looking forward
01:00:29to doing some work with you uh in the future both with blurg con and with your work and everything like
01:00:35that because i think the synergy between the things that you are discussing in your art and the things
01:00:40that we've been able to do uh with blurg con and the afropunk community you know it's just it's a
01:00:46convergence that's just going to happen so we might as well get ahead of it and make it happen
01:00:50so is there anything that you want to say to uh the afropunk and blurg con community uh before we wrap
01:00:55uh and and head into the rest of the weekend uh just thank thank you to everybody out there because
01:01:04all of you you know just whenever i look at the afropunk videos or performances follow uh the folks
01:01:12on instagram i mean everyone's an inspiration uh just of your individuality and your strength and
01:01:22uh and just your um just just for being seen just for getting out there like you inspire me you inspire
01:01:32everybody um and i just want to yeah i just thank you reach out uh watch the show watch it to the end
01:01:40hopefully we'll get a season two and what's your website don't forget that what's your website they
01:01:44can find you yeah k chronicles.com um you can check that out i'm also on patreon under keith night
01:01:51keith the character in the show k-e-e-f yeah yeah and i actually the latest strip up is uh easter eggs
01:01:59so all the easter eggs and episode one is up there and then i list like 20 more in in the blog part of
01:02:06it so people you guys can go and support this brother directly get direct access to his stuff
01:02:11i'm hilton george uh from blurred con this is keith knight from the k chronicles and woke
01:02:19this is planet afropunk and we are out
01:02:23you
01:02:36you
01:02:40you
01:02:44you
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