- 2 days ago
Marcus: The Visuals with Marcus Williams
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LifestyleTranscript
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00:04:59We had no idea how to work the comic book business or publishing or anything.
00:05:06We were just young and we wanted to, you know, get our ideas out.
00:05:10We actually were printing it up at Kinko's and we were losing money every time we sold a copy because back then, you know, we were like nobody knew who we were.
00:05:20So we were selling them for like $1.
00:05:50And I want Marcus, and I want Marcus, and I want Marcus, and I want Marcus, and I want Marcus to please explain how Tafigi Ares came about.
00:05:56While that's happening, I will be the model, Price is Right model, and I'll be showing the books to you guys.
00:06:05That is true. So I think I'm going to share.
00:06:09Or you can just share your screen and do it.
00:06:11I think I'm going to share my screen.
00:06:15Okay, so let's go to some stuff.
00:06:20So Tafigi Ares actually came from a conversation, and forgive me as I look through all of this stuff.
00:06:29I want to show you guys some of the beginning pieces of art that actually started Tafigi Ares off on that journey.
00:06:39So throughout, there was a book signing event that Greg was going to with his books.
00:06:47I accompanied him at the table, and sure enough, the question was brought up if we had anything that focused on aviation.
00:06:55I said no at the time.
00:07:00I didn't have any art that focused on aviation, but I was drawing on some young – I was making these images called Young Heroes.
00:07:09And sure enough, with the conversation, I was like, well, I was thinking about doing some young Tuskegee airmen.
00:07:18There are no open air, I guess.
00:07:21So I was thinking about doing some young Tuskegee airmen.
00:07:24Sure enough, he – this is an elderly gentleman.
00:07:26He lit up and was like, man, that was amazing.
00:07:31Greg was sitting next to me and was like, yo, man, we need to write something up about that.
00:07:36That would be cool.
00:07:37And within a week, we sat down and we began to talk about the premise, talk about the ways that we can do it respectfully to the family, the descendants, because they're very – they're the actual heirs of the Tuskegee airmen.
00:07:53They're very much five, many, many, many descendants out there that are still alive and well.
00:07:58And we didn't want to disrespect any families by doing something.
00:08:02So we called it – you know, usually we fight about the name.
00:08:07We quickly came up with the name.
00:08:09What about Tuskegee airs?
00:08:12Yeah, that's it.
00:08:12That's going to be good.
00:08:14You know, I was like, yo, if we're in the future, we put it far enough in the future.
00:08:19And these aren't blood descendants.
00:08:22That's another thing I think we decided on pretty quickly, which is we just won't make them blood descendants.
00:08:28We want to kind of pass the torch to a new generation of young pilots.
00:08:34And that happened pretty quickly, that decision.
00:08:36And then I'm like, well, if we're in the future, we can have giant robots, you know, like anime.
00:08:42And Greg was like, yo, what about martial arts?
00:08:45I'm like, I'm designing the weapons.
00:08:48And, like, our brains kept exploding back and forth.
00:08:53So after that conversation that we kind of had a premise and basis to build on, there was no imagery.
00:09:00This was the actual first image.
00:09:02I said, give me – I told Greg after that meeting, I was like, give me a few days, and I'll come back.
00:09:08Hey, man, are you going to click on the image?
00:09:10Oh, you don't see this?
00:09:13Not on my side.
00:09:14I see your folder.
00:09:15Wow.
00:09:16What folder?
00:09:16The folder with all the images in it.
00:09:20Oh, okay.
00:09:21Well, then that's not working.
00:09:23Okay, so –
00:09:24Like, I see the images, but –
00:09:26Yeah, it's not opening up.
00:09:29Yeah.
00:09:30So, that's not helpful.
00:09:32Oh, okay.
00:09:34Hold on.
00:09:36I thought there was a way to do a preview.
00:09:41Interesting.
00:09:41Edit.
00:09:43I don't want to edit.
00:09:45So, oh, you know why?
00:09:47It's Sean.
00:09:47I did this thing here.
00:09:49Okay, so I stopped sharing that.
00:09:51Let me try something.
00:09:51Yeah.
00:09:52You are something.
00:09:54Hey, hey, hey, hey.
00:09:55So, we'll start there.
00:09:56Share the screen.
00:09:57That way, you can just go straight on in.
00:09:59Who was that guy?
00:10:05Oh, it's Eddie Riley.
00:10:07Right.
00:10:10It's good work there, man.
00:10:14Listen to music.
00:10:15Okay, let's try that one more time.
00:10:17He's on the way here at the bottom.
00:10:18But just to kind of stay on task, yeah, you know, Marcus does this illustration while we're –
00:10:32You see this, right?
00:10:33Yeah, yeah, I see it.
00:10:34Okay, very good, yeah.
00:10:35I think the world sees it, too, and that's what's important.
00:10:38But, yeah, so while we are world building, which is a task in itself, we're coming up with these characters and kind of creating a timeline and all of that, and Marcus is just steady sketching away.
00:10:55And so, I love this piece.
00:10:57Now, when you see this, you see a lot of our stuff, and it looks digital because it is.
00:11:01This initially is, like, pencil on, like, a gray – what is it, gray tone?
00:11:08I mean, watching Game of Thrones, I was about to say grayscale.
00:11:12It's a gray tone paper that Marcus manipulates, like, wonderfully.
00:11:19And so, he's doing this image, and we're, like, losing it just from, you know, being able to put, like, all these concepts in that we've wanted to do forever, like, our whole lives.
00:11:36But then with Black kids, you know, we've never seen anything like it.
00:11:40So, we're, you know, just steadily losing our minds.
00:11:44And then Marcus posted, and he posted it, and we just kind of went back to, you know, minding our business, like, working.
00:11:52And people went crazy.
00:11:56People automatically saw what it was, knew what it was, and they were like, yes, take my money.
00:12:03They started threatening us.
00:12:04This is the same illustration, but colored, like, scanned and colored digitally.
00:12:10And, yeah, so people are losing their minds, and they were kind of, like, forcing us into hurrying up, you know, and finding a way to, you know, get the money – you know, give us money to produce this.
00:12:25So, what was it, like, maybe two months later, we launched the Kickstarter, and we were trying to raise $10,000.
00:12:35We ended up raising $74,000.
00:12:37So, we raised $10,000 in, like, eight hours, and then, you know, the rest was kind of history as far as how it was created.
00:12:49But then we had to do all the work.
00:12:53If you're not familiar with Tuskegee Airs, it's a futuristic sci-fi.
00:12:57It takes place 80 years in the future.
00:13:00We have five team pilots that are learning to fly at a time when man piloting has been banned, so there's not that many people in the sky at all.
00:13:11And they're pretty much forced into becoming the, you know, the strongest line of defense against this machine army that's coming to take over the world.
00:13:21Can you see this large video?
00:13:24Yeah.
00:13:25Okay.
00:13:25You mind if I play that video?
00:13:28How long is this video?
00:13:29It's four minutes.
00:13:31I think it's worth it.
00:13:32I think it's worth it.
00:13:32I should have, like, some segue, man.
00:13:36You know, okay, hold on.
00:13:38Man, I wish there was some type of video that could explain and show us at the infancy stage of this project.
00:13:47Oh, wow, look at that.
00:13:48There's a video right there.
00:13:49The crazy thing is there is one.
00:13:52Ta-da!
00:13:53This is the video we actually put together using the help of a very talented young lady, Brianna, who was our videographer for this.
00:14:04And so I'm going to play that for y'all real quick.
00:14:08Hopefully you can hear it.
00:14:09All right.
00:14:12Okay.
00:14:13Ready?
00:14:13Ready?
00:14:14Ready?
00:14:14Ready?
00:14:14Ready?
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00:14:22Ready?
00:14:23Uh, Marcus Williams is my name.
00:14:24I have been a professional illustrator.
00:14:27I believe for over, oof, it's closer to 19 years now, there are a number of different projects
00:14:33I've worked on, great artistic, you know, milestones that I've done.
00:14:37I've worked with Cartoon Network, been in the animation side of things, I did storyboards,
00:14:43comics, things of that nature.
00:14:46Tuskegee Airs is a concept that I rolled around in my mind for a little while in terms of trying
00:14:51to create something that was as exciting for this young generation now as Voltron was.
00:15:00For me, when I was a kid, the concept was, what if you take the Tuskegee Airmen and just
00:15:05make it a young cast and put all the history, put all the great moral, the wonderful work
00:15:12ethic, the problem solving, against the world, you know, mentality into that and really empower
00:15:18young kids to watch them and be excited.
00:15:20I'm Greg Burnham, a children's book writer and co-creator of Tuskegee Airs.
00:15:26Tuskegee Airs is set about 80 years from the current day.
00:15:31It's about five pilots, they're all children ages 14 to 19, that are going to come across
00:15:38some really cool machines and basically be the Earth's last line of defense.
00:16:08The idea came about, Marcus basically brought the concept to me in its beginning stages.
00:16:20And then we sat down, like we were both excited.
00:16:23We worked on it for maybe an hour just to get the basic premise.
00:16:28A lot of yelling and fighting with each other to, you know, until we were both excited and
00:16:33happy with what we came up with. And then from there, Marcus put one illustration online.
00:16:39Coming to the museum, there's a ton of wonderful imagery that just creatively I want to use verbatim.
00:16:47I want to show the actual image and I want to illustrate the characters from Tuskegee Airs
00:16:52doing just about the same scene.
00:16:55We just feel like the world needs to see this. We need to see it ourselves.
00:16:59But you got five pilots, they're all black, and they're the heroes of the story.
00:17:05Not to say there won't be other races or cultures in the book, in the series, because there will.
00:17:12But it's just something that we've never seen done before.
00:17:16I suppose at the end of everything, I want parents to be highly supercharged, to be very, very motivated,
00:17:24to put their children in front of this. Whether it's the comic, whether it be the animated series down the road,
00:17:30it can be a video game in the future, it can be toys, it can be merchandising.
00:17:34I want them to feel very proud. There's tons of family that are connected,
00:17:39descendants that are connected to the Tuskegee Airmen. There is production cost.
00:17:44We have a comic book to create. I do illustration full time.
00:17:49So in order to make time to produce that book, you are definitely donating to the production of the actual graphic novel.
00:17:58If you just want to see it succeed, if you want to see us change history with this kind of a project,
00:18:02we would love to have your support. And we look forward to publishing something and producing something that everyone can be proud of.
00:18:10We'll see you next time.
00:18:40Good times. Good times. Cool. That was the video we put together for the actual Kickstarter campaign.
00:18:52Wonderful, wonderful support poured from all over the world during that campaign and kind of went crazy.
00:19:02I think we hit the button at, I can't remember. Is it PM?
00:19:07Whatever. I'll never forget. It was 4 PM on a Friday.
00:19:13For some reason, that is the time that we decided to launch. Yeah.
00:19:17January 15th or 16th. Yeah. January 16th.
00:19:2630 day campaign and it ran through February 15th or 16th.
00:19:35And we set the goal at $10,000 for the graphic novel.
00:19:40And we hit that within eight hours.
00:19:44And from there, like, what do we do?
00:19:47What else do we do with that?
00:19:49And the concepts, you know, really simple. They are the next, I guess, group, flight group to take on the tour, the Tuskegee Airmen who were World War II pilots.
00:20:05I think it was the easiest thing for me and Greg. Greg is actually a history major, but both of us grew up watching television, animation.
00:20:16Greg's a huge G.I. Joe fan. I was action and I was a fan of G.I. Joe too.
00:20:22But just looking at all of these cool cartoons from our past, Transformers, Voltron, anything.
00:20:30Anything on television that was hugely popular that centered around action adventure cartoons and character did not show a handful of young black protagonists.
00:20:44Especially something that actually centered around history, real history.
00:20:50So that was a really cool concept for both myself and Greg to literally say, well, why not?
00:20:58Why not create something that actually talks to real history and highlights something we couldn't see, something we didn't see when we were children and see what happened.
00:21:12So I think that's why it resonated so well when we hit the button.
00:21:18People saw it. We're still getting people to this day, this many years later, saying, you know, I've seen this before.
00:21:26I've seen this before. They've never seen the comet.
00:21:28They remember people passing it around during the campaign.
00:21:32So as we broke through these different markers, if you can see, you know, $25,000, $35,000 and so forth.
00:21:44I remember drawing new milestones each time as we actually hit these stretch goals and different things.
00:21:54$45,000, $45,000, $45,000 cleared. It was incredible.
00:21:58And I think that it would be a huge miss if we didn't explain what we've seen, you know, the positive impact that we've seen from this series and others.
00:22:14And others because the indie community is full of people making, you know, really dope stuff.
00:22:19But, you know, that that word representation, it really matters.
00:22:26And it's huge when we are allowed to see ourselves as heroes and, you know, versus having to try to, you know, explain to your mind, like, like make your brain think you're somebody that you're not or you could be somebody that you're not.
00:22:47So we've just seen, you know, through all of our travels, we've done, man, hundreds, like, of comic conventions.
00:22:56Yeah.
00:22:57And, like, just, you know, Mark is just showing you just a slide, slideshow of just certain events that we've done.
00:23:05And we see it in the kids' eyes all the way up through the grownups.
00:23:12We've had, we have fans, you know, people that are in their 70s and 80s, and we have, you know, babies that are fans of what we do.
00:23:24So that representation, that part, which Mike Marcus brought up that word gatekeeper, and I love to acknowledge that there are people that are making decisions that are deciding how many, you know, African American people are going to be in a book or in a movie or a show.
00:23:47And the cool thing about where we are as a society now with the internet and crowdfunding and all of that is that we can slip right past that and go directly to people.
00:24:00And the people are proving over and over again that they want this kind of stuff.
00:24:05You see it right now, Lovecraft Country, shout out to Blurcon for, you know, like, letting us get a little peek of that before it dropped to the masses.
00:24:18Lovecraft Country, Black Panther, what Jordan Peele is doing as a whole, we're starting to see us be heroes in different realms that normally we wouldn't have been in.
00:24:34So, you know, we, our goal is to continue to keep pushing that envelope.
00:24:42And like, one of my mentors told me, you keep cracking away until that dam breaks.
00:24:51And this is normal. And we're not sitting here like, having our mind blown by something like Lovecraft Country, because it's, you know, a black thing is, you know, we're just having our mind blown because it's a great thing.
00:25:06But it's normal. And that's what we want to, you know, what we're trying to push to.
00:25:10I think to kind of follow up with, so from our first project to where we are now, learning how to publish and create comic books was essential.
00:25:26I remember specifically telling Greg, he was like, you know, so when are we going to jump back on this comic thing?
00:25:34I was like, well, we actually know how to do it and make money.
00:25:39And it was it was real, though, because it was just it wasn't that we didn't want to create comic book.
00:25:47It was very important that we actually hit the ground with the right information.
00:25:51So through the years, that's exactly what we ended up getting information doing.
00:25:58So at this point, we've gotten the question before, such as like, what what made us think we could do this?
00:26:07And it's a weird question for me and Greg.
00:26:10I just decided to is what we wanted to do.
00:26:15We wanted to create it. And once we got the information, wrap.
00:26:18So I guess we can kind of talk to a little bit of the process.
00:26:24So Greg, like you said, is a traditional he's been writing like story for years, far longer than I have as an illustrator.
00:26:34I think I write through my characters.
00:26:38I'm trying to see which one. Yeah, this is book one.
00:26:43So these are super, super rough.
00:26:46Hopefully you guys can see this. This is a scanned image of a sketchbook, but this is nearly five years old now.
00:26:55So it's pretty, pretty beat up.
00:26:58But I got the main if you if you squint, you know, if you really get in there and squint.
00:27:04We me and Greg have a unique kind of writing approach, which is not standard, but it's pretty close.
00:27:13It's been effective for us where we'll sit down and we'll meet about we'll literally start a conversation about what it is.
00:27:21We're trying to create story and so forth.
00:27:25I will sit down. I'll usually have my sketchbook.
00:27:28Now my iPad. I didn't have an iPad back then.
00:27:30So as we're actually going through and we're talking about story, the story element, what we want to actually transpire.
00:27:39I'm doodling in my sketchbook and these thumbnails sketches are very, very, very rough rudimentary version of what I'm visualizing as we're talking.
00:27:54You know, paid on this page, they wake up early morning to do flight training.
00:28:01Ayan is talking Mars, me and Greg actually talking this stuff out.
00:28:06And I'm like, what time of day is it?
00:28:08And he's like, oh, it's in the morning, early in the morning.
00:28:11And Ayan is talking Mars.
00:28:13It's this fatherly, you know, daughterly by happening where she kind of makes fun of them.
00:28:19So you can actually see in some of these images right here on this page, you can see Ayan is asking a question or they're talking.
00:28:28And then she has this smirk on her face.
00:28:30But that's only because me and Greg are talking about it actively.
00:28:34So, you know, Greg's like, hey, I want to make fun of I want, you know, she should make fun of him trying to be fatherly or, you know, overly strict about what to do and what not to do.
00:28:49And we actually I remember the joke.
00:28:51She was like, oh, you know, you're practicing your what is your mean voice, something like that.
00:28:57But all of this is actually happening in a conversation between me and Greg.
00:29:02So and I can show you from this point.
00:29:06You know what this goes down to Greg rip wise.
00:29:13What do you do?
00:29:17So with Marcus, it's it's just different because we're like we've been creating together for so long.
00:29:26So normally what you would do is you would write like a script like what I'm doing for other books that I'm working on is I'll write like a rough script.
00:29:37And then I also write like an artist script.
00:29:41So with the artist script, you're kind of telling the artist what you want to see in each panel or each page.
00:29:48So you do that.
00:29:52I like to and I probably I know I get on Marcus's nerves.
00:29:56I can see why, but I like to wait until the art, you know, starts coming in to kind of really fine tune the script only because I'm really big into continuity.
00:30:12I'm really big into making sure like to not actively trying to put plot holes in.
00:30:22So it's like I want like sometimes I'll like just leave it any page Marcus.
00:30:29I think Marcus is excellent at showing facial expressions.
00:30:36And so there might be a page like if you look at the bottom panel in the middle, Gina, who is our mechanic, she has a look on her face that says, you know, like skept like skepticism, like she's looking like I don't trust you, dog.
00:30:55So I might have to go, you know, go in and, you know, look at that image.
00:31:00And then that's where you kind of figure out, OK, this is what I wanted to say.
00:31:04I don't want, you know, like somebody to have a happy face and then you're saying something sad, you know, like little things like that.
00:31:11And, you know, if you if you if you look back at the sketches while I did have the smirk on a honest face on that particular page, like I said, we were we were joking.
00:31:23I knew the joke on this page because we talked about it.
00:31:27Somebody's been working on their meeting face so I could draw that smirk in.
00:31:31I knew she was going to be making this kind of I'm making fun of you poking fun, you know, at the Colonel.
00:31:39But there are times when that rough sketch, I'm just doing a little old, you know, and there's no expression.
00:31:47So Greg will look at that like, I don't know what that is.
00:31:51I don't know what that is. I'm like, what, you know, so and so talking to me like, I don't know.
00:31:58But yeah, our our process is a little bit different than the standard, you know, the way the comics work.
00:32:07We did get some good news.
00:32:11I feel like it was good news when we found out about Studio Ghibli and how Miyazaki did his work.
00:32:19He basically did what we do.
00:32:21He storyboarded like the whole thing first and then went back in and kind of filled in the blanks.
00:32:26So, oh, this is one of my favorite pages. Can we get like a zoom in?
00:32:31I don't know how long it took for that third panel.
00:32:35But I remember Marcus turning that in and I'm just like that turning it in like even before the colors were added.
00:32:44And I was just looking like, oh, yeah, this is a book.
00:32:48I got a shout out. I got a shout out to all the pages for this.
00:32:52So artistically, I was drawing the pages and we had Omaka Schultz was coloring the pages up to this point.
00:33:01This is all of his color work. I was inking the book.
00:33:05But Omaka Schultz was blessing the pages with his color work.
00:33:10And specifically all the way up to this point, this page is when I started to color the book.
00:33:16And I had to, you know, try to match his wonderful style because he was doing beautiful work.
00:33:23He was killing it. Yeah, he was killing it.
00:33:25So this is where I had to jump in.
00:33:28I remember the pain of all of this intricate work.
00:33:33But yeah, it's it's funny because Marcus does this thing where he'll be like, yeah, I'm going to have to do it.
00:33:43And then, you know, talk to him for like a day.
00:33:45And then he comes back with like some really masterful stuff.
00:33:48So, yeah.
00:33:51But like I said, our process when we found out that, you know, an actual master was doing it similar to what we were doing.
00:34:00And it kind of felt good.
00:34:04We are we recently.
00:34:07So we recently released issue four.
00:34:10Can you see me at all? I can't see.
00:34:12I can see you.
00:34:13What am I doing right now?
00:34:15Oh, look, now you're looking with a condescending tone.
00:34:19Yeah.
00:34:20Yeah.
00:34:21So we have two covers for issue four that was just released.
00:34:26Any of the stuff you've seen so far?
00:34:28Well, most of the stuff you can get on Tuskegee Airs dot com.
00:34:32But, yeah, we just released issue four and we actually now are getting a little bit more help because and I say we, but Marcus is getting a little more help with inks and colors.
00:34:48There you go.
00:34:49So our friends, Jonathan Ledesma and Rodney Velches help to ink and color respect respectively.
00:35:05Respectfully.
00:35:06There they go.
00:35:07Yeah.
00:35:08That that's always cool.
00:35:11Making comics is not really a two person job is really should be like a five or six person job.
00:35:19So hopefully we can start to produce.
00:35:24That's the one thing that I, you know, I wish, you know, I would like for us to do better.
00:35:30It's just because, like, we're such like fans of this series ourselves.
00:35:36And it's like I want to see it on paper because I know it's in store for the next two issues, which would make six and finish out our first little arc.
00:35:48So it's like, yeah, we want to really try to ramp up our production.
00:35:53So, yeah, with that next, which will be coming out is our timelines story.
00:36:01So without giving any spoilers away, there are certain things that happen in these issues that we just don't have the time.
00:36:13We don't I won't say the time we don't have the space to put these, you know, put these happenings into the single issue.
00:36:25So what we've done is we started a series called timelines where we'll basically be showing like some of the fill in the blank type stuff.
00:36:37So, you know, I can't know.
00:36:42No, no.
00:36:43All right.
00:36:44You know, I think the best way to.
00:36:47There's a well, Greg was saying just the compound off it is just say, because we know all of the inner work behind the scene, the world building.
00:37:00For instance, in the first book, we actually introduce Abel as the new pilot and he gets to Moten Field.
00:37:11And there's a part where me and Greg, if this was animation.
00:37:16And once he got introduced to the kids, they would then go into Barrett and he would walk around the base, figure out everyone's sleeping quarters where he's going to sleep.
00:37:27They would start their bonding process.
00:37:30But because comics has a fixed real estate of pages, we couldn't fit all of that wonderful character building stuff in there.
00:37:41But with this timeline side support project, we can literally say, hey, we can take five, six pages or more, a little bit more, and have room to literally put that piece into the puzzle and say, this is what we couldn't show you because of our constraints.
00:37:59And there's so many, so many world building points that me and Greg have talked about.
00:38:06Everything from how they go shopping to the rest of the world, everything that's led up to this future being their reality.
00:38:15We've talked about all that, but trying to integrate that and tell a story in this fixed amount of pages, it's a juggle.
00:38:23It's kind of like playing Jenga, you know, and you're like, OK, if we put this here, we're not going to have room for this.
00:38:30What about that fight scene? I'm going to need four pages for that fight scene.
00:38:33So it's kind of this not never like a war as you try to create something that makes sense and makes makes the best, you know, real estate sense.
00:38:47So I forgot I did these.
00:38:49Yeah, yeah, that was quite some time ago.
00:38:54I got to see a short short bit.
00:38:56This is original, like way, you know, like the beginning of the process artwork.
00:39:05Yeah.
00:39:06But yeah, you know, creating this has been really fun.
00:39:13How much?
00:39:14What are you checking time?
00:39:16Good, sir.
00:39:17We're about approaching an hour now.
00:39:20So we can.
00:39:22Let me see if it actually tells me that.
00:39:24Let me see.
00:39:25That would be important if they did.
00:39:27Who is that guy?
00:39:29Come on, man.
00:39:30That is not a year.
00:39:31That guy is Frank McComb.
00:39:32He's really talented as a person.
00:39:35Anyway, while you're doing that.
00:39:38I want to shout out another book that I'm working on right now.
00:39:43I got a Kickstarter.
00:39:44I don't know when this is going to air.
00:39:46The Kickstarter's only got two days left after tonight.
00:39:51But yeah, this is another book.
00:39:53The Search for Sadika.
00:39:56The next.
00:39:58This is an issue zero.
00:39:59So issue one will be coming soon.
00:40:02You still see that?
00:40:04See what?
00:40:05No, I don't.
00:40:06What?
00:40:07Okay.
00:40:08So I got the answer.
00:40:09That's weird.
00:40:10There's a screen.
00:40:12But yeah, running a Kickstarter for this.
00:40:15What happened?
00:40:17There she is.
00:40:18Yeah.
00:40:19And it's a historical action adventure.
00:40:21It actually features Sadika, a 13 year old girl who flees the rubble of the Tuskegee.
00:40:30I mean, the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Black Wall Street, you know, massacre.
00:40:38I hate using that word, but it's kind of appropriate.
00:40:44So anyway, she's going to be like, she goes on this quest, like heading west to find a mythological ancestor and a tribe that she thinks she belongs to.
00:40:58So it's a really cool story, got some pretty good reviews from it.
00:41:03And again, it's just right in that line of pushing, you know, pushing out these quality stories with black heroes and you may learn a little stuff in there and also just, you know, be entertained.
00:41:21Like, it's a, it's a slippery slope.
00:41:26Like, I know we talk about wanting to, you know, educate through our works, but then, you know, the biggest part is it has to be dope.
00:41:36And I say that to Marcus all the time.
00:41:39It's like, you know, it's got to be dope first.
00:41:43And then, you know, when, when it, when it's dope, then you can throw in the cool stuff.
00:41:50But I think that's what we try to do.
00:41:53And I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but just tell like really good stories, really cool concepts, and then execute them.
00:42:03Who is that guy?
00:42:06You want me to play it out?
00:42:07Play it, man.
00:42:08I don't want to.
00:42:10And I can't hear it anyway.
00:42:12What is your cat?
00:42:15I'm scared to pull up Instagram.
00:42:17So I'm going to.
00:42:20Instagram.
00:42:22Twitter is the devil is devil.
00:42:25And then Instagram is the second.
00:42:27Let's see if I can find your Kickstarter link through here.
00:42:32We're going to go down.
00:42:34Let me go to my page.
00:42:35Whoa.
00:42:36Boy, that boy Mel Mel good.
00:42:38Man.
00:42:39You saw that Wonder Woman he just did?
00:42:41Yeah.
00:42:42Boy, that boy good.
00:42:43Hold on.
00:42:44Let me find you.
00:42:45There she is.
00:42:46There she go.
00:42:47If you guys go to Kickstarter, you can look up the search for Sadika.
00:42:52Sadika.
00:42:53Right.
00:42:54Issue one.
00:42:55He's doing a great job of getting that in.
00:42:57That's if we cut this at the right time.
00:43:00Support that man.
00:43:01It's good stuff.
00:43:02The amazing artist.
00:43:03Did you talk about that guy?
00:43:05Shannon Sapenter, who we located on good old fashioned Instagram.
00:43:11And that was like two years ago.
00:43:16Was it?
00:43:17No, over a year ago.
00:43:18Mm hmm.
00:43:19Maybe close to two.
00:43:20Time flies these days.
00:43:22Anyway, Shannon is amazing.
00:43:24Shannon did the line work here.
00:43:26You know, I had a guy the other day that was like, he said he sent me this image in my
00:43:33message messages and he said Marcus Williams and that's all he said.
00:43:39And I was like, okay.
00:43:41And he's like, that's Marcus Williams work.
00:43:44I was like, well, Marcus colored it.
00:43:48Right.
00:43:49Shannon Sapenter.
00:43:50I've actually had people accuse me of like stealing your work.
00:43:53Like when I'm posting a skinny air.
00:43:56So I'm like, okay.
00:43:58All right.
00:43:59Tough guy.
00:44:00Come on, man.
00:44:01Not their fault.
00:44:02Internet's weird place.
00:44:03This is Shannon's amazing panel work.
00:44:06Yeah.
00:44:07And colorist.
00:44:08Phenomenal colors.
00:44:10These guys are really, really talented.
00:44:13Right.
00:44:14You're killing it.
00:44:15Shannon.
00:44:16I was like, we talked about expressions.
00:44:19Right.
00:44:20And Shannon has been killing.
00:44:22Like when you see this book and you see like some of the facial expressions and you know,
00:44:27just the, like the, the action, the fight scenes and stuff, man, it's, it's cold.
00:44:36I'm so ready to get this out.
00:44:38Right.
00:44:39These are all things that you can get like on different tiers.
00:44:42Um, made by the talented Mr. Mel Milton.
00:44:47Mel Milton.
00:44:48Crazy.
00:44:49Yeah.
00:44:50You know, I'm using Mel.
00:44:51Uh, I'm using this image for the, um, alternate cover.
00:44:55I'm gonna buy that.
00:44:57Also.
00:44:58Steal it from me.
00:44:59It's cool.
00:45:00I steal a lot of things from you.
00:45:02So.
00:45:03Right.
00:45:04I just, it's been a, it's been a while.
00:45:09Right.
00:45:10That's a goldie goal right there.
00:45:12Wow.
00:45:13That was one of the cool things, man, is that, uh, a lot of my favorite artists, I reached
00:45:18out to them and they were like, sure, you know, tell me what you need.
00:45:22You know, of course I offered them, you know, monetary compensation.
00:45:26So it's not like they're just giving it to me, but you know, it's like, I love gold.
00:45:31Like I buy goldies work.
00:45:34I have a really nice painting of his, uh, in my living room.
00:45:39Like, um, I'm a fan of him.
00:45:42I'm a fan of Mel Milton.
00:45:44Um, of course, I'm a fan of Shannon.
00:45:48I was trying to like buy some, some, where's the young lady.
00:45:53Uh, oh man, how do I find you?
00:45:55The young lady that just did the new piece, uh, for you.
00:45:59Oh, you can, no, no, no.
00:46:01You could go back to the, uh, well, yeah, you can pull that up right there too.
00:46:06Yeah.
00:46:07Amazing work.
00:46:09Yes.
00:46:10That, um, blown away is what I was when she turned this in.
00:46:16This is, uh, Jaina Gabriel is her name.
00:46:19She's very young.
00:46:21I think just graduated high school.
00:46:23And she's actually the daughter of a friend of ours.
00:46:27And, um, one day he just, you know, I think he shared something and we're like, Hey, we
00:46:34didn't know you were over there, you know, raising Super Saiyans.
00:46:37Right.
00:46:38Take it easy, bro.
00:46:40And so, uh, the fun thing is I talked to her, Marcus, I talked to her, uh, just a little
00:46:46bit about the Tuskegee heirs piece.
00:46:48We're going to have her do, um, at least one, maybe a few, uh, Tuskegee heirs pieces.
00:46:54Uh, what is, what is you call this?
00:46:57This is digital art.
00:46:58Yeah.
00:46:59Um, like realism.
00:47:01What is this style called?
00:47:03This is more surreal, surreal.
00:47:05Uh, it's, it's, it's close to portrait art, but there's things about it that, um, really
00:47:12come off as fantasy, uh, kind of, it's so perfect and, and, you know, brushy and, and
00:47:20just, you know, this surrealistic kind of look to it.
00:47:23This could pass for a portrait art easily, but, uh, it feels fantasy because of that,
00:47:29that, uh, the approach and the style that she uses.
00:47:32Um, so very, very portrait-y slash surrealistic.
00:47:38Yeah.
00:47:39Beautiful work.
00:47:40Um, and it's amazing.
00:47:42Like when you guys have not, uh, we probably should not get started.
00:47:47I'm sorry.
00:47:48Uh, there we go.
00:47:50Tuskegee airs is, uh, the websites that we're going to show now.
00:47:55If you go to, um, either of these websites, I think Greg plugged it before.
00:48:00Tuskegee airs.
00:48:01Tuskegee airs.
00:48:02H-E-I-R-S.com is where you can find, uh, the comic books.
00:48:07Uh, we have the graphic novel that collects issues one through three.
00:48:11Uh, and like Greg was saying earlier, issue four is out.
00:48:14We have two covers, um, for that issue four.
00:48:17Um, and if you want to actually go deeper in finding, um, individual issues, just click
00:48:23on the shop here and you'll see the individual issues.
00:48:26We got to take that stuff off too.
00:48:28The stuff we got on there.
00:48:29We do.
00:48:30I will move that.
00:48:32Wow.
00:48:33We're here.
00:48:34I'm gonna click on your website.
00:48:35Your website.
00:48:36Uh, I'll scroll down to the, um, oh yes, here we go.
00:48:42Uh, Greg's website for Satica.
00:48:45Um, platform that I said no one.
00:48:49Oh, there we go.
00:48:51Leroy green.
00:48:53Uh, platform l7.com to support this gentleman right now.
00:48:59Uh, pick up these children's books.
00:49:02These are actually really good.
00:49:03I know you didn't talk about them.
00:49:04I'm gonna talk about them.
00:49:05Cause I was there when I, we created these things.
00:49:09Uh, we came up with this cool.
00:49:11Uh, label for these types of books.
00:49:13Uh, they are children's books, but they are called, uh, read with me books.
00:49:18And I remember coming up that, uh, with that, when we talked about it, uh, there was a problem
00:49:23with, uh, a lot of parents just, it's just a misconception of how, uh, sometimes you want
00:49:30your kids to sit down and read a book.
00:49:32And unfortunately there's parents that just shove, Hey, go, go read this and sit down somewhere.
00:49:37Uh, versus let's sit down and read this together.
00:49:40And, um, it doesn't have to be just a bedtime.
00:49:44So both of these books, uh, broken glass was something that actually happened to Greg.
00:49:49Uh, young man, uh, is playing baseball in his room.
00:49:58He knew of course he wasn't supposed to ends up hitting a ball through his, uh, room window.
00:50:04And the wonderful journey of it's an internal journey.
00:50:08And actually I think is the coolest part about the book is his imagination runs away with, uh, runs away from him in terms of if he has to tell, if he does tell the truth about what happened, all of the things that's going to go wrong.
00:50:22All of the trouble he's going to get into.
00:50:24So, um, he ultimately it's to the end of the book and makes the right decision, but that's hard to do for a child.
00:50:32And you get to the end of the book and you're supposed to have a conversation with the child.
00:50:37So it's important to get through the book with your kid.
00:50:40Um, and another great one is grandpa shoes.
00:50:43Another great, uh, morality tale, which is don't judge someone just because of how they look.
00:50:49And grandfather's kind of a bump on the log at this point in his life.
00:50:53And he's sitting down.
00:50:54It's kind of cooled out, but this young, uh, his, um, granddaughter finds a photo album in the basement with her mother as they're cleaning out some stuff.
00:51:04And she's like, who's this guy?
00:51:06And it's her, it's her grandfather, all of his wonderful journeys, life that he's been on great life of his activism and all the achievements.
00:51:17So she learns that, wow, he kind of deserves to sit down and be still for a little while.
00:51:23Cause he's been on the road doing all these wonderful things.
00:51:26So, um, great book.
00:51:28We used to do a children's book festivals in Savannah.
00:51:31Uh, I really want to miss, miss those.
00:51:35It'd been unknown.
00:51:36That's how it used to happen in November.
00:51:38Yeah, they stopped.
00:51:39Well, I don't, well, probably not this year.
00:51:42I didn't show my Tesseract.
00:51:43I'm just going to cut my Tesseract.
00:51:45Necessary to show a Tesseract.
00:51:47I mean, if you had a Tesseract, you would show it.
00:51:49So.
00:51:50Only if it actually did stuff.
00:51:52It does.
00:51:54Just not the stuff that you wanted to do.
00:51:57Okay.
00:51:58Um, and then.
00:52:00Gosh, let me see if I've got this.
00:52:02Uh, Marcus, the visual.com for me.
00:52:05Last but not least.
00:52:06I do stuff.
00:52:07I draw stuff.
00:52:08And then I tell people about it.
00:52:11Sometimes.
00:52:12Cool.
00:52:13So, um, closing statements, guys.
00:52:16Appreciate you guys for actually coming through.
00:52:18Um, listening to us talk.
00:52:21And, uh, definitely.
00:52:23So, you know, if you feel the need to support, we are available to talk to young people.
00:52:29We're available to talk about our process.
00:52:31Um, I think there's a, there's this weird, this weird, um, perception that people won't
00:52:39share information about how they got, you know, some of the, uh, you know, unlocking some
00:52:44of this information.
00:52:45So that's the kind of thing where we're really active and conscious about.
00:52:52We try to get in front of as many young people, especially, um, people that are struggling
00:52:58to just, uh, try their hand at this business.
00:53:02It is a strange business to navigate in.
00:53:05And if you don't know the answers, you're going to easily be frustrated.
00:53:10So.
00:53:11Your website broke.
00:53:12Trying to figure out what it wants me to do.
00:53:14I'm going to exit.
00:53:15What does it mean?
00:53:16Yeah.
00:53:17All of us.
00:53:18Or just that.
00:53:19Oh, snap.
00:53:21You do have like 9 million tabs open.
00:53:25I'll be honest.
00:53:26Hey man, let that happen.
00:53:28But, um, yeah.
00:53:30And just like Marcus said, we, we do like virtual school visits.
00:53:35Uh, we do.
00:53:36What are those things called workshops?
00:53:38Just, you know, all kinds of stuff, uh, where we are like sharing and giving information
00:53:43like, our goal is to make, you know, to, if, if we can stop people from, uh, having to go
00:53:52through the, what, 20 year, almost 20 year process that we went through of learning how
00:54:00how to do and what to do.
00:54:03Um, if we can assist in, you know, helping some people that have to go through that, we'd
00:54:09love to.
00:54:10Um, so, uh, yeah, we do one-on-one consultations, like all kinds of stuff, uh, any way to help.
00:54:20So, um, coolest things, man.
00:54:23Um, definitely.
00:54:24Any questions, please contact us.
00:54:26The, uh, Tuskegeeairs.com or at Gmail.
00:54:29I should say we have a contact on that site.
00:54:32You can come contact us through there.
00:54:34Uh, we are on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and, uh, any other cool things.
00:54:41So, appreciate you guys.
00:54:43Great to meet you.
00:54:44I'm going to stop sharing my screen real quick.
00:54:46There we go.
00:54:47All right.
00:54:48We're back.
00:54:49So, yeah.
00:54:50Good time.
00:54:52Well.
00:54:53Oh, also, uh, one more time and shout out to BlurKind.
00:54:57Hilton is the man.
00:54:59We go to BlurKind every year.
00:55:01Uh, it's actually one of the conventions.
00:55:03I mean, that we were like really devastated because it's such a beautiful event.
00:55:09Um, if you're into nerdy things, if you're into music and comics and, you know, gaming,
00:55:16this blurred culture, it's definitely the place to be.
00:55:21There's nothing like it.
00:55:22I can say 100% there's nothing like it in the world and it's a beautiful thing.
00:55:28So when it gets, when COVID, like if we all put our hands together right now and start wishing COVID away.
00:55:35When COVID goes away, um, the next BlurKind come to it.
00:55:41Trust me.
00:55:42You won't be disappointed.
00:55:44Right.
00:55:45Unless you wait too long.
00:55:46Cause they be selling rooms out like that.
00:55:48They do.
00:55:49They do.
00:55:50But there's other hotels in the area.
00:55:53Even if you don't get in that hotel.
00:55:55Come on, man.
00:55:56There's like five hotels, five or six hotels, like in walking distance.
00:56:01So just don't, you don't have any real good excuses to be honest.
00:56:06Nothing really good.
00:56:07No.
00:56:08Um, it feels like a home, like a, like a family reunion at this point.
00:56:13And it's only been three years.
00:56:16I want to say three years.
00:56:18Yeah.
00:56:19Yeah.
00:56:20Um, but it keeps, it keeps getting better every time.
00:56:24And, uh, the energy is the same and better every time.
00:56:28Uh, video games, um, gaming, uh, anime panels are dope.
00:56:34There's a concert, you know, uh, no, there's multiple kinds of concerts.
00:56:40You be standing in his room.
00:56:42Now, just to be honest, and I don't know, you guys are probably going to have to edit
00:56:45this or we don't even, I don't know if this is going to make the cut, but to be honest,
00:56:51uh, I don't like we normally for conventions, we're kind of like stay in our rooms and rest
00:56:58so we can be ready for the next day.
00:57:00Blair Con, I don't sleep.
00:57:03I'm not young like I used to be.
00:57:05Right.
00:57:06I still don't sleep.
00:57:07Uh, cause you can literally be out in the, you know, downstairs in the lobby at four
00:57:13and it's still jumping.
00:57:14Um, next time, man, I'm coming out, man.
00:57:17This is like, after COVID, I'm going to do everything I can do.
00:57:21Like, I'm going to appreciate all those 24 hour events next time.
00:57:28I'm like, ah, doing everything.
00:57:31Crafts and pickles.
00:57:33Yeah.
00:57:34We out there doing the cha-cha slide.
00:57:37Everything, man.
00:57:38Like, you going to wait?
00:57:39Yeah.
00:57:40Okay.
00:57:41Going to wait 48 hours.
00:57:43Yeah.
00:57:44Yeah.
00:57:45Next time, you know, I'm going to like, I feel like last time I, I came a couple of days
00:57:50early.
00:57:51Cause DC it's, it's in, you know, right outside of DC.
00:57:55And, uh, was that crystal Springs?
00:57:58Yeah.
00:57:59Um, and it, there's so many fun things to do there.
00:58:04So like next time I probably just make like a whole week of it.
00:58:08Um, just be there and breathe it all in.
00:58:12Cause we can do that now.
00:58:13We can actually do that.
00:58:14Now this guy used to have a job, a day job and it would kind of cramp our style.
00:58:19Like we had to jump on an airplane on Sunday.
00:58:22Yeah.
00:58:23We can actually do that.
00:58:24Yeah.
00:58:25We can actually do that.
00:58:26Yeah.
00:58:27We can actually do that.
00:58:28I was so useless on Monday mornings.
00:58:29I'll be in that mode like this.
00:58:34Right.
00:58:35Like doing nothing.
00:58:36It was great.
00:58:37We can literally take a week, man.
00:58:39That would be really good.
00:58:41That's a show that's worth it too.
00:58:43Cause, uh, we, again, local comic shops, schools, and, or other institutions that will
00:58:50have us, man, we'd love to come out and kind of, uh, really get out in the community.
00:58:55We, because he had a job, we didn't really have the opportunity to kind of stretch our
00:59:00legs beyond the convention and say, Hey, let's go and network and let's go talk to as
00:59:07many people that will have us.
00:59:09Um, it's happened a few times though, where we got to visit and speak, uh, speak with.
00:59:15But it can happen a lot more.
00:59:16We need more of those college visits, college students.
00:59:19Tell them you want us to come to your school.
00:59:22We will come.
00:59:23Yeah.
00:59:24We, those, we, those are really fun just from the standpoint of, um, you know, now you're
00:59:29dealing with kids that are moving in this type of direction.
00:59:34And so we can give them that kind of firsthand knowledge and that business part, which is
00:59:40the part that a lot of schools don't teach you.
00:59:44They teach you, they teach you how to do the work, but they don't teach you necessarily
00:59:47how to run it from the business side.
00:59:49So I got bit by a mosquito that happened, man.
00:59:54It's natural.
00:59:55So, uh, again, thank you guys for, uh, taking the time.
00:59:59Listen to us.
01:00:00And there is more stuff coming down.
01:00:03So if you follow us on any of our platforms, just know that, um, you will see some new stuff
01:00:09coming and, you know, sky's the limit.
01:00:11And we're not going to stop with Tuskegee Airs until that's on, um, any one of these streaming
01:00:18services as an animated series.
01:00:20Uh, if it's not on one of these streaming services, it's going to be on some service
01:00:24from, uh, you know, we're going to get that animated.
01:00:27Uh, it's really, it's, and it's not even about us.
01:00:29It's just, kids need to see something like this growing up and say, I remember watching
01:00:35this cool, you know, Tuskegee Airmen inspired cartoon instead of everything else.
01:00:42Uh, it's tight.
01:00:43It's just, it's not going to rest until that happens.
01:00:46So definitely keep a lookout.
01:00:48So thank you guys for joining Marcus Williams, Greg Burnham.
01:00:53Come on, man.
01:00:54You got to do that.
01:00:55Cool.
01:00:56Okay.
01:00:57And a mosquito just appeared, man.
01:01:01You sent a mosquito through the internet.
01:01:03Dude, what happened yesterday?
01:01:05It was like belligerent.
01:01:08Violent.
01:01:09All right.
01:01:10I'm stopping recording.
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