Jumping in Headfirst

Y'know, I hear a lot of talk about comic books being a storytelling medium, and I guess it is. I mean, certainly in a technical sense it is, but practically? I.....really don't think so. Granted, you can certainly use it to tell any kind of story you want. It'll be cheap (compared to the cost of doing a movie or a television show, at least), and it'll come with pretty much NO limitations, not in censorship or in the sense of budgetary concerns. You'll never be told "you can't do that; its too expensive" in comics. (Not unless you're going to slap a REAL gold cover onto your comic, at least....) However, as many creators have noticed, unless you're doing superheroes, you're probably not going to be that successful in comics. Most people claim that's because people are just used to reading superheroes and don't want to change their habits, and that's true, but--let me offer another reason: Its because superheroes reall...

Okay, one thing you don't know about me is that I can talk about one thing or be thinking about one thing, and then suddenly I'll end up on something that's seemingly unrelated. My mind works weird--I got it from my mother. The only person who understands what its like to think like that is my girlfriend Ehlana, who thinks in the same seemingly-but-not-really-erratic-way. (One of a long list of things we connect on.) Anyway, my friend and I were discussing good comic runs today and because of that I found myself looking at an old article by Christopher Priest discussing black characters and getting black readers into comic shops , and while I was reading it something hit me. I'm an anomaly. Well, that's not really anything new but nevertheless. I mean, by virtue of being myself I've managed to transform cousins my age and black friends I have into probably not agreeing with this...but really one look at a hip-hop forum or enough time spent around people w...