[Applause]
all right again my name is Imani Latif
and I am a graphic designer
I’m also production manager at the
Toledo City Paper I am a husband I am a
father of seven children that’s always a
cool icebreaker yes using our eyes yeah
but before all that I have always been a
black nerd or what’s commonly known now
as a blurred as you can see in this
picture here of me in the 80s Halloween
of course like everybody else I was Luke
Skywalker my brother who happens to be a
famous Toledo artist Yusef Lateef he’s
in the Superman costume so if you ever
wonder who’s younger he’s him now as you
can already see in the picture you can
see the dilemma I wanted to be Luke
Skywalker but notice immediately the
vanilla mask and the little chocolate
hands there my brother had a little
because along with the vanilla mask he
also had the curly hair would they went
along with the mask so needed to say I
was always been faced with this dilemma
because I’ve been a nerd all my life
I’ve been reading comic books every
single comic book you can think of I was
just reading spider-man and Batman and
the x-men I was reading anything I could
get my hands on I was reading for my
comic book fans I was reading flaming
carrots I was reading Boris the bear I
was reading your sakyo Jimbo I was
reading Sergio or the organized I was
reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
before they had irises and it was still
in black and white but as an artist I
was doing that because I was always
looking for inspiration in those long
boxes and I was also looking for my
story reflected in these books and I
searched vigorously through books and
crates trying to find my story
it wasn’t until 1993 that I finally made
that connection so in 1993 two things
happened DC Comics introduced what was
now it was called milestone media and
they introduced several African American
superheroes that’s the one here on the
left here like they created characters
like hardware but you might be familiar
with the cartoon on WB card static shock
that was a milestone character they
created a character who was basically
the black Superman caught icon who
happened to be a black conservative they
also created a kid they also created a
kid called a static static shock the
cartoon character but also they care
that gang actually called blunts blood
syndicate so basically a gang version of
the x-men if you can imagine that also
the wound on your boy lay and guys Sims
introduced brother man in 1993 now
brother man he didn’t have it too many
proud powers he was basically
a brother who was a man but in a minute
here
I’ll show you I’ll show you why that’s
important that was important he didn’t
have no part in anything he just punched
people but listen in 93 now mind you in
93 that has such a huge impact on me
because I’m gonna explain to you what I
was going through my son is nine years
old and when I was his his age I had a
distinct goal of one day being white I
wanted to change my name to Steve I
[Applause]
wanted to have shoulder length hair that
blew in the wind and when I realized
that wasn’t gonna happen
I was willing to settle for being
adopted by a rich white family like the
Drummond’s from Diff’rent Strokes Oh
Webster you remember him
I was willing to settle for that that
was a little bit obsessed not all happy
to say that I’m a 43 year old man I’m
not looking to be white anymore now I
want to be a citizen of Wakanda more a
little bit more on that in a minute now
to understand you got to understand
hip-hop culture actually was what helped
me make a connection to my culture and
my heritage
hip-hop music the history that they
shared in the lyrics the gold the
medallions with the Nefertiti on it or
with the the the metallic medallions
with the African symbol it helped me to
make a connection to my culture now in
hip-hop there’s graffiti art and I
wasn’t I was the integral city art but I
wasn’t trying to wake up in the middle
of the night spray paint on walls so I
was still looking for comic books to
make that connection and so to
illustrate the dilemma that I was in I
made a few drawings this is what these
are common characters that you’ll find
in
books in the late 80s early 90s
now all the characters in the comic
books they look somewhat like this
either they’re a bald bald with a goatee
bald with a I’m missing all right so the
middle one there that’s Luke Cage right
or rody the war machine and Iron Man he
looked like that in the comic books at
one time that’s a Nick Fury of course
that we all see in the movies but also
there’s a guy called death lock on
Marvel he has an eye missing
cyborg on DC he happens to have I’m
missing and he happens to be bald right
oh and it gets better so Jon Stewart Jon
Stewart Green Lantern the black Green
Lantern he has a bold cut now my
brothers and sisters in the audience
know what a bowl cut it is it’s not
faded like we like to have it faded
it’s nearly just here bald sometimes in
the comic books that get a little jazzy
put a little lightning bolt in there
right and then what’s really easy for
illustrators to draw is a man with a
ridiculously sized a frog’s butt I was
looking for something more than that so
when I got to milestone and brotherman
it was a breath of fresh air because in
brother man who happens to be the
brother dressed in a suit who was a man
what they did was they created
characters that looked like the heroes
that I found in hip-hop right so yes
brother man not only did he wear a suit
but he also had a high-top fade and he
wore a shell toe adidas also in issue 3
of this book he fought a pair of
villains that looked like EPMD they wore
the same bucket hats as you’ll see right
there in milestone they created a
character called wise son who wore a
baseball cap with a star in a crescent
on it that wore striking resemblance to
chuck D from Public Enemy that I was
wildly important to me because it was
being able to see my reflection in comic
books movies literature like the women
mentioned earlier mattered and it’s also
why I created a website called peep game
comics that showcase african-american
comic book creators we have over 200 cat
books on our in our catalog by black
comic book creators from across the
country and some from the African
continent mainly from Nigeria and Legos
also I sponsored with the Toledo Public
Library glass city black comic fest
which is the first black comic fest here
in Toledo last year we’re now in our
third year and last year we had over 300
children and parents who came to not
only learn how to tell their stories but
they got to meet black comic book
creators from across the country now in
closing and you guys got the bonus short
now this is the exact opposite of the
picture that we started with right this
is my son he’s nine years old right and
he loves the Black Panther movie so much
he has memorized the soundtrack to score
so we’re in the car and he knows the
exact moment when the plane flies
through that mythical mountain into
Wakanda he knows exactly when that song
comes in and he knows exactly at the
moment that it’s about to happen on the
score also soon after he saw the movie
he announced to the whole family that on
his 13th birthday he plans to visit
Africa okay
his favorite president of course is
Barack Obama his pastime one of his
favorite pastimes is to root for all the
[Applause]
needless to say he has absolutely no
desire to be a white person or changed
his name to Steve or have long flowing
hair although he has got the blonde
streak going now but he hopes to be the
best little black boy he can be and I
think comic books for that thank you [Applause]
all right again my name is Imani Latif
and I am a graphic designer
I’m also production manager at the
Toledo City Paper I am a husband I am a
father of seven children that’s always a
cool icebreaker yes using our eyes yeah
but before all that I have always been a
black nerd or what’s commonly known now
as a blurred as you can see in this
picture here of me in the 80s Halloween
of course like everybody else I was Luke
Skywalker my brother who happens to be a
famous Toledo artist Yusef Lateef he’s
in the Superman costume so if you ever
wonder who’s younger he’s him now as you
can already see in the picture you can
see the dilemma I wanted to be Luke
Skywalker but notice immediately the
vanilla mask and the little chocolate
hands there my brother had a little
because along with the vanilla mask he
also had the curly hair would they went
along with the mask so needed to say I
was always been faced with this dilemma
because I’ve been a nerd all my life
I’ve been reading comic books every
single comic book you can think of I was
just reading spider-man and Batman and
the x-men I was reading anything I could
get my hands on I was reading for my
comic book fans I was reading flaming
carrots I was reading Boris the bear I
was reading your sakyo Jimbo I was
reading Sergio or the organized I was
reading Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
before they had irises and it was still
in black and white but as an artist I
was doing that because I was always
looking for inspiration in those long
boxes and I was also looking for my
story reflected in these books and I
searched vigorously through books and
crates trying to find my story
it wasn’t until 1993 that I finally made
that connection so in 1993 two things
happened DC Comics introduced what was
now it was called milestone media and
they introduced several African American
superheroes that’s the one here on the
left here like they created characters
like hardware but you might be familiar
with the cartoon on WB card static shock
that was a milestone character they
created a character who was basically
the black Superman caught icon who
happened to be a black conservative they
also created a kid they also created a
kid called a static static shock the
cartoon character but also they care
that gang actually called blunts blood
syndicate so basically a gang version of
the x-men if you can imagine that also
the wound on your boy lay and guys Sims
introduced brother man in 1993 now
brother man he didn’t have it too many
proud powers he was basically
a brother who was a man but in a minute
here
I’ll show you I’ll show you why that’s
important that was important he didn’t
have no part in anything he just punched
people but listen in 93 now mind you in
93 that has such a huge impact on me
because I’m gonna explain to you what I
was going through my son is nine years
old and when I was his his age I had a
distinct goal of one day being white I
wanted to change my name to Steve I
[Applause]
wanted to have shoulder length hair that
blew in the wind and when I realized
that wasn’t gonna happen
I was willing to settle for being
adopted by a rich white family like the
Drummond’s from Diff’rent Strokes Oh
Webster you remember him
I was willing to settle for that that
was a little bit obsessed not all happy
to say that I’m a 43 year old man I’m
not looking to be white anymore now I
want to be a citizen of Wakanda more a
little bit more on that in a minute now
to understand you got to understand
hip-hop culture actually was what helped
me make a connection to my culture and
my heritage
hip-hop music the history that they
shared in the lyrics the gold the
medallions with the Nefertiti on it or
with the the the metallic medallions
with the African symbol it helped me to
make a connection to my culture now in
hip-hop there’s graffiti art and I
wasn’t I was the integral city art but I
wasn’t trying to wake up in the middle
of the night spray paint on walls so I
was still looking for comic books to
make that connection and so to
illustrate the dilemma that I was in I
made a few drawings this is what these
are common characters that you’ll find
in
books in the late 80s early 90s
now all the characters in the comic
books they look somewhat like this
either they’re a bald bald with a goatee
bald with a I’m missing all right so the
middle one there that’s Luke Cage right
or rody the war machine and Iron Man he
looked like that in the comic books at
one time that’s a Nick Fury of course
that we all see in the movies but also
there’s a guy called death lock on
Marvel he has an eye missing
cyborg on DC he happens to have I’m
missing and he happens to be bald right
oh and it gets better so Jon Stewart Jon
Stewart Green Lantern the black Green
Lantern he has a bold cut now my
brothers and sisters in the audience
know what a bowl cut it is it’s not
faded like we like to have it faded
it’s nearly just here bald sometimes in
the comic books that get a little jazzy
put a little lightning bolt in there
right and then what’s really easy for
illustrators to draw is a man with a
ridiculously sized a frog’s butt I was
looking for something more than that so
when I got to milestone and brotherman
it was a breath of fresh air because in
brother man who happens to be the
brother dressed in a suit who was a man
what they did was they created
characters that looked like the heroes
that I found in hip-hop right so yes
brother man not only did he wear a suit
but he also had a high-top fade and he
wore a shell toe adidas also in issue 3
of this book he fought a pair of
villains that looked like EPMD they wore
the same bucket hats as you’ll see right
there in milestone they created a
character called wise son who wore a
baseball cap with a star in a crescent
on it that wore striking resemblance to
chuck D from Public Enemy that I was
wildly important to me because it was
being able to see my reflection in comic
books movies literature like the women
mentioned earlier mattered and it’s also
why I created a website called peep game
comics that showcase african-american
comic book creators we have over 200 cat
books on our in our catalog by black
comic book creators from across the
country and some from the African
continent mainly from Nigeria and Legos
also I sponsored with the Toledo Public
Library glass city black comic fest
which is the first black comic fest here
in Toledo last year we’re now in our
third year and last year we had over 300
children and parents who came to not
only learn how to tell their stories but
they got to meet black comic book
creators from across the country now in
closing and you guys got the bonus short
now this is the exact opposite of the
picture that we started with right this
is my son he’s nine years old right and
he loves the Black Panther movie so much
he has memorized the soundtrack to score
so we’re in the car and he knows the
exact moment when the plane flies
through that mythical mountain into
Wakanda he knows exactly when that song
comes in and he knows exactly at the
moment that it’s about to happen on the
score also soon after he saw the movie
he announced to the whole family that on
his 13th birthday he plans to visit
Africa okay
his favorite president of course is
Barack Obama his pastime one of his
favorite pastimes is to root for all the
[Applause]
needless to say he has absolutely no
desire to be a white person or changed
his name to Steve or have long flowing
hair although he has got the blonde
streak going now but he hopes to be the
best little black boy he can be and I
think comic books for that thank you [Applause]
Please follow and like us: