Superheroes Come in All Colors - Media Updates
Some who are trying to break into the field attribute the failure of black and other minority characters in part to the relatively small number of nonwhite artists and writers who have made it big - an issue Burke says major comic book publishers are trying to address.
``It's nice to see our faces in the books, but behind our faces are not us. They're basically an interpretation of us,'' says Edward Sims, a black comic book writer who sometimes works with McQuay.
Onli places at least some of the blame closer to home.
He published his first black superhero comic book, called ``Nog - The Protector of the Pyramids,'' in 1981, but says it was difficult to get even black-owned bookstores to carry them. He also organizes a convention for black comic-book artists, but attendance has been down in recent years.
``In the black community, music means more than images,'' Onli says. ``Sing and everybody loves you; draw good ... and big deal.''
For his part, McQuay's ``Circle Unleashed'' series tells of a band of tough, do-gooding superheroes, including the Dark Prophet - a sort of half-black, half-alien character - and another simply known as John, a former Georgia slave who is given special powers by aliens. His ``Tsunami'' series features an Asian character.
A dock supervisor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, McQuay does most of his drawing long after his 5-year-old twins, D'Yona and Dawn, are tucked in bed. He has financed the books with small loans from nonprofit organizations that help fledgling artists and business owners.
McQuay wonders if it may simply be a matter of getting people - even minorities - used to seeing nonwhite superheroes.
He recalls his own first big art show, a big day for a sophomore in high school who grew up in Chicago's tough Stateway Gardens housing projects, sometimes drawing on the back of sale posters instead of standard paper.
McQuay was taken aback when one admirer asked, ``Do you draw black people?''
``I said, 'Wow.' I didn't realize until that moment that I had no black characters - not one,'' he said.
That soon changed with ``Kane and Abell,'' a series with black characters based on the Kennedy assassination,'' and a comic strip depicting the passage of Harriet Tubman and other slaves along the Underground Railroad.
Some of that work hangs on his basement studio's walls - a proud but somewhat bittersweet reminder of his early days as an artist.
``I wish there'd been somebody to really take me aside and show me how it all worked,'' McQuay
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