There are a lot of great comics out there, to a point where sometimes its hard to sift through it all and decide what you want to read. Well, here’s to making that decision a little easier for you, because we at the Pop Break got to talk to some awesome people at C2E2 about a book that I absolutely love, Tuskegee Heirs, created by Greg Burnham and Marcus Williams.
Alright, so can you tell us a bit of what Tuskegee Heirs is about?
Greg Burnham: Tuskegee Heirs is a futuristic, sci-fi, action-adventure set 80 years into the future from now, that follows 5 pilots that are being trained in secret by a descendant of the Tuskegee Airmen. It’s in secret because manned flight in the future is illegal. Only drones and computerized air flight is allowed but they’re flying P-51 Mustangs from WWII and he’s preparing them to be the last line of defense against this very advanced robot army that’s going to be released on the world. Once that army hits though, they’re going to need an upgrade in terms of their hardware, so they get these amazing jets that transform into giant robots. They get a mission that sends them around the world and throughout that they uncover lesser known historical facts and just really cool stuff along the way. It’s a marriage between history and futurism, it’s kind of a hybrid because it feels similar to the way the Ninja Turtles used to feel where there is no specific main character, it’s a team and they have a directive and that’s the adventure.
Obviously, the Tuskegee Airmen are an inspiration/influence, but what kind of other things would you say gave you the ideas for this story?
GB: Well, we’re huge fans not only of the Tuskegee Airmen, but of history and geography. So, we’re going to be going all over the world, the kids will be seeing all kinds of stuff that really exists but doesn’t get mentioned much in our history books or mainstream media. We’re huge fans of RoboTech and G.I. Joe and all these things, so when we were coming up with the concept we just throwing stuff in that we wish we could see or stuff that we’re fans of – not stealing the content, but just thinking of how much we enjoyed those shows and how we can incorporate elements to make it where people might enjoy ours the same.
I was a history major in college, it’s what my bachelor’s was in, so when I first heard about this comic I was excited. So, would you say education is a main goal or is it tertiary to telling the story?
GB: I would say tertiary. We want to drop little nuggets of education, but we don’t want it to be like you’re sitting down to read your school book. Some of the best stuff, it’s just there. It’s like you’re learning in a way that it makes you want to research it and that’s kind of what we want others to do is to Google it. We have people from all over the world message us and say “man, I had never heard of the Tuskegee Airmen at all. I’m happy you guys did this, but I’m happier that you exposed me to something I didn’t have any knowledge of”. There’re hours upon hours of study time you can do to learn about these heroes. So we didn’t want to hit you over the head to make you feel like you’re learning, we definitely want it to be entertaining, so the artwork, the writing, we want you to enjoy the concept, but there are some things we want you to think “hmm, is this real” and then you Google it.
You specifically mentioned Ninja Turtles and RoboTech, who else would you consider artistic influences? Because you have a very dynamic style here.
Marcus Williams: I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to feel like animation. But we’re making a comic, so I wanted to merge those two for when the cartoon does come out so that it’s not a stretch stylistically. But obviously there is a difference. Everything from the color choice was a head nod to animation and Japanese animation, of course, is where a lot of the inspiration comes from, but we still wanted to create something original. There’s very few anime that have more than one black character, let alone five, so I had to create and merge with anime at the same time.
When we were reading the comic we were talking about how this could be a show today. You can definitely see that in there. Is that something that’s on the table right now?
MW: Yes, we’re going to pitch animation. With animation, you have to make sure it’s the right deal. We’re not in a rush to sell the rights so someone can change it. A lot of times, unfortunately, that’s what happens, people are just so excited about their stuff being made into a cartoon and the company might like the concept, but then they change stuff, and if you sign the wrong deal they can change your whole story. Then a lot of creators just kind of sit there with their hands in their pockets and kicking rocks. That’s what we don’t want.
GB: Not to mention the “option” thing, where they option it but then they stick it on a shelf and you never hear anything else about it. We’re trying to stick in there because if we’re doing this, we’re doing this. And we want to be on it to where we can still direct and make sure it goes the way we want it to. It doesn’t mean that we’re not willing to concede some things. But, as far as them just totally wiping it away and making it something else, we don’t really want that.
Absolutely. So, how did you come up with the character designs? I love the look of the characters with their jackets and goggles, it’s like a nice steampunk design but at the same time very futuristic, Final Fantasy looking weapons, which makes it very unique.
MW: Well, that’s kind of on purpose. I’m a huge fan of Final Fantasy, looking at Attack on Titan helped a lot, just conceptually where they’re all wearing similar suits. We have two girls and three boys so we could have done a Power Rangers look, but I wanted it to feel like the Tuskegee Airmen, yet somehow futuristic so that kids looking at this would know they’re looking at history. So it’s not steampunk, it’s just respect, it’s showing them this is what they actually wore. Plus, they’ve got futuristic belt buckles, cool weapons, and flying robots.
How did you guys come up with this whole idea? Did you guys come up with it together?
Greg: Well, I write children’s works as well – Marcus is my illustrator, of course – so we were doing a book signing and an older gentleman, he’s was a former pilot, walks up and said, “you guys need to do something with aviation, these kids don’t know anything about aviation”, and Marcus does a series called Young Heroes, and he said he’d been thinking about doing a young Tuskegee Airmen and I was like, “man, that’d be cool, but what if we put it in the future? And we should add robots!” And it was a head explode moment. Then we just worked on it for a whole week and by the end of the week, we had the concept, the characters, the world, everything. It was like we were kids again, we were excited, and we shot it out into the internet.
I also wanted to ask you about this new story you guys are working on. What can you tell us about it?
GB: The name of it is, The Search For Sadiqah, and it takes place in the 1920s. This young girl is displaced from her home through a terrible tragedy and she’s on the run. She’s trying to find this mythological place she’s been taught about, but she also has people who are chasing her because she’s carrying something very valuable, even though she doesn’t know it. So, its action, there’s a little bit of history in that one too, if you can’t tell. There’s fantasy, there’s going to be some creatures talking and some other stuff.
But again, it’s a thing when I started researching for the project and how to go about it, I started uncovering all kinds of stuff that doesn’t really get talked about. Some of it’s more mythological but there’s a lot of stuff they didn’t really spend a lot of time teaching us about the Southwest United States. I have a cool story and I’m excited. Hopefully we should be done in the next couple of months, I would say we’re probably 60-70% done with the artwork. And when I say we, I mean I have a team of people because I suck at drawing, but we should have it by mid-May.
And I know you guys have a website, but what’s your website and where can we find you on social media?
GB: There’s tuskegeeheirs.com, of course, and my Instagram is @greg_burnham7, we also have Tuskegee Heirs on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @Tuskegeeheirs
MW: I’m on Twitter and Instagram @MarcusTheVisual
