On reframing past stories with a fresh perspective

Aviation and flight in general appear quite a bit in your work in very superheroic ways. How did you come to flight as a key motif for you? I’m especially curious since we’re talking about your FLYBOY comics project on Kickstarter, if there are any comic inspirations behind that?

A thousand percent, there’s comic inspiration behind it. It’s a loaded question, because there’s always the Donner Superman, which is like—I was reading comic books as a kid, but then seeing Donner’s Superman, it just crystallized everything in my mind because it jumps off the page and it’s so different seeing a real person, like real Superman. And I remember as a kid, it enhanced my love for the medium.

And then for me personally, I think it’s like it’s Nolan’s Batman, when they asked him why Bats and he’s like, “Bats scare me.” Right? I think for me, I’m a big chicken when it comes to flying. I don’t love to fly because turbulence and because who loves turbulence? But I think that there’s something profoundly powerful and almost spiritual at times with the idea of flight. And I don’t mean to sound like it’s corny or anything, but I just think it’s a real thing.

Again, it’s constantly a motif that I play with in my fine art due to the fact that there’s a freedom in it when you’re so high up and you can see the world and how small it really is. And it puts things in perspective, at least for me, of how small certain problems are. And just again, there’s a freeness to it. So yeah, I think again, that’s how flying correlates. It’s that question, too, if you could have any superpower, and my corny ass always would pick flight first over everything.

I mean, embracing the impossible and putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation can yield really interesting results. I think with flight, especially in comics, there’s always a bit of that learning curve.

With some of these characters, especially with my main character, FLYBOY, I try to infuse a bit of myself or a bit of the familiar in them so that they can feel relatable. I think that in the golden age, or the silver age of comics, there was thought given to some of these abilities or powers, but not … It didn’t go as in depth as it could or should in terms of what these powers really could mean for that bearer, the person that has to learn how to manipulate these things. And it’s the great power, great responsibility, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what if there is a person that can fly but is afraid of heights? Again, trying to get a little deeper than just the wish fulfillment aspect of it.

Your bio says that you’ve been on a quest with some of your art to readdress modern mythology. What other parts of our culture or history do you want to explore through your art, either through more sculpture or paintings or comics?

Comics are a great way to explore more because it’s always narrative first. And I think within the world of FLYBOY that I’ve created, there is a lot of revisionist history. This world isn’t necessarily ours, one for one, but it sort of parallels and I appreciate history, but also just this opportunity to re-contextualize certain moments and certain ideas.

In my work early on, I had this series, it was called the Negro Mythos, Black Mythos series. The simplest form of explanation was that it was me appropriating all of these white superheroes that I grew up with loving that were archetypal males and making them people of color. And when you do that, I think you reframe a lot. You change that story inherently.

I mean, think about, shit, a few years ago, the outrage that happened when Warner Brothers at one point was talking about Michael B. Jordan being the Black Superman or the next Superman, not the Black Superman, but he is Black and he was going to be Superman and what that means, but even how that changes from a historical context and then just a narrative context.

And so I think with comics you can obviously do a lot more directly, whereas in fine art, it’s a lot more subjective and you leave the audience to add in their own things within the work or the piece. And so again, I appreciate both paths, but I think having been on the path of fine art for so long, now being able to really just tell a story and be very direct with the narrative is something that I’m looking forward to.

Are there particular pieces of history or any stories or mythos that you have a direct change you want to make or a direct thing you want to say or explore? I know that FLYBOY draws a lot from the Tuskegee Airmen.

I won’t give too much up because hopefully we’ll create a new fan base and have some readers that are interested in following the journey. But yeah, I think it does start there. I don’t want anything that I do to feel like medicine. I don’t want it to feel like I’m trying to teach someone something. I want to entertain, I want to inform, but I don’t want to have it feel medicinal. And so in looking at this story and creating this story, I did look at the Tuskegee trials and things within American history and more specifically Black American history and pull from certain moments and elevate certain moments or change certain moments to benefit a character, whether negatively or positively as just this form of observation of history.

This is a history that we can never escape, and it’s one that continues to shape us, continues to shape our country. It’s a big part of our narrative, so just really leaning into it, I think in a way to, as a point of pride almost, right? What we are able to endure, what we’ve survived as a people, as Black Americans, as Americans. So yeah, just again, finding opportunities to explore these moments.

I think it’s not dissimilar to, excuse me, when you look at Hellboy in the context of using Nazi Germany, using the history of this character and infusing it with, again, the real big bads, which were Nazis and this war with America and all of the history that we share, but the embellishment of…. yeah, there was a double human hybrid that came down, and within this time, these things and these events happened around that. That’s always fun when you can mix history with a new narrative and a new twist.

I’m glad you brought up the directness of comics. It’s a great way to just either take a stance or follow a specific path and really have a point of view and a fun narrative on it. Congrats on taking this dive into the world of comics with the FLYBOY Kickstarter campaign. We touched on the impact Superman had on you earlier, but if you had your pick of the litter, say if DC or Marvel or Dark Horse even came to you and said, “Hebru, do whatever you want,” is there an existing character you would want to create for?

Oh man, this is the question that you have the conversation with your nerd homies over and over again. And then, of course, you ask me and I’m like, my mind goes blank, and it’s like, I don’t want to say the wrong thing because there’s so many. But I mean, my two favorites … Man, this is tough. Let me try and make this as hard as it needs to be. Yeah, dude, I think I’m going to throw a curve-ball here…

What’s that?

I’m going to go away from the Marvel cannons, the DC cannons. I’m going to say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

When you look at stories like Ronin and where that arc goes and goes, I feel like there’s still so much to do with those characters, and that was a big part of my childhood. I was more of a Marvel fan because I fell in love with X-Men heavy duty, and then all of their offshoots, X-Factor, et cetera. But Turtles were something special. And I think that it sort of melded all of that because I found the black and white comics when I was a kid and I really liked them. That led me to Daredevil and then back to Turtles. They had the cartoon, they had the figures, the collectible just started that insatiable collecting thing for me.

But it’s always been like Turtles… It’s something about those guys. I think it’s the brotherhood, the camaraderie. It’s this idea of them not being wanted by society because of how they look, who they are, what they are, what they can do. It’s just a fun world, and it’s a world within worlds. There’s Dimension X, there’s different planes, and it’s so many different rich characters to play with. I would say definitely Turtles. Long-winded answer, but I would say Turtles first.

The worlds within worlds comment is great. Right now they have a crossover series with Naruto. I think there was a TV special where multiple versions of the characters across television met each other. Of the core four, do you have a favorite between Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, or Michelangelo?

Oh, it’s Raph all day, baby. It’s Raph all day. It’s funny because I like Mikey. I like Don. Leo’s probably my least, just because I think he is most likely the Cyclops, like the leader who doesn’t get the credit. But I think with Donatello and Mikey, it’s all dependent upon which version of them. There’s some versions that are way stronger and way better than others, but I think that’s the beauty of the books and the series, the different series and the different writers that take on the challenge of writing for these characters. So yeah, Raph is pretty consistently an asshole, mean, tough, rough, and love it, love it, love it.

He’s a lovable asshole, though. We love to be frustrated by him.

Yes, 100 percent. 100 percent. With this process, it feels like a pinching moment. I’m really hopeful that we can hit our mark and this can be successful because this is really a childhood dream that I’ve had for a long time and everything in due time. It’s been a long road to this point, and I’m super, super, super excited and put in a ton of work in crafting this long form story that just has a lot of twists and turns and ways to go, and this being sort of the entry into that world. I’m just really excited for people to dig in and find it.