Category Archives: news

New Comic: "(H)afrocentric"

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage


Thanks to Mark Bolden.

For Immediate Release

(H)afrocentric: the Comic
P.O. Box 11359
Piedmont, CA 94611

April 3, 2012

For more information:
W: www.hafrocentric.com
FB: www.facebook.com/hafrocentric
E: hafrocentric@gmail.com
Twitter: @hafrocentric

[Oakland, CA] (H)afrocentric: the Comic Vol. 2, set to be released April 10, 2012 presents a clear and funny narrative that connects the not always clear and not always funny outposts of comic books, politics and popular culture.

Writer Juliana Smith has teamed up with illustrator Ronald R. Nelson to create a bright and visual bang of cultural commentary through characters that look like America. With the first series of (H)afrocentric featured in Occupy Comix as well as on Women’s Magazine Radio and Block Report Radio, (H)afrocentric aims to do something new in the world of comic books.

In the comic’s second installment, it’s The Boondocks Huey Freeman meets X-Men’s Professor X as (H)afrocentric heroine Naima Pepper attempts to thwart the growing gentrification in her new neighborhood. Naima and friends, and her reluctant brother, decide to create MYDIASPORA.COM, the first and only anti-gentrification social networking site on earth. Through a series of fundraising events, they manage to lay the groundwork to support their idea, movement and website. But will their efforts be able to stop gentrification?

A preview of Vol. 2 can be found here
Smith is currently traveling to schools and college campuses speaking about the possibilities of independent media through comics, as well as the following subjects:

  1. Comic Book Superhero(ines), Race, Gender and Expectations
  2. A Comic Book lineage from Torchy to The Black Panther to (H)afrocentric.
  3. Writing your Passion- Creating a Comic Book 101

 

To book Smith as a guest speaker or for more information on (H)afrocentric: the Comic, please visit www.hafrocentric.com or email hafrocentric@gmail.com.

 

Best,

Juliana “Jewels” Smith

(H)afrocentric

 

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(H)afrocentric: the Comic
Twitter: @hafrocentric
 “Because it’s hard being Afrocentric in a Eurocentric world…”

We're No. 1! We're No. 1!

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

Morgan State Wins Honda Campus All-Star National Championship

Post by MSU on Apr 03, 2012 | Comments Off

Who was America’s only chief executive never elected as president or vice president?

Offering the correct answer of Gerald Ford, Morgan State University captured the 23rd Annual Honda Campus All-Star Challenge in Los Angeles, besting 48 teams from historically black colleges and universities around the country. It is the first title for the Bears in the annual academic quiz challenge, and brings Morgan the grand prize of $50,000 in institutional grants.

“This is everybody’s first year on the team, and to try to figure out how to meld what they know with what they need to know, takes a journey that builds a relationship of trust. It’s been a beautiful relationship with my team,” said Dr. OluwaTosin Adegbola, coach of the Morgan HCASC Team.

Morgan defeated Oakwood University in the final round, and outlasted Florida A&M University and Morehouse College in the final four. The MSU team was comprised of Craig Cornish (Captain), junior, History Major; Micheal Osikomaiya, sophomore, English Major; John-Paul Stephens, freshman, Screen Writing & Animation Major; and James Hayes-Barber, freshman, Electrical Engineering Major.

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GREAT NEWS! CONGRATULATIONS TO TEAM MORGAN AND DR. OluwaTosin ADEGBOLA

Morgan State University brings home the first place trophy as champion of the Honda Campus All Star Challenge. Although Morgan has been among the finalists in past competitions, this is the first year that Team Morgan has emerged from this national academic competition with a first place win. The two-day tournament ended yesterday in the Los Angeles area and included 250 of the best and brightest students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities around the country. Other finalists in the competition were Oakwood University, Florida A&M, Morehouse, Alabama State, North Carolina A&T, Stillman and Southern University – New Orleans.Morgan congratulates its winning team:  Captain Craig Cornish (junior); Michael Osikomaiya (sophomore);  and, freshmen James Hayes Barber and John-Paul Stephens. We also celebrate Dr. OluwaTosin Adegbola, who served as team coach again this year. Team Captain Craig Cornish calls bonding with his teammates and coach his favorite part of being on Team Morgan. “There have been a lot of incendiary moments, but they’ve made us stronger. I’m looking forward to getting ready for next year,” says Cornish, a junior majoring in History. The winning school brings home $50,000 for the University.

What was the winning question for Team Morgan, you wonder?

Who was America’s only chief executive never elected as president or vice president?


CORRECT ANSWER:  Gerald Ford
Congratulations, again, to Morgan State’s team for winning the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge Team.

David Wilson
President
Morgan State University

Comicbook Review: "Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child," No. 1

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child, No. 1
Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, Denys Cowan and John Floyd.
Vertigo.
32 pp. $2.99.

 Thriller and chiller. “Requiem, Chapter One: Deep, Dark, Brown” is the title of the first issue of this new Vertigo series. The heroine is learned about literally on the run. By the end, she is profiled while she is profiled. Louisiana is the setting, a place that always had some type of zombies and ghosts roaming somewhere in the swamps of the nation’s imagination.

The tension between the swift action and the slow narration works. Hinds perhaps tries too hard to set the tone, but his attempt at prose poetry works as well as Cowan’s strong-as-ever style. Hinds, given his own “On The Ledge” column, Vertigo’s  text spotlight, discusses his attempt: “For DOMINIQUE LAVEAU: VOODOO CHILD to truly come alive, I had to soak the series in that [New Orleans swinging] reality. I wanted to find a narrative style that captured the thematic richness of New Orleans music, the pain and the joy, as well as the structural aspects of the town’s songwriting, particularly with regard to jazz—the steady reprise of a verse structure, the improvisionational flights of a solo.”  Yes, appreciated, but less is more in comics (and perhaps jazz, too).

But alive it is, and moving fast. The past is rising up out of the fresh mud of post-Katrina New Awlins, dirty and revealing. Self-discovery carries its own terrors and, in fiction, spilled blood always seems to follow. This first issue does a good job of setting up the pieces in ways that feel real.