The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC)
I've been a geek pretty much all of my life. My mom was a fan of Star Trek the Original Series. This is compounded by the fact that my dad would bring home circuit boards from his job for me and my brother and tell us that they were from spaceships. Thus the seeds for a science fiction fanboy were in the making.
As everyone in the geek community knows, it's only a hop, skip and a jump from scifi to the world of comic books. Like alot of us, the tales of modern mythology captured my attention as well as my imagination. My parents always instilled in me to not get too engrossed into anything that where there wasn't any representation of people who look like you. As a black person (African American to those so inclined.), I grew up seeing a plethera of white faces doing tremdenous acts of heroism and feats of superhuman ability.
Fortunately for me, I hit my teens during the nineties. It was a time of pan-Africanism as well as neo Black nationalism. For those of us who were geeks, it meant that where were a number of Blacks invovled with the independent comic scene.
I remember my mom excitedly telling me about a Black comic book that had made the local news "Brother Man." With a bit of a sigh and groan, (really you couldn't come up with a better name than that.) I was even more dismayed when I saw that it was that iconic graffiti style art that I simply wasn't that into. That said I eventually picked up an issue and fell in love with the book. To this day, it remains my ideal of what a comic book about hero without any powers should be.
There were of course Black heros in the big two (Marvel and DC). Marvel had heroes like Falcon, Jim Rhodes (he wasn't War Machine yet), Storm, Black Panther and Cage. DC had it's own line up with John Steward Green Lantern, Black Lightning and Cyborg. DC turned it up a notch however when it started it's Milestone Media line.
For me, it was love at first sight... I mean first reading. An entire Universe of heroes as told from a primarily (altho not exclusively) non white perspective. There were white heroes and characters, of course, but the stories were more reflective of a diverse world view. Certainly, Marvel and DC as well as others (who didn't love Frank Miller's Martha Washington) tried their best. Yet, still the characters didn't quite feel authentic. Often, I felt conflicted. On the one hand, it was like Black people don't act like that. And yet on the other, you had to give them credit for the attempt.
Obviously, I don't exclusively read comics by black artists/ authors or about black characters. It is nice to see a well done comic with a well thought out story that features non white characters. Ok so the noteable exemption is Manga, but you get my point. So when I was friended by the East Coast Black Age of Comics (ECBAC), I thought oh goodie I'll hopefully get to find out about more Black Comics. However, like many things on the Book of Faces, I quickly got sidetracked by the myriad of distractions and it faded to the recesses of my FB stream only to be periodically visited from time to time.
It wasn't a surprise when I was invented to some event or another. I mean, how many of us on the Book of Faces get an invite to some event that we couldn't possiblly get to. What caught me off guard was that ECBAC was holding a convention in Philadelphia. In my head I was like. AWESOME!!! Ok ok so there is that comic something or another every year, but that somehow always sneaks up on me and I forget about it. However, thanks to my mild addiction to the Book of Faces. I was constantly reminded of the event.
ECBACC is the first actual convention that I have been to. And I had a blast. In part two I'll talk more about what I saw while I was there. Stay tuned...
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