“The last place on Earth has a new resident. Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline. He’s here and....Everything’s gonna be alright.” -Issue 1 of Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline.
With these words readers were introduced to the brainchild of brothers Dawud Anyabwile (David Sims) and Guy Sims. Seeing the lack of representation of African Americans in the major comic titles of their day, and pushing forward with a vision of entrepreneurial self-sufficiency, this duo sought to craft a product that would tell the stories they wanted told within comics.
With the creation of Big City Comics, Guy and Dawud hit the ground running in 1990, with their flagship title Brotherman: Dictator of Discipline. The book told the story of Antonio Valor (a.k.a., Brotherman), public attorney of the crime ridden Big City by day, superhero by night. In both guises, Valor sought to right the wrongs of his wayward city, combating injustice wherever it reared its head.
With the stellar pencilling of Dawud and superbly plotted scripts of Guy, the series was a groundbreaking achievement. One of the few titles crafted by an African-American creative team, the title also boasted a complete cast of African Americans and was successfully produced by an independently run publishing company.
A critical and financial success, the title ran for 11 consecutive issues and laid the groundwork for a host of other independent African-American comics to follow.
After an 11-year period, the brothers are bringing back Brotherman for a new generation of readers. The re-launch will kick off with the Brotherman Art Exhibit in Atlanta, GA, in February 2008. At this event, a trade paperback collection of the first 11 issues of the series will be released, following up by the release of a graphic novel in late 2008, which will continue Brotherman’s adventures.
In a recent interview with UVC Magazine, Dawud, who currently handles animation duties for the Cartoon Network, discussed why the series ended and what the future has in store for Antonio Valor and company, along with a host of other topics.
UVC: Why create Brotherman?
Dawud: The origin of the concept was to create an advertisement tool to get traffic from New York to our custom airbrush shop in New Jersey. We were actually getting the book prepared for the New York Black Expo in 1990.
UVC: At this point, it seems like the book took on a life of its own.
Dawud: Yeah, and I wouldn’t say that I didn’t expect it to, but I thought maybe I’d be able to do the comic and still airbrush shirts. Once I saw what went into making it, I enjoyed it, but it was a lot of work. I said let’s just make this a priority and hang up the t-shirts and freelancing.
UVC: What was your hope that audiences would take from the comic?
Dawud: If you look at the book and its progression, it began as a parody of comics. Kind of like a satire of the whole comic book genre, how you have the hero living in the sprawling city and he’s fighting crime. At the same time, it wasn’t supposed to be something silly either.
We did want him to be the upstanding hero, the guy who espoused positive phrases and everything like that. I just looked at Brotherman as a force that could inspire the children in our community to see themselves in another light. And to encourage them to write stories about themselves, and that’s what it did.
UVC: Can you see the effect, if any, that the book has had on readers?
Dawud: We saw after the first and second issue how it was inspiring kids to read, and how a lot of parents were saying that a lot of their children didn’t read until they picked up Brotherman. Now that Brotherman has been out for all of these years, I actually get that nostalgic feedback, where a lot of people are saying they grew up on our book, and they say, “Man, I learned how to read from your book” or “your book inspired me to go into the field of animation or art, things that I wasn’t thinking about doing.”
UVC: So why bring back the comic back now?
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