"The Bay Area is
pretty rich in comics publishing — mainly
because of the diversity, from 'zine publishing
to mainstream comics," Robinson said.
Courtesy
of Off Panel Comics.
Panels from Joshua's
Story, a comic book by Jerry Williams
that is set in Oakland.
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The newest East
Bay comic book artists to show up at the
convention were three young men who call
themselves Arcane comics. Jaimel
Hemphill, Stephen Donaldson, and Chris
Williams tried to attract readers by
distributing free photocopies of artwork
from their upcoming projects. “We're just trying
to put some fun back in comics. There's
too many guys running around with guns
and girls with triple-D bra sizes,”
said Hemphill, the fledgling company's
20-year-old editor-in-chief. Hemphill
said that Arcane titles will also aim for
ethnic diversity among characters. The
company plans to produce four books by
the end of the year — The Shadow,
The Chain, The Badlanders and The
Blackjacks.
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For
artist Jerry Williams, Oakland was the natural
choice for the setting for his new comic book,
Joshua's Story.
“What I like to be
able to do is go down after work and sit in front
of the Tribune and draw the building,” he
Williams, who said he learned to read by looking
at comic books while growing up in Oakland's
Redwood Heights neighborhood.
Williams said that he
had thought about setting the story in New York
City, but realized that he would rather deal with
a familiar city.
“I would've had to
go to the library to look up what New York looks
like. You deal with situations you know so you're
not making things up,” said Williams, 29.
Williams' comic book tells the story of a young
man who turns to a life of crime after his
parents are killed and later struggles to extract
himself from his self-imposed gang lifestyle.
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