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The Adventures of Lion Man
In 1947, Orrin C. Evans created one of the world’s first Black superheroes–Lion Man! Appearing in the only issue of All Negro Comics, superhero history was forever changed. And now Lion Man is back! And Black Nerd Problems is happy to give an exclusive preview for the return of Lion Man.
Readapted and remixed for modern times, the award-winning visionary team of John Jennings and David Brame (After the Rain) create a mind-blowing Afrofuturistic tale of cosmic splendor while Bill Campbell (The Day the Klan Came to Town) and up-and-coming Zimbabwean writer, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Drinking from Graveyard Wells) deliver a Bondian African spy thriller full of plot twists, conspiracy thrillers, and political intrigue.
About the Team
John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture. As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism, and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series, and her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George RR Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers. Her work has been anthologized in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021 and the NAACP award-nominated Africa Risen (Tor). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal, F&SF, Tor.com, Lightspeed, FANTASY Magazine, and Fiyah Literary Magazine for Black Speculative Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel.
Bill Campbell is the author of Sunshine Patriots, My Booty Novel, and the anti-racism satire, Koontown Killing Kaper. Along with Edward Austin Hall, he co-edited the groundbreaking anthology, Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. He also co-edited Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany with Nisi Shawl, Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction and Fantasy with Francesco Verso, and APB: Artists against Police Brutality with Jason Rodriguez and John Jennings. His Afrofuturist spaceploitation graphic novel, Baaaad Muthaz (with David Brame and Damian Duffy) was released in 2019. His historical graphic novel with Bizhan Khodabandeh, The Day the Klan Came to Town, was released by PM Press in 2021. Campbell lives in Washington, DC, where he spends his time with his family and helms Rosarium Publishing.
Damian Duffy is a cartoonist, scholar, writer, curator, lecturer, teacher, and a Glyph Comics, Eisner Comics, Bram Stoker, and Hugo Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. He holds a MS and PhD in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses on computers & culture, and social media & global change. His many publications range from academic essays (in comics form) on new media & learning, to art books about underrepresentation in comics culture, to editorial comics, to a graphic novel adaptation of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, with his J2D2 Arts counterpart John Jennings. Kindred: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) was awarded the 2017 Brame Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel, and the 2018 Eisner Comics Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium. Their follow-up, Parable of the Sower: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) won the 2021 Ignyte Award for Best Comics Team, and the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. The co-editor of the Black Comix Returns art book from the Magnetic Collection at Lion Forge Comics, Damian has given talks and lead workshops about comics, art, and education internationally.
David Brame is proudly blackity black, an afrofuturist and scholar. His most recent scholarly creative accomplishments for 2019 and 2020 include Sanford Biggers: CODESWITCH in collaboration with Professor John Jennings, The Bronx Museum and produced by Yale University Press. His scholarly work geared towards black youth called, is called The Struggle, produced by Minnesota Press. His graphic novel After the Rain, disseminated by ABRAMS/Megascope, a short story written by Nnedi Okorafor and adapted by Professor John Jennings, was nominated for an Eisner. His comic work explores issues of race and identity in the context of the American South, Black Gothica, mysticism, and the African diaspora.
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The post EXCLUSIVE: The Legend of the Lion Man Lives Again appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
The Adventures of Lion Man
In 1947, Orrin C. Evans created one of the world’s first Black superheroes–Lion Man! Appearing in the only issue of All Negro Comics, superhero history was forever changed. And now Lion Man is back! And Black Nerd Problems is happy to give an exclusive preview for the return of Lion Man.
Readapted and remixed for modern times, the award-winning visionary team of John Jennings and David Brame (After the Rain) create a mind-blowing Afrofuturistic tale of cosmic splendor while Bill Campbell (The Day the Klan Came to Town) and up-and-coming Zimbabwean writer, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Drinking from Graveyard Wells) deliver a Bondian African spy thriller full of plot twists, conspiracy thrillers, and political intrigue.
About the Team
John Jennings is a professor, author, graphic novelist, curator, Harvard Fellow, New York Times Bestseller, 2018 Eisner Winner, and all-around champion of Black culture. As Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside (UCR), Jennings examines the visual culture of race in various media forms including film, illustrated fiction, comics, and graphic novels. He is also the director of Abrams ComicArts imprint Megascope, which publishes graphic novels focused on the experiences of people of color. His research interests include the visual culture of Hip Hop, Afrofuturism, and politics, Visual Literacy, Horror, and the EthnoGothic, and Speculative Design and its applications to visual rhetoric. Jennings is co-editor of the 2016 Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art (Rutgers) and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center’s Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal’s Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University.
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano. Her debut short story collection Drinking from Graveyard Wells (University Press of Kentucky) was selected for the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series, and her novel manuscript-in-progress was selected by George RR Martin for the Worldbuilder Scholarship. She earned her BA at Cornell University and her MFA at UMass Amherst. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She is the Newhouse Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wellesley College and has taught at UMass Amherst, Clarion West online, and the Juniper Institute for Young Writers. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Fellowship for Black SFF writers. Her work has been anthologized in the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2021 and the NAACP award-nominated Africa Risen (Tor). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal, F&SF, Tor.com, Lightspeed, FANTASY Magazine, and Fiyah Literary Magazine for Black Speculative Fiction. She is currently at work on a novel.
Bill Campbell is the author of Sunshine Patriots, My Booty Novel, and the anti-racism satire, Koontown Killing Kaper. Along with Edward Austin Hall, he co-edited the groundbreaking anthology, Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond. He also co-edited Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany with Nisi Shawl, Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction and Fantasy with Francesco Verso, and APB: Artists against Police Brutality with Jason Rodriguez and John Jennings. His Afrofuturist spaceploitation graphic novel, Baaaad Muthaz (with David Brame and Damian Duffy) was released in 2019. His historical graphic novel with Bizhan Khodabandeh, The Day the Klan Came to Town, was released by PM Press in 2021. Campbell lives in Washington, DC, where he spends his time with his family and helms Rosarium Publishing.
Damian Duffy is a cartoonist, scholar, writer, curator, lecturer, teacher, and a Glyph Comics, Eisner Comics, Bram Stoker, and Hugo Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. He holds a MS and PhD in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches courses on computers & culture, and social media & global change. His many publications range from academic essays (in comics form) on new media & learning, to art books about underrepresentation in comics culture, to editorial comics, to a graphic novel adaptation of Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, with his J2D2 Arts counterpart John Jennings. Kindred: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) was awarded the 2017 Brame Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel, and the 2018 Eisner Comics Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium. Their follow-up, Parable of the Sower: A graphic novel adaptation (Abrams ComicArts) won the 2021 Ignyte Award for Best Comics Team, and the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. The co-editor of the Black Comix Returns art book from the Magnetic Collection at Lion Forge Comics, Damian has given talks and lead workshops about comics, art, and education internationally.
David Brame is proudly blackity black, an afrofuturist and scholar. His most recent scholarly creative accomplishments for 2019 and 2020 include Sanford Biggers: CODESWITCH in collaboration with Professor John Jennings, The Bronx Museum and produced by Yale University Press. His scholarly work geared towards black youth called, is called The Struggle, produced by Minnesota Press. His graphic novel After the Rain, disseminated by ABRAMS/Megascope, a short story written by Nnedi Okorafor and adapted by Professor John Jennings, was nominated for an Eisner. His comic work explores issues of race and identity in the context of the American South, Black Gothica, mysticism, and the African diaspora.
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram!
The post EXCLUSIVE: The Legend of the Lion Man Lives Again appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Wednesday fans have been wondering since Netflix announced a second season if a particularly nefarious character would make a comeback. Although it didn’t happen until season two episode three, “Call of the Woe,” we can confirm that actress Christina Ricci does indeed reappear in the show. But this time, she’s a patient in the Willow Hill psychiatric hospital. She only cameos in episode three, but appears in a larger capacity in episode four. Sadly, however, this is where her character meets her untimely end. RIP, Mrs. Thornhill, we hardly knew you. In season one, Ricci played a prominent role as Mrs. Marilyn Thornhill, the only “Normie” teacher at the Nevermore Academy, the school for Outcasts that Wednesday Addams attends. Ricci’s casting, of course, raised a lot of questions about who she really was initially, as she famously played the child version of Wednesday in the ‘90s Addams Family films. At first, Mrs. Thornhill seemed like a benevolent botany teacher. She even served as a mentor to Wednesday as she adjusted to life at Nevermore. Mrs. Thornhill’s real identity actually tied her character into the main mystery of the series, which had Wednesday investigating a murder involving her parents. When the elder Addams were students at Nevermore Academy, Gomez had been accused of killing local rich kid Garret Gates. The notoriously anti-outcast Gates family all died later under mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Thornhill, the botany teacher, played the part of the caring den mother well. But she had more evil plans in store. Mrs. Thornhill. It turned out, wasn’t really a Thornhill at all. She was really Laurel Gates. She faked her own death in a drowning accident as a child. As the last surviving member of the powerful and outcast-hating local Gates family, Laurel changed her name and infiltrated Nevermore, waiting for the right time to exact her revenge on outcasts. She used her knowledge of plants to create a chemical that would unlock the “Hyde” (hidden monster) persona of local teenage Tyler Galpin, which she planned to use as a weapon of revenge against the Nevermore Academy, and specifically, Wednesday. And she came very close to succeeding, too. We learn in season two that Laurel actually survived the season one finale. The police sent her to Northern State Correctional Prison. She appears again with much shorter hair, acting loonier than ever. Although she did make visits to Willow Hill, helping the staff to deprogram Tyler. She still has an emotional hold over Tyler Galpin, and his doctor is trying to learn how she could control his Hyde persona. Even though she tries to reach Tyler, he still hates her, and tries to choke her to death. Later, when a zombie escapes his cell, she uses the ensuing chaos to see Tyler again. She frees him, but as a “thank you” to his “mother,” Tyler Hydes-out, impaling her with his claws. She dies telling Tyler, “Mommy loves you.” And that is the end of Laurel/Marilyn. But in the world of Wednesday, death is often not permanent. You never know. Part one of Wednesday season two is currently streaming on Netflix.
The post How an Important WEDNESDAY Season 1 Character Returns in Season 2 appeared first on Nerdist.
Food criticism isn’t just for insiders anymore. Gone are the days when only Michelin inspectors and newspaper columnists got to have a say. Now, a fresh wave of Black food reviewers is injecting some much-needed humor and perspective into the dining world. They’re giving us a way to think about food, one bite at a time. You can find them on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. They’re the ones making us laugh, making us hungry, and showing us what’s really good. Let’s take a look at a few favorites. Here are 10 food reviewers who are changing the dining game with their voices and style.
Rashad “Mr. ChimeTime” Mooreman (@mr.chimetime)
Rashad Mooreman, notably known as Mr. Chimetime, is a popular food reviewer recognized for his assessments of local dives and small Black-owned establishments throughout the United States. Mr. Chimetime has established himself as a notable figure with his irreverent personality and shoot-from-the-hip style of food critique on Instagram. Mooreman’s perspective has not only sparked discussion around your favorite food spots but also ignited widespread debates that have gone viral. Chimetime also spreads the love across good restaurants by paying for the meals for scores of customers.
Keith Lee
Keith Lee, a former MMA fighter, has created a lane reviewing restaurants across the US with a special focus on Black-owned eateries. What sets him apart is his approach. Lee orders anonymously, which helps keep his reviews honest and authentic. Lee’s food reviews have a side effect; once he features a restaurant, it tends to get a surge in customers and attention. The “Keith Lee Effect” has been a game-changer for Black-owned businesses, which often struggle to gain the spotlight. Lee has built up a strong following. People love his down-to-earth reviews and his commitment to showcasing America’s hidden gems.
Cheryl Parks Ajamu (@BlackGirlFoodCritic)
Cheryl Parks Ajamu, the woman behind Black Girl Food Critic, is on a mission to shed light on Black-owned restaurants and community-driven eateries. Ajamu started BlackGirlFoodCritic in 2021. From mouth-watering Detroit brunch spots to classic Southern-style dishes, BlackGirlFoodCritic tries them all. The reviews are not only about the food. She weaves in the context and history behind each spot. If you’re looking for in-depth reviews that go beyond just what’s on the plate, definitely check for BlackGirlFoodCritic.
Eden Hagos (@blackfoodie.co)
BlackFoodie is a platform founded by Eden Hagos that highlights Black-owned restaurants across the country. Her feed is more than a bunch of food pics. She’s built a community around it where she shares her thoughts on restaurants, talks about dining events, and breaks down the latest culinary trends. What really sets BlackFoodie apart is the way she weaves in commentary and highlights the Black people behind the food.
(@blackfoodie.co)Chef Vicky V (@thequeenofyum)
Chef Vicky V, or The Queen of Yum as she’s fondly called, is making waves. This food influencer has a knack for storytelling. She uses vivid images and killer events to bring dining hotspots to life. The Queen of Yum champions Black-owned restaurants and gives them the attention they deserve. Chef Vicky has been getting nods for her work since 2024. It’s clear she’s on a mission to lift up food spots, bring people together, and make Black food scenes more accessible.
Brittany & Dave (@twomidwestfoodies)
Brittany and Dave, who run the Instagram account Two Midwest Foodies, are on a mission to highlight Black-owned restaurants in the Midwest. These two have been creating content since 2019. They cover all kinds of cuisine from comfort food to adventurous dishes. Their account is a resource for anyone looking to support Black-owned businesses and see what the Midwest’s food is hitting on.
Chicago (@twomidwestfoodies)Lyndsay C. Green (@ladyluff)
Lindsay C. Green made history as the dining and restaurant critic at the Detroit Free Press. She’s been writing reviews since 2022, covering everything from fine dining spots to beloved community eateries that mean a lot to the people of Detroit. Green has an eye for what makes a restaurant special. She’s been getting some serious recognition for her work, including a James Beard Award nomination for Emerging Voice and even a Pulitzer Prize finalist nod. Her reviews give readers a sense of the city’s restaurant scene and tell stories rooted in Detroit culture.
KJ Kearney (@BlackFoodFridays)
KJ Kearney is the brains behind Black Food Fridays, a platform that’s racked up a James Beard Award. Born and raised in South Carolina, Kearney’s passion project has become a go-to spot for advocating for Black-owned eateries across the country. What sets them apart is their weekly review system, which breaks it down into five telling categories: how good it tastes, how it looks, how well it’s made, the vibe of the place, and how clean it’s. Since launching Black Food Fridays in North Charleston in 2020, Kearney’s been crisscrossing the nation trying spots and sharing their honest take on each one. What I love about these guys is that they really know how to review food in a way that’s fair and thoughtful. They consider the culture behind the dish, making their opinions highly valuable to anyone passionate about food.
Alex & Allison Onyina (@acoupleofbites)
A Couple of Bites is a couple who reviews food spots in Houston. Alex and Allison Onyina are a husband-and-wife team that focuses on date night restaurants and Black-owned establishments in the community. Since 2024, they’ve been getting attention around Houston and their unique take on dining. A Couple of Bites make trying new restaurants feel approachable.
Stephen Satterfield
Stephen Satterfield, a food writer from Atlanta, is the face behind the Netflix show High on the Hog. Satterfield travels all over the US to share stories about the food and people behind it. What sets him apart is that he doesn’t just review food, he digs into its history and culture. It’s not only about what’s on the plate; he’s on a mission to elevate the conversation around food. Satterfield has been reviewing food culture since he started Whetstone Media back in 2018. But his passion for food goes back much further.
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