Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Black Panther, now 'decidedly more hip'

The Chicago Sun-Times talks to Reginald Hudlin, Joe Quesada and John Romita Jr. about reimagining Black Panther for the, uh, "hip-hop generation."

First up, Hudlin: "Method Man and DMX love comic books. Samuel L. Jackson is a fan. Why not make a book that appeals to these very cool guys? Does that mean I'm reaching out to black readers? No, at the end of the day, I'd like to think I simply wrote a great comic book story."

Then Quesada: "Yes, we'd like more African- American readers. We'd also like more women readers. We're always trying to attract the widest possible audience, whether it's Black Panther or Spider-Man."

And now Romita: "What is so wrong with Marvel trying to capture a portion of the black market? If they succeed, it will be brilliant, because it hasn't been done before."