Come November, I’ll be responsible for a four-color title in your local comics shop. That’s right: yours truly is bum rushing the world of superheroes for a brief stint as a comic-book writer. (And in the 2010s, said comic will probably follow the path of Sin City, Ghost World, Fritz the Cat and a host of others to Hollywood-movie adaptation. But one thing at a time.) Details? Thought you’d never ask.

The concept so far centers around a twentysomething black dude who’s a spiritual Master. Somethin like Jesus Christ, Siddharta Gautama, the Dalai Lama or Erykah Badu. Having achieved spiritual mastery doesn’t allow him to walk on water or ressurrect himself from the dead; maybe he can really kick ass instead. Throw in low-level telepathy. He tours the world giving seminars about the New Spirituality, like the Conversations With God guy, only hiphop and sexy. Touring, he meets others who’ve also reached that same spiritual level: a black/Korean rock chick; a hiphop knowitall whiteboy; one or two others. And the badguys are probably politicians. Somebody going around trying to raise consciousness is never in their interest, so that’s not too hard. And there’s gotta be an arch nemesis, a guy who thinks he’s the devil to this guy’s savior until he eventually realizes they’re essentially the same person. (Lucifer was a fallen angel, right? This is nothing new.)

I’m blogging here about my progress every month. Since October, I found out Bronx Biannual contributor Jerry A. Rodriguez has an agent who’s signing up comic deals for his writers. I’ve already got an agent of course, but she doesn’t deal in comics; no conflict of interest. And an old Vibe associate who transitioned to the long-johns and capes advised me not to deal with the majors – Marvel and DC – if I wanna keep the rights to my creations. In fact, Frank Miller (300, The Dark Knight Returns) complained to me long ago about getting fucked by Marvel. Miller invented Elektra and never gets any credit, not to mention any royalties from, like, the movie. So, duly noted. Though if DC lets me get anywhere near Doctor Fate, all bets are off.

And shoutout to my brother Kyle for season 1 of Heroes… good lookin!

So… my baby boy was just born!! Kalel Sage Lewis, less than two weeks ago, 10/22/07. For those of you not reared on Marvel and DC Comics as children, Superman – arguably the greatest, most well-known superhero of them all – was born Kal-El on the planet Krypton before rocketing to Earth as the planet’s sole survivor, blah blah. The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme in the Marais district of Paris is currently running De Superman au Chat du Rabbin (From Superman to the Rabbi’s Cat), described in the program as

[A]n exhibition on Jewish cartoons and graphic novels illustrating how the comic strip contributed to the construction of contemporary Jewish collective memory… to show how, from the end of the 19th century until the late 20th century, the cartoon strip and graphic novel played a role in the creation of imagery and partially enriched and disseminated visions of the Jewish past.

If I named my son after Superman (in a roundabout way), it would seem the museum would have had me at “hello” with this one. But comic fans are notorious for being impossibly, nerdly critical when it comes to our shit. All in all, I think they nailed it. They established the Jewish connection mainly on the basis of legendary writers and artists of the comic artform who were Jews: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman), Bill Finger and Bob Kane (creators of Batman), Marvel Comics legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

A wing of the exhibit was dedicated to Will Eisner, creator of both The Spirit and the graphic novel medium. I was never really into The Spirit, but Sin City director Frank Miller is about do a film on him. The museum displayed comics behind glass cases; I always find it funny to see pop art so revered: Action Comics #252 (the first appearance of Supergirl) and the groundbreaking tone of the “This Man, This Monster” storyline of Fantastic Four #51 among others. Underground comics got some light, particularly the influence of R. Crumb (who’s expatriated to Sauve, a village in the south of France) on French comics; so did the renegade legacy of Mad magazine, which Mom (like many other American moms) would never let me read. All us kids snuck them anyway.

Most important nugget of knowledge: comics come from The Bronx, the invention of Jewish salesman Max Gaines. If ya don’t know, now ya know.