From Dream to Reality: The Trials, Triumphs, and Tenacity Behind Crown Comic
A story of resilience, artistic struggles, and the unstoppable vision that brought Taji’s superpower to the world.
In 2017, Taji, the main character of Crown Comics, appeared to me in a dream.
She appeared to me while fighting a mob of men with her hair—her hair kept changing hairstyles and attacking the men. One minute, it was an afro exposing, and the next, it was two puff balls turning into iron fists, banging the men who survived the explosion. It was epic.
The dream was vivid and very real. Taji was real. The power was real. The whole thing was beyond unreal. The dream ended with Taji saying, “Black Hair Has Always Been a Superpower. Remind the World.” She woke me up at 2:42 a.m., and I began writing her story at 2:43 a.m.
As her story started forming, I felt destiny had found her girl. I was meant to write Taji’s story. I am an only daughter born to a beautician mother who took much pride in my hair, even turning me into her hair model for hair shows when I was a kid.
Growing up with a mother who was a beautician, I was taught to love my natural hair and treat it like my superpower. I grew up in a salon watching my mom bring lifeless, damaged hair back to life. I watched women and men come in with hair needing assistance and leave with the confidence that shines through every part of them. Besides the constant smell of hair chemicals, the salon quickly became my happy place. Plop me in a chair with a book, and I was good to go for hours
I now realize the story was formed years ago.
I was lucky my mom cared for my hair in a way most little black girls don’t get. Every Sunday was hair day, and I received full treatment. Wash, blow dry, straighten, or braid up, depending on how tired my mom was or what was happening that week. Every picture day, my hair was laid and slayed (I have pictures). My hair was never damaged, and I was twelve when I finally got my first relaxer; I know girls who had their first relaxer when they were as young as three. My hair did fall out a little, but I didn’t go completely bald like most black girls experience after their first cream crack session.
My journey with my black hair was different. I experienced less trauma than most girls, and I was taught to embrace the nap.
Those differences made writing Crown Comic come naturally. That first night, I wrote the first five issues, establishing the main and supporting characters, and created a black girl superhero who would empower little girls to see the power in their hair.
I knew I wanted to create her in comic book storytelling form the moment Taji came to me.
I mean, what’s a superhero without her comic series? Plus, visual representation was needed to feel her true impact, like I did that first night.
I wrote those first five chapters, and then life happened. I got distracted and, honestly, a little scared of what came next. I was at the beginning of my author career and still deluded that I needed a publisher to make this book come to life. So, the issues sat on my hard drive, waiting for me to get over myself and do what needed to be done.
Fast forward to 2019; I’m scrolling through Twitter, and I see a tweet from Dorphise Jean. She was talking about indie comic book creators coming together and helping each other with a call to action for any creators who wanted to collaborate. I responded, and the rest is history!
Hahaha, not! Next came the challenges and three years of delays.
After that tweet, Dorphise and I chatted for a few days, during which she connected me with my first comic book editor.
The editor reviewed my manuscript, loved it, and took me on as a client. After hiring the editor, everything started moving fast. We started formatting the manuscript and editing the content to fit into a more comic-book storytelling form. Remember, I started off thinking I was a novelist. We broke down the almost 100-page manuscript into five issues, and she made me create a character description document. Once we completed those first stages, we started looking for an illustrator.
I knew I wanted a black woman illustrator because who else could illustrate a black girl superhero whose power is her hair? That decision was easy… but not!
I quickly learned that you need a particular artist to create comic book art. You need a sequential artist. I realized immediately that there aren’t many black illustrators with that specific qualification. But like I said earlier, I was destined to write this story, so my editor already had everything I needed, including the right illustrator. Or so I thought.
I met the illustrator, we loved each other, and she signed on to do the project. Everything was falling into place. The editing process was completed, and we were ready to proceed with the character designs.
The artist got everything she needed and started working on Taji’s design.
The emails started rolling in. First, she sent over the outline of the character. Then, she sent over a rough draft with soft colors added. You don’t realize how excited I was to get these emails. I was too amped, but weeks passed, and the illustrator disappeared. She stopped answering my emails, and the final draft of Taji hung in the balance.
It took five weeks and a threat to report the payment to PayPal to get my first final version of Taji.
During the five weeks of chasing the illustrator, I broke up with my first editor, attended an event as a vendor with only my rough draft of Taji and vibes, and scored a new comic book editor. Everything was coming together while rapidly falling apart.
Xabiere character’s design was up next, but as you may have guessed, the illustrator disappeared again. I took this as a sign, moved on with a new ambition and skill sets, and began my search for a new black female sequential illustrator. I was determined to get what I wanted.
I searched websites and Instagram pages. I posted an open call on social media (do not recommend) and returned with nothing. While searching for the perfect illustrator, I published my first picture book (Black Boy, Black Boy) and truly locked into my craft. After that first publication, I was more determined than ever to make Crown a reality.
My first illustrator spent the block on me five months into my third search. It was 2020, so I understood the world was weird and accepted her apology again. I wanted a black woman illustrator. I needed her, so I was willing to work with her mismanagement if it meant I got the story I wanted.
So, we started the character design process AGAIN with Taji’s design.
During my first illustrator’s five-month absence, one of my best friends pointed out that the original character design had a shadow mustache and, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Plus, I wanted more out of my character design. I not only searched for a new illustrator for five months, but I also did research on comic books as a whole. My vision had changed.
We start over, and the illustrator hits all her deadlines and finishes the Taji design.
Not only did I approve the final Taji design, but my best friend also approved it, so we moved on to Xabiere’s design. She hit most of her deadlines, but she’s slowly started to make me feel like a cat the way I had to chase her down. She got me Xabiere’s final character design way past her deadline, and it looked just like my nephew, but I was over the cat-and-mouse game.
The artist was excellent at what she did, but like most artists, our time management skills aren’t as excellent. Trust me, I know. It’s something I’m still working on.
To cut a long story short, she never finished the third character design. There are four main characters in total.
She disappeared again, and that was the final straw for me. Over a year had passed, and I needed to move on for the sake of my sanity.
My draining search began again, but this time, the illustrator didn’t need to be a black woman. By this point in my journey, my need for the project to be completed outweighed my need for the right illustrator.
I opened another artist call with the new qualification, and the submissions started pouring in.
I locked down a new illustrator quickly and began the process with Taji’s character design again.
The new illustrator wasn’t black nor a woman, and he couldn’t get the afro right on the character design for Taji or the body right on Xabiere. His illustration style was too much like comic book style, with everything exaggerated, and that’s not what I wanted for my comic. This development meant I had to start all over again!
Since I wasn’t new to the game, I found a few new artists pretty quickly, and they all commissioned a character design for Taji. While I loved the character design, a clear winner emerged pretty quickly. He not only knocked out the first two characters, he created the final two in about a month. It was crazy work! If he had been available, I would have hired him as my illustrator, but he had a year-long commission waitlist, and I couldn’t wait another year for Crown.
I finally had designs for my entire cast. I was finally able to move forward with completing the first issue. It only took almost three years to go from idea to full production.
We were finally illustrating the interior of the first issue in early 2021. Crown Issue One was published in January 2022.
I said all of this to encourage you to chase your dreams. Everything is possible if you believe in yourself.
