By his own account, Samax Randolph was drawing prior to developing basic motor skills.
"Let's just say I was born drawing," says the 36-year-old Anna artist and Killeen native, "but my drawings started to look like stuff when I was about 3 or 4. It's just something I've always done."
He pursued his passion into his teenage years. "I've always had some form of art hustle going, as far back as selling tattoo design drawings as a high school freshman," he says. He earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and drawing at the University of North Texas in 1999.
While at UNT, Samax connected with like-minded artists and writers Mario Cauley, Corance Davis, Michael Lagocki and Khalid Robertson to launch GhostWerks Comics. The indie publishing company fused manga-style artwork, hip-hop swagger and heroes who were decidedly different in design.
Plenty of comic books feature seemingly steroid-riddled supermen and half-naked heroines, most of whom are Caucasian. GhostWerks wasn't interested in that. The artists told stories they wanted to read and created heroes they wanted to root for. (If you want something done right, ya gotta pencil and ink it yourself.)
These days, GhostWerks is intact in spirit, if not entirely active. The members have gone on to bigger and better, keeping in contact and collaborating on occasion.
Among his duties as a husband, father and freelance artist, Samax has continued creating, publishing and blogging about hip-hop and comic-book culture under his GhettoManga banner, which is part blog, part magazine. See his efforts and order copies of the mag at ghettomanga.com, and check out his mix tapes at myspace.com/ghettomagnetic.
As he put the finishing touches on the next issue of GhettoManga Quarterly, due out at the end of September, Samax took time out to answer our questions in an e-mail interview.
Q: How would you describe GhettoManga to the uninitiated?
Samax: GhettoManga is all about comics, hip-hop, news, art and culture. On the blog you'll find lots of reviews, movie trailers, artwork and links to other cool sites. I also post my own artwork there from time to time. The magazine is a comic anthology and street-culture magazine. If you like the blog, you'll probably like the magazine.
Q: On the surface, hip-hop and comic books might seem like an odd match. But both deal with the art of storytelling, larger-than-life characters, conflict and struggle, etc. Was it a decision to combine the two, or, as a fan of both, is there no separation for you?
Samax: If somebody puts chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes on your plate and they touch each other, you will only notice it if you don't like both of them. If you like them both, you just go ahead and eat them. A great number of rappers are comics fans. Rappers have been name-dropping references to Thor's hammer, Ghost Rider and Peter Parker for years, but people who don't read comics, or don't listen to the words in rap songs, never notice it.
Q: What did you learn about indie publishing from your experience with GhostWerks?
Samax: Lots. One of the reasons I wanted to do a magazine is because the more we tried to sell our books to comic shops, the more people told us that black people don't read comics. Can you believe that? They would look right at me – and I'm clearly black – and tell me, in my Thundercats T-shirt, that black people don't read comics. The reason, of course, is that a black person's money is the same color as a white person's money, and if no one is making and targeting products to us, there's no way for us to be identified. The black market – an unfortunate term, but I like using it – is invisible. As a result, people think it isn't there. But I know better. It's a niche that my work is equipped to serve, but it needs to be developed.
Q: The upcoming issue of 'GhettoManga Quarterly' features a cover piece on Doom (formerly MF Doom), a rapper who has famously adopted his own comic-book lore. Which MCs would you most want to turn into comic-book heroes/villains and how?
Samax: I'd love to do a book about a rap group (like the Fugees, for example) that inhabits a comic book world. That would work for Wu-Tang, too. I also think it would be fun to cast someone like Lil Wayne or 50 Cent as a crime boss in one of my comics, if they would agree not to sue me. I'm not talking about using their likeness, I mean doing a story where they are actually a villain. Like, 50 is doing a concert and kills someone backstage before going on. Or Wayne presides over a coven that wants to summon an ancient god of death from outer space or something. But that's just me.
Q: What popular comic book hero would you like to reimagine, and how?
Samax: HA! Most of the characters I'd like to do aren't all that popular. I'd love to do a Blade comic. The movie franchise did a good job of updating the character from his cheesy D-list status, but they really haven't got a clue what to do with him in print. I would do a book similar to Hellboy, where he is the center of multiple, mutually exclusive, apocalyptic vampire prophecies and whatnot, but he just wants to kill them all. I'd really like to do a book about Bronze Tiger or Black Lightning for DC. I also wish they would do Superboy or Supergirl as a little kid, like 5 to 9 years old, in a 'toon style. That would be cool to draw.
All About Samax ...
Age: 36
Nickname: AMEN (all caps, but it ain't no acronym!)
Skill you wish you had: Hip-hop DJ/samurai Movie you've seen a dozen times: Transformers: The Movie (the animated one)
TV show you can't turn off: Hung
Guilty pleasure: [Little Debbie] Zebra Cakes
Song you wish you'd written: "I Got It Made" by Special Ed (Google it, kids!)
Your last meal would be: Jumbo shrimp, fried rice and Big Peach soda.
Rapper vs. Superhero
– Imagined hip-hop-comic battles, by Samax • 'Kingdom Come' Jay-Z vs. Kingdom Come Superman: Superman retires because he's disillusioned with the human race. Jay retires because he's disappointed with the world of hip-hop. Supes returns, impervious to Kryptonite and nuclear bombs, and saves the world from mutual assured destruction. Jay-Z has yet to top Reasonable Doubt.
Advantage: Superman
• Iceman vs. Ice Cube: Iceman is a founding member of the X-Men. Ice Cube is a founding member of N.W.A. When Ice Cube left N.W.A., the group pretty much fell apart. When Iceman left the X-Men ... nobody even noticed, so he came back.
Advantage: Ice Cube
• Bruce Banner (a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk) vs. David Banner (a.k.a. that dude from Mississippi): When Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns into a super-strong, indestructible green behemoth. When David Banner gets mad, he turns into a mediocre rapper who goes to Congress and talks in circles.
Advantage: Bruce Banner
• Twista vs. the Flash: According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Twista is the fastest rapper alive. According to Who's Who in the DC Universe, the Flash is the fastest man alive. The Flash has the power to leech the speed out of other people and objects, and could reduce Twista to just another dude rapping at regular speeds about picking up girls at the club.
Advantage: The Flash
• Charles Xavier (a.k.a. Professor X) vs. KRS-One (a.k.a. the Teacher): Professor X has massive telepathic powers, including mind-reading, mind control and psionic blasts. KRS-One has massive MC powers, including battle-rhyming, breath control and crowd-moving. If they ever battled, the likely outcome would be an accidental merging of minds, creating a mutant MC that could battle people without speaking from across vast distances, spreading a message of tolerance and dope rhyming to the world.
Advantage: Everyone
Place an Ad
