Tuskegee Heirs: New graphic novel to take Tuskegee Airmen to new heights
Atlanta-based collaborators garner instant success with Kickstarter campaign.
When illustrator Marcus Williams and author Greg Burnham launched the Kickstarter campaign for their latest collaborative effort, a graphic novel titled Tuskegee Heirs, they did what most people in their position do: They created a list of stretch goals in the event that they should exceed their $10,000 before the end of the 30-day campaign. Little did they know that their third stretch goal of $35,000 would be within reach in less than a week. “I’ve never done anything and made $10,000 in seven hours,” Burnham says, laughing.
While no strangers to crowdfunding, having had a previous collaboration funded through Kickstarter, the Atlanta-based collaborators are overwhelmed by the amount of love this latest effort has received in such a short amount of time. But it didn’t come as a total surprise. Since hinting at the project in late November, when Williams uploaded the first character image to social media, there has been an immense outpouring of support and excitement — enough to spur them to start their funding campaign a little early. The striking images of five young black pilots in futuristic uniforms that harken back to the black World War II heroes they’re named after, drawn as vividly and beautifully as anything Marvel or DC Comics has ever released, have already garnered enough support for Burnham and Williams to complete two graphic novels. At press time, they were less than $2,000 short of the third stretch goal, which will allow them to deliver a line of Tuskegee Heirs t-shirts.
Set 80 years in the future, when technological advances have made the act of flying or training a pilot illegal, Tuskegee Heirs follows the adventures of five African-American teens being secretly trained on the very airfield the Tuskegee Airmen called home during World War II. Their mentor, Colonel Mars, is a retired pilot whose goal is not only to impart these youngsters with the knowledge to make them skilled aviators, but also with the history of the legacy they will soon carry. As the first volume of the series, Flames of Destiny, begins, we find that each of the four older pilots — Ayanna, Omar, Genisis, and Slip — has established their place within the team. In addition to their talent as pilots, they’re each trained in a different martial arts specialty. Each is also an expert in his or her own right, coming together to form Voltron as it were, with Ayana the strategist being supported by Genesis’ immense knowledge of geography and topography, Omar’s command of history, and Slip’s role as their weapons expert. Readers will follow the Heirs’ adventures through the eyes of the youngest member and newest recruit to the team, Able.
“He’s the greatest fighter pilot that you’ll see in this whole thing,” explains Burnham. “As the story starts, he hasn’t found his niche within the team. He’s the most talented pilot on the team, but because he’s so young, he doesn’t always know when to go. We’re trying to make it to where there’s not just one star, but the story is gonna revolve around him.” As the series builds up, readers will come to learn each character’s backstory and find out why Col. Mars has recruited each of them to form what will ultimately become Earth’s last line of defense against a mechanized evil.
If it sounds like the makings of a movie, that’s exactly where Burnham and Williams want to take it. Their highest stretch goal, at $75,000, will allow them to create an animated pilot of high enough quality that they can start to shop a cartoon series or even a full-length feature. But the necessity to make these characters so dynamic and to allow the potential for so much depth isn’t just to bring Tuskegee Heirs to screen. It’s about the project’s inherent legacy. “The challenge for us was, how do we package this history, that is wholeheartedly pertinent to their lives, to capture a young person of this generation whose attention span is 15 minutes,” says Burnham.
Having had the opportunity to interact with some of their youngest readers while promoting past projects, Williams adds that giving their readers an opportunity to see themselves in a new light also remains a motivating factor. “We want to change the narrative,” he says. “There’s not many black heroes in the comic book world. But I think the entertainment business focuses on the ends of the spectrum: We’re either kings or thugs. So we’re charged with creating these heroes, but we’re not interested in making them stereotypical.”
Tuskegee Heirs is scheduled to be funded by February 14. The first volume, Flames Of Destiny will be available Summer 2016.