Ep 56: Creating a Comic World with David Crosby

Our guest this week, David Crosby, is a recent graduate of North Oldham County High School in Kentucky. He, like many kids growing up in the 21st century, had an undying affection for the Dave Pilkey Captain Underpants series of books. The Captain Underpants books revolve around two 4th grade boys who draw their own comic books that feature their superhero, Captain Underpants, who accidentally becomes real.

David dreamed of creating his own superhero series. What started out as silly stick figure drawings on scraps of paper evolved into a 2 issue comic book series designed by David on a Japanese graphic arts program.

David’s comic, Fro Man and Dubstep Boy, features a black superhero whose superpower is his afro hair that can be transformed into different objects to help fight evil. Fro-man is a fish out of water; a feeling David says he was familiar to him when he moved at 8 years old and was one of the only black kids at his new school. Fro-man is just one character in the Cromics universe that David along with a group of friends have planned. .

In this episode, David talks to us about how he creates his comics as a way to work through situations he is going through personally, why winning a Scholastic award helped convince his parents he was serious about a possible future in graphic design and comics, and why he was so shook up at the passing of Stan Lee, creator of the Marvel comic universe.

David has just started his freshman year at the University of Kentucky; with classes beginning this week. We wish him all the best in this new phase and can’t wait to see what he does next.

Books Discussed in this Episode:

1- Captain Underpants (series) by Dave Pilkey
2- Fro-Man and Dubstep Boy (series) by David Crosby
3- 13-Story Treehouse (series) by Andy Griffiths
4- Magic Treehouse (series) by Mary Pope Osborne
5- 1984 by George Orwell
6- Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
7- Scott Pilgrim Versus the World by Bryan Lee O'Malley
8- What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World by Henry Clark