Carlton Hargro is a self-professed geek. He’s also a writer and editor, having moved to Charlotte, N.C. from Atlanta to head up their chapter of the alt weekly Creative Loafing for more than five years. Now, he’s back—and he’s got big plans.
Another thing Hargro is: a creator (this is CommonCreativ, after all). Early this past summer, he raised nearly $6,000 from more than 300 backers on Kickstarter to fund his creation of a comic book dubbed The African American Superhero Anthology. Hargro’s goal is to “inject some African American and people of color into pop culture via comic books.”
CommonCreativ spoke with Hargro, now back in ATL, about his love of comics, his wildly successful fundraising campaign and why Atlanta is a city of reinvention.
CommonCreativ: What made you come back to Atlanta?
Carlton Hargro: I came back because I love this city. I came back from a safe, very family friendly, sweet, quaint little city, to the insanity of this bizarre and energetic town. I love this city. I never wanted to leave in the first place. I left for work, but I came back to live. I like having the option to do something really amazing if I want to—in Charlotte, it was very straight laced. This is fertile ground for reinventing yourself. This is the city of reinvention; it burned down and came back. It is many things. I love this city.
CC: Tell us about the Superhero Anthology.
CH: I used to publish comic books in the 1990s and I stopped because I didn’t have the money anymore, and I always wanted to get back into it. I collect them and I now own about 10,000 comic books. Every Wednesday I buy them, and I have done this since I was 18 years old. One thing I can say about Charlotte is that it is a great comic book town—they have a really great shop called Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find that does a convention called Heroes Con.
I started to write a comic book review column for Creative Loafing in Charlotte. The people at the comic book shop were very nice, so I found that I was making friends with people in the industry who were making the books. I knew that I had the idea for this anthology and I thought, “I’ve gotta get this comic started,” so I did Kickstarter. I had built all of these relationships and I knew so many people in the industry. It took off very fast and, in eight days, I funded my Kickstarter campaign. I went $3,000 over my goal in that time, and it was because of the connections that I made through that shop
CC: Who did you do the book for?
CH: I did it originally for my own love [of comics], because I saw that there I was need. There aren’t a lot of products that are geared towards the black reader at all.
CC: Where did your ideas for the characters come from?
CH: A lot of times I’ll look at the market and ask, “What do I want to read about?” and I base characters on those things. I really focus on making African-American characters or minority characters, and I try not to make them the typical stereotypes that I see, but also not make them super positive like a shining knight—then they’re boring. I want to make them interesting and complicated characters. I want these to be like pilot episodes of television shows. You read it and get everything you need to know. That’s what I want to do with my stories, and I didn’t know anybody who could pull it off the way I wanted to.
CC: What stage is the comic book in now?
CH: Right now, I’m mailing them to my Kickstarter supporters. Ultimately, there is a publisher I want to get a deal with that will let me keep the rights to my characters—they publishing The Walking Dead comics. Building my audience is the first step on the process. The second step is pulling one of the characters from the anthology and giving her her own comic—I’m working on that right now. My goal is to publish a few books through this company.
CC: How do you think other cities view Atlanta’s creative community?
CH: There are people in Charlotte who want to move to Atlanta; and then there are people in Atlanta who want to move to Brooklyn. But the people who live in Brooklyn are looking towards us and saying, “Atlanta is great! There are some really cool things going on in Atlanta.” It’s kind of bizarre.
I think we really have established our own thing. We have a great food scene, great indie rock and soul music scenes, and visual arts are really coming up. It is really robust. The cool thing about it is there is always another person coming up. I interviewed the singer Omar a few weeks ago and he said, “I’ve got to get back to Atlanta. There is so much love there.” People see value in this city.
There are some challenges; but the fact is you have an audience here and so many people who want to create. I love it here.
To find out more about the African American Superhero Anthology, visit aaaheroes.com.
