Monday 2 April 2007

Black superhero hype

So, over the past two weeks I've been trying to keep track of the feedback from my Toronto Star piece about black superheroes and so far it's been a wild ride. There's been some head scratching (mostly from fanboys) and praise (from Reginald Hudlin and other black writers/artists)...and most strangely of all, interest from the mainstream media. In this case two calls from AM talk radio deejays in the United States.

One was a fella named Allan Loudell, from a station in Delaware called WDEL. I thought I knew where Delaware was on a map, then I Google Mapped it - and I'm still not sure. I know one thing: it's very small. Anyway, Allan was a pleasant guy and you can listen to my live (i stress live) interview here: http://www.wdel.com/features/0320mackay.mp3. Try and ignore my uhms and ahhhhs.

The other guy was a slightly more acerbic deejay from a station in Baltimore, Maryland. The oddest thing about this interview was that the show's producer quizzed me about Doug Wright during the lead up to the spot. Apparently he grew up in upper New York state and read the Star Weekly during the 1960s and 70s - Wright's strip migrated there after he moved out of Montreal around 1967. The guy was very excited about the book project - and i'm sincerely hoping there's at least 1,000 people like him who are willing to fork out the dough when it hist the shelves.