Here’s a character I mostly came up with as a joke. This was while reading a thread on CBR discussing the Black Panther comic-book. Some fans were unhappy with the way Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing the series (as am I), and someone said that they wished Coates would stop “ruining” Black Panther and just go write his own series about some analog character. And I thought, what if I tried that?

So first I came up with the name THE BLACK HARE, and thought up an idea for a design and sent that to CELINA HERNANDEZ and she sent me the above image.

Seeing the image sparked a bit of my creativity, and I began to work out some character and story ideas. I envisioned and East African nation called Kabila Moja, which is Swahili for “One Tribe”, which was formed out of refugees from several different nations. It’s a small but wealthy nation, known as “the Dubai of Africa.” The Black Hare is national mascot, similar to the way the bald eagle is regarded in America. It’s a constitutional Monarchy, and Prince Kwasi Achi-Bru is the 2nd-in-line to the throne. He was assigned to be the Ambassador to America, and while at costume party in Washington, attended by many high-profile foreign diplomats, where he was dressed in a Black Hare costume, some terrorists attempted to take everyone hostage. Having trained since birth in multiple martial arts, the Prince fought back and single-handily saved everyone, becoming known as a hero. After that, he continued to fight crime as The Black Hare.

I still have more to work on with the story, but I commissioned another image from Celina:

I think there’s some potential for good stories here. The question is how much of do I play straight, or write it as a parody of the Black Panther? We’ll see how that developes.