Gary Jackson’s love for comics began with a childhood gift from his mother — an assorted bundle of comic books she ordered from a Sears catalog. Among them was an issue of Uncanny X-Men featuring Storm as a 12-year-old girl struggling to reconcile her adult memories with her new reality.
As a Black boy growing up in Topeka, Kansas, Jackson was captivated. He saw himself in the speculative worlds of comics where mutants, superheroes and outcasts grappled with identity, belonging and transformation. In essence, he saw Afrofuturism — a way to look at the future through Black identity, freedom and imagination.
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