“…one thing that was different in Real Deal was that the characters are older guys whose youth was in the ’70s and they just kind of stayed there (kind of reminds me of a story a guy I used to work with named Ben told me. He said he left Iowa in 1974 for California, when he went back in the early ’90s for a visit, he said a lot of the guys he knew still had the same cars) while most books about this sort of thing would have been about some young hip hoppers. The ’70s is when we came up, Blaxploitation, Disco, double knit rags, pimp mobiles, Funky Music, Soul Power, Can you dig it Baby?? And the main thing was we didn’t see anything else like it.”

Real Deal

Plus: Heidi has a brief report on the black comics panel at Book Expo America.