CafeBabel has a nice little piece on King author Ho Che Anderson, complete with slideshows:
Fantagraphics were looking for an author to start a biography on Martin Luther King. Anderson was chosen as the only cartoonist with black skin. He knew, that he wasn’t the most qualified – he didn’t know too much about civil rights, but he took the job on. He’s either too modest or tries not to overexaggerate his story. That goes for King too. The charismatic leader without any faults of the official iconography is presented as a ladies man with an inflated ego. Furthermore, it took ten years to complete the series in three volumes. ‘At first when I started, I was very enthusiastic about King. But after, wow, I just started to feel kind of burdened … and, what was my passion for it was replaced by burden and irritation.´
Being permanently broke at the beginning of his break meant he had to commit to various other projects. Frustration went hand in hand with this. Anderson experienced a crisis, and it took seven years to complete the second volume of King. But the final results speak for themselves. A hit with the critics as well as the public, in USA and in Europe, two markets whose taste he marks as being relatively similar. ‘I am surprised,’ he jokes. ‘I cannot expect the positive feedback I had. I was expecting some negative reactions!’
