Who’s Your Superhero? Plucky Comics is for All

Melissa Zhang
+Impact Studio at Michigan Ross
4 min readApr 19, 2022
Plucky Comics: Veronica’s Vanity Cover by Angel Manson

Identity (noun): the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

For young Nathan Alston, the concept of identity was something that he struggled with. As a Black Queer kid growing up, he recalls the difficulty in developing a sense of confidence and belonging because he never had a roadmap for his experience. Others were able to find American presidents, figures, or superheroes that looked like them both inside and outside of the classroom; there were always footsteps for them to follow when traversing into adulthood.

“As a Black Queer person, I struggled to understand who I was and what I was capable of. Growing up in the 90s, the only images I was shown of Black Queer people were meant to incite shame as it related to the tragic HIV/AIDS epidemic. These stories harmfully omitted the courageousness, compassion, and creativity that make the Black Queer experience so unique. It’s important for Black Queer people to grow up with stories of us prospering, chasing our dreams, finding a partner who loves us, experiencing love, and building community when the world tried to leave us behind. These are stories that can inspire all people, and we have the opportunity to share these stories.” — Nathan Alston

Everyone deserves a hero, so what does that look like then for a young Black Queer person figuring out their place in the community? Imagine stories of celebration and love and prosperity. These may seem like obvious things that people should have, but for individuals from marginalized backgrounds as Alston talks about, it is difficult to advance without any examples to look up to.

Plucky Comics, which launches April 20th, is in Nathan Alston’s eyes his opportunity to correct the journey he had with the aid of co-founder Daniella Gennaro COO Evan Otero Gilmer.

To learn more and support them, be among the first to purchase their comic and merchandise (some pictured below) at plucky-comics.com!

Plucky Comics is a series of comics that highlight and celebrate the lives of Black and Queer historical figures. After kicking off with a series of mini webcomics hosted on their official Instagram page, the team is launching their website and providing an opportunity for those looking to support their mission of spreading awareness on Black Queer people in history by making their first full-length comic available for pre-sale, alongside other exciting merchandise spotlighting their comic book characters.

They also hope to reach those struggling to find representation within the classroom with the series of related historical teaching materials they have been building out. Teachers, parents, and students alike all have a hard time. It is not just vital for Black Queer students to learn about their own history, but for all students and teachers to learn accurate history.

“Representation matters. As a former middle school teacher, I wanted my students to know that people before them changed the world for the better. But Black Queer history, particularly, has systematically been kept invisible. That must be changed,” Gennaro explains. Gennaro has worked with a diverse body of students as a seventh grade teacher and wondered how she could best support students of all backgrounds, seeing that Alston’s experiences growing up are unfortunately not unique. The lack of representation in the classroom limits young Queer and other minority students from envisioning the totality of what is possible for them in their future trajectories. As Alston proposes, “If you’ve never seen people like you be happy, how do you do that? How do you find joy, and do you feel like you deserve it? Those are things that I think a lot about.”

In a world that makes it difficult to grow up Black and Queer, history should be a tool that young people can turn to for help. This has not been the case before and is becoming more difficult in and outside of the classrooms as of late. Educators and others are dealing with a multitude of bills like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which aims to ban the instruction or discussion about Queer issues in kindergarten to third grade classrooms as well as nearly 50 bills looking to ban transgender youth from playing in their schools’ competitive sports teams because of their gender at birth, and more.

It is more important than ever for young people to have the resources to learn about their histories and our collective history. “This project is to make sure that individuals growing up now, or even adults, who are Black and Queer, and individuals who don’t feel represented and want stories that move them, know that this is a place to look.”

Plucky Comics wants to fill in the blanks left by popular culture and the current educational space. To support them, they can be found at plucky-comics.com or @pluckycomics on Instagram.

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