John Leguizamo, best known to comic book fans for his roles in the Super Mario Bros. and Spawn movies, will launch his first comic book at New York Comic Con in October.
The actor, filmmaker, and author took to Instagram to share the news earlier today, sharing a photo of himself against a comic-art backdrop and a note that said he will be on site at NYCC to sign copies of the comic. Leguizamo is making the book happen with the help of Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, who writes La Borinqueña and has produced comics with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels of Run-DMC fame.
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“John and I were drawn to each other because of our activism and advocacy. That was what initially bonded us,” Miranda-Rodriguez told ComicBook.com. “He was drawn to La Borinqueña because of the character’s connection to real social issues.”
The ground-level reality of the series won’t overshadow the larger-than-life nature of working with a talent like Leguizamo’s, but melding those two aspects of his character will be key to how the series works.
“The comic book is a New Yorkers tale,” Miranda-Rodriguez said. “The streets, the clothes, the people….John’s work has always been very grounded in a Latin New York; this comic book from the talent to the story will reflect that.”
THE CREATIVE TEAM
In a number of recent interviews about his own title, Miranda-Rodriguez has expressed his passion for bringing Latin American creators to the table in comics.
“[Leguizamo] loved that I was able to pull together a roster of professional artists from the industry that were also Latinos,” the writer said. “When he approached about his book, he wanted me to try to do the same.”
Rather than pull from the same group of names he has already been working with, though, Miranda-Rodriguez put together a mostly-new group.
The resultant comic fulfills the promise, bringing together recognizable names like Chris Batista, Chris Sotomayor, and Gustavo Vazquez with Miranda-Rodriguez’s La Borinqueña collabor Sabrina Cintron.
Vazquez will provide covers for the series, while the rest of the team will work on interiors.
“Chris Batista’s work is amazing. His detail and likenesses are uncanny,” Miranda-Rodriguez told ComicBook.com. “Sabrina Cintron, I debuted on La Borinqueña. I brought her in on this project to give her more professional experience and she’s doing a stellar job inking Batista’s pencils.”
SOME TEASER-Y DETAILS
“Chris Sotomayor and I work together on DMC, so he and I worked on a coloring style to give the book a distinct look,” Miranda-Rodriguez told ComicBook.com.
In that series, the tale revolves around a superhero who is based on — in his likeness and backstory — Darryl McDaniels himself and imagines a world in which he became a costumed crimefighter instead of a DJ.
Miranda-Rodriguez said that he had discussed the look and feel of the comic — which will have certain elements that throw back to books that existed before digital coloring — with Image Comics co-founder and Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen, since Larsen has experience creating unique looks and feels for things like Kung-Fu Bible Stories and The Next Issue Project.
