ZLM_TariqAndAhmir

Sticky fingers show you care.
Zero Like Me #157:
Tariq and Ahmir

Easter Eggs: "Yale" in panel 1. Costumes echo this comic. Today's guest star is Garry McGruder, who's loosely based on a military kid I tutored years ago, but is visually based on the Roots' Black Thought, Questlove, and Captain Kirk. Today's setting is outside Winsor McCay Magnet Academy, which is based on a local New Haven school.

Fun Facts: This comic started as one script, expanded into two, and then fused back into one, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, actually. And we're gonna start doing some page-format comics soon, so I'm warming up with these more free-form, page-y layouts. Probably putting Zero Like Me on hiatus when we start hitting the pages full force leading up to Comic-Con, as much as I've tried to evade a hiatus. But I think I'll at least get Z to the airport before we go into page-lockdown mode.

Baa: I can't take rap seriously--literally: I've only ever been able to find rap valuable as a comedic vehicle or as a linguistic exercise. The most moving and dramatic I've ever experienced the medium was, of course, a product of the Ambassadors of Rap, The Roots, but even then, I wonder if it was the video that was the chief source of pathos. There's no denying the Roots' raw talent and the beauty of their music, but they're like the singular undeniable exemption to the estimation that "rap sucks."

Pretty much all the rappers I like all happen to make me laugh, so if it isn't fast and/or funny, rap really has nothing going for it. In any case, I do love freestyle rap, which doesn't necessarily have to be fast nor funny for me to enjoy the pure aesthetic beauty of improvised creativity. The only one who doesn't need to make me laugh or speed furiously to be impressive is Black Thought, who is just so insanely clever, that he can rap about anything and I'll listen in silent awe.

I recall the exact day I became a fan of The Roots, and as all good things in my life, it was a result of my Yale experience. So, yeah.

Reuxben