Jeremy Whitley is a comic book writer and artist, perhaps best known as the creator of the series Princeless. From his Q & A with EmbraceRace co-founder Melissa Giraud:Melissa: Thanks so much for writing the Princeless series! What were you trying to do in regard to race with the story?--Marshal Zeringue
Jeremy: In part, I wanted my daughter to be able to see a character that looked like her in the story. I’m white, my wife is black, and my daughter is mixed race. There’s already not a lot of representation in comics for girls of color.
Also, I remember my wife and I being kind of excited about “The Princess and The Frog” [Disney’s 2009 movie featuring a black princess], and then actually watching it and being hit with, Whoa, this isn’t quite what I was looking for!
And that’s become a trend with me. Why I write the books I write is I find that I’m looking for something and it doesn’t seem to exist. I start working on it and sometimes it turns into a thing, sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of Princeless, it’s proven to be something that a lot of other people were looking for as well.
Melissa: Why start with Princesses at all; why not a superhero?
Jeremy: A lot of kids like princess stories, they’re looking for them whether that’s what we want them to read or not. Those kids are bound to read about princesses, they want to read about princesses. So starting with a princess and ...[read on]