The Book Release of E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams and Why You Should Run to Support It

Part 1 of the graphic novel series E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams is officially released this week, and with it comes yet another reason to support creator-owned comics. These folk continue to be on the cutting edge of diversity, shirking off the big marketers, focus groups, and people who tell you “what sells,” and instead goes straight to us, the consumers, and give us what we want. Of course, large publishers eventually follow suit after we support Kickstarter campaigns, small publishers, and stories like E.X.O. Just like underground hip-hop, the good stuff is there when whenever we look for it (until it’s snatched up by Diddy and ruined). We first covered E.X.O. at the launch of its Kickstarter campaign to finance a graphic novel that was actually originally conceived as a cartoon series. The obstacles that the creators faced were disappointing yet unsurprising: “Is anybody really going to watch a cartoon series based on an African character?” If the success of the trailer is any indication, many of us actually would. Our consolation comes through the efforts of Roye Okupe and YouNeek Studios who created that trailer, crowd-sourced funding, and released E.X.O. this week. Check out the 3-minute Book Launch Trailer where Okupe explains his journey bringing this story to audiences.

I had the opportunity to read the first book of E.X.O. and it delivered, including the unexpected nostalgia from watching action cartoons as a child. The structure, characters, and even the …