The Invention of E.J. Whitaker: Issue #1 Takes Flight March 2018

(The Invention of E.J. Whitaker: Issue #1, Comic Book Cover Art. Pencils and inks by Mark Hernandez, Colors by Sharifa Patrick and June Park)

After months of production, The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, Issue #1 is set to take flight on March 7th, 2018.

With the help of an amazing team of artists, and 442 Kickstarter backers, our vision for a diverse steampunk comic following the adventures of one young woman to become a bonafide inventor at the turn of the 20th Century is finally realized and it feels so good.

We began our journey to tell the story of The Invention of E.J. Whitaker five years ago, inspired by our research of early 20th Century entertainers, including circus performer Princess Wee Wee and Broadway star Ada Overton Walker. We wrote a screenplay about Princess Wee Wee’s fascinating life, and Ada Overton Walker proved such an inspiration for us, that we named our lead character "Ada" in her honor.

Invention of E.J. Whitaker inspirations 1900's African American circus star, Princess Wee Wee (left) and stage star, Ada Overton Walker (right)

The early 1900s was such a wonderful time of innovation in this country that we couldn’t resist setting a story in it. We chose Tuskegee University in Alabama as our setting for two reasons: First, because legendary inventor, George Washington Carver lived on campus and was a teacher there, and second: Tuskegee, a university built by its students, was in the early 1900s, an education mecca for African American people and a source of tremendous pride for its community.

Our heroine, Ada, and Tuskegee Professor and Inventor, Dr. George Washington Carver

For the art style, we wanted the artwork to feel like nothing we’d quite seen before and possess a vintage quality all its own. Mark Hernandez’ pencils have such a timeless feel to them and Hasani McIntosh’s colors give the book a hand-crafted flavor. The 32 pages of The Invention of E.J. Whitaker feature inks by the incredible Shanna Lim and letters by the fabulous Emi Roze, who like us, is an alumnus of the Ladies Night Anthology collective.

Panel art from The Invention of E.J. Whitaker: Issue #1

Artist Earl Womack, rendered “Jessie Rides The Rails,” a short story featuring our female automaton character, Jessie, a delightful invention of our main character, Ada’s. The short story speaks to the complicated history of the U.S. railroads and its “chain gang” workforce. In our story’s case, children are the exploited laborers and our little heroine, Jessie is compelled to do something about it. Earl’s line work and colors are breathtaking, and we couldn’t be prouder of how this powerful short came out.

Panel art from the short story "Jessie Rides The Rails"

The Invention of E.J. Whitaker comic book series will be available for purchase on March 7th, 2018. To order the first issue of The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, please visit: http://www.ejwhitaker.com

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ABOUT THE GIBBS SISTERS

Shawnee´ Gibbs and Shawnelle Gibbs (The Gibbs Sisters) are Writer/Creators from Oakland, CA. “The Invention of E.J. Whitaker” is their sixth comic book offering. The sisters currently reside in the Los Angeles area where they write, produce and create content for comics, animation, film and television. They are members of The Writers Guild of America, West, The Academy of Arts and Television Sciences and Women in Animation.

For more about the launch of the project, see: [Comic Book Writers, The Gibbs Sisters Launch The Invention of E.J. Whitaker, Issue #1]

Black and Native American Women in Westerns: Jessie & Bessie Are Outside

(Jessie and Bessie Are Outside comic: Written by Shawnee Gibbs and Shawnelle Gibbs, Art by Catharine and Sarah Satrun, Edited by Lauren Burke for LNA's "Sisters" Anthology)

When we were kids, there were three things that our grandmother, Jessie, loved watching on television—-which meant absolutely no one was allowed to ‘change the station.’ They were: Matlock, Murder She Wrote and Westerns.

And Westerns were her favorite.

If Granny was watching a ‘John Wayne picture,’ your hopes of getting any glimpses of Saturday morning cartoons were dashed.

It wasn’t until much later in life that we gained our own appreciation for the genre and why our grandmother loved it so much.

Growing up as one of twelve children in the rough-and-tumble state of Texas with her twin sister, Bessie, our grandmother was exposed to open landscapes, people who still rode horseback and carried guns, and lots and lots of badasses.



(The real life Jessie and Bessie circa the 1970s on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, California)

It was in this spirit, that we wanted to honor the legacy of our grandmother and her fraternal twin sister, who would later pioneer our family to California, and re-imagine the Wild West from a female perspective.

There have been many stories told about the Wild West and though African American and Native women played significant roles as pioneers west of the Mississippi (see the story of Stagecoach Mary), few Westerns feature women of color as their heroines. Our maternal great-grandmother was believed to have Native American ancestry, so it was also our goal to give a nod to our family's indigenous heritage in our tale.



("Grandma Luci," Jessie and Bessie's fiesty fictional blind, gun-toting grandmother)

Writing the character of Jessie and Bessie’s grandmother, Grandma Luci was so much fun. We were inspired by members of The Osage tribe for her style and look.

Though this is a period piece, we wanted the characters of Jessie and Bessie to have a fresh quality and be relatable to contemporary young women. So though the story is set in pre-1940s America, we approached the design of their clothing and hairstyles, so they could almost exist in nearly any era.



(Character design of Jessie by Catharine and Sarah Satrun)



(Character design of Bessie by Catharine and Sarah Satrun)

Researching and creating the guns for the project was also a fun part of the process. Before the dawn of the 20th century, Gunmakers put so much painstaking effort into designing rifles and pistols like the 1816 Flintock Pistol and The Colt Percussion Revolver, that the gun's themselves were a work of art.



(Gun designs for the comic, "Jessie and Bessie are Outside" by Sarah and Catharine Satrun)

We got a chance to tell this story through Graham Cracker Comic’s amazing Ladies Night Comic’s Anthology. This marks our third story with this wonderful organization which supports and empowers women in comics. We were teamed with a PHENOMENAL twin-sister duo Catharine and Sarah Saturn (The Satrun Sisters) who beautifully rendered our comic script.

On this project we had twins sisters writing about twin sisters, drawn by twin sisters. It was a 'twinning' combination.

We also got a chance to team again with our fantastic editor, Lauren Burke, who is a wonderful comic book writer in her own right and co-host of the fabulous Bonnets at Dawn podast.



(A panel of art from the Western comic, "Jessie and Bessie Are Outside" written by Shawnee Gibbs & Shawnelle Gibbs, art by Catharine and Sarah Satrun)

The story “Jessie & Bessie Are Outside” is available now in The Ladies Night Anthology Vol. 5: Sisters. You can find a copy here!

A Day in The Studio

Our friend, writer & photographer, Moe Reed, dropped by and took some working shots of us in our downtown studio.



(Process board from our new steampunk comic project)

In between our jobs as television producers and writers for the comic, Fashion Forward, Shawnelle and I have been developing an awesome project that we're excited to share in the coming days. We've written about it on the blog before >here< [Black Victorians: African Americans in Steampunk and Historical Fiction], and are now underway to see it fully realized for 2014.



(The Gibbs Sisters, Comic Book Writer / Creators | Left: Shawnelle Gibbs, right: Shawnee´Gibbs)

It is "The Invention of E.J. Whitaker," an African American, steampunk comic adventure set in 1901. Here are a few recent shots of us in the studio working on both E.J. and Fashion Forward.