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Dear Reader,
I'm excited to share with you the following chat with graphic novelist Jamar Nicholas, who wrote and illustrated the cover of this issue of Voices from the Middle. He will be creating comic covers related to Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's featured principles in each of the next three issues of Volume 30. In this Cover Letter column, I'll ask Jamar about his creative process and his body of work, his general thoughts on the issue's theme, how his cover comic illustrates the theme, and how visual storytelling through graphic literature reflects and fosters culturally and historically responsive literacy principles and practices like those in Cultivating Genius (Muhammad, 2020).
Jamar Nicholas is the author and illustrator of the soon-to-be-released middle grades graphic novel Leon the Extraordinary. An award-winning, Philadelphia-based artist and educator, Jamar dedicates his career to helping young people realize the power of visual narrative. To learn more about Jamar and his work, check out his website: jamarnicholas.weebly.com. In this first conversation, we center the issue's theme around Dr. Muhammad's principle of embracing identity.
Jason Griffith (JG): Jamar, it's great to meet you and to have the chance to talk with you about your cover series over this volume of Voices from the Middle as well as its connection to the volume's themes around Dr. Gholdy Muhammad's Cultivating Genius. Since this issue's theme is all around embracing identities, it would be great to begin with some questions to help readers like me get to know you and your work better. To start, what are some of your favorites? Favorite foods? Favorite books? What kinds of things do you love?
Jamar Nicholas (JN): I have way too many favorites, so I'll try my best to keep it brief. Being born in the 70s, I grew up watching a LOT of television, and have a fondness for 1980s pop culture, especially cartoons, comics, and video games. I'm also a fan of anthropology. I love studying people and why humans act the way we do. And I really like hats and seafood (not necessarily in that order).
JG: Another important orienting question is around your work. You balance a number of professional identities. For example, I just started listening to your podcast Pencil-to-Pencil. So, you're an artist,...