‘Dizchord’ Is A New Superhero Who Brings “Levitas And Gravitas” To Crime-Ridden Atlanta (EXCLUSIVE)
Dizchord is a brand new superhero from author C. S. Johnson. And as she gears up to start crowdfunding for the first issue of the series, she provided Bounding into Comics with an exclusive first look at it as well as the inside information on the character and the Kickstarter campaign.
Johnson started by summarizing the superhero’s background. “Stephen Kibwaa was sixteen years old when his father was tragically killed by the human trafficker known as ‘The Marxman.’ Unbeknownst to Stephen, this led to him gaining the ability to see and hear the song inside each individual soul. But when he does discover his newfound power, he sets out to find his father’s killer, disguised as Atlanta’s very own superhero, Dizchord.”
And the Georgia setting was quite intentional. “Facing down human traffickers, dealing with various political tensions, and living in a variety of crosshairs is all very centric to Atlanta, too, currently, and I wanted to give my adopted city a superhero of its own (New York certainly doesn’t need anymore, lol) that would embrace the best, accept the worst, and still believe the best is yet to come.”
Thematically, “Dizchord #1 is a celebration of family, fathers, and sons—and a reminder of the sacrifice that comes with duty, love, and justice,” she explained.
Dizchord #1 isn’t just the first of the series; it’s the first comic book for Johnson. “This is my first comic, and as usual, there’s a weird story attached to it,” she said. “I basically saw the Miles Morales: Thor comic and said, ‘I’m the whitest white girl around, and I could do a better job.’”
“So I thought about what kind of comic I would like to write, and the first thing I wanted to do was write an original character, and one that had both levitas and gravitas, someone whose family history ran deep and wide, someone who could be distinctively American—someone who loved freedom, someone who could still be hopeful in light of the darkness, someone who could still sing in the face of the most silent midnights,” Johnson said.
“When I was younger and I first moved to Atlanta, I went to a church in Lawrenceville called ‘12 Stone,’ and one of the pastors taught a sermon on how faith was ‘the ability to sing at midnight,’ and that tied into the superhero powers for music,” she continued.
“As a Christian, I believe in God and God as a creator is the one who ‘speak-acts’ or ‘sings’ reality into existence (the Hebrew translations are really interesting). So the idea of music as a conduit for memory, time, love, and power is all very much built into the story,” she added.
Johnson isn’t short on ideas for Dizchord either, and readers who want something more than a one-and-done tale will be glad to hear that the first comic doesn’t have to mean the end. “I’m already drafting the second issue,” she said, “and I anticipate a 5-7 issue run” of the series.
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Again, Johnson is running a crowdfunding campaign in order to get the superhero off the ground. Naturally, that means that readers can expect more than just the comic book. “I have a few variant covers and character art lined up as well,” she said with regards to stretch goals. “[Plus] an audiobook narrator (Alio Voices on YouTube) ready to go for the story.”
One of the hardest things for an individual to do when attempting to create his or her own comic book is to figure out how to get the artwork done. If he’s an artist, problem solved. But if not? Finding an artist is tough to say the least. But Johnson found Light Comic Studio and it looks like it turned out well so far.
DC and Marvel are self-destructing, and plenty of people have complained about how the Big Two are deservedly on the way to extinction. But for those readers who are still interested in comic books and want an original creation in a good story, C. S. Johnson’s Dizchord on Kickstarter is definitely something worth checking out.
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