There are few black comic book writers and there are fewer here in St. Louis. One of them is David Gorden. He’s a writer and artist to comic books. His own creation, Kwame Hightower and the Man with No Name, is about a young kid named Kwame Hightower who is a 12-year old from St. Louis, but living in London, England.  Kwame is having a hard time adjusting to the new environment so, he decides to take a trip to Buckingham Palace to learn more about Great Britain. He ends up pulling Excalibur from the sacred stone, which automatically made him the King of England.  This sends him on a series of adventures all over the multiverse.

It takes a creative mind to illustrate such a story and David is the guy to do so. As a kid, he read comics but in high school he became a natural storyteller and he already liked to draw and write so it only made sense for him to get into comics. David started taking comics more serious on a professional level in 1994, so you can say that he is a vet in the game, with over 25 years’ experience. What makes his drawings different from others is the fact that he is more of a cartoonist and traditional drawer and less of a “realistic artist.” When It comes to using your imagination in drawing, David says, “

“In order to create fantastic worlds and relatable characters you have to draw on that imagination.  I sometimes bring in re-imagined versions of characters I created as a kid to add to the experience.”

Since the race of creators in comics was never broadcasted, David says he assumed they were all white until he came across a writer/artist by the name of Dwayne McDuffie in the late 1980’s. Dwayne was one of the most respected men in the comic industry. He wrote great comics and classic episodes of the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons.

One of the perks of being a writer is that you can work remote. David says

“The great thing about comics and art in the age of the internet is that you can pretty much create and be up on whatever platform you want instantly.”

Other pieces of work that David has worked on are Rampage Jackson: Street Soldier, Sympathy for the Soul (adaptation), Make Believe (adaptation), and a few others. He’s working on many new works, one of them being Quantum University, a sci-fi series set on the campus of an HBCU; this series ties a lot of things together in a little universe of characters that David is creating.

David Gorden’s original graphic novel, Kwame Hightower is available for purchase on Amazon or you can catch him at the many events he has coming up. He’ll be at Wizard World St. Louis this weekend at the America Center. The Kwame Hightower book signing, and community Event is April 11th at Urb Arts from 7pm – 9pm. He will be at the Big River Comicon in Hannibal on Saturday April 13th. In June, he’ll be at Heroes Con in Charlotte. In July he will be attending Heroes for Kids in Perryville and STL Micro Con here in St. Louis and in August, Wizard World Chicago. He wants to reach an audience everywhere he can so why not take advantage of the many opportunities he has.  

Follow him on Instagram at @DKG72

Like his page on Facebook @David Gorden

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