Photo Credit: JULIA XANTHOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Long before rapper Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC became a hip hop star, he was just a little kid living in Hollis, Queens, whose life revolved around comic books.
Now, at 50 years old, he’s living out his dream by launching his own independent publishing house, Daryl Makes Comics.
“I didn’t want to be another rapper who was trying to capitalize on the hip hop genre just because I had a hit record,” McDaniels says. “I wanted to tackle real issues head on.”
McDaniels always questioned why hip hop didn’t have a breakthrough superhero in the comic book world. But what drew him into these fantasy worlds was how they were reflections of the times.
“Look at the X-Men and how people were scared of them because they were different; they had to deal with racism and acceptance and that was super-important,” McDaniels says.
But McDaniels, along with his partner and collaborator Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, want to take it a step further by confronting such issues as domestic violence, AIDS and homophobia.
To top it off, DMC is also introducing several Latino characters, including Leticia Quiñones, aka LAK6, a spunky, 13-year-old Puerto Rican graffiti writer who takes on villains.
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