“It’s not enough to have heroes who look like them. They want heroes they can look up to, who inspire them and don’t degrade them or their community.” Kemet has many enterprises working, but his No. 1 product is Surian Seed, a project he started more than a decade ago and launched at the Philadelphia Comic Con in 2011. His book, “Surian Seed Universe Guide,” always sells out quickly, along with associated posters and other artwork. There are no stories as of yet, because, he says, there don’t need to be: “We’ll start producing Surian Seed books when the market for the other materials dies out.” Superheroes in the ‘Hood The Surian Seed legend goes like this: It turns out that what we know as martial arts originated on the distant planet Sur, where the Surian warlords are locked in an intergalactic struggle with their former slaves, the Korroks. Earth gets caught in the middle of this battle, but we Earthlings are protected by a team of variants: human beings born with an advanced understanding of martial arts. These heroes are black, live and work in the black community, and many are graduates of Historically Black Colleges or Universities.
another is a cancer survivor. Kemet says he draws inspiration from such diverse sources as Sam Greenlee’s 1973 film “The Spook Who Sat By the Door” and Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 19th century classic poem “We Wear the Mask.” In selling his concept, Kemet says he tailors his pitch to his audience. “You can’t just be one thing,” he says. “Comic book fans might be attracted to the storyline and the artwork. But if I’m talking to educators, I talk about how important education is to the characters. And if I’m talking to social workers, I talk about Surian Seed as a self-esteem tool. My motto is, ‘You’ve got to spread yourself like a virus.' ” “When I first started, people told me this concept couldn’t sell,” Kemet says. “But a good salesman can sell fire to people in hell.”
Ajamoo Raheem Kemet, ‘95
Their leader is Infinite, a high school teacher from Trenton, N.J., who attended Morehouse College. His sister is Jaden, a natural telepath who attended Spelman College and is a social worker, when she isn’t defending the planet from bad guys. And, of course, there are the Morgan graduates: Sinnerblock, who is a college professor with super strength, and the brilliant child prodigy Architec, who graduated from Morgan at 16, thanks to his intuitive understanding of science and engineering. Other heroes include Range, the complicated professional assassin whom Kemet describes as the female embodiment of Tupac, and Musenda, a wealthy financial analyst and philanthropist who went to Morehouse College. Spreading the Seed Much of the action in the stories-to-be will center on Kemet’s native Trenton, and he says the storylines will deal with urban challenges in all of their complexity. He foresees looking at issues such as whether hip hop is good or bad, and what it means to be a black intellectual. One of his heroines detests men who beat up women;
MORGAN MAGAZINE VOLUME I 2013
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