Today DC proudly announced a new digital-first series, Represent!, launching with “It’s a Bird” by Christian Cooper, Alitha E. Martinez, Mark Morales, Emilio Lopez, and Rob Clark Jr. This first chapter is available now, offered for free on participating digital platforms including readdc.com, Comixology, Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and more. Additional chapters of Represent! will be available digitally in 2021.
“This digital series is designed to showcase and introduce creators traditionally underrepresented in the mainstream comic book medium,” said executive editor Marie Javins. “We’ll highlight both new and familiar voices, beginning with ‘It’s a Bird’ by writer Christian Cooper and artist Alitha E. Martinez, a semi-fictionalized account of Christian’s very real evolution from a kid with a pair of binoculars to a man in an unexpected media spotlight after an altercation with a woman walking her dog in Central Park.”
In Cooper and Martinez’s story, Jules, a Black teenager, is given a pair of old binoculars as he heads out for a morning of bird-watching. “I hope young people read it in particular, and that they’re inspired to keep the focus where it needs to be, which is on those we have lost and how we keep from losing more,” said Cooper, while Martinez added, “I wish this story could have been that punctuation of, ‘…and we all lived happily ever after.’ But it just keeps coming.”
More from story collaborators Cooper, Martinez and Morales, can be found here.
DC encourages you to share this story with friends and family and to talk about how you can inspire change in your communities. Many organizations—including Color of Change, Equal Justice Initiative, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, National Urban League, and the Bail Project—are also working to advance social justice and civil rights in support of #BlackLivesMatter.
“It’s a Bird,” edited by Marie Javins and Liz Erickson, is available now, offered for free only on participating digital platforms, including readdc.com, Comixology, Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and more. Look for more from DC’s Represent! storytellers in 2021.
Keep and eye out on DC Comics News for our review of the first issue.
