Time to get black, y'all.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Good day.

Good vibes.

Good life.

I'm Craig Robinson, and we're back

for what I promise to be one of the craziest episodes yet.

We're going to deep dive into three different minds that

not only see the world through alien colored lenses,

they know how to take us into their imaginations

and come along for the ride.

Oh, well now that I've successfully given myself

chills, let's sit back, relax, and enjoy some

interstellar creative drip.

Caw-caw, caw, caw, caw, caw.

Caw, caw.

Caw.

Oh, what's up, Craig?

Hey, how are you doing, Bird?

Hey, you know me.

Just flying around, doing my thing, trying to stay out

of trouble.

Same.

Showing the world Black excellence.

Quick question, caw.

You get my fax earlier?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You sent that fax?

Oh yeah, that was me.

It's always me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

But if you read the fax, then you

would know that it's time to set up the next segment.

Well, you heard the bird.

Time to hit y'all with these bars, dog.

These bars.

The distinguished Virginia wordsmith

Pusha T once said, legend in two games

like I'm Pee Wee Kirkland.

Well, there's another brother that

can claim being legendary in two games, as well.

From crafting legendary Nike spots, to crafting an

under the radar comic book with Darkhorse 20 years ago that

is now even more pointed and relevant than ever,

this brother takes OG status to another level.

You want to take this one, Bird?

This is unexpected.

Cool.

Here we go.

Caw-caw, caw, caw, caw.

Your attention, please.

Meet Jimmy Smith, creator of Black comic book

hero, The Truth.

Nice job.

Caw.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I've always loved comic books, so I've

always tried to bring that to the work I was working on.

This is in 1996, and there is a skier named Picabo

Street, Olympic Gold medalist.

She's just dope.

I was working in advertising as a writer,

we had this whole idea to make her a superhero.

We spent months on it, bringing it to life, we're ready to go.

It's a week before it's going to air.

Oh, we don't want to do it.

The client pulled the plug on it.

So anyway, obviously, we're pissed.

We're in Dan Whiten's office.

Dan was like, screw that, Jimmy.

Just make your own comic book.

We'll pay for it.

Now, you know, it's like you can hear the record scratch.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I set the story in the future, 2020.

Just enough that it was possible for things to get real bad,

but not flying cars.

I wanted to show a divided society that's too blind to see

the ways in which they're being manipulated into hate

and have no idea why.

So here, we've got these Asian folks, tired

of the "good stereotype", quote unquote,

the Native Americans looking to reclaim their land,

white folks being racist.

I know you all hate the R word.

I know.

And then we got a Black leader yelling, original man,

stirring up trouble.

The Truth is named Freeman S. Jackson, III.

He's just a regular black dude.

He's living his life.

He's in his bag.

He's got his girl, Smoke, who is actually my wife.

Then these ancient deities, spirits from back in the day,

sense there's a disturbance.

Those before form this spear that

ends up going into Freeman's chest,

that gives him his superpowers.

I remember I was trying to find a power that was unique.

I started by not having him fly.

Then I said, no, screw that.

We don't ever get to fly.

Black folks don't get to fly, so I made him fly.

He's called The Truth for a reason,

and that's his main superpower.

He forces you to see the truth, to actually see what is real,

not what's fake, not what's a bunch of BS,

but what's really going down.

Fortunately, unfortunately, the reason

I'm even here talking to you all about this

is because the nation is divided,

and that's the whole story about The Truth.

So The Truth, this was inspired by my life story.

All that soup that came together,

that formed me, how I look at the world today,

I poured it all into here.

I was born in Muskegon, Michigan,

and I grew up in an all Black neighborhood

up until about the age of four or five.

Then my parents moved me into all white neighborhood.

Boom.

I might as well have traveled from Jupiter to Mars.

When I was 15, I was in ninth grade, and I had this party.

I had my white friends over and, obviously, I

had my black friends.

You put on Parliament Funkadelic,

you put on The O'Jays.

Everything was cool with the Black folks,

but the white folks were bugging out like,

Jimmy, put on Led Zeppelin.

Where's Aerosmith?

So then, I'd have to go and switch it up.

Black friends, man, what's going on, dog?

Couldn't win.

So hey, I didn't have that many friends in the early going.

I had to entertain myself, take towels

and tie them around my neck and act like I was a superhero.

It was, kind of, dope.

And it spawned a lot of creativity.

Growing up, I didn't really have any Black superheroes,

except for my dad, and my mom, and my cousin.

He was cool.

He had a big Afro.

He was dope.

So they were superheroes to me.

Back then I just wanted to see myself in a comic.

And I figured if I wanted to see myself,

there had to be other kids that wanted to see themselves too.

All of those experiences led to what I

ended up putting into the book.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now, you need a bad guy, right?

Bad guys got to be formidable, and the bad guy's got to be

just as dope as the good guy.

So we've got these rich, old dudes who

are pulling all the strings and profiting, kind of like what

you got going on today, and these hate

crusader figure guys, you know.

The dudes that control the world.

They figure out they're being played,

and then they turn into the big bad guy, Toxic.

This thing with four heads and acid vomit.

It just jacks people up, and that's what lies are,

it's poison.

It goes back since the beginning of time,

people who just spread misinformation, spread

hate, knowing it's not true.

And our hero Freeman, he was flawed and misguided too.

He fell for it.

And when he became The Truth, he could see clearer,

so he made sure everybody else could see clearly too.

Once they saw the truth, they realize

they've been played for fools.

So they rallied together, and instead of fighting

against each other, they defeated the real enemy,

which was Toxic.

Freeman ends by saying, we've been living this lie thinking

we're all different, but if we come together and believe

in one human race, well, it just works better for everybody,

doesn't it.

I really don't want to be here.

I'm here because I'm talking about something that's tragic,

that's really sad, and it's shameful.

Something that was written over 20 years ago

is applicable to today, and a lot of this hatred that's

going on, our leaders who are using division to get more

votes, not bringing us together, not making us one nation

under God, but dividing us.

Why can't we help each other?

Why don't we want all of us to have the same types of rights?

Why don't we want everybody to vote?

So that's what The Truth is about,

understanding, coming together and realizing

that we're all one.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I got my mom and my dad in the book.

There's dad.

There's mom.

I know my keys are under here somewhere.

I just have to keep digging until I them.

Patience.

Energy.

My ancestors shall guide me.

Japanese culture is fascinatingly beautiful,

and to be honest, seeing a big Black dude with a Japanese zen

garden isn't an image that grows on bonsai trees,

which is precisely why our next piece is so inspiring.

Imagine you are a black kid living in New Jersey,

and you tell your family you are moving to Tokyo

to pursue a career in anime.

After your mama and aunties fainted, most likely

you get slapped upside the head by your pops and/or uncle.

Sounds like an amazing adventure, right?

Well, trust me, it is the journey of this young brother,

and I'll stop talking about it and show you all better

than I can tell you all.

Your attention, please.

Meet Arthell Isom.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

In Japanese, study means the underpinning.

It's the foundation of the background of arts.

And determines the whole world.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now my earliest memory of drawing is when I was two.

At least, that's what my mom told me.

My brother and I would draw, just to build our own realities

and to escape the ones that we were in.

Believe it was in summer, there was a show that introduced

anime to Westerners, called "Anime Unleashed," that

was when I watched "Ghost in the Shell," and yeah,

it had a huge impact on my life.

"Ghost in the Shell" was the only video

that I had in college and, pretty much,

just watched it every day, while I was trying to decide

what my major was going to be.

Around the end of my fourth year of college I got kicked out.

To get me back in I had to attend

this special class that the administration

had crafted for me.

While in this class, my teacher asked

what did I want to focus on?

And I still didn't know, but she noticed in my journal

that I had just pictures from all

the backgrounds of "Ghost in the Shell" and my cityscapes.

And she was like, well I think you

want to be a background artist.

And it was then that I decided that, I don't really

want to be a background artist here,

but I wanted to move to Japan and learn

how to be a background artist.

I had to find a way to work for Hiromasa Ogura-san.

He was the art director of "Ghost in the Shell,"

and I thought that if I was going