It all started when Study Hall Monitor Kojo Turner was young, helping his mother with her anatomy homework when she was going to school to be a nurse. By drawing anatomy sketches, he grew his understanding of structure in the body.
For Turner, his love for drawing and storytelling is a passion he’s committed to throughout his life. His version is in the formof comic books.
“I just want people to have fun reading what I’ve been through in life and feel the pain that I’ve went through but also the joy that I have had,” Turner said.
Drawing influenced him as a child, and he’s seen growth and progress since he’s started.
In the beginning, Turner traced things that he saw on television. His passion for drawing moved to him tracing things like a photo of Bart Simpson he saw his friends have and wanting one.
When others started to notice his talent, they wanted some of the items he had drawn. He would give him the ones that he didn’t think were very good.
In middle school, he added more of his own style and flair to his drawings, and they started to take off. This is where the comics started.
Leaning more into the storytelling aspect, he started making comic books. They are about different experiences in his life and the people he has interacted with. Some include his family and former coworkers.
All of the characters have a very deep meaning. From the people and the lessons that he has learned to what he hopes to learn.
“My comic book, ‘Solomon Chronicles,’ is an autobiography about my life and the things that I went through as a child and then growing up and everything and just experiencing life with family and friends,” Turner said.
He made sure that every drawing had a meaning behind the character, all relating back to his life. He made sure to get the perfect pose and style, while also embellishing the characters in their looks and maintaining the sentimental meaning behind them.
Like many things, seeing the first reaction of what people think of something can be daunting. With Turner, it was people seeing his drawings. Many people liked what they saw, even when he didn’t.
“They found beauty in what I thought was trash,” Turner said.
Turner believes he had a good foundation of people who believed in him, and some even influenced him, particularly his father, George Turner.
“He was impressed by some of my work, and I’ve always tried to encourage him if that’s what he really enjoyed doing,” George said.
Not only was his family supportive, but also more well-known people took interest in his art. He was able to sit down and talk to the famous comic book writer, editor and publisher Stan Lee about his comics. He said Lee loved the drawings, but he needed to know more aspects of the comic book realm before Turner got any deeper.
He really took Lee’s commentary to heart. To get compliments and critiques from someone that people call their hero, it really put things into perspective of the kind of talent Turner had. This is why he kept learning and pushing to grow.
As of right now, Turner plans to publish one of his comics soon. It takes a lot of time and money to produce one. So for now, Turner is focusing on getting everything in shape to publish and making sure everything is correct and how he wants it for his comic, “Black Breakers.”
Sticking with something can lead to many things in life, and for Turner, it was his drawings and passion for storytelling.
“In order to get something published and put out there, you just have to believe in yourself and just put it out there and see what they say,” Turner said.
