Super Hero Sunday

Yesterday was our first time hanging out. It was extremely hot outside so I decided it was better for us to do some indoor activities. My apartment in Baltimore is pretty boring to me, I can only imagine what it would be like for a 12 year old. So I thought it would be better if we headed over to my parents' house. Because my younger brother is still home for the summer, there are lots of interesting things to do at my parents’ house. The kid has a massive collection of DVDs and video games. To top things off, he’s working at Blockbuster video where he can rent even more games and movies for free.
Although I initially intended to play some games and draw a little, I thought of the additional benefit Jamal could gain just by seeing an environment so different from Baltimore. My parents live in Prince George’s County, long regarded as one of the largest concentrations of Black wealth and prosperity in the U.S. (see link below. No they don't live in a $900K house or anything close to that). Although I haven’t had the chance to probe his past completely, I suspect that Jamal has had limited exposure to the concept of a two parent home and the idea of widespread black prosperity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072601974.html


As I mentioned before, Jamal and I both enjoy drawing. It turns out we both like superheroes too. There’s something about whupping criminal butt in a cool costume that’s always captivated me. During the trip to my parents house we discussed our favorite heroes from the Justice League. Jamal likes the Green Lantern (John Stewart) as do I. Since I had a captive audience who actually cares, I had to take the opportunity to complain about the Martian Manhunter’s disappointing performance in battle after battle despite his phenomenal powers. That dude gets crushed in every episode. It's just sad man.
Anyway... Looking for a way to gauge Jamal’s interest in school and books, I asked him if he’s read anything interesting this summer. I was delighted when he told me that he had read Ben Carson’s Gifted Hands. Reading that very same book at the age of 13 strengthened my resolve to pursue a medical career. I was very pleased that Jamal has also read it.
We decided we would spend the afternoon drawing characters from my brother’s Justice League DVD. Once we arrived, we warmed up by watching two episodes, and then went to work drawing The Flash from one of the scenes that Jamal liked. It was Jamal’s first try at Flash and he’s still adjusting to drawing humanoid figures. The above image betrays his talents, as he is a very good artist. I noticed that most of his sketch book has animal cartoon characters, like Scooby, Tigger, and SpongeBob. So this was kind of new for him. I gave him a few pointers on proportion and recognizing shapes as a method for drawing specific parts of the human form and complimented him on doing a good job on Flash’s head and neck. In turn, he pointed out that in my picture (below) I used the wrong color on Flash's decorative lightning bolts.


After we were finished with the drawings, we took a peek into my brother’s treasure chest of video games. This dude has more than 25 PS2 games, some of which have not even been opened. He has some sort of compulsive/hording complex I think. I’m reccomending therapy. Anyway, Jamal saw X-men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and really wanted to play it. It’s one of those games where you go around punching and kicking everything in sight. The more people you beat down, the greater your powers become and you gain new and more impressive ways to beat people down. But when you start, it’s actually pretty boring, so I never took much interest in it. But I played along since Jamal was really into it.
As afternoon became evening, it was time to head back to Baltimore. I was pleased with our first outing, and it appears that Jamal was too. Before we got in the car he asked me when we could hang out again. I suggested that we play basketball somewhere in the city, or closer to the city the next time we meet. Jamal agreed, and told me that he is going to abuse me on the court. I suppose if I blow out a knee, develop pancreatic cancer, and lose an eye to a bb gun accident that could actually happen. But who knows? maybe he'll get lucky.