When I was a child growing up in the South Bronx, many of my grammar school friends would pay me 50¢ to draw them comic books. I'd stay up late drawing these pages and proudly bring them to school the next day for my happy customers. I always wanted to grow up and draw comics. I would doodle on the side of my notebooks in high school and hand draw posters for concerts and parties in college way before Adobe made Photoshop and Illustrator. I loved comic book art so much that I had the chance to curate two art shows for Marvel (Santerians: The Art of Joe Quesada and Marvelous Color) that I exhibited at the old CCCADI gallery in Columbus Circle.

Last year my good friend Rigg Morales brought me face to face with one of my favorite hip-hop artists of all time, Darryl DMC McDaniels of Run DMC. I listened to Run DMC in junior high school and wore Adidas outfits in high school. Having the chance to work with DMC to make a comic book would fulfill two dreams in one shot. The three of us and DMC's manager Erik Blam came together under DMC's leadership to start our very own imprint.

1 1/2 years later we finished our first full length graphic novel and I'm so proud of the work that all of these artists produced under our new publishing company Darryl Makes Comics. It's a start-up, or as we call it, a labor of love. I still run Somos Arte designing websites, branding, producing advertorials and all the other fantastic services we offer, but I also take time when I'm not building Lego set's with my son or visiting art galleries with my fiancé to work on this amazing project.

I don't know whatever happened to those comics I drew back in the 1980s, but I can tell you that I still have my childhood collection of comics in plastic bags that I refer to now ever so often as I help DMC build this new comic book universe of ours.

I wouldn't have it any other way because it's like that and that's the way it is.
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