This was my first character to appear in a REAL comic.

Hey fam,

I'm having a BALL making these Marvel Universe Handbook-style bios!

This one features Darius Davidson, also known as DARE.

I originally created Dare as a futuristic barbarian adventurer who would roam around a blasted urban wasteland killing giant monsters. He was inspired by my favorite anime character, Gally (Battle Angel Alita). After doing one drawing, I remembered that I liked drawing superheroes more than post-apocalyptic fantasy imagery.

I also really love hip hop culture, so eventually I decided to make Dare an ultra-cool, undersized, underpowered giant killer. An unlikely human champion in a relatable contemporary world overrun with superhumans and monsters.

He made his first appearance in @ The Playground, a short back-up story in GhostWerks Comics' Champion of Children After-School Special #1, in which Dare challenges a 7 foot tall playground bully to a one on one game of hoops.

Dare appeared again in the GhostWerksComics anthology, in which he saves a bickering young couple from the mad scientist Doctor Bombay (and the Bomb Boys).

Dare appeared one more time in the indie comics mag Undergroud Artistry in the story Breaking the Ice, Part One. In that story I introduced the Ice Queen and her Polar Borgs. Breaking the Ice was written as a 3 part story, but Underground Artistry disappeared after the first issue, and the Ice Queen story disappeared with it.

Read BREAKING THE ICE pt 1 on Facebook!

I also wrote a 4 issue Dare origin story called SHOOK, designed to be a flip book with the origin for Gorilladon called GORILLADON LIVES! with the final issue ending with Dare fighting Gorilladon.

cover concept for SHOOK #1 (which would include every DARE character to date, including Gorilladon), and a drawing of Gorilladon and supporting characters (including Dare).

I haven't put those stories out yet.

By the time I launched my magazine GhettoManga, I wanted to get away from the social baggage of selling the story of an angry, ultraviolent black teenager. My next protagonist was a white three year old with a pistol. No really.

These days, my tolerance for being criticized for contributing to the culture of violence is much higher, so don't be surprised if you see the adventures of Darius Davidson return to print soon...

Baby New Year 2020 (Great Expectations) ©2020 Samax Amen
Remember when you thought 2020 was gonna be awesome?

My plan was to do some short comics AND to release some old stuff as digital e-books, including DARE. All that stuff went on the back burner. But I'm still on it, so stay tuned.

One of the compromises I've made is to make these bios as a tease to what my fans can look forward to. As I do more bios, you will definitely see more characters from DARE included.

Got Photoshop? Get the PSD Template!

Wanna buy a copy of the blank template I made so you can make bios like this for your characters? Just click the button below to download the Photoshop Document. I also included a link to a blank google doc where you can type it out before entering it into your PSD (if that's how you roll).

I Want the Bio Template! $5

Got any questions? Wanna chat about this (or something else)? Respond to this message, or CLICK HERE to schedule a phone or video chat.

I am busy, but I have time for you, fam.

Speaking of busy, I have lots of client work to do!

The weekend is ALMOST here!
(((airhorn)))
-Samax ("some AX") Amen

PS- At least 10% of money I receive is donated to the Innocence Project to help free wrongly-convicted people from prison and to further fight injustice. Thanks!

PSS More DARE sketches, because I love you.

READ MORE CLASSIC DARE!
JOIN AMENSIDERS for access to these original Dare stories!

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Samax Amen is a professional Content Developer, Illustrator and Cartoonist. He is the artist of many great comics you never heard of like FREELANCER LIFE, Herman Heed, Champion of Children, and The World As You Know It. He even writes and draws his own comics, like Dare: The Adventures of Darius Davidson, Spontaneous, and Manchild when he gets around to it. Because making comics is hard and stuff, he started GhettoManga as a blog in 2006 and as a print magazine in 2008.