Community Corner Chicago Sports Radio Host Holmes Finds His Voice In Comic Universe Laurence Holmes, co-host of 670-AM’s Bernstein and Holmes show, develops the character Wendell George in Image Comics’ “Radiant Black 18”. Reply
Laurence Holmes, right, says that being part of creating a new book for Image Comics provided him with a break from the real world, including the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo courtesy of John Avena)
CHICAGO — Laurence Holmes grew up connecting with comic book heroes never imagining that he would one day be the inspiration behind the character development and storyline of one himself.
After all, Holmes — a Roseland native who spends his days working as a mostly mild-mannered Chicago sports talk radio host on 670-AM The Score — lives in a different universe than the ones he immersed himself in growing up. But when another suburban Chicago native who has his own ties to comics asked Holmes to collaborate on Image Comics’ “Radiant Black”series, Holmes certainly wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity — even if he didn’t know exactly what he was in for along the way. But last week, Holmes got a first-hand look at the finished product of Radiant Black No. 18, which introduces the world to Wendell George, a Black man and native of Gary, Ind., who graduates from Purdue University with a degree in engineering. And like many writers who get their first glimpse at a book that bears their name and creativity, Holmes admits that the fact that he actually played a part in the book’s creation is still taking some getting used to.
There is part of Holmes who can’t believe his comic dreams are now a reality. But on a deeper level, for a radio host who opines passionately after the trials of tribulations of the city’s sports heroes, breaking away in a unique way ended up teaching Holmes more about himself than he initially expected. Radiant Black No. 18 features the name of Laurence Holmes who was part of the storyline development of the new book. (Image Comics) “I think I learned I can challenge myself in more ways than I’m currently doing,” Holmes told Patch this week. “I take doing my radio show really seriously and sometimes, that leads to some tunnel vision. …and you lose sight of some of the other stuff you’re capable of doing.”
“Being able to re-start start the engine again and flex that (writing) muscle again has been profound for me. ….It allowed me to swim into waters that I am very comfortable in, and it gave me the feeling of when I was younger. …it’s a wonderful feeling.” Holmes admits that the process of waiting for the finished product to emerge created a different creative experience than the one he is accustomed to on sports talk radio. While the feedback from a solid radio segment, show, or interview is almost immediate for Holmes, waiting through a months-long waiting period for Radiant Black No. 18 created a different sensation.
He watched the book go through several iterations as artist Stefano Simeone came up with different versions of characters and as the storyline went through a series of edits with Radiant Black creator Kyle Higgins, a Homer Glen native and Lockport High School graduate. Higgins, who is a fan of Holmes’ radio work, reached out to Holmes a year ago to gauge his interest in contributing to an upcoming book. Holmes initially thought Higgins had some sort of apprenticeship in mind — only to discover that Higgins was looking for a deeper commitment. So together, the two worked to create and develop George — a character that becomes the hero Radiant Yellow and that Holmes said has some themes that are autobiographical to Holmes although George’s character — is not.
Laurence Holmes has connected his childhood love of comics to a writing connection to the new issue of Radiant Black. (Photo courtesy of John Avena) In the process of putting the story together, however, Higgins came up with a different twist that required the process to begin all over again. In the latest iteration, the book tells four different stories at the same time on each page, which takes readers into four different periods of Wendell George’s life on the same page – and on every page. Creative meetings between Higgins, who lives in California, Holmes in Chicago, Simeone, the artist who lives in Italy, and the book’s editor, Michael Busuttil, who lives in Australia, often took some creative scheduling – all in the same of putting a book together that Holmes admits created some doubts in his own mind’s eye. “I said, ‘this is too ambitious — there’s no way that this is going to happen,’” Holmes said. “But it did, and we got it together and we figured out how to make it look and I’m thrilled. I can’t believe that it turned out as well as it did.” Radiant Black No. 18 introduces the world to Wendell George, the identity behind the hero Radiant Yellow. (Image Comics) While Holmes may have had his doubts about being able to meet Higgins’ standards on his first go-round into comic writing, Higgins said that the radio host he had long respected and had worked with on other projects behind the scenes exceeded expectations for being a comic-writing rookie. While Homes may have been new to the medium of comic writing, the experience he drew out in his character development of Wendell George over more than a year proved to be the perfect fit with a book that was already pushing the envelope in ways that others in the Radiant Black series hadn’t, Higgins told Patch.
“This was not a softball,” Higgins told Patch on Thursday. “This was kind of like stepping into the majors in a behind-the-count situation and (Holmes) absolutely knocked it out of the park.” For Holmes, being part of the creative process behind Wendell George and Radiant Yellow was a throwback to his formative years. As someone who grew up with X-Men, Green Lantern, Justice League, Captain America, Spiderman, and other fictional comic book heroes, the opportunity to help deliver stories that will resonate with a new generation of readers and comic fans was too much to pass up. While comics threw Holmes into a world of good vs. evil, the books also taught him that life often lives in the gray areas where real-world problems and issues exist, which is a concept that as an adult, Holmes hopes younger readers who pick up comic books now can live and breathe in their own way because they have a connection to that world through a book’s pages. “There’s going to be someone who reads it and goes, ‘Wow – I’m interested in the Radiant Black universe and there’s a character I relate to,’” Holmes said told Patch. “And it’s unreal to know that my name is on the cover of one of those books and that I got to help write a story.” All these years later, the storytelling that Holmes experienced in his youth still stays with him today despite his foray into a career in sports talk radio, where Holmes’ reality revolves around Chicago’s professional sports teams.
Like with his radio show with co-host Dan Bernstein and his new weekly sports column in the Sun-Times, Holmes did plenty of prep work and research. Whether it meant reading the first 10 issues of Radiant Black or other books Higgins wrote to get a sense of his storytelling style, Holmes immersed himself in the universe in which he now found himself owning a part of never wanting to be the weakest link in what was already a complicated process. Along the way, Higgins encouraged Holmes to start big and then whittle away at the finer points of the Wendell George character. For Holmes, who isn’t accustomed to multiple takes coming out of a world of live radio, the idea of chipping away at the process was a new concept and one that required a learning curve. While many of the details that got connected to Holmes’ character never made it to the final product, each was critical, Holmes said, in making sure every aspect of the character made sense for the story. At times, the process became scary as it stretched Holmes beyond what he experiences in his radio work life, but also provided an escape from the real world — including the COVID-19 pandemic — all in the name of creating something unforgettable for the new comic creator who has had a new vault of creativity opened up in front of him. Even if it meant him learning about a new creative process — and himself — at every twist and turn along the way. “I had to temper my expectations of perfection,” Holmes said. “Because (perfection) is what you’re shooting for on that first draft and that is never the case.”