The Lyric hosts tour of heroes

By Erik Kropp

news@kykernel.com

The walls at the Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center were covered in African-American superhero memorabilia, figurines and comics Wednesday night to display the role of black characters in the comic book culture.

The event was titled “We Wear The Mask: Black Superheroes Through The Ages,” and was hosted by UK associate professor and poet laureate Frank X Walker.

“Frank X Walker is not my birth name, but partially because my nickname was X due to my political leanings, kind of respect for Malcolm X,” said Walker in regard to the origins of his name. “Also being a comic book head I knew about Professor X, so that is what I always asked my students call me in class.”

Walker started his memorabilia collection so his children could have a positive black role model, and because comic readers didn’t as heavily recognize black superheroes.

“I think it is really cool, I didn’t know there was this many African-American superheroes,” said elementary education freshman Sierra Barbour.

Also observing Walker’s collection work were members of the UK football team.

“Half of the football team are excited because they didn’t know what to expect and this kind of enthusiasm, they don’t see this especially when it doesn’t relate to sports,” Walker said.

He approached the Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center to start the exhibit because he wanted to bring UK students to see what the theater had to offer.

“The kind of open mouth discovery from their childhood or the image provoked a memory from childhood … and for me when the room is filled like this, day one for three hours we had several hundred people come out and stunned for what they are seeing,” said Walker, who mentioned how moving his memorabilia from his house was worth the decrease in value. “It held a different kind of value to me.”

Parth Patel, a pre-med freshman, said “I love seeing superheroes in any kind of light, so this is actually really cool to me to see any minority stand out in a super hero world.”