He was hooked. “Science fiction is kind of my church,” said Smith, now 47 and living in Philadelphia. “It’s spiritual and has a lot to do with who I am as a black queer person.” The problem with his church, however, is that it doesn't have many black (or gay) members.
Popular science fiction features black characters such as Morpheus from MatrixMace Windu from Star warsand Lieutenant Commander La Forge and Nyota Uhura from Star Trek. But in general, black characters don't have the same visibility or screen time as their white counterparts. And when black people are present, they tend to look cishet contrived and conventionally attractive. Fat, black bodies are rare.
“It just surprises me that in science fiction they treat fat people at all and portray them as second-class citizens, or they portray them as something like greed or lust or meanness,” Smith said, pointing to the character Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune. “I used to read a weird sci-fi series called 'The Laser Life,'” he added, “and when I was looking for guest readers, the very first story I received featured a fat villain. The character's fatness was described in disgusting terms and taken as an obvious indicator of his villainy. It's really disappointing.”
So when readily available AI art generators became available last year, Smith, already an established visual artist, used the tools to create several black, fat and queer characters from a more inclusive futuristic world. Among them was Marcus, whom Smith revived with the help of Midjourney and DIDan artificial intelligence platform that creates talking avatars. Marcus heads a division of the Electrical Institute of Afro-Science, which Smith described as “an independent Afrofuturist organization led by superheroes that works in the fields of biomechanics, aerospace engineering, nanotechnology, and medicinal alchemy.”
Smith described the quirky Marcus as “sort of a smart alec. A big, nice nerd who thinks he's a bit of a gangster. He likes to study moths and ants and tries to figure out what insect life can replicate in human life.” In one animated portrait of Marcus that Smith posted on his Instagram, the character asks, “Who will draw me?”
