Episode #94: The Superhero That Sparked A Social Movement with Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez creator of La Borinqueña
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Learn about outside-of-the-box thinking with the 2nd part of my interview with Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, the creator of the hit comic La Borinqueña. In today’s episode, Edgardo tell us how he got unique contract opportunities and came up with creative licensing deals, including chocolate bars and a toy deal!
Edgardo also teaches everyone an important lesson about asking for what you want and how he was able to create opportunities that worked for him. This allowed him to create this amazing comic that is so much more than just a superhero story. It’s become a symbol of social change and hope for Puerto Ricans.
Listen to learn more about how Edgardo infused his values into his work and gave many different types of Puerto Ricans much needed representation in his comics. By the end of this episode I hope you will feel inspired to work on a project that has a piece of your identity or story in it, or just something that is close to your heart.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 94.
[00:00:04] Well, Hey there toy people, Azhelle Wade here. And welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. Welcome back to part two of my interview with Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, the creator of La Borinqueña. In this part two of our conversation, we're going to dive into some really great bits of information regarding negotiation of contracts and opportunities that might come your way as you're developing your IP you are not going to want to miss a minute of this interview. Grab your favorite notes app or pen and paper and get ready to take notes my friend.
[00:01:03] Okay. So in case you don't remember in part one, we left off right after speaking about the Puerto Rico comic con, what the response was like when Edgardo showed La Borinqueña there. And when he wrote a story about a massive devastating hurricane that La Borinqueña came in to fix before hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Are you ready? Let's dive back in to the interview.
[00:01:35] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I made it to Puerto Rico to they view my book at the Puerto Rico Comic-Con and it was the most overwhelming response at an event that I've ever had in my career. Over and over I had a line hundreds of people every day, the line never stopped. And over and over again, people coming to the table and they would tell me, gracias por poner Puerto Rico en alto, thank you for elevating Puerto Rico. Right? And it just overwhelmed me because this is what the work was always about. You know, it was about taking this character, taking this narrative and bringing this discourse about the Island's condition, the humanitarian crisis, mine just before hurricane Maria. A lot of people that are learning about La Borinqueña think that La Borinqueña happened after hurricane Maria.
[00:02:21] Azhelle Wade: I didn't even realize that the first, because I'm seeing it after I'm seeing it already knowing.
[00:02:26] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: There's a lot of prescient in the writing that I do, but that's because it's rooted in science. It's not magic. It's rooted in science. So I put out my next book in May, right after that. This is actually the second La Borinqueña book would be this. And then issue number two actually comes out one month after. One month after issue number two comes out, right? Because I think to myself, well, maybe issue number two can ride the wave of reconstruction. Right? And issue number two I decided to create the narrative, focusing on student activism, putting focusing on the power of student activism and the power of protest.
[00:03:01] That's 2018. One year later, the summer of 2019, there is an epic manifestation protests. Hundreds of thousands of people come out to the man the resignation of governor Rocio. Yeah. Because a group of women professional journalists had for some time been working on an investigative piece, and uncovered a series of corruptions that this governor was involved in and not just what was corrupt about what he was doing, but what he was saying. A lot of his text messages came out around hurricane Maria, just feed the cadavers to the cows if we got too many. Just feed them to the cows. Nobody's going to know the difference.
[00:03:43] Literally, this is what the governor of Puerto Rico was saying about the dead after hurricane Maria. Hundreds of thousands of people came out to protest and, and they won. So hundreds of thousands of people are marching, demanding, social justice, demanding a change. So when you talk about Puerto Rico now it's a different Puerto Rico. After hurricane Maria, the devil has been revealed. The devil has been removed. People for so long thought that they had a very unique and special relationship with the United States. And they're realizing, oh my gosh, no, we've been a colony this whole time. We've been second class citizens this whole time. What's going on?
[00:04:20] I'm in San Diego about to receive my humanitarian award at the Eisner. And for those that don't know the Eisner are like, are the Oscars of the comic book industry, literally the highest honor you can receive. And I'm at the San Diego convention and at the Eisner Award ceremony and Kyung tells me when you got up there. Yeah. You make sure you keep an eye on the clock. Don't do go talking over it. And I told her I'm going to take my glasses off and leave them ride on the table. I'm not looking at no clock. I get up on that stage. And I, I go on for like 10 minutes. Oh my gosh. As I'm speaking I call out everyone in that room.
[00:04:55] I say everyone in this room is being celebrated at the world's most popular event, acknowledging, recognizing, and celebrating popular culture. You all write narratives around these epic characters and Titans that fight for social justice fight against villains of all sorts. How dare you, how dare you write these narratives when we're just miles away from children being locked up in cages at the border, when there are injustice that's happening in our country, how can it turn a blind eye and not actually acknowledged the injustices that are happening in our reality and just feed these corporations, these storylines that are just going to provide them with billions and billions of more dollars of based on the continent you're creating and that this money.
[00:05:43] Azhelle Wade: You said this? Okay.
[00:05:44] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: And from that stage, from that stage, I also denounced governor Rocio and demanded his resignation because at that very moment, I wanted to be in Puerto Rico. I want it to be marching alongside all my other sisters and brothers for social justice. So we received the reward. We have our moment where we take up pictures and such. We get out, get ourselves ready to go back home. And my phone is getting pinged like crazy fingers. And like what's going on. I look and see all of these Twitter posts. And it felt like it was like was the chronological moment. And it's, and these shots from the protest in Puerto Rico happening literally in real time.
[00:06:21] And people are saying that La Borinqueña is here, La Borinqueña arrived. And I'm looking at these images and I could see a little tiny blue and white, blue, and red figure in the background of these giant crowds. And as I kept hitting more and more of my, like my hairs are standing on it and I'm looking at these tweets and I'm kind of catching up to all of these tweets. She's getting closer. She's getting closer, to getting closer. And I finally see the image of this young African Puerto Rican woman in her own homemade La Borinqueña costume with a sign that said, Rick Renuncia, Rick Rocio resigned. Right. And I looked at my family and crying and I'm like, we're there.
[00:07:04] Oh my gosh, stop! You make me cry..
[00:07:08] As she has become a symbol of social justice, a symbol of hope, my gosh. Yeah. In a way that no other intellectual property has ever become, you know, so this idea that Kyung had, she was like, we're going to do something that no one's ever done before with charity work. And she was like, I'm going to do the extra work because Puertorriqueños are suffering and will continue to suffer and this is going to be an issue of recovery that will be around for years to come. And she was right. So many academic studies are just validating what she said. And she established our La Borinqueña grass program. And she puts together a committee to review request for proposal, the RFPs. And we started getting all of these proposals and we have a very,
[00:07:50] Azhelle Wade: Proposals for what?
[00:07:52] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Proposals for grants. And we decided we were going to award grants to nonprofit organizations in Puerto Rico. And we have a very decolonized approach to grant writing. I'd rather the grant awarding.
[00:08:02] Azhelle Wade: How's it different?
[00:08:03] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: We don't have this approach that this is our money and this is what you need to do with our money. These are your problems. So this is what you need to do to fix them in here's our money to fix them. No, that's not. We actually said, look this is La Borinqueña. What she stands for. She stands for social justice. He stands for environmental justice. She stands for the preservation and celebration of African Puerto Rican heritage. She stands for the arts and education and for women's health and reproductive rights. What do you want to do? What do you doing? How can you teach us and educate us with these resources? And so the proposals came in. And that's what we did, we awarded grants to audit the organization.
[00:08:44] And Kyung was like, we're going to create a program so that we can continue to give money over the next few years. And we've done that over the last three years. We've awarded grants annually to all basis annually. Our money was running out, as the money, you know, that initial, like chunk of money that we made from the, all the reconstruction opportunities started presenting themselves out of the blue. And we started coming up with new concepts that we never thought of before to continue our philanthropic work. And that was collaborations. That's how you and I met.
[00:09:13] Azhelle Wade: Yes. So I want to talk about this a little bit. So I went to, what was it called? Chocolate Cortez?
[00:09:18] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: So Chocolate Cortez is the actual bar for the generations, right? Inside these bars is a comic strip that talks about,
[00:09:27] Azhelle Wade: I didn't even buy a bar. I didn't know.. There are not enough signage. Wait, hold on. But I do have to talk about something here because I went to your exhibition and I have to say the woman that was just there at the time that I was visiting Manning your floor. Just love to talk about you. Like, she was like all about it. She was like, oh my gosh, La Borinqueña, she means so much to me. And that she was telling me you know, what's so different about the superhero is that there aren't villains in the stories that it's more about like what's going on with the environment and the social issues. And I love like, so when she said that, then I started to pay attention to it. Then I started to really notice it. Right. But were you afraid that that was going to make your book less popular with the public. How did you know that was going to work?
[00:10:11] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I didn't create this comic book for, the best way to say it. I didn't create a comic book for the fanboy. I didn't create this comic book for the fanboy in mind. I created this comic book with the idea that I'm going to introduce this to an audience that has not been represented. I'm going to produce this comic book for an audience that does not see themselves. Now, let me frame that to give it more context. You may automatically think.
[00:10:34] Okay. So you're creating this for the Puerto Rican community, or you're creating this, you know, for women of Latin heritage. No, no. And that's a very narrow view of looking at it. When I say underrepresented, I mean, people who believe in social change, social justice, environmental justice, science, climate things, you know, people who believe in equity, people who believe that, that this we should embrace the dismantling of a toxic patriarchy, you know, people who believe we should commit to the end of suspended racism.
[00:11:07] People who commit to celebrating love and denouncing hate. That's the audience that I created the book for. A book that's challenged, patriarchy, patriarchal storytelling, a book that's challenged our traditional storytelling in all frames, how character women particularly are portrayed, how people of color are portrayed. And also try to give a completely honest view, visually, at least, right of what Puerto Rican's look like. And by doing. Letting humanity see themselves through the microcosm of Puerto Rico. I recall a newspaper out of London, the guardian, they wrote an incredible review about La Borinqueña.
[00:11:57] But one of the things that I found a little charming was they said, La Borinqueña story is set with a cast of incredibly racially diverse characters. And I was like, I thought that was pretty hilarious because it's all happening in Puerto Rico. And at the time that people would think, oh, you got to think of like, you know, Asian community or black community and this all, you can literally see like a black person, a black woman, an Asian woman, a blonde woman.
[00:12:28] And they're all Puerto Rican living on the same line. And yet, because Puerto Rico is that incredibly racially diverse society. And our, but our ethnicity and our identity is it's Puerto Rican, you know, and you have a movement that celebrates its African heritage and a movement that celebrates its Hispanic heritage, you know, as the Spanish services and such, but it'll all kind of coexist in this island. And so that's what this book was about and that's what the audience was. And eventually it trickled over into the fanboy community. And you're right this with the fanboy community in mind, I completely like, and I'm still breaking so many rules.
[00:13:05] Azhelle Wade: The person I talked to was literally looking like she was pointing out some Mayan ruins or not Mayan ruins. She was pointing out some ruins that you had illustrated the tiny ruins. Okay. So, and she was like, yeah. So these, she was like, these are actual, like actually ruins that exist. And she's like, but nobody really knows about them. And nobody talks about them anymore. And she was like, but he brought them out in the book and like, she was pointing out all this stuff and I was like, oh, that's so amazing. Like just being up.
[00:13:32] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: The stuff we all learned, and like in social studies. Like children in the school. When you, our colony is the Empire's culture, that's imposed on the colony. When people are, when a nation is colonized. Yeah. The first place that the invaders sees or the archives, the libraries, the art, the history. Yeah. So young people in Puerto Rico are learning about george Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton. They're learning about American history. Yeah, because they are economy of the United States. It's crazy.
[00:14:10] And they're not learning about their own history. They're not learning about the African history. They're not learning about their nationalist history of Puertorriqueños. Our book is doing things that have never been seen and still haven't been seen. And we're breaking the mold and creating our own mold right now.
[00:14:26] Azhelle Wade: I want a La Borinqueña for my culture. And I mean, you know, it's so different because ours was, you know, being African-American, it was a race. And then we were brought somewhere where it's not, it's just doesn't even exist. We can't not cover it.
[00:14:38] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I was literally thinking about that yesterday. I saw something that triggered that thought, and I'm glad I have an opportunity to share it with you because Africans who were brought to the United States and were enslaved, lost their names, lost their families, lost their nations, lost their history, lost their language, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss, loss loss, right? It's so crazy. You know, every African-American living in the United States has a last name that does not belong to them. It's crazy. You know, and then also it's like colorism that exists within the African-American community. Unfortunately also exist throughout Latin America and Puerto Rico. The whole concept of like good hair, bad hair. We got that too in Puerto Rico. The whole thing about light skin versus dark skin. The whole thing about, you know, get out of the sun because you're going to get darker.
[00:15:35] I'm a New York city resident. Right. But I'm aware of all of this history and I've been able to figure out a way to create a pop cultural experiment with La Borinqueña so that you and I can actually have this conversation. We're talking about this. We're not talking about the resident that goes into making an action figure, the amount of joints that a figure should have, or to put all the product placements in films or self placement and major departments. What are you talking about? Social justice and human rights. Is this exactly why she exists?
[00:16:04] Azhelle Wade: Yes. The heart of your, yeah. I was going to say, it's the heart of your comic. It's like what I walked away with when I went into your exhibition.
[00:16:09] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: An opportunity to have an immersive experience.
[00:16:11] Azhelle Wade: It was amazing. It was so good.
[00:16:14] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: My goal would that fix the bits it was, I'm not going to be there. So I have to make this gallery feel like you're inside of the actual comments and walk away feeling like, you know her now, you know La Borinqueña now, you know? Yeah.
[00:16:26] Azhelle Wade: Did I, did I read everything? I did feel like I had a great understanding. I mean, you have a lot more to your story to share, but now I'm curious, cause you've done so much philanthropic work yourself with what you've created. What would you like to see other people do?
[00:16:39] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: That's a good question. I guess what I would like people to do is to follow on our example and try to find models that really can collaborate and empower locals. As opposed to imposing a colonial sense of change. You know what I mean? By that, it's like we have a list of organization that we already support and we leave in transparency. So when you go to our website, la-borinquena.com on the grants. You can literally see all the organizations that we've awarded grants to and you can also reach out to them. So one of the things I love to see is people reaching out to the nonprofits and say, Hey, I want to come to Puerto Rico for four a week, for a month for a few months.
[00:17:21] What can I do? Just hear my hands. What can I do? Here's my brain. Here's my mind. Here's my resources here. My heads are here. My is my skill sets. How can I help? That's what I want to see. I don't want to see people come and say, I know exactly what Puerto Rico needs right now. I'm going to come down and I'm going to save what they look, man, Puerto Rican they're trying to lead them Southern and saving the way before me and will continue to do. You know, I don't come with this idea that I'm going to say Porter. No, I'm just, I just create a lens. I just create a platform to bring focus and to bring attention like, like the many people that received me at the Puerto Rico Comicon in 2018, when I debuted reconstruction, I'm simply elevating Puerto Rico, pone el Puerto Rico en alto..
[00:18:04] That's what I'm doing. I'm elevating it. And I'm doing my best to give her the visibility that she needs so that people can engage in an incredibly honest discourse around the islands colonial status. And there are a lot of amazing artists out there that are doing it. There's a great documentary right now on PBS called landfall.
[00:18:27] That is a amazing visual film that Chronicles post hurricane Maria and the protest to denounce the governor of Puerto Rico. There are a lot of great books out there and I referenced, I researched. So, what I want is I want more people to kind of like try to follow in our model and also try to see, emulate us, see what we're doing and go beyond what we're capable of doing.
[00:18:53] You know I mean I'm 51, so I'm only going to be here for a little bit longer, you know? I want to see more people come after me so this character that I've created, doesn't just become an icon, but actually becomes a symbol of hope and a civil social justice that would inspire others to follow.
[00:19:14] I think that's one of the most important things that when you're developing an intellectual property, how do you create a movement around this idea? So that the idea itself has a living, breathing life to it, you know, and it's challenging because the concept of intellectual property has been appropriated by corporations.
[00:19:38] To just sell you everything from fruit roll-ups to pajamas. Right. And I'm taking that concept and I'm like, I wanna sell you a movement. I want to sell you an idea. I want to sell you a concept that will challenge everything you've ever learned. No one before I want to develop an intellectual property that will develop your intellect.
[00:20:06] Azhelle Wade: You just reminded me that I had one more question I was holding on to you. How do you stay so sharp? Because working as a creative, working by yourself, it's easy to just, you know, lose your creative edge, but it seems like you stay really sharp and you always you're able to come up with ideas on the fly. It seems like. I mean, you're just endless creativity with La Borinqueña. So I'm just trying to figure out, like, do you read a lot? What do you watch? Like?
[00:20:31] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I listen.
[00:20:32] Azhelle Wade: To who?
[00:20:33] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I watch. I observe. I'm a sponge. I get ideas from everywhere. I don't just read books. I don't just read articles. I don't just watch documentaries that was filmed by listening to conversations. I listened to people interacting. I look at murals, I see people in a restaurant. When I was in Puerto Rico for the last month and a half this year from during the spring. I did a lot of observing, you know I find inspiration from other places. Sometimes I watch a good movie and I'll visualize my character and I'm going to be like, what path would she have taken? What direction she goes instead? Is not so much, ooh, I like that idea. I'm gonna do that too. It's like, no, what would she have done differently?
[00:21:16] When I was worried, this was like, this was honestly like the most important project that I've worked on on many levels. Right. Because it's book reconstruction allowed me to do something that I would've never thought I could do. And that is work with other creatives. I didn't have a bible. I didn't have roster of books that had already been published. I only had one book when reconstruction came out. I had to navigate this character through all of these writers. There's the old, there were like 200, 200 writers and artists that contributed to that book. Established writers that had been writing way more longer than I even been like on this planet. Right? And I had to kind of tell them when they would give me the scripts.
[00:22:05] No, no, no. In LA I wouldn't get you. Wouldn't say that she wouldn't do that. Like really like no cheat sheets you want to do that, you know? And that allowed me to kind of like really give life to her. And she lives in breathes inside of my mind, you know, and as I was putting these stories together or rather editing them, it taught me how to counter, truly navigate how my intellectual property should be represented. So when we were producing now, that we're producing nightly, like we talked about, I mean, holy cow only Willy Wonka, you know what I mean? I'm cleaning my own golden tickets right here. Right. And the fact that these are now like circulated all over Puerto Rico and, and this fall all across the United States, anywhere where you could find Latin food products in the United States, you're going to be able to find.
[00:22:56] Azhelle Wade: Can I get a comic strip? I get the comic thing. Okay, cool.
[00:23:00] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: And they're not there so anywhere where you will find like, you know, you can of beans or you can have style, you're going to find a Cortez chocolate bar. Nice. And and the four of them, they're there, they're set of four and each one of the comics talk about the history of the chocolate company and how this chocolate company typically has always been dedicated to sustainable farming before that will be afraid, has always been committed to cooperative.
[00:23:25] Interesting then we'll have a socialist model and they're successful and successful for 90 plus years, you know, and they're expanding. The choco bar is coming to New York city in the Bronx. This book going to open there and we're going to have a three or four story mural La Borinqueña on the side of the building where the choco bar is going to be.
[00:23:46] Azhelle Wade: Wait, when is that going to opening? I want to go see that.
[00:23:48] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Coming in the fall. In the Bronx, New York city. And we're doing things, you know, and, and because I own my own intellectual property. Right. And it isn't an intellectual property was produced at the work for hire for a major public or major studio. Right. I get to choose the narrative. I get to to message. I get to choose the platform. I get to choose the collaborations and the partnerships. Yeah.
[00:24:13] Azhelle Wade: I have a question about that. With this book who owns this? So, how did you do that? Like, cause when we saw. Yeah.
[00:24:22] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: If you look at the cover, you look at the cover. Nowhere on the cover. Is there a DC comics logo?
[00:24:28] Azhelle Wade: We were very confused. Were like, did he just make this for fun? Like, what's happening here?
[00:24:33] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: You asking me that. That's to me every now and then people go, yo, no, you just got to get in trouble for doing that. Automatically. I assume like, what that guy thinks he is? He didn't do that.
[00:24:47] Azhelle Wade: We were at your gallery. And we were like, but it's big and it's on a public forum. So they have to know. We were so like, what?
[00:24:53] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: This is something that's never happened. Never will happen. And I can also say it will probably never happen because than the deal is now the former publisher of DC comics though. The last CEO is the former. So they get a complete restructuring of the corporation and everyone who was who was an ally of reconstruction when La Borinqueña is gone. Wow. So it's not going to happen again. Yeah, I, when the copyrighted, his book, it's an incredibly unique situation where I own the copyright of this book. I own the copyright of water stories of all the artwork. You know, it was a work for hire for me. It was a work for hire that was donated to our studio, you know? But they're obviously very specific conditions and stipulations set by the contracts that you know, this can be reproduced digitally in any other format.
[00:25:43] I can't take this and make it into a movie, you know, I can't literally like these stories in here, you're not going to see La Borinqueña and Wonder woman film, for example, I can't do that. I can make them into animated series. I can't make it into merchandise. In other words, I've made myself La Borinqueña, but it's my t-shirt, I'm not selling it, you know? But as an entity, this book can exist. This book can exist and this volume can sell and continue to sell. You see what I'm saying? And that's what the incredibly unique about it. There's a fine print in the book. My old eyes can't even read. Published by between DC comics characters use with permission.
[00:26:23] Azhelle Wade: Oh yeah. It does say.
[00:26:24] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: That's it. That's all I needed.
[00:26:27] Azhelle Wade: Mine says, first printing.
[00:26:28] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I had the contract, they approved it I mean, DC was, it was so freaking dope to work with. They literally like had their legal team provide me contracts pro bonus. That I could give all the artists and all the writers.
[00:26:40] Azhelle Wade: They were like, if we need to protect ourselves also so.
[00:26:43] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: No, but they said that we got to protect ourselves, but they were like, we got to protect you. And by protecting you, we protect ourselves. I was like, okay..
[00:26:50] Azhelle Wade: I think it says a lot that all these people want to collaborate. I think this calls back to the point that you said earlier, where it's not just the 9 million Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican's and America, and in Puerto Rico, it's like all of the people that are affected by their lives because the people that they love and they're friends with and all of that. So, yeah, I think that's probably.
[00:27:08] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: And that includes you as well, because you've certainly visit Puerto Rico. You're invested. So it's like working on this book it was so much fun. It was a bigger box of action figures than what I was playing with would Marvel Marvel. And he let me play with like three action figures, plant man, the thing in grin and in group. Right. DC was like, here you go take any of these activities. You want anyone you want to play with? You know? And what was trippy was like, you know, I, I, you know, in hindsight I would have probably done a lot, a lot of things a little differently, but I gave a lot of freedom to all the volunteer artists and writers. And I was like, Yeah, pick a character. Literally I let it, I was like, literally get the gateway when I first did that. And what was ironic was that wonder woman and Batman were left on the table.
[00:27:55] Azhelle Wade: What?
[00:27:56] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Wait, what?
[00:27:58] Azhelle Wade: They were trying work with you.
[00:28:01] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I honestly was like, I had a very I created like my own ethics and I was like, oh, I shouldn't write anything. I shouldn't write any of these stories. I should just kind of like, you know, facilitate and edit. But then I was like, okay, screw that idea. I'm going to write it, you know, cause I'm not going to let, I'm not going to leave like wonder woman and Batman on the table. So I wrote a Batman story. I wrote a wonder woman story. And, and then and this is also what's dope about this and that this is Canon, this is my Canon now. We construction as part of La Borinqueña's Canon. It's not part of the DC universe cannon, but it is part of the La Borinqueña Canon. Cool. I knew that. I knew that. So in the Batman story I intended. Drop the Easter eggs that I was going to use three years later in the new and the new La Borinqueña that I just, that I just released. Right? So this is number three as Easter eggs that are referenced in reconstruction.
[00:29:01] Azhelle Wade: Good to know. I only have one and reconstruction.
[00:29:04] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: I always tell people the proper order to read the books is La Borinqueña number one, Ricanstruction number two, and then number three. And if you find them, cause I don't know if they're really even left. We actually produced a special edition of Bonita Bandera, which talks about the history of the Puerto Rican flag. And this came with a vinyl.
[00:29:26] Azhelle Wade: What? We have a player here. I want that.
[00:29:32] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: We also produced a music video for that. And so I don't know if you caught that when you were in the gallery, that's actually a little bit video playing on the movie screen.
[00:29:38] Azhelle Wade: I watched the whole, movie? What was the music video?
[00:29:41] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: It was, it was a music video for our song, Que Bonita Bandera.
[00:29:43] Azhelle Wade: The whole thing was the video. Okay. Then yeah, I saw it. I didn't know it was a music. We do that because like Rosario Dawson was in it. I was like, wait, what's happening in here?
[00:29:51] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Yeah, we had the voice of one, the woman, and we had one of the birds of prey on the screen.
[00:29:57] Azhelle Wade: It had a documentary vibe to it, like everybody was, but yeah, maybe. Well.
[00:30:01] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Because we have to shoot that. We had to rather, we had to edit that during the pandemic, my collaborator and dear friend Bobbito Garcia, he directed the video and he archival footage that filmmakers had of hurricane Maria post, hurricane Maria, and also of the march. Yeah, against the governor of Puerto Rico and then everyone else just literally pulled out their phones and just like, you know, made selfie videos of themselves. I'm singing their parts.
[00:30:28] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. It's amazing. When all these celebrities were doing that for you, I was like, wow. He really got some traction and he really struck a cord. That's amazing.
[00:30:37] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: That's what we're always been trying to do. It's like, I try to strike a cord when it comes to social justice issues and also when it comes to like cultural pride.
[00:30:45] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. What is next for La Borinqueña? You making some toys, this is a toy podcast. Are you going to make a movie?
[00:30:52] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Well, I don't have any money to make a movie on my phone. Let's do real talk and somebody is going to give me like a half a billion dollars. There is no, and that's literally, I mean, these students make movies with hundreds of millions of dollars. Nobody makes a movie, but a couple of million dollars, especially with something. Heavily driven with visual effects. I might not, I wouldn't easily need like like a half, a billion dollars to make, to make what that, what needs to be made, you know? But I'm dedicated to publishing I'm dedicated to philanthropic work. Like I mentioned, the Choco bar is collaboration that we're continuing the topological opening the choco bar here in New York city in the fall.
[00:31:33] So we're going to have a new mural. There's going to be put out with that. We are working on a new book. I can really, I can't say much about that book on the record. We are going to be publishing a new book in an, in January. So we're in production of that right now. And we're also in production. And I can't disclose with who, but we're also in production right now with action figure line. So we're very much in value of these action figures is impeccable. And it's something epic. It's really going to be epic. So we're very excited about that. And those are going to be in 20 22.
[00:32:07] Azhelle Wade: Online or in store?
[00:32:09] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Both are going to be distributed by local comic book shops and some particular outlets. But yeah, there's a lot that we're working on, this is our IP, this is our movement. This is our vision. This is what we're committed to, you know? And it's very exciting. It truly is very exciting. That's something that I was able to create literally at this very desk that I'm talking to you from for the last five years, it's still relevant. You know, I've created a series. That's not published frequently, but even I got a regular schedule. I announced that I'm making a book and the book doesn't come out, like until like, seven months after I made the announcement, the SQL doesn't come out until like two years later. And then the next book doesn't come on until like another three years after that.
[00:32:55] And we're still consistently in the news. We're still consistently like being spoken about we're still consistently relevant, that costume that you saw was part of the exhibition, that would be original costume that they built in a Puerto Rican neighborhood. That was my design I worked with. I hired a group of, of seemsters in Puerto Rico, but they literally bought, this is like before zoom became the thing I needed to get you convertible with them. They went to a fabric store, they picked out the fabrics and they hand sold the costume.
[00:33:25] They FedEx it to New York city. I had a young woman dresses, La Borinqueña for the parade and in the costume came back to me. And, and before going to Puerto Rico, it was an exhibit at the Smithsonian museum and it was on exhibit at the Smithsonian museum alongside one, the woman's costume, captain America shield Wolverine's claws, Batman's mask. And around the corner from the Batmobile.
[00:33:50] Azhelle Wade: 10 year old self must just be like screaming, like, oh my gosh.
[00:33:54] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Non-stop screaming. It's like, non-stop screaming. That's in your old self. When I was a child, you know, I grew up incredibly poor. I collected bottles and cans to buy, so I can have the money to buy comic books. I'd make paper dolls. Cause I couldn't afford toys, you know, But I didn't actually think, like, I didn't go, oh, poor me actually thought, man, I got better action figures than you cause any active figure I want, you know, that's amazing. But at any superhero I wanted, I would just draw and make them into a, into a, a paper doll. And I had a whole box full of all these like paper dolls that I made for myself. So it's amazing that I can be where I am now and that, you know I have two sons who love action figures that's as much as their dad does.
[00:34:43] Both of my sons help me create characters that are they viewing in one of the characters. My youngest son even designed. Even the design for it. Yeah. And that's going to be made into an action figure, you know, it's like, Who on this planet design their first acts and figure a day at the age of like five? Public acts and figure, Ooh, that's ridiculous. This guy's son that's who, you know what I mean?
[00:35:16] Azhelle Wade: That's so cool. I want to give a little bit of context actually. Like how big of w is your studio? I want people to think about how big is the studio.
[00:35:25] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: It's about like eight feet by 16 feet. That's all.
[00:35:30] Azhelle Wade: I mean, people like to make something like the first issue that you did, how many people?
[00:35:36] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: We, and again, this is also, this is how comic books are produced when the pandemic hit. Yeah. You know, people in the comment we'll get to see what, like whatever is if another day at the office, because everyone works virtually everyone, always where every ever since the invention of the internet, everyone has been working efficiently, virtually. And before the internet. People would use like overnight mail services, like FedEx and ups right now it does particularly expensive. Right. But now it's like, it's, it's an art was lost in the mail or some art was stolen. Oh my gosh. But now with the internet, with clouds and servers and file sharing, you know, and also with the fact that a lot of art is produced digitally now and before everything was literally pen to paper and graphite to paper.
[00:36:22] Right. Now everything for the visitors. So depending on, depending on the scope of a project, you know, we can have as, as small of a team of like five yeah. As big of a team of as 200. And then the art scene of the artists that worked for us, they work their subcontractors. We're a studio that has a list of a roster of talent. And, you know, in addition to our book that we publish, we also publish rather we also produce books for the clients right now. We're finishing production on a book for our second comic book series for John Leguizamo. And I had a great team worked for me and sometimes the creative team overlap. So it depends on the project. It could be like, you know, a few handful that's less than literally like a handful of artists or on our projects and, my friend Paul, who runs the print shop, he says come on we were for ourselves. So we never stopped working.
[00:37:14] Azhelle Wade: Well, I love having you on. I'm going to ask one more. What advice would you give to someone looking to self publish their own story? Is there any do's or don'ts they must know before starting?
[00:37:25] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Very good. If you're going to self publish anything, then you need to be open to bring on an editor. Don't don't surround yourself with hype man. That's dope. That's frat. Hold on. I have the best thing. I've know, like literally surround yourself with people that like, I don't know, not haters people that can provide constructive criticism. My partner,Kyung, she's an amazing partner. She makes me the artist and the writer that I am today. And then I hired an amazing art editor, Eliana Falco. She's amazing. Like she will send me like notes and then she'll follow up with an apology. Oh, I'm so sorry. It was like too hard. Do what I need, you know, and it showed to follow up with a message saying, okay, I'm glad you're not upset because you know, I'm really invested in this book and I think we all want a really good book.
[00:38:17] Right. So I think it'd be a self publishing. You have to be open to collaborate work. And I think before you even self-publish, you have to realize, what are you capable of in terms of your resources? What can you afford? What outlets are there out there? I'm very traditional. I literally go to an offset printer. That means I literally get my files printed to make these physical books. This is not print on the man. The quality of these books are the same quality that you will find by any major publisher, the binding, the paper quality to the paper, weight. My books are like easily, like about a quarter of an inch thick, you know?
[00:38:53] So it's very, very important to have a kind of a holistic worldview sense of what, what what self-publishing means. Right? And once you figure out what your resources are, then one of those things, depending on if you're publishing a novel or graphic novel. Production value is so, so important. If you could put all this time and effort into an incredible story, if you were just a Nat that Or production like a graphic novel is, and then it can just completely fall flat. If one of these elements aren't up to par. If your artwork is beautiful, but your color is isn't that great. If your art and your colors are all beautiful, but your lettering is as it's half done. If everything visually is on point, the lettering, everything is on point, but the printing full short, the paper quality is poor thing is smudged.
[00:39:47] My goodness. You know, it's, there's so many elements to it. So self-publishing is to an extent involves production experience. It isn't just writing. When you went to enter into the space of self-publishing, you have to embrace the you're entering into the space of production and you have to be a production manager and you have to hold your work to a very high standard and the collective, the collaborators that are part of that. Also have to respect and also have to reflect that high standard. That's how we do. Now. I remember when I debuted our book and Jaguar to Comic-Con in, in December of 20 16, 1 of the young people that volunteered at the event came up to me and he was holding the book in in his hand. And he goes, I don't want to seem like I'm being disrespectful, but when I'm holding and I'm looking at your book, it felt like, and it, it felt like literally physically felt like I was holding and looking at a Marvel comic book. And I was like, yeah, that's not disrespectful.
[00:40:48] We should hold ourselves to that. We shouldn't think independently. Self-published be like, oh man, that's the paper's going to be caught. Horrible. The artwork is gonna be terrible. The graphics are going to be whack. No, we should hold ourselves to that. And, and also that they, you know, these publishers don't have the keys to the.
[00:41:08] We have our own keys to our own kingdom. We can produce our own stories. We can produce and package our own products. We have the potential of doing that. You know, the toy company that we're going to be collaborating with to produce original products next year, it's a completely new, original and independent toy company, not a part of an already established corporation, but when you see the packaging and and the production value in these action figures, you're going to think like, wait, is this is this Mattel. And it's the same level of production value that we put in our books. So when you, and when you're in that space of self publishing and have to embrace the holistic approach to the project, and it's not just a story, it's the production.
[00:41:56] Azhelle Wade: Thank you. That was great. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much Edgardo for coming on the show today. This was just so much more than I was expecting. I really appreciate you taking all the time.
[00:42:09] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. And I really appreciate you giving me the platform to talk to, to your audience. And hopefully, you know, something magical can come from these conversations. And I encourage everybody to follow me on social media and then sign up to our mailing list to kind of keep aware of all of our work. But most importantly, I encourage everyone to buy a book.
[00:42:30] Azhelle Wade: Where can they buy your books on Amazon? And?
[00:42:33] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: And then our website la-boriquena.com. That's the best way our entire life books are there. And also all of our merchandise, hats, pins stickers, all of our, all the cool stuff.
[00:42:43] Azhelle Wade: And your Instagram handle?
[00:42:45] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Is @mredgardonyc for my personal, and then also @laborinqueñacomics for the comic book company.
[00:42:52] Azhelle Wade: Perfect. I'll make sure everybody follows, likes and purchases your book. Thank you so much.
[00:42:57] Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez: Thank you. Thank you so much.
[00:42:59] Azhelle Wade: Well there, you have it toy people. That is my complete interview with Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, creator of La Borinqueña. Now what I want you to take away from this part too? Don't be afraid to think outside of the box when licensing your IP. What I love is that Choco Bar Cortez is an incredible partner that at is super proud to have worked with that he included comic strips inside the chocolate bars. I mean, did anyone else get reminded of Willy Wonka during that part of the conversation? Because I sure did. Now, look, you don't always have to stick to toys and apparel with your IP. If no one is biting check out the small companies that might have a social connection to the value system, the core values of your IP character. Try to reach out to other areas outside of the toy industry. And I say this often when I give career advice to up and coming toy people, I say you don't have to start in the toy industry. You can always start in an adjacent industry. So Edgardo had La Borinqueña licensed, and a comic strip inside of chocolate bars. And now today he told us he's working on a toy line, so you don't have to start your IP with toys. You can grow your validation and your notoriety outside and around this industry, and then find your way in.
[00:44:35] Another thing I want you to take away from this episode is an understanding that there are tons of different types of contracts and stipulations that you can request when you are doing a work for hire agreement or something else. . So you will never know what you will be able to get unless you ask for it. And I've got, tell you toy people. If someone is offering you an opportunity, I want to work with you, you should make sure that you're happy with the term so you to want to work with them and you don't resent the relationship. So don't be afraid to ask for what you want.
[00:45:15] Now listen, Edgardo got DC comments to do a work for hire situation, essentially for him while as a fundraising effort Edgardo was able to write a story that he could retain the rights to and utilize comic book artists that worked on DC comics. Now, if he can create an opportunity that allows him to own the art and stories he created using characters as iconic as Superman and wonder woman, then you, my friend should feel encouraged to try and collaborate with anyone or any company that you really feel passionate about working with and you see your IP a lot. Okay. To a people. There was a ton of incredible lessons in today's episode, as well as the part, one episode that released on Wednesday. So I want you to do me a favor. I want you to head over to Instagram and follow La Borinqueña. If you want the links, if you're not sure how to spell it, just head over to thetoycoach.com/93 or thetoycoach.com/94.
[00:46:33] And I will link you to La Borinqueña Comics in the show notes and to Edgardo's Instagram as well, both incredible accounts to follow. And tow people I want to leave you with this I know we have been highlighting, incredible Hispanic voices these past couple of weeks, and we will continue to do so next week, but I want you to remember to pay attention to these voices all year round. It's not about one month, but what's beneficial about this one month is that hashtags allow episodes like this to gain visibility, which is fantastic. And that's why we do what we do. That's why we post, Hispanic stories during this time. But it's important that we keep in our minds that it's not just this month, that we need to be paying attention to these incredible stories. And I would love it if you would regularly expose yourself to works like this. Okay toy people that is all I have for you today. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it means the world to me that you tune into this one until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
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