So what do you do after creating and then closing down a successful business that bought and sold hard-to-find, often obsolete but still useable nuclear power plant parts and materials on behalf of FirstEnergy and others?
How about building a comic book/media and marketing business that now boasts a stable of 130 characters (many of them megapowered), employs 11 freelance artists from Northeast Ohio, and has done work for other organizations including The LeBron James Family Foundation.
Meet Twinsburg resident Keith Harris, owner and publisher of FutureGen Comics.
Harris, who is 55, is a lifelong comic book fan and collector with a background in sales who worked for years in corporate jobs.
His journey to creating a comic book business includes the founding of another company, Kero International, in the 2000s. The name is a combination of his name and his wife, Robin. Kero’s business model, which Harris called “obsolescence management,” involved supplying cable and hard-to-find materials and products for utilities, including FirstEnergy.
“We worked in the nuclear power space,” Harris said. Kero ran its course and he wound it down in 2014. And then Harris said he found himself bored after playing golf for a month.
As he looked for something else to do, Harris and his wife were in their backyard and overheard one of the children living next door complaining her brothers wouldn’t let her read their comic books.
“My wife said, we’ll write you a little comic book,” Harris said. They did – just the story – and then the girl’s brothers came to them wanting their own comic book stories.
“My wife said, do something with comic books,” Harris said.
So Harris worked out a business plan and in 2016 came up with the name, FutureGen. As he networked at large comic book fan conventions called Comic Cons, he saw opportunities to put together a creative team.
One of the first super-powered characters FutureGen developed is called Big Bruh, Harris’s family nickname. Harris came up with the character’s backstory of Cleveland biochemist Tyreese Washington, who is exposed to a dark matter explosion in a laboratory. The resulting energy wave altered Washington, enabling him to turn into the superpowered Big Bruh.
“He can do anything he thinks he can do,” Harris said of Big Bruh.
The dark matter explosion is a major story arc in FutureGen, with the black matter energy wave altering many other people, including a child character who develops the same powers as Big Bruh, Harris said.
“They all have subtle connections to each other,” Harris said.
Harris pays freelance artists in the area to work for FutureGen, with many of them coming to him via networking. Most of the artists, like Harris, are Black. He has local writers, too, plus one living in South Carolina and another in Australia.
“With Kero, I learned that being unique in a space is a big asset,” he said. “So when I looked at comic books, I was like, you don’t hear about too many Black-owned comic book companies. And how many are out there really building a business of comics? So I started looking into that. There were a couple. I met with their CEOs.”
He said he learned from those conversations that they made money primarily by making comic books for other people. That also became the FutureGen business model.
While FutureGen has its own comic book characters, Harris says he does not print books. “Printing comics is extremely expensive,” he said.
Instead, FutureGen’s creations are digital. Harris said he is working on an online subscription model, continues to work on a development process, and is exploring such things as Non Fungible Token, or NFT, programs that use blockchain technology.
“Yeah, it’s wild,” he said. “I absolutely love comics, but I want to see if I can build a business with this. Every night when I’m up late with this I have no sense I’m going to work. … This is so much fun. It’s the most fun anybody’s paid me to have.”
What’s paying the FutureGen bills is the work that Harris seeks out, including developing comic books and characters for other people. The firm has a motto, “Be the hero you were meant to be” and says it can help people develop their own character into a poster, comic book or other media, either as part of the FutureGen universe or independent.
Among its work, FutureGen developed a story and graphics for The LeBron James Family Foundation depicting James and foundation members and students as superheroes. It also created a seven-issue comic book for a national sorority.
The pandemic stalled business development but things have started to improve, Harris said.
“The past six months we started taking on more projects, so yes we’re generating revenue,” he said.
If the pandemic allows, Harris is organizing an in-person FutureGen launch event Aug. 12 in Cleveland.
“We just want to introduce the organization to the community,” he said. He’s planning on 300 people attending but wants many more. The event will include FutureGen’s freelance artists showing off their work.
Among the artists is Cleveland resident Ilo Reedy Jr., 47.
Reedy said he hopes the upcoming launch party creates support and opportunities for FutureGen.
“Everything is a stepping stone,” Reedy said. He said he wants to see Black artists succeed.
“I’ve been an artist since I was 5,” Reedy said. He said when he was a child his mother wanted him to develop his own style and got mad when he traced characters instead of drawing them on his own. He has training as an artist and has worked as a machine operator.
Reedy said he has a disability, deafness, and helped a child with a disability develop a comic book. He said he and the other FutureGen artists learn from each other.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was only until recently that the entire FutureGen creative team could meet in person, he said.
“Keith is a motivator. Everybody on the team is motivated,” Reedy said. “It’s keeping us all busy. It’s keeping us on our toes. … I believe in him. They believe in me. They see something.”
Harris is hoping at least one of his FutureGen characters becomes popular and can be monetized.
“I would love it to be Big Bruh,” he said. But it doesn’t have to be that one, he said, as long as he can use the popularity to help develop the other FutureGen characters.
Harris has other ideas to promote FutureGen and to have fun.
He’s already posted videos on YouTube where he interviewed people in costume at pre-pandemic Comic Cons.
“Then COVID hit and stopped it all,” Harris said.
He plans to keep recording and posting videos and interviews when the major Comic Cons resume and open to the public.
“I have all the equipment and set up,” he said. “We’ll be all set.”
And Harris is talking with his brother about creating a live streaming series where the two drink alcoholic beverages as they discuss comic books. They are using a working name of IntoxiComics.
Jim Mackinnon covers business. He can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ.
At a glance
Business: FutureGen Comics
Owner: Keith Harris
Where: Twinsburg
Phone number: (330) 487-0440
Website: futuregencomics.com
About the series
The Beacon Journal is highlighting minority-owned businesses throughout our community. Read more of these profiles at https://bit.ly/3jb0h1e.
Have a suggestion for a business to feature? Email us at bjnews@thebeaconjournal.com.
