Arion Rashad is not your typical kid. The 7th grader has created his very own comic book.
“I stop for a minute sometimes,” Rashad said, “and I’m like, ‘Am I really doing this?’”
He is, and his comic, inspired by characters from Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo Wii, is called Mii Toons. Rashad draws all the art and writes all the stories, all by himself.
WATCH ARION RASHAD’S STORY HERE:
[NBCVIDEO source=”UNIWIDGET” video=”http://widgets.nbcuni.com/singleclip/singleclip_v1.swf?CXNID=1000004.08052NXC&WID=4a784acd2b1a7e80&clipID=1312373&wName=The Grio Video Widget” w=”400″ h=”400″]
“You get that, ‘Really? No…he did this? You had to help him,’” said Dominique Rashad, Arion’s dad. “And I’m like no, I really didn’t, I actually kind of got out of his way.”
At Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida the premier comic book store in the Southeast, you’ll find Mii Toons on display. The owner thought so highly of Arion’s work, he bought six copies and he’s already sold three.
“To think it’s actually in a book store with other comic books,” Dominique said, “What an amazing feeling for him.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone 12-years-old doing a comic,” said Nakia Mann, a sales associate at Tate’s. “For someone that young to be putting a book out that’s that good, it’s never been done.”
Mii Toons is written for a young audience, but the comic book experts at Tate’s were raving about Arion’s maturity as an artist.
“There’s a lot of character development in it and a lot of subplots that he’s got building up,” Mann said. “At the end of issue #106 there’s a cliffhanger and I’m waiting on him to bring the next two books in so I know what happens next.”
All the colorful cartoonish characters in Mii Toons are based on real people in Arion’s life, including himself.
“I’ll even put my enemies, like my bullies in there.” said Arion. “I can’t just be fighting nothing.”
A fitting theme for a 12-year-old who turned his own fantasy of making comic books, into a reality.