San Francisco, California, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) April 26, 2013 -- It was the summer of 1991 when artist and creator Roger Bates ( age 25 ) published issue # 1 called The Beginning.The Black Savior character is a trial lawyer by day and a hero at night, who rides a motorcycle and with his martial arts, fights crime in the city of Oakland,Ca. In January of 1992 Roger and his childhood friend and godbrother Cedric Shabazz ( age 25 ) formed Bates and Shabazz Publishing which grew in to Oakland Comics Entertainment in 1994. At this time Cedric was starting his 4th business in the entertainment industry since the age of eighteen and already had been a promoter, manager and publisher.
As Cedric now the distributor and P.R man, they started marketing to local retailers, record stores, and barbershops through out the greater Bay Area. Spokesman - Cedric Shabazz says " We started putting books on consignment in the African American communities first, because The Black Savior is African American and we felt that our kids did not have a superhero that looked like them". The plan was to send press releases to the local media hoping to land some publicity and on April -18th -1992, Roger Bates and Cedric Shabazz made headline and the front page in The Fremont Argus newspaper ( archive ).
Spokesman - Cedric Shabazz says " That was the beginning of a media affair that lasted five years straight of newspaper articles and local talk shows such as The Susan Sikora Show twice. The Bay Area always showed us love and support and we loved getting booked by schools to talked to the kids and being role models especially our African American kids". After issue #3 was released things started to get political and controversy erupted and stores start pulling The Black Savior off the shelves because our cover showed three cops beating The Black Savior ( Rodney King ). The news traveled fast and furious with The San Jose Mercury releasing an less than flattering article in the fall of 1992 ( archive ).
That was the beginning of the end for The Black Savior, which now was considered to controversial and was just the beginning. Spokesman - Cedric Shabazz says " In September of 1992 Roger and I gave Rapper - Ice-T a Black Savior comic book at the Omni night club in Oakland were he was to perform with his band Body Count. We told him we wanted to do a Ice-T comic book with him and he said right now he may have a deal going on with Warner Bro"s and D.C Comics but if anything changes he would contact us."
In January 1993 Rapper-Ice-T- released his new album " Home Invasion " and on the cover a black leotard figure with a hand gun was coming through the door . Spokesman - Cedric Shabazz says " That character was The Black Savior and it was stolen from us, so we hired San Francisco Entertainment lawyer Peter Frank to possibly sue Ice-T for copyright infringement which made news and a article was published in The Fremont Argus in August 1993 (archive)". Bates and Shabazz had big plans including apparel, animation , action figures, and a movie but by the beginning of 1994 with four issues published they were emotionally and financially drained from legally fighting Ice-T, so they released a Ice-T payback issue # 5 called The Gunrunner. The Gunrunner's cover is a spoof off Ice-T '" Home Invasion " album cover and Ice-T is the criminal in the story who The Black Savior apprehends.
Spokesman - Cedric Shabazz says " Ice-T may had more resources then us but we gave him a run for his money, so much so in his first book " The Ice Opinion " he mentions us not by name but that he had a problem with a comic book character ".
In 1995 The Black Savior # 6 was produced but never released and Roger Bates puts The Black Savior to sleep and Cedric Shabazz whent on to form Oakland Comics Entertainment with now Juggernaut Networks owner Bruce ( AGENT 85 ) Bowers in May of 1998 Oakland Comics Entertainment went there separate ways.