So in a radio interview, you said The Boondocks isn't a good show in comparison to the comic books. And I know that the strip was the reason why you began your dissertation in the first place. I'm a huge fan of both, so you gotta explain this one to me.

Most definitely. I mean it was political, and the comic version came out every week and talked about things that were happening in the government. They had comics about anthrax, and strips about the school system, and strips about George Bush. So for me, like you said, The Boondocks actually made me do research on black history, because you can't understand a lot of the jokes in the comic strip if you don't know your history. If you don't know who Edgar Hoover is, you don't know why the Boondocks strip features the school called Edgar Hoover Elementary; you wouldn't know why that's funny. Just his name Huey Freeman, if you don't know the backstory of Huey P. Newton, you don't understand why that's important. That's why I still to this day look for the strips that are witty like that and connect black history in politics. You didn't get much of that in the show, and it seemed mostly sexist and homophobic in some of its messages.