Last summer, Shawnna Graham fired up Netflix in her Williamsburg, Va., home and looked for her grandfather’s name in the closing credits of “Marvel’s Luke Cage.” It was nowhere to be found.



It was a surprise. After all, the Harlem-based comic book artist Billy Graham had worked on the first 17 issues of “Luke Cage, Hero for Hire,” and even had a hand in writing a few of them. He’d been the only African-American person working on what was the first African-American superhero comic book series.

In fact, he was the only African-American person working for Marvel, period.

“I thought, maybe this was missed only because he had passed, and no one was thinking of his contribution,” Ms. Graham said. When she began seeing ads for the film adaptation of Black Panther, the character her grandfather drew after finishing work on Luke Cage, she prevailed upon her father, Mardine, to pull out what they called “the Treasure Chest.” It consisted of a steamer trunk, a portfolio, a briefcase and boxes of artwork that they had retrieved from her grandfather’s 143rd Street apartment after he died in 1997. She started taking pictures, and opening social media accounts “to bring Billy’s name and legacy from the shadows.”