BY JESSICA PARKS
Latte-loving Brooklynites
looking for local caffeine will
soon have more options, as the
Brooklyn Roasting Company
is back after facing hard times
amid the pandemic and are
better than ever, said the head
black bean brewer.
“We are thrilled to have survived,”
said Jim Munson, chief
executive offi cer of Brooklyn
Roasting Company. “At this
point, we are on the other side
of that and while it was diffi -
cult, it gave us a chance to really
think hard about what we
wanted to do going forward.”
The company faced hard
times during the pandemic
and fi led for bankruptcy in October
2020 while closing down
two of its cafes, saying they’d
be focusing on the wholesale
side of their business. Though
a rep for the company said
a judge later dismissed the
bankruptcy in court.
Now, though, the borough’s
namesake coffee maker will
expand their retail locations
and launch a new brand in
concert with The Breakfast
Club’s Angela Yee.
Munson’s company teamed
up with Yee when the nationally
syndicated radio host approached
COMICS
COURIER L 24 IFE, JULY 30-AUG. 5, 2021
the company last
summer to develop a small line
of coffee under a new brand
coined “Coffee Uplifts People”
to help get out the vote.
The collaboration — which,
in addition to Yee, included
her partners Tony Forte and
Laron Batchelor — led to hundreds
of coffee sales. Following
that, Brooklyn Roasting
Company decided to take the
partnership a step further,
helping the trio form their
own coffee business designed
to help introduce more minority
and women-owned companies
to the white monopoly of
the coffee retail world, Munson
told Brooklyn Paper.
“They have been really great
partners and historically coffee
has been dominated by white
people on the retail side and we
are looking to help,” Munson
said. “A part of our mission is
to represent the character and
characters that make up Brooklyn
and we are excited to extend
specialty coffee to underserved
neighborhoods and underserved
populations.”
The fi rst “CUP” cafe opening
at the intersection of Bedford
and Gates avenues in
Bedford-Stuyvesant at the end
of August will kick off a wave
of new openings for the coffee
company over the next year.
The roasters will be opening
another location later this
year in One Clinton, a swanky
new high-rise in Brooklyn
Heights that will house a stateof
the-art library branch on its
ground fl oor, and will be joined
by a cafe curated by the borough’s
staple food-festival organizers
Smorgasburg, according
to One Clinton’s website.
“That will be our fi rst store
that we have opened in several
years,” Munson told Brooklyn
Paper. “That alone is huge
news for us that we are growing
our retail again.”
They are on the search to
open two more locations, one
in Brooklyn and another in
Manhattan that Munson said
he expects to open by the beginning
of next year.
To keep up with their
stream of success, Munson
said the company has made a
few key hires in their wholesale
division and found someone
to lead the business in
further retail expansion —
which will kickstart more hiring
down the road as they will
have to staff new locations.
The company is also looking
forward to continuing on the
upswing — this time with lessons
learned from the pandemic
and with the bonds formed from
working together through those
times, Munson said.
“I feel like the company internally
works much better
than it did before,” he said.
BY REYNA IWAMOTO
Calling all comic book
fans! On July 31, readers can
attend the Access Guide Black
Comic Book Fair in Crown
Heights for a celebration of
Black comic book creators.
The event, held outside of
Anyone Comics, will commemorate
the worldwide release of
“The Access Guide to the Black
Comic Book Community” and
celebrate local artists and writers,
many of whom are featured
in the book.
“The Access Guide to the
Black Comic Book Community,”
by Dimitrios Fragiskatos,
George Carmona and
Joseph Illidge, is “a new sourcebook
to provide answers for
comic book fans, old and new.”
The guide, a directory of
Black comic book creators and
their stories, helps new and
veteran comic book fans fi nd
publishers, stores and conventions,
welcoming all into the
comic book community.
Fragiskatos, owner of Anyone
Comics and co-editor of
the access guide, wanted the
event to be an opportunity for
the comic book community to
come together and put a face
to the people who have drawn
comics that have been around
for a long time.
“The whole point of Anyone
Comics, the Access Guide
Black Comic Book Fair and
the access guide is to get people
comfortable with reading
comics,” he said. “For a lot
of people that comfort might
come from seeing someone
that closely resembles them
or their experiences, which
is something people may not
have had in comic books prior
to recently or at all, so I want to
make sure the focus is on the
creators and their content.”
While Fragiskatos hopes
the fair will gain more comic
book readership, he also wants
people to see that “there are
books out there that are more
original and more representative
of their experiences.”
“All these ideas in movies
and TV shows — they have been
in comic books for a long time,”
Fragiskatos said. “Two years
ago we had Miles Morales enter
the Spider-Verse but that’s
a story that has been around
for 20 years. People were also
excited for Black Panther and
that story has been around for
even longer, so imagine what
stories people will be excited
for 30 years from now.”
“This is all about representation
in a print medium,”
added Jamal Igle, award-winning
artist and creator of
Molly Danger, and one of the
featured artists in the guide.
“People don’t always know
who the creators are ... and it’s
good for the community to see
there are people of color working
on these projects.”
Igle, who’s penned comic
books for close to 30 years, is
grateful to be part of this event
and to see the increase in visibility
for diverse creators —
something he says he didn’t
see while growing up.
“At the time, I wasn’t sure
there was a place for me in the
industry,” he said. “I felt like I
was forcing my way into something
I shouldn’t have been.”
With the release of this access
guide and the comic book
fair, Igle hopes to continue the
progress in increasing diversity
in the industry.
“This increase in visibility
not just for BIPOC creators but
for LGBTQ and women creators
has been monumental,”
Igle said. “There is still a ton
of work that has to be done but
we’re getting there slowly.”
Many of the creators to be
featured in the fair are creating
their own independent
comics and Fragiskatos is
looking forward to “putting
a lens on the diversity in the
types of stories out there” and
bringing the comic book community
together once again.
“I’m looking forward to
meeting people,” Igle said.
In keeping with the purpose
of the book, proceeds will
go toward helping establish the
Dwayne McDuffi e Foundation,
a non-profi t meant to maintain
his legacy of diversifying the
comic book universe.
The fi x is in!
Brooklyn Roasting Company to
expand aft er fi nancial troubles
The faces behind the pages
Diverse creators to be celebrated at comic book fair
“Access Guide Black Comic
Book Fair” at Anyone Comics
1216 Union St. between
Rogers and New York avenues
in Crown Heights, (347) 350-
8422, www.anyonecomics.
com. July 31 from 12-5pm.
Free.
BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Roasting Company is expanding into new locations. Pictured
here, their location at 200 Flushing Ave. in Clinton Hill. BRC
The cover of “The Access Guide to
the Black Comic Book Community,”
a new directory of Black comic
book creators and their stories.
Anyone Comics
/www.anyonecomics
/www.anyonecomics
