.Charlie Swanson

When Brian Copeland moved from Birmingham, Ala. to San Leandro, Calif. at age 8 in the early 1970s, the town, which borders Oakland, was 99 percent white. Copeland, who's black, experienced racial profiling and affronts from his white landlords, neighbors, schoolmates and police.

I don't know why exactly, but I've always been a collector. My first memories are filled with scenes of me picking up rocks and keeping them in a box to look over later, or sifting through my parent's change to find old coins to keep (I still have a penny from 1896). Once I got into comic books at 8, I found a hobby that let my imagination soar.