OUR STORY

Historically, most black comic characters were portrayed as bad stereotypes and none reflected a West Indian background. The Blac Ice comic was one of the first comics that featured positive black male role models of Canadian West Indian descent.

Originally the Blac Ice comic concept was used as a marketing tool for the graphic business to showcase their talents; for the development of original concepts, character development, and following a creative process from concept to final product. In 2001, they published the first Blac Ice comic book.

Due to the uniqueness of a black superhero comic designed by a local family, Blac Ice received local and national media attention, with appearances on YTV’s The Zone, CTV Toronto News, and many news articles.

Struggling to make ends meet, the brothers were working part-time jobs. Justin had the idea to host art classes at Brampton libraries. This evolved into learning to draw comic art workshops at schools in Toronto.    

Students at the art classes loved the Blac Ice comic book and asked how they could make their own comic book. Out of this was born our "learn to draw" comic art books.   

In 2007, Freeze DNA formed a partnership with TD Bank Group and launched the “Freeze Kids Comic Book Art Tours”. The Tours took Anthony and his family to schools across Canada and the United States, teaching thousands of kids the fundamentals of drawing comic art. The goal of the art tours was to encourage children and youth to inspire them to read, create their own characters, and write their own stories.   

In 2008, they extended this project with TD Canada and created the learn to draw comic book titled Sketching History. This book featured historic Afro-Canadian and African-Americans. To accompany the book, a cross Canada workshop tour for Sketching History was launched. These workshops were created to help bridge the gap between art and literacy while providing insight into the underrepresented figures of Afro-Canadian and African-American history. This was a huge success and a total of eight Sketching History learn to draw comic books have been published.   

Based on the amazing work, in 2010 the Freeze DNA team was awarded the Excellence in Community Impact Award from the Toronto Business Development Centre.   

To date, Freeze DNA has engaged with thousands of students at schools, libraries, and community events across Canada and the United States. Freeze DNA has published over twenty learn to comic art books.