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Cheyenne Ewulu delivers the queer, Blerd content we crave with 'The Comic Shop!'

"I would not forget my people! Stephanie is queer as hell!”

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The Clubhouse
November 18, 2024

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Welcome back to The Clubhouse!

We first heard from Cheyenne Ewulu when TMS’ Teresa Jusino interviewed her in 2023 about her burgeoning series, The Comic Shop. At the time, she was shopping this Black and queer female-led workplace comedy series around Hollywood. Now, she’s producing it independently, and we’ve got a chat with her below, because we need stories like this now more than ever!

And remember that we’d love to hear from you. Tell us your ideas for future issues of The Clubhouse, or anything else that’s on your mind re: pop culture/media. Just reply to this email!

Cheyenne Ewulu as Stephanie in ‘The Comic Shop.’ (courtesy of Ewulu)

Cheyenne Ewulu delivers the queer, Blerd content we crave with The Comic Shop!

by Teresa Jusino

I was compelled to interview Cheyenne Ewulu, last year when she dropped an awesome, 11-minute proof of concept for a workplace comedy series called The Comic Shop. It was not only relatably geeky, but it centered Black characters and a Black, lesbian protagonist in a way that felt fresh and fun.

Now, Ewulu is no longer waiting for big studios. She’s making it herself, and she recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a full season of six 15-20-minute episodes. She’s teaming up with production company, DYNMC to produce the show independently.

I chatted with Ewulu to see what the past year’s been like for her, as well as what remains of the project we were introduced to last year, and what’s changed.

“The Comic Shop is a mockumentary sitcom about a crew of four friends struggling to run a comic book store in Los Angeles,” Ewulu explains. “They’re going through the trials and tribulations of running a small business. There’s a lot of comic books stores closing around Los Angeles, and they’re one of the few that’s still [standing]. They’re figuring out how they can keep the lights on.”

But more important is the focus on the relationships between the show’s central four. “It’s a friendship show,” she stresses. “So, [it’s about] figuring out how to work together—even though three out of four of them had a relationship prior to opening the store, they all have very different personalities. So, how do we get [them] to work together and see eye to eye, when they often don’t.”

Zeno Robinson, Shanae Cole, and Cheyenne Ewulu in ‘The Comic Shop.’ (courtesy of Ewulu)

Back when Ewulu first shared The Comic Shop with the world, the idea wasn’t fully fleshed out. “I knew I wanted to write something funny about friends in a comic book store,” she said. “But I didn’t flesh out the world yet.”

She’s since expanded the story into a full season. The original Comic Shop had a core threesome, but Ewulu saw the need for a fourth to balance stuff out.

“We added Connor,” Ewulu says. “Connor’s kind of the Token White. You know how they always have to have a Token Black character? We have a Token White character. Why not?” she laughs.

I asked Ewulu about her experience when she was originally shopping the show around. She focuses on the positive at first.

“I’ve been fortunate to have my work seen by different people who have the power to make things happen,” she says. “And I’m always gonna be grateful for that, because I never thought that I’d be out here trying to put my work in front of different execs.”

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Cheyenne Ewulu, Zeno Robinson, and Shanae Cole in ‘The Comic Shop.’ (courtesy of Ewulu)

“Unfortunately, when it got to where it needed to go, there was a lot of turning down the idea,” Ewulu continues. “Someone said it was ‘low-concept,’ whatever that means. Another studio said that they ‘don’t feel like a workplace comedy would sell.’ Which to me is insane, because right now we’re—God bless Quinta B. [Quinta Brunson, creator/star of Abbott Elementary], because she returned the mockumentary workplace comedy to television—so, we’re in a workplace comedy renaissance. It all sounded like ‘Well, we see a lot of Black faces on this show, and we don’t think that people are gonna get the concept.’ To me, that’s just what it felt like they were saying.”

Ewulu admits that she’s green when it comes to the television industry and allows that perhaps the material, the way it was at the time, wasn’t yet ready. “I could be wrong,” she says. “I didn’t ask for more clarification. But, to me, it’s like, ‘low-concept?’ Well, there’s so many other shows out with similar backgrounds, and those are successful. But when it comes to this show, where we’re kind of unique, where we’re showing Black folks in a different light, and we’re not being pigeonholed into what the industry views us as…? All of a sudden it’s like ‘This is weird. We don’t get it. We’re gonna send you on your way.’”

Despite the underwhelming response from studios, the response from the general public has been nothing but effusive in Ewulu’s experience.

“The internet can be a scary place,” Ewulu says. “And the nerd space can be a scary place. And then […] we’re Black faces on the screen so, you know, the “anti-woke era” is among us. So I was very nervous about how it would be received, but I had a very positive reception. To this day! It’s been a year since I posted that trailer, and if there are any negative comments, I haven’t seen any.”

Something else that matters to me personally about The Comic Shop, in addition to the comic book geekery and the centering of Black and brown faces, is the centering of a queer female protagonist. So, I asked Ewulu what the queerness level of the show is, and she laughed.

Phone calls from Mom can be scary! (courtesy of Ewulu)

“I’m so glad you asked, and how dare I leave that out!” Ewulu enthused. “Stephanie is a lesbian, so she’s all kinds of disappointments for her parents. She’s not only running her own business that’s not in the STEM field, or not in the law or medical field, she’s opening a comic book store and she’s queer. So that brings a lot of mommy issues throughout the show. She always feels like she’s always on a journey to impress her parents and satisfy them, but her opening the comic book store was her way of finally choosing herself.”

Stephanie’s queerness and love life comes up as early as the pilot. “In the pilot episode,” Ewulu explains. “We introduce someone who has a history with Stephanie, which is really, really fun. So yeah, we get a lot of queerness from Stephanie, trust me. I would not forget my people! Stephanie’s queer as hell!”

I asked Ewulu to tell me what she wants to leave our readers with about The Comic Shop. She says:

Promo image for ‘The Comic Shop.’ (courtesy of Ewulu)

“At its core, this show celebrates geekdom. It’s also a love letter to the Blerd community. People that look like us, we enjoy nerd sh*t too! We like nerding out, too. It’s not a secret. We have Megan Thee Stallion who’s a proud anime fan. We have her cosplaying on issues of fashion magazines! It’s not niche anymore, and I think we should stop trying to pretend that it is, because there are people out there who don’t seem to get it.”

Check out the Kickstarter campaign for The Comic Shop. Back it if you can, but whether you can support financially or not, share the link (or this interview!) with anyone who’d love to see The Comic Shop thrive!

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