Who is Marcus H. Roberts of Second Sight Publishing?

Marcus H. Roberts is a freelance writer, comic book creator, contributor to World of Black Heroes (a website “dedicated to Black superhero News, Reviews, Previews, Sales figures, Interviews, Galleries and the people who bring them to us), and the COO of Second Sight Publishing, an independent horror publisher that may sound familiar to you if you read our last artist profile (hint: it covers the Bradley Golden, CEO of Second Sight Publishing, and serves as a companion piece to this one). Roberts is also the collection editor for Caliber Entertainment’s horror anthologies Mississippi Zombie and Harvest of Horrors, and Second Sight’s upcoming horror anthology SHOOK! A Black Horror Comic Anthology. 

If there’s one thing that jumps out across Roberts’ career, it is a passion for comics, particularly those created by Black creators and featuring Black characters. SHOOK!, for example, was ideated by himself, Golden, and John Jennings (of John Jennings Studios) with the desire to put together a “Dream Team” of the best Black horror writers in the comic book industry today. They were “trying to create something that would stand out,” Roberts explains. It was a dream that clearly resonated with their audiences; the Kickstarter for the project has fully funded with more than $52K in pledges. Launching in February 2024, SHOOK! will be “a mix of different horror styles unlike anything ever published before,” according to Roberts.

Roberts’ love of comics dates back long before he started a career in them to his days as a boy pouring over uncoated paper and flashy panels instead of multiplication tables. He has been reading and collecting comics all his life. In an interview with Eff Yeah Podcast, Roberts explains, “I was a stereotypical “sneak comics in the classroom and get them taken by the teacher” kid; you open up your notebook and the comic’s in the middle but you’re supposed to be reading something. That was me. I was to the point where I would try to sneak back into school to take my comic books out of my desk. I was that serious.”

This seriousness for the pulpy trade didn’t come out of nowhere. Roberts is a self-described generational comic reader. His older brother read comics. His father read comics. He almost didn’t have a choice but to pick up an issue or two… or two hundred. Reading comics as part of a familial legacy started Roberts down the road towards becoming a part of the comic creation scene. While Roberts initially got into the genre through old war comics, he quickly changed track when he discovered the Weird War Tales stories from DC comics. The blend of war and horror intrigued him, leading him down the path towards House of Mystery, and Marvel trades like Crypt of Shadows, Supernatural Thrillers, and Vault of Evil. To this day, he is still an avid comic reader; on his nightstand now is Rodney Barnes’ horror title trio Killadelphia, Nita Hawes Nightmare Blog, and Blacula. “The wide range of storytelling [in comics] always grabs me,” Roberts explains. 

As he shifted from reader to writer and editor, Roberts brought with him a vast store of knowledge lovingly collected over the years: “As a collection editor, I have put together four top 100 horror anthologies (Mississippi Zombie volumes 2 and 3 and Harvest of Horrors volumes 1 and 2) and am an editor on a few of our other top-selling horror titles at Second Sight Publishing. My decades-long love affair with not just horror but specifically horror comics has helped me out tremendously in my editorial role.”

Slight sidebar, but speaking of Roberts’ role as a comic creator, in an interview with First Comics News, he delivers one of the most relatable responses to the question about what kind of artist he is. As someone who regularly collaborates with talented artists making things I can only dream of, I feel this hard:

“Interviewer: Are you a writer, an artist or both?

Roberts: I am a writer with serious artist envy.”

In his career, Roberts has specifically focused on independent comics, relishing the greater amount of artistic freedom and creativity they garner. In an interview with Fangoria, Roberts explains that he originally started more behind the scenes, “trying to help people get established.” Then Golden invited him to actually write on Zombie, one of the titles published by Second Sight, and they’ve worked together ever since. Roberts continues, “[T]he independents have always been about that. Even from the underground comics movement back in the day, they were rebelling against the Comics Code Authority. ‘Cause we’re gonna tell our stories the way we want to tell them, without somebody standing over our shoulder frowning.”

Roberts clearly expresses an interest in exploring the potential of stories, both as a collection editor and a creator. His own prints are all drastically different in story, tone, and even art style. Hell to Pay is an adaptation of a radio play that sees scientists traveling back in time to prevent a crime committed during the Civil Rights era; The Protector is a superhero-esque Afrocentric story about a warrior trying to correct his wrongs and become the protector of his tribe; Hedge Hollow is adapted from a children’s book written by Sonica Ellis and tells the story of two sisters discovering a mysterious, fantastical world. As Roberts explained in the First Comics News interview, “I like doing short comic stories. I like the pacing of the stories. With an anthology, you get a contained story that, if done right, gives you the same reading satisfaction as if it were an entire book.” As someone who loves horror anthologies for exactly these reasons, I can’t help but agree.

“[As] far as art styles are concerned […] anthologies are a tasting of this and that. It’s [putting] a little bit of everything on your plate. To make a big plate, you give the artists, and the writers, the freedom to do what they do best. “Give me your story and let me, as the collection editor, worry about putting the stories together in a cohesive manner.””

Marcus Roberts, “SHOOK! A BLACK HORROR ANTHOLOGY Creators On Basement Origins And ’70s Influences”

What scares Marcus Roberts of Second Sight Publishing?

“I am a sucker for a good ole creature feature. I like the visual scare creatures give you… Creatures don’t generally get a good or bad designation. There’s only one “friendly” ghost that I know of! Their intent is always to maim, kill, and destroy.”

People tend to display two types of fear: fear of the things they know they are afraid of and fears they haven’t even realized are there. Horror creators imbue their art with their fear. Much of it, of course, is deliberate (that’s kind of the point), but taking a close look at a person’s body of work starts to surface the more unconscious terrors. You start to see trends that say something about what kinds of things scare them. The unconscious fears that you uncover like a pioneer panning for gold are often unacknowledged because they were developed during a formative time.

In a strange turn of events, Roberts has the opposite, his childhood experiences ridding him of one of the most primal human fears: fear of places marked by death. Roberts explains, “In the neighborhood in which I grew up, there were two funeral homes. Two churches, and two graveyards. I learned as a kid that there is nothing to be scared of in the graveyard because everyone there is dead!” Instead of going existential with his terror, he grounds it in reality. He continues, “The thought of slashers and serial killers may be disturbing, but having the background that I do (my family is very religious) you learn about the potential for depravity in man.”

“Loosely translated The Proverb states, “Be careful of the evil you bring with you. There may be something greater that resides there, and it may want penance.”

Marcus Roberts, The Protector

Roberts’ body of work is varied. As he explains, “I am not bound to one particular style or type. I like delving into not only the things that go bump in the night but also maniacal killers, evil cults, and psychological scares.” But at the same time, looking at his publications side-by-side, certain themes start to emerge: justice, duty, legacy. Instead of a traditional fear of death, we see a fear of suffering. A classic comic lover to the core, Roberts’ work explores the perpetual conflict of comics: good versus evil. “The thought of no retribution or justice is something that scares me,” he concludes, “The classic good vs evil, but with evil winning ALL the time and good never able to have any payback or retaliation” 

“Horror, or more rather fear of the unknown, has been used over time to teach lessons on morality, virtue, obedience, the consequences of greed, lust, and jealousy and most importantly, to scare the daylights out of you! It is that area of creativity that is highly imaginative and the best stories have so much realism in them until you can’t help but believe.”