Dennis T. knows there are plenty of untold stories in Nashville. Some of them are his own, some of them belong to the many unhoused people he’s met while living on the streets since moving here from Clarksville. And each word unsaid contributes to an unreached understanding between the wealthy and the homeless.
Assumptions shape a person’s reality, Dennis said, and most people are conditioned to assume much about the homeless, the poor, felons, the mentally ill, and so on. But assumptions can be challenged.
“I want to subtly incorporate a message to the homeless, don’t become the stereotype people think we are, and to the ones that actually aren’t homeless, don’t succumb to believing the stereotype that they’ve been conditioned with,” he said. “People that are kind of narrow-minded and look down on people aren’t necessarily trying to be evil or hateful, they’re just under the impression that, oh, this person’s evil or this person’s dangerous; they don’t necessarily understand [that person’s] perspective.”
“Using the platform of comics strips or any kind of entertainment, you have the ability — even with fictional characters — to make [the reader] relate to the characters.”
His most recent comic from the May 25 issue of The Conbtributor features a woman who encounters a homeless man by an ATM on Lower Broadway, flees and reports him to a nearby cop — in her panic, she drops her money, which the homeless man returns.
“At no point did I try to portray anyone as the bad guy in the situation. There’s not really a long list of characters in the issue; it’s just the homeless guy, the lady and the cop,” Dennis said. “But to me it encompassed, well, not all sides, but a good three of the sides that are there … there’s a representation of the elite class, the law enforcement, and the homeless guy. Ultimately, it’s all a misunderstanding. If there’s an antagonist in that issue, it would be the ignorance of the characters and not the characters at all.”
In subverting the more privileged characters’ assumptions and giving the homeless perspective a face and voice, Dennis hopes to lay the groundwork for more complex discussions in future comics.
“I want to introduce a lot of character development … I want to make a comic strip that even if a person misses an issue or something like that, they can pick it up and say ‘this is an interesting piece of artwork, it has a cohesive storyline, it has cohesive characters.’ Everyone who picks it up will be able to get something out of it,” he said.
“Some people say, ‘oh, well it’s just a homeless paper.’ To me, it’s still serious. I have enough respect for The Contributor by itself, and enough respect for my comics by themselves, and my talent by itself, to take all three really seriously.”
It’s been Dennis’ dream to create comics ever since he was 13. Growing up in Detroit, he experienced neglect and ostracization due to his struggles with mental health. He found solace — and inspiration — reading about the exploits of Marvel’s X-Men.
X-Men comics star a class of super-powered mutant characters, both good and evil, who struggle to find a place in the world, prejudice hanging over their heads as a result of their altered appearance and abilities. Dennis finds the most compelling stories explore the space between right and wrong, trying to bridge the gap between groups in conflict.
“It’s a very gray area, as far as who’s right, who’s wrong, why people are doing what they’re doing, even when it seems like someone’s doing something very terrible,” Dennis explained. “It kind of pulled from what was going on in real life … I’ve always thought that was very inspiring, as well as very entertaining, because you have these different threads. Even though they’re fighting, they’re still connected. I noticed the same thing when I was younger as a psych patient.”
Dennis’ ambitions to recreate that spark he found in X-Men comics persist today. Outside of his work with The Contributor, he plans to publish his own comics based on the very first ones he drew in his youth.
“My original comic strip was loosely based on myself and a couple of friends, that’s a team of people that are advocates-slash-vigilantes for the mentally ill. When the system fails the mentally ill, the five of us would step in and bring some sort of justice to the situation,” he said. “I’m waiting until I have at least three full-size issues ready to sell. Then I’m going to make copies and sell them on eBay … it’s a way to, until I get established, to actually introduce people to my work.”
Though life on the streets remains difficult and myths can’t be dispelled overnight, Dennis is hopeful that his comics will help move the conversation in a positive direction.
“They don’t get it because their only exposure to the homeless world is the completely one-sided media,” he said. “I want for people to not only relate to their type of character, but maybe the other characters in a different way, too.”