-- who fought and are still fighting to clean up the environment -- and how I never see or hear stories about the mixed race- culture-professions-religions-class who come together-- Except now in superhero stories and my hats off to the genre. So I wanted to make my own version of superheroes.
I chose Mercury Poisoning because I realized I knew more about it than most of the shoppers in the grocery store fish counters near me -- as they were trying to choose salmon or tuna. I live in a neighborhood where people get to pick their poisons -- but most people don't. So I picked main characters who came up in circumstances that could have gone either way in terms of health.
I created an epileptic Black Ballerina and a Whistleblower Powwow journalist whose union defies all stereotypes and whose lives were not easy because of their key characteristics. To keep it interesting I made the young woman, Sicily, a bit ditsy. Though just coming into her own in science and romance she was born a poster girl for the Declaration of Human Rights. Forest is brilliant, spiritual, multilingual -- but emotionally stunted by oppression and racism-- which he never shows except in the safety of his relationship with Sicily. A lot of Chasing Mercury shows how the two main characters family backgrounds make them perfect for one another-- after a few tweaks.