Azie Tesfai is on a mission with her latest career move: graphic novel author. The “Supergirl” actress, who was the first Eritrean and Ethiopian person to portray a superhero on television, said she never saw herself in comics stories and wanted to change that for other children.
In “You’re a Superhero!,” her graphic novel out on Tuesday, Mariam, a 6-year-old Ethiopian girl, lives in a world full of heroes. Her mother teaches her about costumed crusaders like Wonder Woman and Flash. And she doesn’t leave out the everyday but sometimes invisible figures like bus drivers, grocery clerks and utility workers.
The mother-daughter relationship is based on Tesfai’s life. Her father is Eritrean, and she was raised by her mother, who is Ethiopian.
Tesfai said that when she saw the illustrated pages of her story, she cried. “To see this little girl who is from this culture and is so confident — and just grows in her confidence — it felt very emotional seeing that because I always wanted it,” she said.
Her book, drawn by Penelope Rivera Gaylord with Jerry Gaylord, a husband-and-wife team, and published by DC, uses photographic references from the California home of Tesfai’s mother, Mulu Gebremichael, to incorporate elements of Ethiopian life. They include a netela (a lightweight scarf), a messob (a handwoven basket) and a jebena (a type of coffeepot).
These details are woven seamlessly into the story, which was intentional. “I wanted a book that didn’t hit over the head ‘immigrant’ or ‘different’ themes,” Tesfai said. “I always love when you just normalize situations and you don’t make a thing out of it because I feel like that’s the best way to introduce people to worlds” they’re not familiar with.
Tesfai’s experience in “Supergirl” on the CW network, playing Kelly Olsen, the sister of Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, and later suiting up as Guardian, showed her how heroes can change children’s lives. In the series, Kelly meets and eventually marries Alex Danvers, Supergirl’s sister. Tesfai noticed the young actress Milla Jones, who played their daughter, went from shy to self-assured on set when she began mimicking the title character’s stances. That was the genesis for the book, she said: bringing that confidence to little girls.
Tesfai is the latest boldface name from television and film to enter the comic book industry. “The Lawrence Brothers Detective Agency,” by the siblings Joey, Matthew and Andrew Lawrence (with other writers), was published last month. And John Cusack’s “Momo,” was also released in September. Two of the biggest outside celebrities to comics are Kevin Smith, who wrote Daredevil and Green Arrow series, and Keanu Reeves, who created, with Matt Kindt, a popular story about a demigod.
Tesfai said that embracing her ethnicity was not always easy. “When I was younger, I had a weird relationship with being the child of immigrants, which I think a lot of immigrant children have,” she said. “You have a sense of pride — and then you go out into the world and you want to assimilate.”
The primary images her elementary school classmates had of Ethiopia were from infomercials about famine that showed children with distended bellies and flies hovering nearby. This made claiming her heritage especially difficult. “There was a lot of shame in how others perceived it and there’s still really not media that reflects it in an accurate way, in my opinion.”
Tesfai, who attended Comic-Con International in San Diego during her time on “Supergirl,” was at the New York Comic Con for the first time this month. She was nervous about how many people would come to her autograph session, which took place on the show’s final day — a rainy Sunday. But she still had a steady line of fans picking up advance copies of the book, taking selfies and sharing moments with her.
Tesfai had a teary embrace with a young woman who told her that her portrayal of Kelly Olsen and her story lines helped the young fan feel seen as a lesbian.
Another woman, Jenae Harrington, cosplaying as Batwoman (along with her brother Stephen Harrington as Nightcrawler), had similar feelings. She first became a fan of Azie from “Supergirl,” she said in an interview after the convention. “I was so excited to learn that a Black woman was joining the cast and playing a queer character.”
The book struck a chord with her. “The messaging that having differences is a good thing and that anyone can be a hero just by doing good things is so important,” she wrote.
She immediately shared the book with her sister, she added, “so she can read it to her 4-year-old daughter.”
That is a sentiment sure to resonate with Tesfai. “If I had had exposure to something like this, to say how powerful I am and that it’s within me, I think it would’ve meant a lot,” she said. “I really just wrote something I wish I had when I was little.”
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