When Benny Eggmolesse, a Murri fulla man and entrepreneur from Queensland, looked at the portrayal of Indigenous people in comic books, he was not impressed. In fact, he didn’t think much of the perception of First Nations people in media overall.
So he and Scott Wilson, a Gooniyandi and Gadgerong creative and entrepreneur, started Ice Cream Productions and produced their own comic – Dark Heart, which sits in the first Indigenous Superhero Universe. The Indigiverse.
We spoke to Benny about changing the image of First Nations people in media, helping to create The Indigiverse and what he calls “The Triangle” of winning.
Junkee: Talk us through your mission statement for Ice Cream Productions – how’d it come to be?
Benny: So for Scotty and I, this country has a way of viewing our mob in a certain way, right? And if we’re honest about it, the imagery has never really been positive. So in our storytelling, we wanted to challenge the perspectives and the narratives that exist about our people. And we want to extend that to other groups of people as well. For example, we reviewed this script once that was written by a non-Indigenous person. It featured somebody with no shoes on – an Aboriginal young boy with a shirt that was stolen from Kmart with the tag still on it. This is a very common narrative.
Now, my son just got a $300 pair of Jordans. That’s one of many he’s got, you know what I mean? Aboriginal people are in a different position today. We got money. We got influence. We tell the Prime Minister what’s up. We’re advising the Minister of Health. We’re in a very different place today to my grandparents. So we need to update Australia with who we are and what we’re about. And there’s a narrative out there that we’re anti-Australian somehow, so we want to respect and collaborate with our non-Indigenous brothers and sisters.
But we also want to look after the interests of our mob because in the different industries we’ve been involved with, we’ve seen injustice in the way that they have been treated as creators. As an example, our artists make a percentage on all the sales, regardless of their colour. If you are the original artist who drew that character, you make a percentage of any merch that has the character’s face on it. Forever. Because that’s how you honour your artists, in our opinion. We treat them how we would want our mob to be treated as artists. If I make a million dollars off your art, you’re gonna get a cut.
It’s been five years since you founded Ice Cream Productions. How close are you to achieving your mission?
Well, we’re still young in the piece. We saw the success of Dark Heart #1 and that it got nominated for an Ariella award, but it’s just our first comic, first go, first gig. Scotty and I are students of the art. We watch movies and pull ’em apart. We stay in an apartment together because we’re working. We just keep working. And we can’t see anything out there that even touches what we’re writing at the moment. It’s just so different to what’s out there… and it has a unique approach. When we see the number of non-Indigenous people that we’ve worked with and helped changed their narrative… they’ve rallied around us and supported what we’re doing. Sometimes we’ll get in a room with people who are nervous about working with Aboriginal artists and they’re thinking “Oh I don’t wanna stuff it up”. But we are very supportive. There are also a lot of Aboriginal people that we’ve helped on their journey as artists who support us because they feel that they’re getting an opportunity they would never have been given otherwise.
What are you hoping to achieve in the next five years?
We are collaborating right now to get something great off the ground. Whatever that looks like, we don’t know yet. But we know that it’s gonna be great.
What’s your guiding principle for success?
In this triangle, there’s you, me, and then our Aboriginal community. So if Scotty and I understand how we’re gonna win, you understand how you’re gonna win. But when we can both understand how our Aboriginal community is going to win, that is the sweet spot. We find that any idea that has that triangle will be sustainable and also have the support of the local Aboriginal community. And that thing that when I see our mob light up and be involved and then win off what we’re doing, that really flicks our switch.
Has that triangle always been your North Star?
Yeah. Because listen, the moment they brought in the Indigenous Procurement Policy in 2015, which allowed Aboriginal businesses to take on three percent of government contracts, there was a lot of opportunity out there to compromise who you are and what you’re about.
A lot of opportunity to F over your mob or land. It breaks my heart. But when we actually see our mob win, when I make a few phone calls, push on these investors, hit ’em hard, then I see wealth generation for our mob. Future jobs that keep our mob outta jail. Education that keeps our young people outta poverty and outta juvenile detention centres.
Image credit: Indigiverse
Then you see the industry pivot to a different way of doing things. Scotty and I about setting standards in our respective industries. We want to go, “Hey, there’s a better way of doing this that involves our mob.” So now we’re starting to see our comic book artists look for more in their contracts. These Blackfellas expect this from a contract. So that winning triangle is a big motivator.
Let’s talk about Indigiverse and how it came to be.
Scotty and I are comic geeks. I collected Marvel, but I’m DC for life. But we were just annoyed at how First Nations superheroes were conveyed in the Marvel universe or in the DC universe or any other kind of independent universe. We read this comic… it’s Marvel, 365 or whatever. Wolverine comes out and there’s Gateway who’s like this, this old Aboriginal superhero with a didgeridoo and Wolverine basically goes, “Where did this Abo come from?” And Scott and I were like, “What the fuck?” This was our introduction to the Marvel universe. And we were like, yeah, nah. And then we did this hectic research on all of our Aboriginal superheroes and there was Superbowl, who flew through the sky. Condoman was a real superhero for us. And listen, if you ask any Aboriginal person, Condoman’s a real superhero. He’s the only one we’ve got. We’ll embrace him. So there were all of these First Nations stories were done terribly. And we were never the centrepiece of any story. And Scotty and I said, “Look, do we make a pitch to Marvel? Do we do this?”
Then do we do that? We thought about all these strategic approaches of getting in the game. Eddie was like, “Hey, let’s just fucking make our own universe.” And then he’s like, “Why don’t we call it like the Indigiverse?” So we started mapping out this universe and we start talking to all of these other First Nations people.
We took part in a traditional Fijian ceremony and heard about their hammerhead shark, their snake that’s in the volcano, all of these really amazing stories that we’ve never heard before.
We’re also writing a character who’s got an Aboriginal father and a Native American mother. And I don’t know if you know Native Americans, they got the hula hoops. Have you seen all the hula hoop dancing? So cool. They have championships with ’em People who can dance, turn these hula hoops into animals. So it’ll be like the giant eagle or a massive bear or a wolf. Sick. So we reached out to one of these hula hoop champions…
So we don’t have to wait for Marvel or an independent label or fucking DC to vibe their stuff. We can go right now, put it out there and let the world see it. And we can’t wait to see who adds to it. Indi is not exclusive. It doesn’t belong to Scott and Ben. Unlike with Marvel, you don’t have to sit down and pitch to us. You can be out there in New Zealand as Māori people and have superheroes that are in the Indi Digi. And if you want to collab up, let’s collab up and join the worlds.
And fans will have their own perspective on it.
Absolutely. We want people to let it be what it is to them.
You’ve talked about it before, but what’s your perspective on the Voice to Parliament?
Look, on the day, I’ll say yes, because a step towards anything where our mob get recognition and that recognition is sustainable like our constitution, then I’m going to say yes. It’s a step in the right direction. There are many steps we can take. The age-old argument says that we should have had a treaty first, or there should have been some type of sovereignty rather than spending all this time and energy on a referendum. But I’ve never seen the government approve anything of this nature without it having a backhand to it. If you look at the 1967 referendum, it dealt with a particular clause in our constitution.
It said the Parliament has the power to make special laws with respect to any person of any race for the betterment of the people, then in brackets, except Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And what we fought for was to get that little bit removed so that the Parliament could make special laws for us that helped improve our living conditions and standards. So we’ve won that by a landslide. We got a big Yes vote. They removed that out of our constitution. And now the Parliament were able to do things like abolish Aboriginal Protection Acts that existed and set up initiatives for the betterment of our mob, like the Indigenous Procurement Policy and the Closing the Gap initiative. All that stuff was great.
But if you look at it, it says the Parliament has the power to make special laws with respect to any person of any race including us – if they felt it was for the betterment of the people. So we have a Northern Territory intervention, all of these cards that are brought in. And so although we may look at it widely as a positive thing, the 1967 referendum does have that sharp backend because if the Parliament just wakes up one day says, “We don’t want Aboriginal people to have that because we just think that they shouldn’t”, they can make those special laws. And we’ve seen them do that. Australia got a taste of that around COVID. The Voice to Parliament is a very positive step in the right direction in getting constitutional recognition for our people. It’s a committee that will advise the government on legislative bills and policy that are going to improve our mob’s lifestyle. The good thing about is that I don’t have to take the advice.
So broadly I think it’s gonna help. Of course, the Parliament and our government can always not take the advice. So it’s great to get constitutional recognition, but I do think a treaty and handing land back to traditional owner groups will not only benefit us as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but it will benefit the average Australian, especially those who want to buy houses in their own country.
The Aboriginal agenda paves the way for so many Australians. There was a report… when Aboriginal businesses won a contract, non-Aboriginal businesses thrived because they worked with local, not international, companies.
If people were aware of this, there would be a lot more support for the Aboriginal agenda. You might look at the Voice as something that takes care of minorities and groups that are overlooked and disadvantaged. And if we can get this in place, we can look at other disadvantaged groups and how our government should be treating them and how we can hold them accountable.
So I’m sceptical, but I’m hopeful in other ways.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Full disclosure: Ice Cream Productions has formed a joint venture called Yoowarni Productions with Northern Pictures, which is owned by the RACAT group. RACAT group also owns Junkee.