Jamar Nicholas is an award-winning, Philadelphia-based artist and educator, dedicating his career to helping young people realize the power of visual narrative. Recent works include adapting and illustrating Geoffrey Canada’s Fist Stick Knife Gun; Detective Boogaloo: Hip-Hop Cop, serialized in the US Metro newspapers (Philadelphia, NYC and Boston); and Leon: Protector of the Playground, which won the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in 2018. He is also a writer and columnist for DRAW! Magazine, the How-To source for comic and animation professionals, as well as co-host of the Pencil To Pencil Podcast with industry legends Mike Manley and Bret Blevins. Jamar’s first in his three-book series, Leon the Extraordinary (Scholastic Graphix) launched in August 2022.