Darklight Studios Signs with Nordlyset Agency

Darklight Studios, an African-American-owned, Chicago-based multimedia studio, has signed with the Nordlyset Agency to represent Darklight Studios for publication, TV/film, and other rights.

Darklight Studios specializes in developing stories by and about Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The studio is a content incubator that develops book projects and works in conjunction with partners to bring those projects to market. 

The studio was cofounded in 2019 by Joy Triche, a former journalist with nearly 20 years experience in educational publishing, and Isaac Perry, a writer and a former journalist. Triche is also the founder of Tiger Stripe Publishing, a small press that publishes children’s books featuring BIPOC characters. 

Triche recruited Perry to write Q Saves The Sun (with art by Shomari Harrington), the first volume in a picture book series about Qadeer, a 9 year-old Black kid inspired by his dad’s bedtimes stories. Each night after hearing his dad’s stories, Qadeer falls asleep and turns into Super-Q!, a superhero fighting all types of villains during his dreams.

Published by Tiger Stripe in 2016, Q Saves The Sun was followed by Q Tangles with Time in 2020. The launch of the Super-Q series (the third volume is in development) led to the founding of Darklight Studio. “We began thinking that our working relationship could be very interesting,” Perry said, emphasizing that Darklight  “rejects the negative connotation of ‘dark’. Darklight, he said, is focused on “the brightness of BIPOC culture. We look at BIPOC stories differently; for authenticity and representation.”

The studio has more projects in development. Forthcoming projects include The Afterschool Adventures of the Ultra-Shock Barbershop by Perry and artist Eva Sterrett (to be published in 2021), a middle school book series about an adventurous group of Southside Chicago kids; and The Holloway Society of Young Detectives by Perry and Alina Mitchell, the first book in a YA book series starring teenage detective Idris Parker set in a mystery-filled world.

And while Darklight is focused on children’s and YA projects, the studio is also developing an adult novel, The Deep End of Paradise, a literary thriller about an African-American spy; and Sparrow, an adult science-fiction graphic novel set in a future-Chicago after the police force has been abolished.