CHATHAM — Yorli Huff is on a mission to help empower black girls through a comic book series she created, "Superhero Huff."
A sample of her work can be seen on the side of a three-story building on the northeast corner of 79th and Evans streets. It’s a part of the “Positive Imaging Campaign” that Eiran Feldman of First InSite Realty launched last April.
The main character, Superhero Huff, is an undercover police officer working with special powers she has had since birth. Huff, a native of the K-Town neighborhood on the West Side who now lives in Naperville, said Superhero Huff “serves, to enlighten, empower, encourage and to motivate.”
The series was inspired by her own life story.
“Superhero Huff is the animation and characterization of my true life story; she is me,” Huff said.
Huff's grandfather was one of the first black military police officers in the Army, while her mother worked at the Cook County Jail. Huff was a secretary before she landed the job as a Cook County Sheriff's deputy assigned to the Metropolitan Enforcement Group task force in the south suburbs.
She worked for the agency for five years, often working undercover on drug busts. She helped the Illinois State Police arrest a man selling drugs on Downstate campuses, among other busts.
But her job ended abruptly in 1997. She was let go, and she and another black officer sued for discrimination after an official with the drug task force admitted using racial slurs and wearing a mask resembling a black person as a joke. The two officers initially lost the case, originally filed in 1997, but after a successful appeal she agreed to a $750,000 settlement in 2008.
“I was discriminated against,” she said.
During the lengthy process Huff still needed to take care of her grandfather and her own bills so she got creative.
“You have to understand that life is a journey,” she said. “You have to be prepared for what’s going to happen because I went to work one day as an undercover drug agent and by noon I didn’t have a job. The next day I was on Roosevelt Road and Pulaski with my gun in my pocket selling balloons.”
She eventually started a balloon-designing business before she sought to turn her life story into a movie. She wrote an autobiography, "The Veil of Victory: A Memory of Tragedy & Triumph." After that she created the comic book series, which can be found on Amazon.
It was something she had never done before. She works with an illustrator, but creates the characters and does all the writing and editing herself.
Just like she had to overcome struggles and challenges, so does Superhero Huff, who is meant to motivate others to keep pushing forward.
“I think the greatest problem for some people is figuring how to take the next step and make the next move to fight and continue on,” she said. “But it’s not whether you should or shouldn’t, it’s how. A lot of people don’t grasp the how. They don’t know where to start so that stagnation allows them to fall into a pity party, into depression.”
Huff wanted her superhero to be in Chatham because it’s a community she’s investing in. She rehabs and rents out vacant homes. She wants to contribute toward uplifting the community.
She hopes to inspire the girls and young women in the neighborhood who walk by the images.
“She’s empowering just to look at,” she said.
“Hopefully the young people will see the images and see that she is a voluptuous black woman in her natural state,” she said. “She wears her natural hair, she has clothes on. She has a brain, some intellect. She doesn’t have to sell herself short just to fit in.”
Working in an industry that is dominated by white men doesn’t hold Huff back. She said she would like to see more diversity.
“The comic book industry is a $92 million industry and the average customer is a 31-year-old white male,” Huff said, adding that less than 5 percent of the industry consists of minorities and even less are black women. “So they’re used to seeing hypersexual black women with over-exaggerated body parts ... they’re not used to seeing black women of empowerment.”
The other message Huff wants to send is that entrepreneurship is an obtainable goal no matter what one’s present situation looks like. It’s all about getting in right mindset, she said.
There’s more than just her soon to be four-book comic series — the fourth one is in production. Huff also sells T-shirts, jewelry and more. She has actors who play Superhero Huff and travel with her to make appearances.
Some things in the making include a children's series where Superhero Huff will work with children to talk about gangs, drugs and low self esteem. Huff will participate in a pop-up shop April 29-May 1 in an empty storefront that's next to her creations.
Stay updated with Huff through her website.
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