Posro Media LLC

I ask Posro Komic's head writer and artist (Roland Laird and Elihu Bey II) what their book would be if it were a record. It's the only thing you can ask, really. Posro's book, MC Squared (MC2), isn't a superhero comic, it's a hip-hop comic, the story of Earl Terrel, a regular-joe Harlem barber with a phat jeep and dreams of programming black-themed computer games.

Staring out a smudged window in his cramped home office, Roland Laird cannot see past the squat, sprawling apartment complex across the street. But with a pen in hand and the thumping pulse of hip-hop music in the air, Mr. Laird closes his eyes and sees the crowded streets of Harlem, losing himself in the rhythms and riddles of the inner city.

Marcus and Monique Griot are publishers of an African-American weekly newspaper called The Griot. (A griot is an African keeper of oral history.) Founded in 1865 by Marcus' great-great grandfather and freed slave Cinque Griot, the paper has been successfully handed down from generation to generation, and the Griots hope to turn it over to their own children one day.

When Roland Laird, creator of MC squared, named his Edison, N.J. company Posro Comics. "I took the word Negro and got rid of its prefix. That prefix means 'dead.' So instead of calling ourselves Negro, I prefer the term Posro. It puts a positive spin on the term."

"We want to do the comic book equivalent of 'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison, something that strong," says Roland Laird of Piscataway, N.J., creator of "MC Squared," which debuted in July. Laird, 30, and his business partner launched the book with several thousand dollars saved up from their silk-screen T-shirt business.