The scene

The incredibles Chicago Police officer Barbara Jenkins has seen the worst while patrolling public schools on the South Side: a student caught in gang crossfire, kids addicted to the drugs they’re peddling. “It’s frustrating,” she says. “As much as law enforcement tries, justice often doesn’t get served as it should.” Jenkins fills the remainder of her retribution quota by punishing no-goodniks in the comic book she created for Kiss Me Comix, the company she operates with her husband, Rod, their three kids and family friend Robert Boyd. Unlike the stable of white-men-in-tights crusaders offered up by major companies like Marvel and DC, the heroes of Kiss Me’s six titles (each member of the group has their own comic, except for the youngest Jenkins child) consistently cross gender and color lines. In Jenkins’s Serenade, a half–African-American, half-Korean female vigilante saves the day, and Rod’s Bountyhunter stars an African-American drug dealer–turned–Windy City crime fighter. Like any good superhero squad, Kiss Me operates under a motto: “No Justice. Just Us.” Jenkins says she plastered the dictum on a wall above the entrance to her family’s kitchen because “we have to stick together, not only in the independent comics world but in the real world, too, which is even tougher.” Browse titles from Kiss Me Comix and several other local comics artists Saturday 26 from noon–4pm at the University Park Public Library District Comic Con (1100 Blackhawk Dr, University Park, 708-534-2580).