This story aired in the January 9, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
André E. Preston has never been defined by one art form, hobby, or passion. His interests range from music to comic books to outer space. He’s the creator of a graphic novel series and accompanying live performance called “The Universal Funk Opera.” The show features the Funky Heroes…aliens who live in various parts of the universe. The result is a fun, magical, and otherworldly journey inside the imagination of a modern Renaissance man.
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Story Transcript:
KID: The grass can be made of candy canes.
KID: Ohhh, that’s a great idea!
REPORTER: Comic club is in session at the Montclair Elementary School library in Oakland. That means Andre E. Preston and his students are about to create a fictional world together.
ANDRE E. PRESTON: Okay, boys and girls, listen to our story so far. Once upon a time, there was a sugar loving kingdom called Sugarville. What’s next?
REPORTER: Small group of kids sit up excitedly and swivel in their chairs, like they’ve got so many ideas they could burst.
PRESTON: I see light bulbs popping up over heads.
STUDENT: Everything is made of candy.
STUDENT: It should be like a swamp, and I think if I try, I’m going to try to make a candy otter.
PRESTON: A candy otter? Cool.
REPORTER: The comic club is a democracy.
PRESTON: We got three votes for gummy worms as grass. Yes. 4 or 5 votes. Okay. All in favor of gummy worms. Raise your hand. The majority wins.
REPORTER: Once the brainstorming is complete, the kids start sketching their characters. In a few months, they’ll have a complete book. Seeing these students draw and create is also a source of inspiration for Andre in his own work.
PRESTON: It just keeps it going. It keeps it alive for me. Here I am a published author of comic books, you can find my books in the store, you can take a story and bring it to life on a stage.
REPORTER: The books are just as imaginative as what his students are creating…books about aliens and a UFO sighting and efforts to save planet earth.
PRESTON: There's all sorts of possibilities that you can do with your art, and here's a place to start. You know, if you have an imagination, you can just start with that imagination and just build it, you know, just into this garden of ideas.
REPORTER: And like his students , Andre’s own love for comics goes back to when he was a kid..he would make comics with his friends in elementary school. His other love was music. Growing up, Andre would pick up objects around the house and tap them like drums.
PRESTON: In kindergarten, me and about three of my friends pretended to be the Beatles. We pick up the little blocks, you know, in the classroom. We go sing to the girls, our Beatles songs. We meet at each other's homes and practice and things like that.
REPORTER: He performed in church youth choir and when he moved to California, he played in Berkeley High’s jazz band.
He remembers one day in school when a new principal gave a speech to students in the auditorium.
PRESTON: He said, ‘Okay, but I have bad news. You guys will no longer be allowed to have radios on campus.’ Now we're talking about the boombox era. We had breaks, would go out in the yard, and he outlawed those.
REPORTER: So Andre decided to create a comic where a group of aliens called the Funky Heroes come to Berkeley High to meet with the principal and they give him a shot of the funk. Before the story went to print in the school newspaper, Andre went to meet with the principal.
PRESTON: So I showed it to him and told him the story. He goes, Andre, I love it. I say, You're not you're not mad, you know?
REPORTER: The principal didn’t change the boombox rule, but that didn’t stop Andre and his friends from bringing boom boxes to track meets. When it came time to graduate, Andre didn’t want to choose between what he loved. His stepfather had told him he was doing WAY too much: comics, music, and having a girlfriend.
PRESTON: I think that was what motivated me even more. Just lit a fire under me. And you know what? I'm going to do all of it.
REPORTER: He started working at Montclair Elementary in 1989 He’s run the comic book there for more than a decade. And outside the classroom, he never stopped drawing and making music.
REPORTER: He published the first book in his graphic novel trilogy, Welcome to the Universe a few years ago. It’s inspired by a real life camping trip where his friend said she saw a UFO. In the book, a character named Willis O. Cyrus sings the song Soul Destiny and comes to believe the planet needs more unconditional love.
It was his wife Lisa Lynn-Preston, who suggested bringing the graphic novel to life.
They met while performing with SambaFunk!, a collective of dancers, musicians, artists and community members.
LYNN-PRESTON: You know, we just saw something in each other spiritually that we just felt comfortable with and interested in. and one day we had too much honey wine and we got together.
REPORTER: With his wife’s support, Andre set out to bring the graphic novel to the stage and get a band together. The band is called the Funky Heroes, a nod back to his high school days. Lisa is also in the band.
LYNN-PRESTON: So for him I was like, okay, let me pick up the saxophone. I'll try to play some horn lines -- and what? And my stilt walking. yeah, I'm also a stilt walker, but I say stilt dancer because I don't walk on them. I dance on them.
REPORTER: And she designs the costumes. Her own costume is like a pink and gold nebula, the birth of a star. AND she bent wire in the shape of a dolphin for her headpiece.
LYNN-PRESTON: This music and the story is bringing just kind of like something to wonder about that's not just our regular regular human life reality that we see every day, // but this is to keep your mind wondering about what else could be out there in the world, you know? And it's nice to have that opened up.
MC: Get ready to get funked up. Get ready to get funkified, get ready for the good, the bad, and the funky!
REPORTER: On a Sunday night this fall, the Funky Heroes performed the Universal Funk Opera at the East Side Arts Alliance in East Oakland.
NARRATOR: Once in a while, their soon to be ex cosmic neighbor freaks out and panics at the first sight of their alien would-be rescuers. This is that story.
REPORTER: The audience sits facing the stage. Some bob their heads or sway to the music, others get up to dance. Andre plays the drums, wearing a costume inspired by his favorite superheroes, Spiderman and Batman. He is playing G-Funk, an alien from Planet Wo. Jambi Borens is the keyboardist, and plays a wizard called the Moonchild.
JAMBI BORENS: It was so worth it, any thing I had to go through in order to play this part.
REPORTER: He wears a headpiece that looks like a moon with sunglasses.
BORENS: I just imagined what would the moon be doing if you, you know, listened to this music. He would be grooving and bouncing his head. So that's why I just kept trying to do is move and bounce my head. Just try to be celestial with it.
REPORTER: Aliens. Young love. A prayer to the universe. It might seem wacky, but that’s the whole point. Borens says funk music brings people together.
BORENS: Looking outside the box and to find a whole community of people who were looking and thinking that way is as a way of creating revolution You could dance your way to that.
REPORTER: The audience and band members admire Andre’s vision…he’s created something you probably can’t find anywhere else…a show that combines multiple artforms and multiple worlds. Andre has no plans to stop now. And every week at Montclair Elementary School, his students are building their own fun, imaginative, and funky universes.
The tree stumps are brownies. The licorice is grass. The gummy worms are crawling around, and nothing is off limits.
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Check out André E. Preston's graphic novel series, 'Welcome to the YOUniverse'