"This biography, written with a novelist’s stylization, was an incendiary moment in western culture. Ironically, it became the weapon that would win the cultural wars for dispossessed black, urban America. It’s impossible to think of what street culture of white Hollywood would look like without it. Slim is the most influential writer in English since Shakespeare."

"That was the first movie that I saw that I felt really painted the picture of the gritty hardcore realities of the urban drug culture. Done in a way that made it palatable for mainstream audiences. It was glossy and it was like that black version of an Italian mafia film. But I dug it for those reasons."

"So many Batman stories and graphic novels to choose from, but I think this ranks number one — with Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” a close second. To civilians (non-comics fans), I describe this work as a great urban crime drama that just happens to have Batman in it. With a little Dostoyevsky mixed in — really."