Born and raised in the small town of Yauco, Puerto Rico, Fernando’s childhood was filled with hardship. He lost his older brother to cancer at a young age and watched his family fall apart in grief. His mother worked long days to provide, while his father struggled with alcoholism. At the same time, Fernando was quietly discovering that he was queer—something the world around him didn’t accept. He was left feeling isolated, unseen, and disconnected.
His imagination became his only escape. In the face of rejection and silence, he built a world where people like him mattered—where survival could become power, and pain could become story.
He filled notebooks with ideas—some funny, some dramatic, many reflecting what he was going through. At the time, he wasn’t dreaming of superheroes. He was simply trying to survive. One of the characters he created for a school script was named Kraven. That name stayed with him.
“That name became the mark of my dreams, to become a storyteller. To become a queer creator of stories that will represent me and others like me.” Fernando says. “Even before I knew what I was building, I knew I needed to hold on to that name to remind myself where I came from—and where I was going.”
In high school, Fernando took night classes with adults so he could spend his days going to casting calls, filming, acting in plays, and working in radio. He founded his first company, Kraven Entertainment, with a dream to organize LGBTQ talent and create opportunities where none existed. The project didn’t succeed—but the name stayed. The mission stayed.
Even while chasing his dream, Fernando had to make painful choices to stay true to himself. He left the only home he knew—a place where he wasn’t accepted—and ended up living out of his car. To survive, he collected signatures on the beach for a political party just so he could afford to eat. There were times he ended up in the hospital, but even then, he refused to go back home. He wouldn’t seek comfort if it meant compromising his identity.
At seventeen, he joined the Disney College Program and moved to the U.S. in search of a future. He worked as a dishwasher and server, scraping by while trying to find his place in the media world. In 2006, he landed a role on a talk show that led to a position as a case producer at Caso Cerrado on Telemundo. He was just twenty years old, one of the youngest on the team.
At one point, while working on telenovelas, a casting director attempted to seduce him—offering career advancement in exchange for sex. That experience, combined with the constant exploitation he faced from his own boss, pushed Fernando to walk away. He chose to leave rather than compromise himself, even if it meant going back to waiting tables or washing dishes while figuring out how to pursue his dreams on his own terms.
Back in Miami Beach working service jobs, Fernando noticed something else: gay magazines were overly sexualized and didn’t reflect the community he came from.
“No one was talking about who we really were, how we lived, or what we dreamed of,” he says.
He created Kraven Magazine, a high-end gay lifestyle publication focused on empowerment and representation. He ran it independently for five years—writing, designing, selling ads, distributing copies around the city, and even sneaking into art schools just to use their computers and design software.
“I remember my boss catching me hiding in the restaurant, writing ideas for the magazine during my shift,” Fernando recalls. “He told me to stop dreaming and get back to waiting tables.”
That moment became fuel. Against all odds, Fernando resigned from the restaurant two months later—and returned just weeks after to proudly place his magazine inside the very business where his dream had been doubted.
Then, in 2014, everything shifted. Fernando was living in San Francisco, and the magazine was struggling. He had taken a job in retail to survive and ultimately decided it was time to shut the magazine down. But something happened that changed the course of his life.
One of his writers submitted an article for the final issue—an honest piece about the lack of LGBTQ+ representation in comics. That article hit Fernando deeply. For the first time, he saw clearly what was missing—and what he could create. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. It would take more than a decade, demand more than he had, and challenge everything he thought he could endure. But he had found his purpose. And no matter what, he had to follow it.
That’s when he created his first hero: Neveah, a trans superhero.
“I grew up loving sci-fi, fantasy, and superheroes. But we weren’t there. We were never there. That article made me realize—if I wanted to see us in those stories, I had to be the one to create them.”
So he shut down the magazine and launched Kraven Comics.
That same year, Fernando met Waiyen Wong, who became both his romantic and creative partner. Together, they hired two artists to create their first comic—a 19-page story about a trans hero and her journey from pain to rising into power.
But after completing the first draft, neither of them was satisfied with the result. They chose not to release the book. While Fernando began rewriting the story and redefining the characters, Waiyen focused on finding new artists who could bring the vision to life.
Over the next five years, they went through multiple versions of the same episode—restarting the project three times. What began as one trans superhero grew into a team of six queer heroes. What started with two artists evolved into a full team of ten Latin artists from Venezuela. Together, they were building an entire superhero universe from scratch.
Eventually, they were ready to launch their first queer comic book series: Class6. They had no training, no funding, and no industry connections—just determination, vision, and the willingness to learn everything themselves, step by step.
But just as they were about to launch, the pandemic hit—and they lost all their funding. They had completed six episodes totaling 278 pages, but suddenly had no resources to release them. Still, the community came together. Through Kickstarter, they were able to raise enough to finally launch the comic.
The challenges didn’t end there. Between the stress of the pandemic, the financial pressure, and the strain on their relationship, everything around them was falling apart.
"How can we be seen," Fernando says, "when even major LGBTQ media would rather write about Marvel turning a character gay than highlight the original queer heroes our community has created?"
He tried repeatedly to reach out for support from LGBTQ outlets.
"I reached out so many times to gay media—Queerty, for example. Their response? $5,000 for a feature. Meanwhile, Marvel turns a character gay for profit and they promote it for free. They claim we don’t have representation, but we do—they just refuse to cover it unless they’re getting paid. How can we be seen if our own media silences us?”
Despite everything, Fernando didn’t give up. He attended events, connected with fans directly, and began to see just how deeply Class6 resonated with readers.
“When I saw people’s reactions, I knew this story was needed. But the hardest part wasn’t writing it—it was getting the world to see it, with no money and no support.”
Eventually, his persistence paid off. He was featured on local Seattle news and sold out all of his remaining inventory. With the last of his stock, he went to Palm Springs Pride—where everything changed.
“I remember I was in Seattle, a little drunk, and my friend told me I should drive down to Palm Springs for Pride with whatever I had left,” Fernando says. “It was a drunk decision—I spent almost $2,000 to participate. The next morning I was calculating everything—hotel, gas, the rental car—and realized financially I’d made the worst decision. I wasn’t going to make a profit. I even tried to cancel, but it was non-refundable. Who knew that decision would put me on the path that led to where I am today.”
But then—the unexpected. The booth was packed. Lines formed. People cried when they saw themselves reflected as heroes. And then—the unthinkable. A producer from Sony Pictures, who had purchased the book earlier, came back after reading it. He wasn’t just impressed—he was moved. He invited Fernando to apply for a prestigious mentorship program that only accepted candidates through producer referrals. The deadline? Two days. The producer, David, stayed by Fernando’s side and helped him prepare.
Fernando applied and was selected as a semifinalist. The program was designed to choose one emerging filmmaker to direct a short animated film under the Spider-Verse brand, mentored directly by Sony directors and producers.
For the interview, Fernando was tasked with reimagining the film Flatliners as a comedy and pitching that concept directly to Sony executives. His pitch was so strong that afterward, the executives kept asking his producer when Fernando would return to pitch something original.
Although the position ultimately went to a filmmaker who had already been nominated for an Oscar, Fernando walked away with something that would completely shift the direction of his life. The producer, impressed by his vision, offered him something else entirely: the chance to develop his comic as an animated TV series—with Fernando as the director.
For the first time, Fernando stepped into a major studio to pitch Class6. What he had always dreamed of as a little kid with a notebook full of ideas was now finally within reach—closer than ever to becoming reality.
"I was so nervous. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a conference room at Sony Pictures Animation, pitching my project to the director of the creative department."
The meetings went well, but ultimately, Sony Pictures had to pass on the project due to a conflict of interest with a major cinematic franchise.
“How do you break into the industry when every major studio is already tied to big franchises?” he says.
But the story didn’t end there. Sony’s creative team connected him with the Vice President of Powerhouse Animation, the studio behind Netflix’s He-Man reboot. After pitching the project, Fernando and his producer got them on board.
However, instead of developing it as a TV series, Powerhouse was only interested in pursuing a franchise-level animated movie adaptation.
That meant one thing: the project needed to be repitched to Sony—this time, as a feature film.
Now, Fernando had one shot to go back and pitch the movie version to Sony. If they passed, he could take it elsewhere—but this was his second chance, and he wanted to get it right.
So he paused everything.
“I needed to apply everything I had learned in the last year and a half of working with the producer,” he says. “I knew I could do better. I just needed time.”
By then, Fernando and Waiyen had officially gone their separate ways, and the producer asked him to move to Los Angeles, where he would need to be available to direct the movie if the studio approved it.
So Fernando moved to LA. And while preparing to pitch the film, he returned to the beginning—to the comic.
When he first started Class6, he was limited by money. Each comic page cost nearly $400 to produce, so many scenes and chapters had to be cut. Now, with everything on pause, he decided to finally tell the story the way he had always intended—without limitations.
He rewrote the entire universe. He renamed the heroes. He created new uniforms and logos. He designed a board game. A card game. And he began writing a full novel adaptation of the graphic novel—without art budget limits, page caps, or external restrictions. It would be the raw, complete version of the story he’d always carried.
For the past five years, he has also worked with a filmmaker documenting the entire journey—from pain and rejection to creation and resilience.
All of it was self-funded.
“There were moments I had to choose between paying my artist or eating,” he admits. “I used food stamps. I worked survival jobs. I even escorted when I had no other option. I didn’t have a safety net. I didn’t have investors. I didn’t have a studio. But I had a purpose. And I refused to let it die.”
Now, still struggling, working 14 to 18 hours a day, he’s preparing to launch everything through Kickstarter: the 636-page graphic novel, the full-length novel, the board game, the card game, and the upcoming documentary.
“This isn’t just about superheroes,” he says. “I’ve come too far to give up or settle. I’m going to push my creative limits. This is about the journey—it’s about not giving up on your dreams. It’s about being 100% committed to a vision and stopping at nothing, because I believe representation matters—now more than ever.”
The journey wasn’t easy. And while Fernando isn’t ready to talk about everything publicly yet, he acknowledges that during the years of building this dream, he was also privately struggling. At times, he turned to substances—not regularly, but enough to recognize the battle within. Whether it was every few weeks or months, it was a cycle he fought silently. It’s a part of his story he looks forward to sharing when the time feels right.
For now, his focus is on the future—on staying sober, and finally completing the project that has taken eleven years to build.
After years of development, studio interest, and intense preparation, Fernando was finally ready to launch. But just as the project neared the finish line, the U.S. elections brought a wave of political regression that rippled across the industry. With studios growing more risk-averse and pulling back on inclusive projects, the deal was paused. The message was clear: in today’s climate, a story like this would need to go viral to break through. Now, Fernando isn’t just launching a creative universe—he’s fighting to prove that bold, original queer stories deserve a global stage.
He hopes to count on the support of the community, and on those who are tired of the same recycled stories. In a world now flooded with AI-generated content and reboots, Fernando believes what we need is something real—a universe born from pain, built in darkness, and made against all odds. A universe grounded in truth and representation, created by someone no one ever expected to come this far.