Osvaldo Pestana Montpeller (Montos) was born in Cuba on September 13, 1985. Ever since he could remember his passion has always been to draw comics. Montos became a born-again Christian in 1993. Since that time when he gave his talents to God his deepest longing is to glorify the Most High through comics. Montos is working as a freelancer for the Crucial Crisis Comixs, and as a cartoonist for the Cuban press. In addition to other creative unertakings, he is doing the illustrations for the J.R.R.Tolkien´s second Lord of the Rings book "Two Towers" (Cuban edition). Osvaldo Pestana Montpeller's work that we have titled "The Portrait " is currently featured under our New Visions webcomics . Up coming project will feature his intricate inks on Ragged Capes and The Footsteps of Matthew Cross: Faith Walker. His work has been published in Cuba, Spain, USA, Mexico and Argentina.
El BLOG de Montos:
www.historietamontos.blogspot.com
Actualizaciones cada semana!
Updates every week!
(Note: "Part One" of this article was a direct reprint from the original New Creation newsletter. The second part has been revised and expanded specifically for the NCE blog.)
New Crew Copyright © 2008 Kevin Yong . All rights reserved.
Welcome back to part two in our look at superhero universe "world building" from a Christian perspective. Last time, we looked at a few of the challenges in taking the typical elements of a comic book universe -- superheroes, aliens, etc. -- and fitting them together with a Christian worldview. This time, we'll look at a few possible ways of dealing with the challenges.
Like many comic fans, I used to invent my own superheroes as a kid. First, I'd invent my own characters, then stories about the characters, then whole worlds where all the stories tied together. Soon, I had entire unwritten comic book "universes" floating around at the back of my mind.
However, as I grew in my Christian faith, I began to take a second look at the fictional worlds I had created, and I soon realized the challenges I would have in trying to integrate the two. I wanted to avoid any fantasy elements or fictional histories that would conflict with what was recorded in the Bible. The last thing I would ever want to do would be to take an "Everything You Know Is Wrong!" approach to redefining the scriptures to make room for my fantasy stories. (When the Bible mentions XYZ, it was really space aliens and mutant superpowers!) And so, I had to decide what kind of universe the stories would take place in, the source of the fantasy super-powers that defined the stories, and also an explanation for space aliens and other fantasy creatures that would somehow remain consistent with a larger Christian worldview. I came up with a wide range of options to choose from. (And please note that this list is not exhaustive):
What kind of universe?
-A "realistic" universe: This is a world which more or less matches the real world we're familiar with. This could be anything from a historical romance to a crime drama, but whatever twists and turns you add to the plot, the reader would know not to expect something completely outside normal human experience. (The romantic heroine won't suddenly be abducted by aliens, or the cop won't solve the crime by using his x-ray vision). If supernatural elements exist in the story, it stays close to the kind of supernatural elements we already accept as Christians: perhaps spiritual warfare between angels and demons, or a prophet receiving a supernatural word of knowledge -- but not something absurdly fantastic like a modern pastor gaining the power to fly and bounce bullets off his chest due to inheriting the apostolic mantle of a time-traveling android replica of Saint Augustine.
-A "non-earth" universe: This is what C.S. Lewis used for his Narnia Chronicles. This creates a fictional universe that exists independently of the normal human world, with it's own history and spiritual laws by which it operates. When God intervenes in Narnia, it looks different from how He intervenes in our normal human world, and thus the "magic" and other supernatural elements of Narnia have no bearing on the historicity of the Bible or the doctrines of Christianity. The two worlds are separate, even as the human characters may cross between them for occasional adventures.
An "alternate" universe: This is where you set your story on Earth, but the story premise includes some drastic change from the world we're familiar with. This could be anything from a world where the Germans won the first World War (alternate history) or where Aristotle invented anti-gravity rays (alternate scientific laws). In either case, the further back in history the premise is changed, the more the world of the story would end up being very different from our own.
-A present day "divergent" universe: This is similar to the above example, but instead of the fictional world diverging from ours in some remote point in history, it matches ours up to some sudden event the present day. This could be anything from the sudden discovery of a serum that gives super-powers, to scientists accidentally waking up hibernating dinosaurs. A "future" universe: A common setting of science-fiction, it sets the story in the future, showing what the world may or may not be like depending on what changes and new inventions are created. Could be anything from a post-apocalyptic wasteland to a bright and shiny future of robotic space exploration.
Source of super-powers:
Supernatural: Since a Christian worldview excludes the possibility of "neutral" or "white" magic powers of the occult, the supernatual source of any super-powers would thus either be directly from God (such as Samson's strength or the miracles of Elijah) or ultimately from demonic sources. The challenge when using this as an explanation for superheroes is having to explain why God would suddenly break with all previous examples of bestowing spiritual gifts for the sole purpose of spreading the Gospel and building the Church, and instead give these amazing super-powers to a hero to dress in costume and fight crime from rooftops. (I'm not saying it can't be done. Just that it can be hard to write consistently with scriptural tradition.) "Realistic" science: Think Bat-Man or James Bond. They have tools and gadgets that are obviously exaggerated for dramatic effect, but not as wildly "sci-fi" as (for example) a Star Trek transporter. "Imaginary" science: This can either be a literally something new invented for the story (secret engine X can travel faster than light and create time-traveling force shields), or real scientific terms applied to impossible super powers just for the sake of making them sound plausible. (This is part of the willing suspension of disbelief required for the superhero genre to work. There's no possible way gamma rays could really transform anyone into an invulnerable super-strong green-skinned monster. But by putting a scientific label on it, it's code for the reader that the source of the powers is due to a quirk of the natural world and is not a divine prophetic gift or a "magical" curse from demonic sources.)
Aliens and other non-human creatures:
Aliens are demons in disguise: This explanation is that there is no life on other planets. UFOs and the visitors who appear from them are actually demons on a mission to distract and deceive mankind from seeking spiritual truth. Aliens are unfallen: Alien life exists as a separate creation from God on other planets, and they avoided the mistake Adam made on Earth and have not fallen into sin. (This is the premise used by C.S. Lewis in his "Space Trilogy". The rest of the universe is unfallen and continues to live as God designed it. It is only Earth that is home to sin and thus cut off from the rest of the universe.) Aliens had their own fall: This assumes that aliens exist as a separate creation from God, and that they had their own version of the Fall. The thorny theological question then becomes, how can they be saved? Can an alien who doesn't share in Adam's sin still be saved by Christ's sacrifice? Or do they need a separate means of salvation that applies only to them? This might make for an interesting story, but expect a lot of debate among Christians about the theology. Aliens are related to humans: In the distant past, the aliens (or goblins or whatever other fantasy creatures you might care to use) were actually part of the human race before being lost in time/space/hyperspace/whatever, but because of genetic changes over millennia, they now bear little outward resemblance to us. However, as part of the human family tree, they share in the sinful nature of Adam, and can likewise share in the redemption by Christ.
What I used:
When building my own superhero universe, I decided to use imaginary science to explain the super-heroes (a mix of genetic engineering, alien technology, and the broadly undefined catch-all explanation of "hyperspace"), and I explained aliens (and elves and vampires and any other not-quite-human super creatures) as being a long lost distant branch of the human race. This required that I set my story in an "alternate universe" where aliens and humans branched off in different directions long ago in prehistoric times (before the Flood) and only recently came into contact again. Those were the overall options I chose in defining how to explain the details of the universe; the real work was in hammering out all the specific details as they involved my particular stories. But that's another story for another time.
What I wanted most in creating this project was a universe filled with those exciting elements of the genre I loved as kid: amazing heroes and strange creatures in thrilling adventures. A world with superheroes. A world with aliens. A world where the Bible is still completely true. A world still plagued by sin and in need of the forgiveness found only in Jesus Christ. A world where Christians struggle with living out their faith, whether in the context of an alien invasion or the quiet doubts of normal everyday life. In short: it's a Christian superhero universe. (One way of doing it, at least.)
Here at New Creation, our writers have taken multiple approaches for our various stories. Some are "realistic", and the only supernatural elements are in the form of invisible spiritual warfare regarding our individual moral choices. Some combine elements of spiritual warfare set in a divergent near-future world with superhuman technology. Others, like myself, may create complex alternate histories to explain the settings of their superheroic science-fiction tales.
In creating these fantasy worlds, what we are doing is changing some external details of reality (such as finding monsters on Mars, or access to a parallel universe of talking animals, or a man being able to gain the proportionate strength of a spider) and then trying to logically show what else would result from that divergence from the real world. The point is not to say "This story shows how the world really is", but rather "Just imagine if the world as we know it was like this instead. Here's what it might look like! And here's what might happen next!"
And if these impossible tall tales we tell of amazing heroes doing incredible deeds happens to not only entertain you as a reader, but to also reflect the spiritual worldview and moral values that we ourselves hold as the writers of these stories, then we're doing the job we set out to do here!
SUPERHEROES ARE A UNIQUE and deeply ingrained genre of the comic book medium(so much so that there are many who would be surprised to discover that there are other kinds of comicbooks besides superheroes.) Because o this, I’ve always been puzzled as to why there have always seemed to be so few superheroes in Christian comics.
Personally, I grew up reading superhero comic books. I liked them. I still do. And the stories I want to write involve thebasic traditions of that genre: superheroes, supervillains, monsters and aliens. A story’s drama comes from the responsibilities and consequences of the choices the characters make; the more powerful someone is, the more far-reaching their responsibilities and consequences can be. That’s why I want to tell “superhero”stories. There’s a lot of dramatic potential wrapped up in these kinds of characters.
However, I wanted the stories I wrote to reflect a Christian worldview. Soon after I began writing my stories, I realized
why I hadn’t seen many other Christian superheroes— it’s hard to get such bizarre fictional elements to fit together with spiritual truth. This article will deal with the basic problems I encountered while trying to build a “Superhero Universe” from a Christian worldview. Next issue will deal with my attempts at solving those problems.
Are Christian Superheroes Even Possible? Some people might object that, since the Bible doesn’t mention superheroes,no story with a superhero in it could be “Christian”. I disagree with that
line of argument. I believe that it’s possible to reflect the reality of Christian truths even when the “outer details” of a fictional
world are unrealistic. For example, C.S. Lewis wrote various fantasy and science-fiction novels containing fictional details never mentioned in the Bible. The scriptures never state that God created life on Mars or in a parallel world named Narnia. We have no reason
to believe that God has appointed angels to rule over the planets of outer space.
These stories were not records of what God has actually done (we have the Bible for that). Rather, they are stories of what
might have been if God had done things a little differently. And in the stories of make-believe worlds of Narnia or Mars, Lewis powerfully communicated Christian truths and spiritual realities.
“Reality” is the key word here. “Reality” is the key word here.
Many comic books nowadays use “realism” as an excuse for all sorts of stories. On the surface, many of these stories do seem realistic, but if you dig deeper, you find a morally hollow world without any spiritual foundations. It’s easy enough to copy the exterior details of the world around us—crude language, immoral sex, and senseless violence are very evident in our society. However, that’s hardly a full picture of “reality”.
The authors of this kind of “grim and gritty realism” have copied the external appearance, but left the inside blank. The things which give the “real world” meaning and significance—things like right and wrong, sin and forgiveness, and most of all, God—don’t seem to have a place in most modern comics.
For me, the concept of Christian superheroes isn’t any more impossible than Christian science- fiction or fantasy. All it involves is changing one or two external details of reality(such as aliens, or elves, or guys who can bounce bullets off their chests) and then trying to logically show what kind of world would result from that.
What kind of World?
Other comic books have tried to show what would happen if superheroes and aliens were to suddenly appear in the “real world”. How would we react? What changes in society would take place?
However, trying to create a fictional world based on a Christian view of reality adds certain theological questions as well. How would we account for the existence of superheroes or aliens in a world specially created by God? How would the origin of their powers and the role they’ll play in God’s plan for history be explained?
I want to write stories with aliens or superheroes or monsters in a world where the Bible is true. A world where the moral standards of good and evil don’t change according to public opinion. A sinful world in need of salvation through Jesus Christ. These are some essentials that define a Christian world, no matter what weird details we may toss into it (such as superheroes or aliens).
Weird Detail #1:Space Aliens
I’ve really liked the roles extraterrestrials have played in comic books as heroes, villains, and monsters.
However, fitting them into a Christian worldview takes work. If God created intelligent life on other planets, how does this fit in with Biblical theology? Were they corrupted when Adam sinned? If they sin, can they be saved through what Christ did on earth, or would God have to make a different plan of salvation for them?
It’s possible God created life elsewhere in the cosmos and hasn’t told us about it simply because it’s none of our business. But if I write a story about it, then I put myself into the position of having to answer these questions.
C.S. Lewis wrote stories with the idea that God created many alien races, but the human race is the only one that has fallen into sin. It worked well for his stories, but morally sinless aliens can be somewhat... well, boring...as major characters in an ongoing comic book series.
Weird Detail #2: Superheroes
The origin of super powers in a Christian universe needs a lot of thought. In Marvel or DC’s universes there is a fictional world of aliens, evolution, mutants, “gods”, magic, and abstract cosmic beings. It’s easy to explain a superhero’s origin when there’s so many possibilities to chose from. Trying to explain it in terms of a Christian worldview takes more effort.
One explanation could be that a latent quirk of DNA cause some people to suddenly develop super powers when exposed to something like a radioactive spider bite. A problem with this explanation is that this piece of “Super DNA” would have been present throughout history. While it’s possible to totally rewrite the history of our fictional world, I wanted one that was at least generally consistent with our own. The Bible is the record of God’s involvement in history, so if our fictional world’s history is drastically changed, then the Bible would have to be changed for this world as well... and tinkering with sacred scriptures(even “fictionally”) is something I’d rather not attempt. Also, if superpowers were as common back then as they are in today’s comic books, then miracles performed by God’s prophets—and even Christ’s resurrection—wouldn’t seem all that unique or special.
Another explanation is that superheroes are “mutants” representing the next step in evolution...except that such evolution would not fit a consistent Christian view of all life(including humanity) being a special creation by God.
An advanced futuristic technology could be able to explain super powers, but that won’t work if all your stories are set in the present. Alien technology could work, but first you’d have to explain the aforementioned problems with aliens. And of course, if such technology existed, it would probably be kept “top secret” for use by the military, not handed to some guy in tights and a cape to play superhero.
There’s also obvious problems of giving heroes their powers supernaturally. Captain Marvel is a fine hero in his own little fictional world, but the power of Shazam wouldn’t exist in a Christian world where supernatural power comes only from God or the devil. Evil demonic forces would never give people powers to fight evil. And as far as I can tell, God has only given supernatural powers to His prophets and apostles... and they normally have duties to perform other than dressing in spandex and leaping from rooftops to fight crime.
These are a few of the problems faced when trying to make fictional “comic book universes” fit in with a Christian worldview. These problems are difficult to resolve. Difficult, but not impossible.
Join us next time as I share my attempts at doing so.
NCE: Wayne, tell us a little about your background and your spiritual journey.
WC: I was born July 29th, 1965 in Denver, Co. I have two older brothers (I'm the baby boy!), but I also have a younger sister. My family has always been involved with church, from Sunday School to youth groups. I was even the ring boy for 5 weddings! Heh.
I guess you could say that God has been after me for a long time, because He has blessed me and my family through countless situations. And before I could form an intelligent opinion about Him, I knew He was there. The first time I really acknowledged Jesus was when I was 16 years old. I was in San Jose, Ca. visiting my cousin(who is more like my uncle). I met some kids my age, and they took me around the neighborhood to party and stuff. My cousin livedin one of several similar looking condominium-complexes. When my new 'friends' dropped me off, It was at the wrong place!I was lost! I ended up wandering around all night, because I forgot to bring any contact info with me, so I had no way to call them!
I spent the night outside on a bus stop kiosk, and I found a comic I never saw before. It was a Jack Chick tract, and it help me get through the night. I prayed to God, giving my life over to Jesus, and felt the happiest feeling in my life! I thankfully remembered my friend's phone number the next morning, and she connected me with my family (yes, I was in BIG trouble!) Since then, I have had many other stop-starts with my spiritual walk with God, but I finally got serious just before I went to art school in 1987. I've stayed close to God ever since, and I continue to grow every day. I'm now married with two beautiful boys, and I am looking forward to using my talents and gifts to reach the kids with the Gospel.
NCE: Tell us a little about how your interest in comics developed.
WC: Well, I've been into comics ever since I can remember. My first superhero was Spiderman, hands down! Then I wanted to be Conan the Barbarian. I used to get all of my comics off of the comic book rack at the local 7-11 stores every month, and I just fell in love with action and adventure. As goofy as it sounds, I developed so much of my vocabulary from reading comics . I was always drawing as well, I was never far from pencil and paper. It was just who I was. Its funny, but even to this day, whenever I run into old friends, the first thing they always ask me is if I'm still drawing those cartoons!
NCE: Sounds like you are very serious about art and comics.
WC: Yes, I attended art school in college(Otis Art Institute), where I got my BFA. Then I went right into animation as a storyboard artist(Sony Animation/Warner Bros./Nickelodeon), and I still freelance to this day. Once I started my family I had to get some steady work(I'm now a teacher!), while I pick up work on the side. Art is my passion, and I'm thankful that God has blessed me in this way.
NCE: How did you get involved in Christian Comics?
WC: Clint (Johnson) and I met while I was a freshman at art school, and we have been friends since then, often competing for the same jobs, and collaborating on others. He had developed this cool Christian superhero named Faithwalker, and I was intrigued that someone could be Christian and a superhero at the same time. It was awesome!
Anyway, years later, during the Image Comics hey-day, Clint called me up to work with him at this small art studio/publisher who were developing comics targeting urban youth culture. They had a great start, and seemingly bold plans for the future, so I was thinking this could be my big chance to cut my teeth doing comics. I drew and colored a short story of 5 characters(little bee/human kids) for a grocery store promotions campaign. It was the development of my cartoony style, and I was hooked!
The company eventually fell apart, but I had a new eye, and a new look to my art, and I kept pushing it in my freelance projects. I knew--through that I wanted my own characters, but something that was Godly. I was heavily into graffitti/hip-hop, and was influenced by that art style. I also discovered anime and manga, so I wanted to bring that to bear, since not too many people were doing that at the time.
In a blast of inspiration one night I called Clint and asked point blank," Hey man, do you have any characters that you have shelved that I could take a crack at redesigning?" He showed me an old strip he started called PERKY & THE HI-UPS...later called LIL' ROCK. The kid was cute, with overalls and glasses, but with that urban twist. I took it home and right away ideas flooded me, and I came up with an entire new look over night, and the rest is history!
NCE: OK, Wayne, we are going to get into that history of Lil' Rock and the Hi-Ups with you and Clint at another time-soon. Stay tuned.
Since then, Clint and I have worked hard putting together story lines and scenarios for LIL' ROCK, and we look forward to seeing how people react to him.
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