This interview discusses New Creation Now’s web comic Ragged Capes. The interview was conducted in July 2008 by Don Ensign with Ragged Capes creators Ralph E. Miley and Kevin Yong.
Don: OK, the topic is Ragged Capes. Ralph, were you the one who came up with the original Ragged Capes concept? Why don’t you start it off and then Kevin can chime in with his contribution.
Ralph: Well, it was Kevin’s fault (Kevin laughs). And I am going to pass it to him because he showed me the Anime series and he can explain the series better that I can.
Kevin: OK. It started several years ago. I had been sampling different Japanese Anime series and I was telling Ralph about this one famous and controversial series called Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is about -- well, at first it looks like a stereotypical giant robots vs. aliens action show -- but by the end of the series you realize that the whole setup of the giant robots and the alien invasion is all an elaborate series of metaphors for psychological self-identity and existential dread. Dark, heavy, soul-crushing stuff. I showed Ralph a couple of episodes and Ralph was blown away by it. Not necessarily because of any profound truth in the anime series -- it was just depressing -- but he was blown away by the fact that you could even tell a story like that with giant robots. [Everyone laughs] After seeing it, Ralph’s thought was if they can tell that kind of story with giant robots, then why can’t we touch on deep issues of the human condition with guys in tights beating each other up? Super heroes can do just as well as giant robots! [Everyone laughs] And that was the premise that started the Ragged Capes anthology. It was basically an idea to take all the traditional archetypes from superhero comics -- the villain, the violent vigilante, the noble hero, etc. -- and then use those elements that everyone is familiar with and try and explore deeper issues of spiritual motivation. As for how it all came together, I’ll let Ralph explain.
Ralph: He is so right. Here they were, tackling about some deep psychological issues with giant robots. We can talk about deep psychological issues with people in spandex. I don’t see why not. We went from there and we decided to take superhero characters and really deal with some serious issues. We wanted to explore their motivations as to why they ended up the way they are- why they chose to be a villain or a hero-all of that. We initially called it the artsy project. Artsy meaning we don’t have a deadline. (laughs)
Kevin: And there it sat for the next four years!
Ralph: Yes, there it sat for the next four years. We received the scripts and we had thumbnails and we had one of the chapters penciled and one chapter inked and there it sat for four years. And what really got us motivated [was] when we started the New Creation Now web site. We decided to go with web comics because that would the least expensive because of traditional printing costs. And when I looked back on what we had done with the Ragged Capes and saw that this was a complete comic book-all we needed to do is get this project finished. I contacted other people to do pencils and inks and as a result we now have three chapters completely illustrated. We have the villain piece which is a stand alone piece. We were trying to find a penciller, but we were having a difficult time. Bud Rogers suggested this guy Dan Barlow who did an outstanding job. Wayne Cash did the second story which is the hero who does the right thing but for the wrong reason. And we were able to find an inker and a colorist for that which we did through the Ning site (CCAS Social Network site) which is a great resource and then we had Lisa Hutchinson do the color work for the Bud Rogers story, which was pencilled and inked by Bill Maus, who did an outstanding job. Now, we’re just waiting for the fourth chapter to be finished.
Don: Were the super heroes used in Ragged Capes selected from pre-existing characters that had been previously developed by Kevin and/or Ralph or were these characters created especially for Ragged Capes?
Kevin: Most of them are pre-existing characters. My character “Virtue” -- she’s appeared before in my superhero comic New Crew, in an anthology piece for A Christmas Treasury, and she also had a cameo in HeroTV. She is the overtly Christian super heroine in Ragged Capes. Her chapter deals with a confrontation with someone who knew her a long time ago back before she was a super heroine. So her struggle is as a Christian heroine trying to deal with the guilt and ramifications of a sinful past. Bud Rogers has a pre-existing character in his chapter of Ragged Capes, named “Excelisor”. Bud had his own stories worked out for him but when we proposed this project he donated his character to the cause and wrote up a chapter about this super hero who is the inspirational, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps guy. So his chapter is about the hero saving the day but still wrestling with self doubt of whether what he’s doing can actually make a difference. Ralph was either creator or co-creator on the two other chapters in the anthology, so he can explain those characters.
Interview continued next week.
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