This is the third and concluding part of the interview discussing 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: The obvious primary audience for Ragged Capes are comic book fans —because you are taking this strictly comic book genre and using it to delve into human issues and human nature —our fallen nature and presenting a Christian perspective. So is Ragged Capes only aimed at comic book fans who are familiar with the super hero genre?
Ralph: One of the things I saw as it relates to comic books was the old Lois and Clark TV series and it was Superman and his relationship with Lois Lane. And here is a guy with spandex flying around doing super hero things but what I found what was so interesting was that my wife loved it. And the reason my wife loved it was not for the super hero stuff but the relationship that Lois and Clark had. We would watch it —it was the only super hero story she ever watched -a guy flying around, but she watched it because of the relationship and we would talk about it and she would say you know what I think Clark should tell Lois about his secret. We would have these discussions about relationships and we are talking about comic book characters so it really touched something in her and that was the appeal of the initial series and that was the reason for its success. It drew upon an audience of women who liked it because of the relationship, And I think that is the real potential of comic books- people who may not even like comic books will suspend their disbelief and—well OK he’s wearing a blue and red suit and but they like the relationships. Things that are universal-people who may not normally embrace comic books will embrace the universality of the message. One of the successes-if you look at Finding Nemo -its an animated cartoon and yet it had a universal message about fatherhood and that appealed to a lot of people so they were able to suspend their disbelief so OK then this is a Clown fish going after his son. But they were drawn in by the message and I think that is the potential the comic book hero has that the people who are not necessarily comic book readers will be drawn in by the message. Because they will say I know that person. They can relate to that person. I know how that person feels.
Kevin: I agree, it is the human side of the character study that will draw people into these stories. At the same time, the fact that we are choosing to tell these stories with super heroes is because there is kind of a sort of shorthand language that has been built up around the genre. Even the more causal of comic readers are still familiar with the success of all these different super hero movies and TV shows will recognize the imagery: the “Dark Vigilante lurking in the alleys” or the “Super Villain on death row” or “the square-jawed Super Hero in a cape swooping down from the sky“. There is a certain visual and narrative short hand to all this so that even if you are not familiar with this particular character you at least have a general expectation of what they represent to the genre. That helps us set the stage rather quickly for these short stories, in that the readers at least start the story with a working set of expectations from the superhero genre: from there, we take it in our own direction.
Don: So you are playing off the success of the super hero films to find an audience who are normally resistant to the genre. The deeper studies about human nature within Ragged Capes will hold the reader who isn’t conceptually enamored with super heroes. Hopefully the audience has been prepped right now with all the movies coming out that they will read it and get past the “capes.” Thanks Ralph and Kevin.
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