AMA with Rippaverse's Andrew Rodriguez On 11/26 @ 1pm EST

[Joshua Ignatowski]

Let's GOOOOO!!!

 

[EmberVine]

Is there anything fans can expect from the next wave of releases that you’re especially hyped about?

 

[SignalGhost]

What lessons from TV/film carry over most into comic development?

 

[PhineasFlash515]

"Rest assured, Zephyr WILL get much faster as time goes on, but we're gonna properly pace ourselves here. This is a Marathon, not a 100m Dash."

Awesome to hear! And yeah, that's definitely the best way to go about it. Obviously, unless you’re doing the OnePunchMan style of writing, it’s better to have the Hero start out relatively weak and BECOME Ludicrously OP over time, as he continuously steps up to fight stronger enemies and higher stakes. Seeing Zephyr grow as a person, and making rookie-mistakes and tripping over himself in the first few arcs, will make us love and root for him more, and be all the more hyped when he eventually does perform some crazy-awesome speedster-feats.

I could see Zephyr having Speed-Infinitum, where he continuously grows faster and faster, but it takes time and training and skill to get there, and EVEN THEN, there would still be things he can’t do that other heroes can.

Maybe EndGame BlueShift can go Quintillions of Quintillions of Times Faster-Than-Light, but BECAUSE he’s Faster-Than-Light, he can’t see where he’s going, (you need light to see) and so he has to map-out his route in advance! I think that would be a really cool way to have him be INSANELY-CRACKED, while simultaneously very restricted and needing a ton of forethought and training and preparation to actually effectively utilize that speed, without just blindly crashing into everything.

It would straight-up just be the "Ludicrous-Speed!" Joke from SpaceBalls, but applied to Zephyr's powers and training! The first half of his story, he's not fast enough, and then for the second half, he's TOO FAST for his own good, and not smart enough and patient enough to actually make good use of his speed, and has to learn that "Direction is More Important Than Speed."

Because It Doesn't Matter How Fast You're Going, If You're Going in the Wrong Direction. Literally, and perhaps even Metaphorically from a Character standpoint. It's better to do things the Right Way Slowly than the Wrong Way Quickly. If I were creating and writing my own Speedster Hero, I think that's the overarching theme and internal-struggle that I'd want to explore with him:

Quick-Fixes vs Genuine Problem-Solving.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Awesome! I have a couple questions myself:

• How do you decide which new characters or story arcs should take priority when building out a fresh universe like this?
• I see your background is in marketing, business, and film. How much do those influence the way you approach storytelling and shaping the Rippaverse?

Great questions, and a sincere thank you for being the first one!

When deciding how to build out a budding, expanding universe, it's important to understand a few things:
1) Your initial target demographic. Knowing this is vital to ensuring your work has the best chance of success, though it is never guaranteed. Your audience will hold you accountable when you tell them you're giving them something—they'll have certain reasonable expectations, and those should be met appropriately whenever possible.
2) Once you have that starting line, you want to pay careful attention to that customer base and find out what it is that they're seeking most. As an indie, you can be in a uniquely agile position in the market because you can have a more hands-on approach with the fanbase, taking in their feedback in real-time and implementing it where and when appropriate.
3) In the case of my character and story, Blue-Shift, while a speedster was the first thing I wanted to create, and I had already been working on it for some time before pitching it to Eric, I did a lot of market research both in and out of our existing fandom. As luck would have it, a large portion of our existing base was looking for a more youthful and fun character, who maybe gave off some Peter Parker/Spider-Man tones, among other things. This is exactly what I wanted to do, and so I compiled all of that research, including quotes, screenshots, etc., to present to Eric with my PowerPoint pitch. Effectively, you want to listen to your target audience, because they will tell you what they're looking to see, and that's a much safer bet for success than shooting from the hip.

This is somewhat of a piggybacking off the above, but my education in marketing and business, coupled with seeing the very clear negative side effects that occur when companies stray from listening to their fan base, taught me to listen. I want to tell the stories that I want to tell, but I want the audience to have a genuinely good time with them as well. So there's a balancing act between narrative and presentation that you have to do there. You could think you have the greatest story ever, but if your audience isn't interested in it, then you're not entertaining them and won't have them for very long. As for the film background, I like to try to aim for a cinematic approach to paneling when writing a script, and I usually have a very clear image in my head of what I think looks cool and what the reader will. That said, it's important to give your artist creative freedom and allow them to play with it, so I'm always open to an artist saying, "I see what you're going for here, but can we try this? I think it will look cooler." And I am always open to making things "cooler!"

 

[PhineasFlash515]

Also, I was wondering, will BlueShift be getting his supersuit from Cedric, the Tailor who made Isom HIS costume?

Probably, right? He's introduced as the Tailor for a bunch of heroes, but so far, Isom's the only one we've seen him with.

I also think it'd be cool if BlueShift were to be involved in Projexus and all the super-science they've got going on. Maybe Lincoln Eusbio becomes fascinated in BlueShift's abilities and wants to win him over so they can reverse-engineer his powers for medical-advancements and stuff, but Zephyr isn't sure how much he can trust Lincoln and Projexus. Lincoln Eusbio's another character I'm intrigued by and want to learn more about. He doesn't seem to be a hero or a villain, per se, but I can totally see him and Projexus BECOMING a force of evil at some point, due to their TransHumanist goals, and the fact that such ambitions almost always lead to Dystopias, and never Utopias.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

• How do you balance fan expectations with sticking to the original vision?
• How much freedom do you have when shaping characters or story direction?
• If you could greenlight any Rippaverse project tomorrow (no budget limits), what would it be?

Oh man, thank you for your questions—that first one is a doozy!

This is the age-old hurdle, and one of the trickiest things to balance as a creative. What all creatives need to understand is that they get to do what they do by the grace of the fans' continued support of it. You can and should tell the stories you have in you and feel would be enjoyed, that's the liberty in creativity, but if you're creating for anyone other than just yourself and your own amusement, then you MUST understand that the customer is king and that sometimes a large portion of your audience is not going to be a fan of what you're creating, even if they were before. What's important to delineate here is that it is impossible to please everyone, and even if 95% of your fans love your current story or new character, there will still ultimately be that 5% that really doesn't, and that's ok. Take notes, see what critiques your fans have, and see where you can meet them on them. It's when a large portion of your audience hates something you're doing *cough* One More Day *cough* that you need to figure out how to pivot and acknowledge that you didn't do right by your fans.

That's the tricky part of working within an expanding universe, isn't it? It's not just you and your characters and stories. You have to work collaboratively with other creatives who are writing other stories and working with other characters in a shared space. You have to remain 1) respectful of the work of the other creative teams so as not to step on their toes and 2) aware of which characters may not be your business or place to play with at any given time. With that in mind, as long as I operate within our existing lore and continuity, and am not doing something that conflicts with another story or in-universe rules we've already established, then I have a fair bit of freedom when crafting a new character or story myself. It helps that I am pretty intricately well versed in our Rippaverse lore, and I make sure I do my homework thoroughly on everything that may pertain to what I'm making, even if it may seem like an insignificant detail at the time—those can have a snowball effect if you let them build, and then you have a demonstrably more impactful problem on your hands...

Oh gosh, that's pretty open-ended, hahaha. If I could greenlight an animation, I'd have the best animators across Western and Japanese (think Fate, Demon Slayer, etc.) teams come together to make a high-octane, flashy, and outrageously fun Shounen-esque animated series for Blue-Shift, with my favorite Sonic VA, Jason Griffith, starring (he voiced the trailer). I already created it with that sort of visual in mind, so I think it would be the coolest thing ever—I recognize I have some bias there.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Sounds great, can't wait to ask about his ability to balance fantasy and reality in his comics in such a way that they both click.

Thanks for your question!

The balance between fantasy and reality in fiction often comes down to a few things:
1) The standard your universe operates off of
2) The type of story you're trying to tell
3) The setting and characters you're using

All of these things, among others, will coalesce to either be believable for your audience or not. An audience that understands the premise and baseline rules will be able to easily sort the rest out. Where things get tricky is when you try to play with things like hard science or hard magic systems, because as soon as you do that, you've locked in your audience, and by extension yourself, into adhering to those things if you want to be taken seriously. I try to do a lot of research when writing, but enough to where someone who is at least tangentially familiar with the material and concepts and believes it, while also not having to be so deep in the weeds with the science that it distracts from the story being told. At the end of the day, as a longtime DnD player and DM, I'm a firm believer in the "Rule of Cool" and that your audience ultimately wants to be entertained. As long as you are diligent, then if they're entertained, they're convinced. I play with this very idea in Blue-Shift in the stories I hope I get to tell down the road!

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

When you’re creating a new character, what is your starting point?

Awesome question! I feel like this is something that every creator has a different answer for. When creating Zephyr, aka Blue-Shift, I knew immediately that I wanted to create a speedster, having been a fan of Velocity, Quicksilver, Accel, Doc Rocket, and the Flash for decades, so I knew which general powers I wanted to play with. I also knew that I wanted the character to be our Peter Parker (at least comparative to other Marvel heroes when he was first created) in that he was young, naive, and had a lot of growing to do. I then worked my way out from there, including designing his final super suit, the types of supporting cast (both friends and foes), and lastly, the types of stories that I wanted to tell. I looked at it from the angle of first designing each of the individual jigsaw pieces, which would ultimately naturally come together to organically create a tapestry that fits together in an organic way.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

What are Andrew's four favorite films? And what are Zephyr's?

I have so many films that I love, and a lot of them rotate in and out of a Top 5 or 10 list for me. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
- The Last Samurai
- Jurassic World

As for Zephyr, none of those exist in his world, so I imagine that his list consists of shounen action anime.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Assuming the bulbs charge up Zephyr's speed (confirm pls if so), is there a technological limit that he will have to keep innovating to reach? Also is it addictive, like perhaps he relies on them too much and will learn to let go? Or are they like traininf wheels?

A great many of our fans keep pointing out the "bulbs" on Zephyr's Blue-Shift super suit in the promotional art! I will say that these energy nodes do not, in fact, charge up Zeph's super-speed. The suit itself is actually borne out of the technological limitations of those that he'll wear prior. I won't say more than that, for now, but it all ties into the drawback of his abilities.

Every design choice I made for this super suit was deliberate and made with both utility and cool factor in mind.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Does Zephyr look up to any member of Alphacore as an inspiration?

He does indeed! There's one member in particular of the Florespark super-cop team whom Zephyr greatly looks up to, and that will get played with in the stories to come, should I get the chance to tell them! He thinks he's a pretty super man.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Which character in the Rippaverse do you think has evolved the most from their original concept?

There are several characters who, while we're still in our infancy as a publisher and growing universe, have had significant growth over the course of the stories told. However, at least from the audience's perspective, I think that the character who has had a great deal more depth revealed to them is Bryan Solari. When we first get a glimpse of him in Isom #1, he's this imposing, very inspired Superman archetype. In Alphacore #1, Chuck shows us that, while Bryan will follow orders, he'll also sometimes find a way to skirt around procedure and protocol. But it is within the pages of The Great War of Separation where we start to see all the layers beneath that hardened exterior. We see just how noble he truly is and the lengths to which he will go to protect his squad. We also see in TGWOS that he is a man of honor, when he not only passes up the chance of a major promotion but also walks away from his orders entirely, because he feels them to be morally unjust. In that action alone, Chuck Dixon shows the reader just what kind of man Solari is.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

I’m curious, just HOW FAST will BlueShift be? I assume he’s gonna start-out relatively tame, (maybe like Dash from the Incredibles?) but what will his EndGame Speed and Power look like?

Just wanting to manage my expectations. I already know the RippaVerse won’t be having any Multiversal or Time-Travel shenanigans, so BlueShift’s probably never gonna be as Ludicrously Fast and Cracked as WallyWest or Archie Sonic, and I do appreciate you keeping the superpowers relatively tame for the earlier arcs, since character-development and world-building should always come first, but at the same time, I’d LOVE it if the RippaVerse had some crazy cosmological Shonen Power-Creep. Like, maybe End-of-Series BlueShift is fast enough to outrace the Millennium-Falcon or some crazy stuff like that. And EndGame Zalen could solo the Viltrum-Empire as easily as OmniMan wiped out the Flaxans!

It’s up to you guys, of course. Just wondering if we can expect the superpowers to get a whole lot crazier as the story continues and the world opens up.

This question was always going to come up sooner or later, hahaha.

I've spoken extensively about power-scaling, the importance of it when building an expanding universe, and how easily you can break that delicate balance if you let a speedster run away with it. With that in mind, yes, Zephyr will start out pretty tame, and that's not even counting the Blue-Shift: Tryouts short story.

I have several specific story beats planned for his various PR moments in which he'll find a new gear, as it were. But there will, God willing, be plenty of time to explore those and build towards them. His "endgame" speed, I couldn't say, though I have potential targets. But his early career is far more akin to Dash from The Incredibles, Clark in the early seasons of Smallville, or even early Season 1 Barry from The Flash. Much more than that is too busted too quickly, and while I love the idea of doing some genuinely crazy stuff much further down the line, I enjoy the challenge of having more limitations on him early on because it means that I need to be creative with the storytelling and also I get to play with the types of crooks and super-baddies who otherwise wouldn't cause him to break a sweat if he were already FoX-Men Quicksilver or current DC comics Flash. Rest assured, Zephyr WILL get much faster as time goes on, but we're gonna properly pace ourselves here. This is a marathon, not a 100m dash.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

1.) What was your "Favorite Part" of Horseman #1? Mine was when he was able to tell when the bad-guys' belt-fed machine-guns were out of ammo because he'd been mentally keeping count of every individual bullet they fired.

2.) You've talked about how you're a big fan of Rin'Lyn, the captain of the Dirty Deeds crew. If you could pick from any of the Rippaverse heroes and any of the Rippaverse villains to have her fight against, who would you pick for both categories? Given that, as keeper of the NDAs, you have access to greater knowledge than us about how her powers work, I'm interested in which matchups you think could provide the coolest, most epic battles.

3.) Which Sonic comics arcs and characters are your favorite, and why? One of the characters I personally enjoy is Antoine D'Coolette, with how in the Classic Era, he's the C3PO of the group who you love to laugh at whenever he gets hit by a comic relief gag after having spent a lot of time annoying everyone around him, and how in the Modern Era, he's matured into a courageous swordsman and caring husband.

4.) Care to elaborate more about the process of coming up with a rogues' gallery for Blue Shift, and the inspirations for the villains? (And might he have an upcoming opponent who can stun-lock you by saying "It's no use!" and then throw you into outer space?)

5.) As your "Caffeinated Wolfe" moniker suggests, I'm guessing you know a fair amount about the bean brew that let the Founding Fathers win the war against the British and their tea-drinking ways. What types of coffee do you personally recommend, and why? Which brands, flavors, and styles stand out above the rest to you?

6.) You've given us a bunch of clues and inside baseball about Zephyr Arland and the inspirations that went into creating him. Would you be up for doing the same for the supporting cast of characters he meets attending a "normal school" for the first time?

Sparks and bolts, Joshua...hahaha. Thank you for all of your questions. In the interest of time, some of these will be quick-hits.

1) I am a self-admitted Chuck Dixon fanboy, so virtually everything he writes is my new favorite part. That said, I love when he manages to insert some proper humor into an otherwise serious character: i.e., Patty scolding him for cussing up a storm in front of his nephew Danny.

2) I think I'd like to see her attempt to get into Zephyr's noggin, actually, to see if her powers have the same (or any) effect on a mind that operates markedly faster than your typical biological being. As for villains, though I think Rin'lyn would be greatly disturbed at what's in her mind, I'd like to see her take Lilian down a peg...

3) I'm a big fan of most everything up through the First Robotnik War, before a lot of things really went off the rails, but some of my favorite stories were the Sonic Specials, such as the pseudo-game tie-ins Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic & Knuckles, and Sonic Triple Trouble. My all-time favorite will always be Super Sonic VS Hyper Knuckles, and that book in particular had a huge impact on Blue-Shift. As for characters, I always loved Bunnie's southern belle charm despite being a powerhouse.

4) I'd love to! When creating a speedster hero, the knee-jerk tendency can (understandably) be to immediately try to mirror the Flash's rogues gallery. But I didn't want to do that, though that's not to say that I'd never create a villain who is inspired by one of them. Instead, I leaned more into Peter's rogues gallery, as well as Sonic's, as they were the two characters who most make up Zephyr's DNA as a character. However, that comes down more to the theme and tone of the villains rather than just doing "my version of villain N"—there IS at least one baddie in his rogues gallery who is meant to be our universe's take on a popular villain archetype, just as Eric did with Leprido being our Lizard or Killer Croc, but with mine and Marcos' twist on it. I think the fans will really dig it. I'm sure everyone wants to see the inevitable rival speedster bad guy, but don't hold your breath, because I'm not diving into the speedster wars for several arcs! As for the last part of your question: NDA.

5) As the resident King of Caffeine, Monarch of Mocha, and Ruler of the Roast, I know a thing or three about a thing or three. I prefer light roasts, blonde roasts when accessible, with espresso ground into there. I also enjoy Deathwish Coffee. My favorites are actually from a mom-and-pop I've met at a few conventions called Comics on Coffee, and I invite y'all to give them a look. I'd personally love to do a Blue-Shift "Lightspeed Blueberry" blend with them someday that adds blueberry and espresso into a light roast.

6) See! Don't ever say NDAndrew never told you anything! Hahaha. I've mentioned that Zephyr is intended to be the Rippaverse's Peter Parker (sans the super-genius bit—and the whole spider thing...). In the same way, Trinity is very much intended as his MJ (for now...?), so a lot of inspiration was taken from her as well. In addition to that, there's a lot of Tifa Lockhart in Trinity's personality, as well as a splash of Cammy White. Her "main" outfit is also intended to tie into the color scheme of Zephyr's super suit, but it also ties into [REDACTED], which is something they both share as a thing they love. Whatever could I be referring to? Hmmm...

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

Also:

7.) We've all seen awesome stories come out that later have sequels that didn't need to exist and mess with the character development that the protagonist had in the first story. As someone who's planning a bunch more stories for Zephyr if and when they get greenlit, what approach(es) have you used in your outlining process to come up with sequel stories where you develop the character in new ways without doing dirty the character development he's already had? Also, how do you personally avoid falling in the other ditch of the character learning so many moral lessons across different arcs that eventually there's nothing left for him to learn?

This is a crucial misstep that so many long-running series make all the time. In short, have the benefit of both hindsight and foresight. The first script I wrote for him is now his second full arc. That gave me a target to shoot for in terms of both knowing where I needed to organically get him to using the stories that come before it, as well as having a solid springboard going forward. With that said, I like to think that I'm being diligent in avoiding the pitfalls that so many trip into by way of not trying to outdo myself so much so quickly. There's a pacing that needs to happen, with intentionality insofar as maintaining the character's internal (maturity) and external (powers and relationships) growth. We have a universe bible for that very reason, and I keep more detailed still notes in my own programs so I can reference things I've already done for him.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

8.) I notice that the strap on Zephyr's school bag at the beginning of the Blue Shift trailer has bulbs on it in the colors yellow, cyan, and green. Could this potentially have a connection to the bulbs on his suit or the Chaos/Super Emeralds that inspired them?

Those are just simple buttons on Zeph's backpack, in terms of function—nothing deeper to them than that.

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

9.) Might the design on Zephyr's T-Shirt be a reference to your internet moniker "Caffeinated Wolfe"?

Ironically enough, I hadn't considered that connection being made by anyone, hahaha. It's actually not a wolf at all on Zephyr's shirt in Tryouts, but rather another canine that is the logo for an athletic wear and equipment brand I created for our universe.

 

[alexj-12]

Thank you so much to everyone that joined the AMA! And thank you so much to @CaffeinatedWolfe for joining. Keep an eye out on our YouTube channel later today, we’ll be having a follow up live AMA with Andrew in case anyone has any extra questions to ask!

 

[CaffeinatedWolfe]

10.) I notice that when Zephyr falls down on the running track in the Blue Shift trailer, his shoes fly off for some unknown reason, but his socks seem to be undisturbed and staying on his feet just fine. This seems very peculiar, especially given that it seems the shoes are flying forward ahead of him as he falls over. Care to talk about that?

This was done to merely lean into the humor of the scene, which will become clear when you see it in its full context, along with the words in the panel. I told Edu to really ham up the visuals, and I love how it turned out, especially when Jason narrates over it in the trailer—"Comedic panic" was my tonal direction to him, and he pulled it off with aplomb.