‘Rapid City’ is about (among other things) power. It is about different individuals and their relationships to power. It is about what you do with the power you have and how you feel about the power you have.

These relationships are literal when it comes to the superheroes on the page, but they are also metaphorical for those of us doing the creating. You know, we have certain powers over this work, and our efforts, and we are responsible for how we use them. Power, glory, responsibility, duty, penalty….all that stuff. How we use our powers (for example: the power to draw awesome pictures), will determine the fate of “Rapid City”. See what a cool metaphor that is?

Different characters were created to represent different attitudes toward power.

The werewolves who turn up early in the first act are there to show the results of power gleefully unchecked. Not just loose, but wantonly running rampant. Power with no control.

Meanwhile, in the real world, pressure and time conspire against us and Jason found himself having trouble getting ahold of that creative energy. The power was in there, it just wasn’t doing what it was supposed to.

Back in “Rapid City”. The wolves must have an opposite. If they are power with no control, then there must be someone who has no power but complete control.

Enter Hector. One of the very few ‘normal’ humans in the main cast of characters. Hector represents control. He sees all use of power as excessive. Through training, focus, and determination, he turns the tables on those with powers. Exploiting their abilities as weaknesses.

They are the opposite ends of the spectrum. Power and control.

So, when Jason finds himself needing to not only tap into his power, but control it to get some work done…who comes out on his sketch pad?

Hector.

Hector, putting a beat-down on those wolves.

Hector, Tamer of Werewolves.

Josh

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Two more great character sketches from Jason.

What do these two have in common?

Switchboard is a third (or possibly more) generation superhero. She never liked the way that her dad and grandfather spent their lives, but more than that, she dated the way their failures haunted them.

When that heroic mantle was passed on to her, she took it up with the purpose of making sure that other heroes would not make the same mistakes her family had.

Glyph is a student, and player, of magic. He sees, uses, and explores the rhythms and patterns of energy which are all around him. For him it is all about exploration and discovery. And, as this picture indicates, occasionally kicking some ass.

So, what do they have in common? Sensitivity to energy flow? Following their own path in the world? Supporting other heroes? Yeah. But mostly they just seem to me like they would get along really well.

They’re friends.

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Micah, Jason, and I have been talking recently about which Rapid City characters could be spun into their own stories and books. I am proud to say that almost every character who is present enough to have a look and a name also has enough dimension and depth that they could hold up in at least one story of their own.

Hector is like that. Especially with the back story we have worked out for him. How much continued interest could we sustain, though, in a character who earns his living by beating up superheroes and supervillains? That’s his thing, that is what he does.

With his elite commando training, he sees superpowers as liabilities rather than assets. To him, every ability is matched by a vulnerability.

He is probably the character I would least like to meet and speak to in real life, but one of the most fun to write.

I am already looking forward to figuring out where he is going to wind up after our first few Rapid City stories have run their course.

Josh Dahl

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Almost all of the major characters in Rapid City are based on people I know. Some are based on individuals, and some are based on more general ‘types’ of people.

I knew I needed a character to be positive and energetic, and also an unexpected source of wisdom. As an inside joke on one of the people this character was going to be based on, I wanted to call him something monkey related. “The Monkey” perhaps.

But it wasn’t working just right. It wasn’t coming together.

So, I put it on the back burner and thought about other aspects of Rapid City. Looking at my cast of characters, I realized that I needed to get a few more of them up off the ground. For visual reasons, I needed to draw the reader’s eye up into the sky.

Flying, swinging, leaping, something like that.

Then it hit me. That high-energy positivity I was looking for…that frenetic pro-activity…it is just like pop-punk. In fact, just like a lot of the pop-punk bands I was listening to in the days that I am actually writing about in Rapid City. Pop-punk bands withy names like “Bounder”.

So many things have just come together perfectly on this project. It is a neat kind of synergy that really makes me feel like we are on the right track.

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When people flip through Rapid City sketch books one of the characters they always seem to ask about is Spade.

He is one of my favorites as well. Spade is the caretaker of the grounds where secrets are buried. Some secrets just need a symbolic, psychological, burial. For others, however, someone needs to get a shovel and put them down in the dirt. That’s what Spade does.

Whose secrets is he keeping, and from whom?

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Seems like there is some kind of new-age, PC, re-thinking of the werewolf. They have gone from monster to nature spirit, like man and nature harmoniously intermingled.

That does not describe our wolves at all. They are bad. Bad dogs, bad people, and bad monsters.

So, maybe ours actually is closer to that new vision. I mean, when have you ever seen mankind mix with nature when nature has not been seriously messed up.

That’s what our version is, not a noble woodland spirit, but the power and savagery of nature polluted by the petty barbarism and stupidity of mankind.

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