Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have helmed Jonah Hex and “All-Star Western” when they rebooted the DC universe with the New 52. Gray and Palmiotti’s newest project, “The Ray,” is hitting comic book stores this week. Issue #1 kicks off a four-part mini-series they hope might become a monthly title. I had the opportunity to talk to the two writers about relaunching The Ray for a new and old audience.
Tell us how you got involved in a relaunch of The Ray?
Justin Gray: DC approached us. They asked us what we would do with a light-based character called The Ray if we were just starting from scratch with an all-new interpretation of the character. We explored a bunch of different avenues related to his powers and his personality from there. We tried to build him from the ground up. He needed to be a likeable and entertaining character that would be different from what we had seen before.
There are some different nationalities presented in “The Ray.” How did that come about?
Jimmy Palmiotti: We’re both New Yorkers. It’s the United Nations of people. We always mix it up in our books. We’re still going to write the character like anyone else, even if Lucien Gates is Korean American. We have some nods to people’s cultures. I think those cultures really make the characters interesting. Especially when we bring the culture into the story. It’s not as if we’re told, “Make this character Korean, Indian, or something like that.” That doesn’t really happen. It’s our choices and we pitch it. If they like it, we go for it. In this book, we have a little fun with the actual background of the main character, Lucien, and his girlfriend, Chanti, and how they clash. It’s just like real life, which is what we wanted.
Justin: One of the things we really wanted to do was have a Hindi character. We wanted her to be his girlfriend. We wanted that dynamic. You don’t see that a lot in comics. You don’t have that cultural experience. Everything is somewhat white washed. The idea here was that we don’t see many characters being represented from India. It’s produced a very interesting dynamic between Lucien and Chanti because you have completely different cultures. Even the culture within his own family is different because he’s adopted. Then you take her culture and add that to it. You just added another dimension to the comic that feels different and fresh.
“The Ray” has been advertised as a four-issue mini-series. Is there any intention by you or DC to go any further than that if it does well?
Justin: I think we feel that way about everything we do.
Jimmy: Absolutely. DC looks at the hard numbers. If there’s an audience for the characters, then they’ll say do more. If the mini-series flounders then it becomes what it is and the character moves to another book or does something else. We’re hoping that not only will fans like it but they’ll also be vocal about it. Retailers have been good about wanting it. Everything comes down to numbers in this business. We’ll know in a month or so whether it’s something we’re going to keep doing and if it will last or not.
Justin: That’s the way it is with everything these days.
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Eric Shirey is the founder and editor of Rondo Award nominated movie and comic book news websites MovieGeekFeed.com and TheSpectralRealm.com. His work has been featured on Yahoo!, DC Comics, StarWars.com, and other national entertainment websites. Besides his three decades long obsession with everything sci-fi, horror, and fantasy related in TV and movies, Eric has what some would call an unhealthy love for comic books. This has led him to interviewing and covering legendary writers and artists in the medium like Geoff Johns, Scott Snyder, Steve Niles, Bernie Wrightson, and Howard Chaykin.