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Features
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Ridley Does It His Way
Normally, people like to move from the world of comic books to that of novels, TV shows and film. But for the talented John Ridley, it’s the other way around.
Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 2:30 PM
By Daniel Robert Epstein
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Wildstorm Productions
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A different kind of Civil Defense Corps
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The name of John Ridley’s black comic book superhero is New American. And picking up perhaps where the infamous Tuskegee Experiment left off, the character owes his strange powers to the experimentations of Nazi missile scientists on the moon.
It is the first original comic book work for Ridley after previously adding on to the libraries of several existing characters. Drawn by Georges Jeanty, The American Way tells the story of a 1960’s government sponsored super team, the Civil Defense Corps, in need of a PR overhaul. When they hire Wes Chatham, a former auto industry rep, he adds a masked black man to the team of crime fighters while discovering some surprising truths about their mission.
If Ridley’s latest creative endeavor manages to do its part to erase the memory of such less than fondly remembered 1970’s black comic book heroes like Black Goliath and Black Lightning, he will be happy. “When I was a kid, I was really excited we were going to have a black superhero,” the 39-year-old Ridley explains during a recent interview with FilmStew. “But Jefferson Pierce [Black Lightning], a high school teacher who was a really good athlete, was all these stereotypical black things.”
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Maury Phillips/WireImage.com
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Multi, multi-hyphenate John Ridley
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“They didn’t really have much in perspective and they [black comic heroes] ended up being more like sidekick-y heroes,” he adds. “That was really disappointing. They would come and they would disappear, and later you’d get Steel, who literally was a placeholder after Superman died.”
In terms of the idea in American Way of a black man being put on a government sponsored superhero team, but his identity being kept a secret from everybody including the team itself, Ridley credits an unusual source of inspiration. Namely, a documentary that he watched while working as a producer on the film Bobby.
“I was doing a lot of research and something I found was that during the original space program, Lyndon Johnson wanted one of the Mercury astronauts to be a black guy,” Ridley explains. “He felt that having a legitimate black hero in science and space would help to quell a lot of the racial tensions that were going on at the time.”
“I thought it was really interesting in that the space program was real, but a lot of it was about propaganda,” he continues. “Johnson thought, ‘Let’s let the black man be a part of this.’ It’s pretty amazing if you think about where the country is now.”
After working with Ben Oliver on The Authority and Simon Bisley for Warblade, Ridley went with George Jeanty as his artist for The American Way. Much of that had to do with the simplicity of Jeanty's style.
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Steve Granitz/WireImage.com
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Scorsese at recent Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon
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“In some aspects, that was in the style of the comics from the 1960’s,” Ridley explains. “But it had a complexity that made it very much a modern comic book. So George was terrific and also very much a partner. He has worked in sequential art much more than I have and was real good about giving ideas. He was very involved in helping formulate the script for the page.”
Ridley is not just the author of comic books, novels like Stray Dogs (the basis for the Oliver Stone film U-Turn), the story of Three Kings and the screenplay for Undercover Brother. He’s also a fan of comic book movies, plain and simple, and he says the Internet has greatly changed the way folks like him assess the caliber of Hollywood’s latest adaptation attempt.
“The reality is that now critics don’t matter as much,” admits a man who recently hosted his own film critics TV show on AMC, Movie Club with John Ridley. “Word of mouth matters more and the fact that word of mouth can be dispensed over the internet matters more.”
“I am far more likely to go to a superhero fan site and find out what they think and if the majority of those individuals don’t like this movie or they like another movie more, then I’m more likely to check it out,” he adds. “Same with romantic comedies, horror films or what have you. I think that the idea of criticism continues because it’s part of the culture. But it matters less and less. I think it matters to the really small films, where you don’t have a budget for marketing.”
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Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com
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Murphy at the SAG Awards
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Nonetheless, Ridley guested on Ebert & Roeper last year and is one of the critics whose 2006 Oscar picks are handicapped on the online movie ticket site Fandango.com. His Best Picture choice is Letters from Iwo Jima, but he says the real suspense will be when the Best Director category comes up.
“I think the big thing is going to be whether Scorsese is going to win for The Departed,” Ridley suggests. “There have been other greater films that he’s done that he’s been ignored for. So this might be like Al Pacino, where he gets the award he deserves but he doesn’t get it for the film he deserved it for.”
“I think Letters from Iwo Jima was a quality film, but it is one that didn’t get as much traction with the public that it really probably should have,” he adds. “So for it to be rewarded would be terrific. It is a different kind of subject matter, a different point of view, a different perspective. The Academy is so far away from being what the real public is. This group of voters is just a bunch of old, rich, white people.”
Ridley is also pleased that Eddie Murphy has finally taken the kind of chance on film that he should have years ago with the role of James “Thunder” Early in Dreamgirls. As far as whether or not the previously made but subsequently released Norbit will put a damper on Murphy’s Best Supporting Actor chances, Ridley isn’t so sure.
“It’s not like they started shooting Norbit a week after the nominations (it was shot at the beginning of 2006),” he observes. “That was a choice made a long time ago. It fits in with what he does, where he’s playing these multiple roles.”
“Critics may not have liked the movie, but audiences - at least for the first week - flocked to it,” adds Ridley. “I don’t know if it was the best choice, but financially it wasn’t a bad move. The big thing is, if he wins the award, what will he do then? Does he go for more marquee roles, or does he go do more Norbit type stuff?”
As far as whether or not Ridley’s latest medium, comic books, has a sizeable African-American audience, he can only go for the moment on personal experience. “I know a lot of black people read them and are into them,” he exclaims. “And I know some who write them, like Reginald Hudlin.”
“Culturally, for a lot of reasons, comic books haven’t appealed to people of color,” Ridley bemoans. “I remember when they were doing the Milestone comics [in the 90’s], I loved those. I bought a bunch of different ones like Icon, Rocket and Hardware.”
| “I enjoyed reading the majority of those because I thought it was cool that it was written for us and by us, but at the same time the stories could also appeal to a white audience. When that fell apart, it was sad." | |
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