Ram V is a master of mythology, a weaver of dreams and nightmares, and one of my favorite authors. Whether it be his recent run on Detective Comics, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, Blue in Green, or any of his other works, Ram V has proven that no one can use the panels to muse upon the nature stories and the psyche of the characters who inhabit them. It is no wonder that he has become a must-read author in the world of comics the past couple years, and likely why he’ll next be tackling The New Gods. (alongside artists Jorge Fornes, Evan Cagle, and Francesco Segala).
I was privileged this past weekend to take a break from the delightful chaos that is the New York Comic Con and sit down with Ram V. He was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me as we talked about his approach to storycraft and the stories that inspired him, his prior and future works, and he even give me a preview of The New Gods ahead of it’s December 18 release. Whether you’re a Ram V newbie or a long-time fan, our chat illuminates why he’s such a vital talent and voice in comics.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
On the past and story craft
AIPT: All right, everyone. My name again is Jay and I am here with one of my writing heroes, Ram V
Ram V: Hey, hey, everyone. Thanks for having me, Jay.
AIPT: Oh no. It’s my pleasure. My pleasure. So funny story, I just finished your detective comics run and I’ve been a fan of your work actually since These Savage Shores, and I followed you as you wrote the Many Deaths of Laila Starr.
So my first question is how have those experiences informed your approach on Detective Comics and now your new work that’s coming out with New Gods.
Ram V: I don’t, I don’t know that look at my work in that sort of cumulative sense, honestly. If anything my brain tends to go ‘OK, I did that thing. Now I want to do something else.’ I think in general, my aim has always been to keep focus on character.
All of my successful stories have been stories that focused on the human elements of being these characters, of inhabiting them, and the greater world and the greater struggles that happen around them are only the canvas for us to study these characters, including my Detective run.
So I think that’s something that has been consistent throughout my work. And you might say that the successes of These Savage Shores and later Layla Star only reinforced that idea in my head that people love stories for other people and not the big bloody stuff that’s happening.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: I would agree and something that I picked up on and, you tell me if I’m reading too much into things, what I’ve always liked about your stories, is you love to use mythology, whether it be, you know, like in These Savage Shores you had vampires, in Many Deaths of Layla Star you had so much mythology in that. And then in Detective you use Barbados and Gotham City itself and, it seems like you focus on the characters, but also muse upon the duality within them: Are they human? Or are they really no better than they’re like native beasts inside of them? Am I reading too much in it? Or what do you think?
Ram V: No, I think certainly with the Detective run that was the aim to ask. This question of when you say someone’s a good person, when you say you want to save someone who’s a bad character, are you extricating their duality? Are you denying their duality?
If you say, you know, you want to save,Two-Face, does that mean you want to separate Harvey from his more violent self? And does that mean you really save them? Or did you make him less in some way?
And so the same question is asked of Gotham. If Batman is a symbol of everything that is wrong with Gotham, then, if you were to save Gotham by extricating all of these negative elements from the city, have you really saved it or have you made it less in some way?
And then this, you can ask similarly of the nature of stories. Are stories, all meant to be nice and good and palatable? Only heroic characters, only good characters, can do good things? Bad characters must do bad things? I think that contending with the complexity of these characters is a subject that I wanted to touch on. I seem to touch on it quite a lot with my other stories as well.
You know, with These Savage Shores, are they the monsters? Or are we the monsters? I just love contending with questions that I don’t know the answers to. You know, where the line between villainy and heroism is drawn between Harvey and Scarvey if you will. So that kind of character work is something that I have always been interested in.
Now to The New Gods and the future
AIPT: Very cool, very cool. And like as you said, when you finish a project you like to move on to another one. So with the New Gods — and I won’t ask for spoilers or anything — what questions are you interested in asking or for yourself and for your audience, with New Gods?
Ram V: I mean, New Gods has always historically posed a sort of nature versus nurture question, between Orion and Mr. Miracle and their history. And so, what I wanted to do is reframe that in a way — and so maybe we will drop some spoilers here:
There’s going to be a new character, a new New God who we will see has to be raised by Earth’s superheroes. This kind of follows this old tradition of characters with more human origins ascending to the levels of gods like Hercules for example, or Ramayan in Hindu mythology. I’m just fascinated by this idea of what if a god had to be raised by our Earthly superheroes, using our Earthly values, ideas, and heroism, rather than more godly characters.
So that’s something I think we’ll touch on with the new card series.
AIPT: Oh, that’s beautiful because it echoes the founding event and the New Gods.
Ram V: Yeah, Orion was raised by High-Father, Mister Miracle was raised by Darkseid. So you had these very clear, good and bad, left and right, right and wrong things. Whereas, when you have someone being raised by, let’s say seven different superheroes in the DCU. Well, I wouldn’t even say superheroes, seven different immortal characters of the DCU.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
They might be good. They might be bad. How do you raise someone like that and ensure that, hopefully, they will continue to be a heroic person? I think that’s a much, much harder prospect to find heroism among human characters than these emblematic Heroes flying around in the sky.
AIPT: That’s true. And you know it’s maybe this is just my conjecture, but you said immortal characters and you do know your way around Swamp Thing.
Ram V: Oh, yeah. I have a list of immortal characters. So hopefully the book run is long enough for us to get to all of them.
I think Swamp Thing is definitely in the fray. I love that the original origin for Wonder Woman, technically, has her as an immortal character.
So Wonder Woman will be the first immoral our character meets. And then, people forget but that Vandal Savage is an immortal, technically. Alan Scott is an immortal. Maybe we will see these (characters) and more show up in New Gods.
AIPT: Here’s hoping, and I’m sure (the book will) run very long because there’s a lot of interest and a lot of hype behind it.
Ram V: So far, the interest has been great. Retailers are excited, readers are excited. I’m sure the book will see a good fate.
AIPT: Absolutely, absolutely. So which reminds me so it seems like you’ve found a wonderful home at DC. You’ve written Justice League: Dark. Of course, Detective Comics. Now using this book, New Gods, you’re going to have the keys to the kingdom to play with a lot of toys in the toy chest. So, is someone you haven’t had a chance to work on that, you would just love to sink your teeth into?
Ram V: So I get asked this question a lot, and I don’t really think about it or really spend my time thinking about characters that I would want to write, kind of thing. I usually spend my time coming up with stories. And sometimes I get stories that later reveal themselves, like, ‘Oh, this would be a great story for this character.’
And so there are a few characters like that that I’ve had story ideas for but rather than talk about this here, I would just pitch them to the editors. So you’ll see those come out. Certainly there’s a book coming out next year that that started off that way. I imagine it’ll be announced sometime early next year. You know, I literally just had a conversation this afternoon with one of my editors about another book that I want to write that would be in that vein.
AIPT: That is amazing. And you know, you’ve been on such a run it’s just hit after hit after hit. And what’s lovely about your work is that ot just it just stands out. You pick up a (Ram V) book and it just feels different, right?
Ram V: Yeah, and I feel like that’s something I certainly aspire to. And I appreciate that in other writers and artists as well. When you know someone’s work has their voice in it, like my work is very much indicative of who I am.
I find that true to be of all of the people that I’ve admired. You can read a Frank Miller book without ever being told it’s Frank Miller and you can tell just the way he writes…’OK, that’s Frank Miller.’ Same thing, you can read a Jonathan Hickman book — ‘OK, that’s Jonathan Hickman.’ You don’t need to see the credits.
So if I ever get to that point where people look at a book and they go, ‘Oh yeah, this is a Ram V book,’ then I will have done my job.
London vs. New York City
AIPT: I think you’re very close then if not already there. My other question for you would be — so, you live in London? You’re visiting New York. My best friend lives in London. He’s always nagging me about moving over there. Which city do you prefer?
Ram V: I was literally telling somebody else this, literally the the prior interview I said: I love New York, it’s my favorite city the world but I also have a kid and I think my kid…I would see my kids going to a UK school as a better thing than than going to an American school.
Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.
Because you know, I don’t feel any kid should have to learn like shooter drills and whatnot. So if not for that reason, I love New York. I used to live in New York. I lived in New York for about two years before I moved out of the States, and then to India, and then to the UK.
And in fact India, and then to UK, so I know America and American cities have always had a place in my heart. I’m just not sure about the school system here.
AIPT: No, I hear you, I hear you. So you might end up seeing me in London. I might move out there.
Ram V: Oh, excellent, you know, welcome, it’s a lovely place. A bit less impulsive than New York, but certainly has its own charms and joys.
Musings on Muses
AIPT: So this is a very cliche question, but I ask it in all my interviews because I think it is telling of people in one way or another. What is your favorite comic book character or comic story and why?
Ram V: My favorite comic book character is probably The Phantom (from) the old Lee Falk newspaper strip. He’s my favorite character because that’s the first comic I ever actually collected.
I would clip out the Sunday news strip and I would stick it on the pages of a book and turn them into like a comic that you could read as a kid. So there’s that sort of old nostalgic, emotional attachment to the character.
And then my favorite comic in general that brought me into reading comics was Sandman. I had stopped -0 so I read comics as a kid, obviously, I collected them and then I stopped for the longest time. I switched then to reading novels and interested in writing prose and poetry and whatnot.
And then around the age of 20, one of my friends gifted me the first volume of Sandman and totally blew my mind in terms of what was possible with comics. So I credit that book, and even though it would take another 10 years before I even started writing anything seriously, I credit that book with making want to write comics.
AIPT: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. I think that’s a very common story but it’s very lovely. I think that’s the funny thing about comics: I like to think you don’t find comics, comics find you.
Ram V: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that certainly with my work. You can see that late ’80s Vertigo influence in it throughout.
AIPT: Absolutely. Your work is always very operative. Very prose-ladden. Things like that. So that’s what I’ve always loved about your work. It’s the quiet moments, but very loud moments.
Ram V: Thank you. I appreciate that.
AIPT: So, is there anything else that you’d like our readers to know about?
Ram V: Yeah, for anyone who’s following my books, there’s a bunch of stuff. The One Hand and The Six Fingers collection comes out in December. That was a really unusual project with two books kind of tying into each other, where I was telling the detective part of the story and Dan Watters and Sumit Kumar were telling the killer’s side of the story. It was an interesting exercise, I don’t think anything like it had been done in comics before. That collection comes out in December.
There’s also the Dawnrunner trade, which was made with my New Gods collaborators, Evan (Cagle), Francesco Segala, and Dave Stewart. That one also comes out in December.
So, Yeah. All the creator-owned things that I’ve been working on over the past couple years are now being collected at the end of this year.
AIPT: Well earned, sir. Well earned and congratulations! Well, it was a pleasure talking you to today, my friend. I don’t want to take you too much away from the con but, it was a pleasure and I hope to see you again down the road!.
Ram V: Yeah, pleasure, and see you in London!
