Imagine, then, what a storyteller with Ricardo Delgado's talent can do to keep you up nights. If you've read either of his stories, Tribal Warfare or The Hunt (both of which are currently available in trade paperback form from your local comics retailer and Dark Horse Comics), you know why Mark Schultz said, "Blah, blah, blah...whiplash"
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ricardo from his desk at DisneFeature Animation about his art, his stories, Carnivores (his current series of beautiful-yet-inexpensive lithographs) and, of course, dinosaurs.
Bruce Costa: I reread The Hunt three times in preparation for this interview.
Ricardo Delgado: That's more times than I have read it.
Costa: Well, there aren't a lot of projects I can say that about. This was a real treat. I sat down just last evening and read it the final time with my wife. Experiencing your work with another person -- discovering a pacing dictated by pictures, rather than words -- was new and interesting to us.
Delgado: Thank you.
Costa: You clearly laid out the cast of characters in the beginning of The Hunt trade paperback. That wasn't in the original series, was it?
Delgado: I didn't do it in the original print run because I felt that the story was paramount. But once [we compiled] the trade paperback I felt it was important to have a cast of characters in it because that becomes the permanent document of the book.
At that point, I felt like people had read the story enough and now wanted to differentiate between some of the different dinosaurs. When you read The Hunt you can see the Allosaurs, the baby and the mom -- you can sort of figure that part out. But I also wanted people to see the names I gave to the smaller predatory dinosaurs, the Ceratosaurs. It can get confusing at times as to which Ceratosaur is which because they are chameleons -- which is something I felt strongly about. But overall I think I'm not completely happy with the way that turned out.
Costa: Really?
Delgado: Yeah, in terms of conveying that they're chameleons, I don't think that everyone understands that. It was a fun idea, and I like trying different and new things, but I think that through my own fault, as a storyteller, that was conveyed as clearly as possible. I had inconsistencies with the idea of what these things do when they change colors.
Costa: I must say that it was clear to me from the first glance. And James Sinclair's colors, from the point of view of an outsider, seem flawless.
Delgado: I think that James does an excellent job given what I give him. He took an idea that I gave him to make these things chameleon and I think that he made them work. But I'm not happy with the way that I thought of them working colorwise and how they change. The execution of the color stuff that I did, I'm not happy with. The stuff that James does consistently is well done and well thought out. An example of that is the Plesiosaur and the Ictheosaur. They are laying dead on the beach at the beginning of the last issue. There is some really fun stuff going on there and tremendous color. He really cares about working on these things and I really appreciate that. It's tough, I would imagine, to be given stuff by someone else, then giving dimension and texture and breathing an environment into these lines.
Costa: Was the idea of the Ceratosaurs' chameleon-like characteristics yours or did you have some scientific suggestion of that ability?
Delgado: It is simply based on nature. I wanted a different take on these creatures. I am intrigued by the possibility that the Mesozoic would mimic nature today. I think adapting some of the characteristics of today's fauna and giving that attribute to animals living in the Mesozoic is fun for me. All the people who have read The Lost World will see that there are chameleon dinosaurs in that book, but my idea was completely independent and just simply an incredible coincidence.
I think [the chameleon ability] really works well with the story, but I think it's more interesting now as a story than an actual paleontologically correct piece. I learn more and more by doing more research. I did research for The Hunt, but I sit down and write the stories and then when they come out I realize that I did it based on books that were published five years before I started writing them. So in actuality, when the stories come out, the books are seven or eight years old, and many times are not up to speed. But, nonetheless, I'm proud of the stories that I tell. I think that the lithographs are more a representation as to what I do now with design and color.
Again, I was flattered that people responded so well to The Hunt. It's a fun story. It's a very simple story. The story of revenge is an old one. They say that there are only eight or nine stories to begin with. I'm not going to sit down and count all eight of them, but I think there is some truth to that. You know, watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, then watch all the other archaeological adventure films that came out right after that. You'll love Raiders of the Lost Ark because it is a crisp, well-told story and you won't like those other films because they were poor knock-offs of something that was well done. Therein lies the difference, as they say.
Costa: What do you think it is that causes you to gravitate toward dinosaurs?
Delgado: Purely and simply, my love for them. They're beautiful, exotic creatures that have mystified me since I was a child. I used to go to the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles with my parents. They would load us all into the car and take us down to the museum every few months. I was astounded and flabbergasted and intrigued beyond belief. Being in a museum is a wonderful experience to me that I have passed on to my kids. I take my son and my daughter and my wife and I put them in the car as well now, and drive down to the museum. Dinosaurs are beautiful animals. They're not monsters. They're not alien creatures. They are animals that existed on our planet and they are just really cool.
Costa: Oh yes.
Delgado: My favorites are carnivorous dinosaurs. They are just cool-looking. To put it on a childlike level, they are just cool.
Costa: Yes. I had an experience that I am anxious to share with you. We, too, are real museum buffs. We travel around a lot, and regardless of the city we're in, its museums take first priority. We were in Atlanta and their Natural History Museum had the "Jurassic Park" exhibit. We took the kids in there and they were too terrified to get near them, you know, so my wife stood outside while I ran through. Looking at that T-Rex...I got chills. It's very difficult for me to enunciate to you what the effect was.
Delgado: They are very effective, intimidating predators.
Costa: I knew that there was nothing I would be able to do. Nothing. No amount of physical skill would matter. It was just a magnificently powerful creature. And when I read your work, Ricardo, and I see these things doing what they do, it's very believable and powerful to me.
Delgado: Well, thank you. Again, they are powerful. So, then, how do you identify with a creature as intimidating and inhuman as a dinosaur?
The way that you identify with a dinosaur is if it loses its mom. If you lose your mom or someone attacks your mom, then you would want to seek revenge. Would an Allosaur hunt down Ceratosaurs in real life? Would it grow up and even remember? Maybe not. Probably not. Actually, most probably not. But you need that humanity in them to tell the story. At least from the inception, anyway. Because you need to fall in love with Luke Skywalker in the first act. You need to identify with Sam Spade. You need to like those characters. You need to want them to survive, to enjoy the ride for the rest of the film. It is as simple as that.
Costa: Well said.
Delgado: It's fun for me to tell stories like that because they are simple and they are very clear in the way that I try to tell them. I think that sometimes, whether they're successful or not, I just really enjoy doing them. I am flattered that people seem to respond to them. I feel very fortunate and lucky to be doing what I do.
Costa: And the people that have responded to them! It's like a hall of fame. I imagine it to be your own personal list of who you would most like to earn respect of.
Delgado: I appreciate the comments people have made. The first thing you do when you do these things is that you do them because you enjoy them. That you have people of that stature say nice things about you and people that you grew up admiring, like Ray Harryhausen, say nice things about my work is very flattering.
Costa: I can't imagine!
Delgado: Frankly I can't put into words. I am very, very grateful.
Costa: Have you met him?
Delgado: Yes, I met him once. There is a creature shop here in Los Angeles called "Chiodo Brothers Productions." They are the three guys that do stop motion animation. They have done stuff for Tim Burton like Pee Wee's Big Adventure all the way up to the new Land of the Lost series that is on Nickelodeon now. Anyway, they're big stop motion fans and one of them mentioned to me that Mr. Harryhausen would be visiting that evening and they would be having a reception for him. So I went and just stood in the back with my mouth open. Simple as that.
Costa: [laughing] I'm sure you did!
Delgado: Well, he meant a lot to me growing up. He was the first one to put what everyone thought monsters and dinosaurs looked like into reality. I still enjoy looking at that stuff.
Costa: Yeah. Me, too. Me, too.
Delgado: Oh, absolutely. I met him, I shook his hand and I walked away. I was thrilled. And then to have him, five years later, write an introduction to one of my books is the icing on the cake.
Costa: [laughing] So, do you think dinosaurs are birds or what?
Delgado: [laughter]
Costa: Actually, just yesterday, I read a story about how a wishbone in a Velociraptor skeleton shows real evidence of that.
Delgado: They sure look alike. It depends on the dinosaur. Velociraptors come from a family of dinosaurs called Dromeosaurs, and they have a great deal of bird characteristics. It's difficult not to make that connection, obviously. When you look at a sparrow hopping around, or a bluejay, it's not a big leap to look at it and say "That's a copy," or, "that's a Velociraptor." In actuality, Velociraptors were only six feet long. You know that, right?
Costa: Yes, I do.
Delgado: The Raptors they are showing in Jurassic Park are much larger. Although there are Raptors that big. They are called Utah Raptor, and actually are bigger than what are pictured in the films. They are 25 feet long and they are just massive creatures.
Costa: And that is, I think, what your third lithograph is.
Delgado: Yes, it is. I find that dinosaur incredibly inspiring. The thing that is really interesting about that creature is that everyone talks about the sickle claw that Raptors have, but the first claw on the hand of a Utah Raptor is 80% of the sickle claw on the foot. So the claws on the hand were nearly as large as the claws on the feet. So basically articles that I have read about the Utah Raptor jokingly refer to it as the Freddy Kruger of Raptors, and it's really true. In addition to being able to run really fast and having the sickle claw on their foot, the claws on the hands, and obviously their sharp teeth, gave them a lot of weapons to work with. And they were intelligent creatures. Whether they were as intelligent as dogs or dolphins is another matter. That's really difficult to gauge. Probably impossible to gauge. But it's fun to speculate. That's what a lot of it is, is speculation. You don't know what color dinosaurs were. You may never know. Half of the fun, to me, is reading about how the paleontologists disagree on the different theories about the same thing, the same type of dinosaur and whether they were predators or scavengers. That's a debate going on right now about Tyrannosaurus Rex -- whether it was a predator or a scavenger. There is a school of thought that Tyrannosaur was too big and too slow to move around and hunt anything. The different school of thought from the other side of the T-Rex coin is saying to just look at the damn thing. Look how big it is. Look how big the teeth are -- of course it's a predator. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, like everything else in life. I mean, a T-Rex walking by a dead Duckbill is not going to just walk by if it's hungry. It would scoop it up and eat as much of it as it could. If it was hungry and saw the opportunity, obviously, it would hunt something down. To me. So again, half the fun with this stuff is seeing the different way in which the experts think. I, by no means, consider myself an expert. I consider myself a comic-book artist who happens to tell stories about dinosaurs. I enjoy reading about dinosaurs, reading about what people think of them. Again, the different theories themselves are almost more fascinating than the creatures.
Costa: Have you ever fantasized about bending your career towards a scientific end?
Delgado: You mean to be a paleontologist?
Costa: Specifically, yes.
Delgado: When I was a kid that's what I wanted to do. But I love drawing more than I love running around the desert digging stuff up.
Costa: Fair answer.
Delgado: Don't get me wrong. I respect tremendously what they do and I wouldn't be here doing what I do if it wasn't for them. That's tough work and I had enough working in construction during my summers in college. I don't want to do anything like that again.
Costa: What do you typically do, in terms of research?
Delgado: Well, I subscribe to Prehistoric Times which is a fan magazine for dinosaur buffs. But on a more serious side, I acquire as many new dinosaur books as possible. I don't go on-line and do dinosaur research, because number one it's too time consuming; I don't have the time to do so. I just acquired Don Glut's Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and there is a new book by a paleontologist named Phil Curry. That's another encyclopedia of dinosaurs. If people are really interested in dinosaurs they should get those because those are almost all the research that has been done in the last hundred years, basically. Glut's book goes dinosaur by dinosaur, [describing] which fossils they found. I think Don has done a tremendous service to people like me who don't have time to run out to Colorado and talk to Dr. Baccher. If I am in my home and I need to know what a Dsunaripterus skull looks like, I could certainly flip open [Glut's] book and see how much of a skull they found. Because sometimes artists' interpretations are based on what they think and not what is actual scientific fact.
But again, that is why I think The Hunt and Tribal Warfare work. To me, they are more fun to look at as stories, instead of [examples of] actual paleontological correctness.
Costa: How did you come to the stories that you chose?
Delgado: The Tribal Warfare story evolved from watching a PBS documentary on hyenas and lions and their competitive nature. They've basically been at war for eons; they naturally compete for food as the first -- and third-largest predators on the savannahs of Africa. Just watching that I thought it would be cool to see something like that done in the Mesozoic. And, again, The Hunt is very simply a revenge story. I mean, how many revenge stories have we seen? You have to construct it in an interesting way. But the scenario can't interesting without a compelling payoff and story construction. People seem to think that they are.
Costa: I think that your ability to have such a well defined universe through your understanding of the Mesozoic made the story well grounded. You can tell when a story doesn't have that.
Delgado: Yeah, I know. Again, you have to make things interesting for yourself and you have to be your own worst critic. If something doesn't work for you, it sure isn't going to work for anyone else. I don't buy a lot of comics these days because I feel like a lot of the stories are poorly constructed and I long for the days where Jack Kirby would take you to the edges of the galaxy and back in 18 to 24 pages. I like that stuff.
Costa: Right!
Delgado: I like simple stories that mean something. I like to put down a comic book down and say "Boy, that's pretty cool." There is no other medium that really puts words and pictures together like that. Video games are cool. Films are great, but you can't take a page off a comic book. You can't write [a message from the artist] in the corner: "well, it's Saturday night I'm a little tired. I'm going to turn in a little early, so sorry if this page doesn't look as good as the others." You can't do that. I admire people that can tell a good story and draw a good book simultaneously.
Costa: I know what you mean about Kirby. Not only did he accomplish that, but he got you through the process with undiminished enthusiasm. He was a master at pushing your suspension of disbelief. Now it seems like 90% of what I read I overanalyze a critical eye. It's why I really needed to read yours a number of times! I kept forgetting that this was work! I can't tell you the last time I read something over like that. Literally, it has been years.
Delgado: There is a lot of good stuff out there, like Kingdom Come and Marvels. I like a lot of Mignola's stuff as well. Some Arthur Adams' stuff makes me smile and think of Kirby's stories as well. But there is a lot of stuff out there that I don't buy. I don't mean to slap anybody in the face, it's just that, since I was a kid, my standards were high because of the artists I saw. In my professional work the only thing I have tried to do is to come reasonably close to those things. I don't feel like I have, but I think that everyone should strive to that.
It disappoints me when I see that kids are taking less of an interest in comics. That's very disheartening to me because that's one of the reasons why we are here. To see these ultra-violent and limply, stupidly told stories that have no backgrounds and no construction of story, it's very frustrating to me. I love Mark Schultz' stuff. I am a big fan of his work because he tells stories like Alex Raymond and Al Williamson. I know who Gil Kane is and I know who John Romita is. Why can't stories be told that clearly? I used to buy Werewolf By Night -- I loved that. I used to love Manwolf as well. Those comics weren't the greatest comics, but there is at least some semblance of storytelling. I used to love the way Gil Kane used to draw Morbius. The way he drew Spiderman, as well. That's cool stuff. That's why things in Marvels and Kingdom Come were so refreshing to me. I knew I was going to lose to Kingdom Come when they announced the Eisner Award nominations, because it's a great story. I was flattered and overwhelmed with a "Why...me? You mean me?" kind of attitude when I found out I was nominated. I was flattered to be nominated as talented newcomer, or talent deserving of wider recognition, but to be put in that category and people saying yours is one of the five best limited series this year, I was flattered. Again, I wasn't under any pretenses of winning because Kingdom Come is a great story and it is really fun. My stuff is just a bunch of losers running around snapping at each other.
Costa: [Laughing] Uh, I don't think so...
Delgado: That's what I think. Maybe I won't be happy until I tell a biblical dinosaur story with great depth and understanding. But until then, stories like Kingdom Come are precious. I love Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, the whole politics behind what the characters are doing. Again, my stuff is just a bunch of losers running around.
Costa: You not only did your job well, Ricardo, but you did so while taking on quite a bit. You broke new ground, took on new challenges in storytelling. By the way, what made you decide not even to have a narrator?
Delgado: I've said this many times and I'll say it again. Age of Reptiles, to me, comes from Moebius' Arzach comics. He told those stories silently and beautifully. When I decided to try to do a dinosaur comic, there was no question to me that there would be no captions, no narration of any kind, because I don't think it needs it. If you are a storyteller, you should be able to tell your story without words. I just sat down and drew the thing out. Again, I had to be the one to understand it. I thought, well, if I don't understand it, then how the hell is anyone else going to understand this. When I drew it out to the point at which I liked it and it worked for me, then that was ultimately the satisfying thing. You need to satisfy yourself before worrying about anything else or anyone else.
Costa: When you chose the colors for the dinosaurs, did you search for justification or did you just have fun?
Delgado: Some of them are fun, for example the Ceratosaur colors are based on snake colors. They change color pores, all of them changing at will from one snake color to another. The Allosaurs are just, well, I just always thought they look cool in red.
But for the lithographs I really concentrated more on the colors and I wanted to mimic nature. I wanted you to look at the Utah Raptor and think of a lion. I wanted you to look at a Crylothisaur and think of an anaconda. Big predators. If it is one singular image you have to [be able to] look at it with interest for a while, if it's to be an effective piece for people to spend $30 on (which I'm astounded people do anyway). I wanted you to look at a T-Rex that's almost completely black and say, "Boy, it's a black panther; it's an elephant; it's a big single color and it doesn't need to camouflage itself to hide from anything. It needs to lurk in the darkness and wait for things to come along. It's just a massive thing with no worries."
Costa: [shuddering] That's very well said.
Delgado: It's as simple as that. Tylosaurs (the second lithograph) are a pod of killer whales. They are just big predators that need to worry only about where their next meal is coming from.
Costa: What made you choose the specific creatures you did for the lithographs?
Delgado: Number one, they had to be of interest to me. I had to really like them to sit down and do a detailed drawing of them that is 20" by 13." So I wanted to like the dinosaurs. Really like them. I am lucky enough to be one of the people in comics that can choose your own subject matter. That means so much to me. I chose the T-Rex because it's my favorite dinosaur. I chose Utah Raptor because it's an incredible creature. I chose the Deleposaur because I liked the dinosaur and in reality it looks a little different that what you saw in Jurassic Park. The Crylothisaur is a cool, new dinosaur that's been discovered in the last few years down in Antarctica. When people think of Antarctica they think of a frozen part of the world, but back then it wasn't like that. It was teaming with life. This was a large carnivorous dinosaur that lived down there and had these beautiful crests on its head.
I enjoy taking dinosaurs that are cool and unique and sticking them onto a large piece and trying to breath some life into them. Ultimately, you have to look and go, "Boy that's cool. Do I want to sit down for a few nights and draw that?" When I found a dinosaur that I liked and I said yes to those two questions, then I did it.
Costa: Back to James Sinclair. For these lithographs, is he doing the color work on those as well?
Delgado: No, I colored those.
Costa: So you are doing the prints at the same size they're being reproduced, so that it's one to one?
Delgado: I guess so. They look pretty much one to one...
Costa: You're done inking them all, I guess.
Delgado: I'm done inking the first eight, now there are four more images that I started doing a few weeks ago that will be included in a calendar for Turtle Dove Press. They will be in a 1999 Age of Reptiles calendar. Those have been really fun as well. These things are fun to do. In the last two prints of the series, there is a small T-Rex -- half the size of the Tyrannosaur -- about 18 feet long called Manotyranasan. Basically, they look like owls. They have these huge eyes and really thin snouts. That's one of the lithographs, as well. Actually I'm going to send that off today -- I just finished coloring it. That was fun because I colored it [to mimic a leopard]. You know how leopards have dark and regular phases right? There is a black panther or a black leopard, then there is a regular phase. So I colored one a lime green and colored the other with a dark brown, so that would be the black panther version. It's fun for me to do these things.
Again, I'm just amazed that people want to buy these things. As an artist you like to do it for yourself, plus on top of it, when people want to put their hard-earned money into it, it's fantastic.
Costa: Whose idea was it to do the prints?
Delgado: Mine.
Costa: Really?
Delgado: No, I take it back. It was my idea to do a portfolio. I simply did them to publish them as a black and white portfolio. I said, "You shoot these down to 8 1/2" x 11", put a nice little envelope around them, and there you go." Dark Horse said, "Well, portfolios are kind of expensive now, what else can we do with them?" They came up with the idea of doing these limited-edition lithographs. That's pretty much the genesis of it. What I thought would be a small portfolio of dinosaur drawings turned out to be a nice addition to what I have done so far in major reptiles.
Costa: And I am sure you know probably far more than you want to about what's going on in the comic-book business these days. Portfolios and prints just aren't happening. I was pleasantly surprised to see Dark Horse support such an extensive run of lithographs.
Delgado: They are going to do four prints, and after that, they will be compiled with eight pieces and they will be printed into a calendar form. But you will only be able to find those eight pieces in the calendar next year. It's fun. I am flattered again. I did the work on my own. I just sent them up and said I'd like this to be a portfolio and if you guys want to do it that would be cool. If not, send them on back and no one gets his feelings hurt. Again, Mike Richardson has always been behind my efforts. There was a brief meeting down here in Hollywood where one of the executives said "Well, why don't we put a narration on this thing." And Mike said, "It doesn't need narration." Mike has been a big fan of my work and I heartily appreciate his efforts to publish my work. I will be loyal to Mike as long as possible, because again, I am very new to comics and I don't know a lot that goes on in the industry but every time I have wanted to do something, he has always been very supportive of me and he was the first one to run up to me at the Eisner Awards and shake my hand. I appreciate the relationship that he and I have. I always send him a signed copy of all my lithographs and he's always genuinely enthusiastic about my work. I really appreciate that.
Costa: A publisher's genuine interest wonderful -- and all too extraordinary, I might add. Which of the lithos have you seen printed?
Delgado: I have seen the first two, the T-Rex and the Tylosaur. I've seen ad copies for the Utah Raptor. My wife called me today to tell me that there is an ad for the Crylothisaur at home waiting for me today.
They have done a good job. It's a pain in the butt to sign the things.
Costa: How many of them are there?
Delgado: There are five hundred, plus twenty-five copies for myself and fifty more for publisher's copies. Actually, whatever this means to anyone, I do a sketch on every hundredth piece (1 and 100 have drawings on them of that particular dinosaur.) So it's five sketches per run, but signing your name 2,000 times is a lot.
Costa: Plus you're not signing a trading card. You have to move this big piece of paper aside.
Delgado: Again, if that means that people will want to buy my stuff if I sign it, I am flattered that they want to do that. I am astounded.
Costa: Well, it's also a rather reasonable price as prints go.
Delgado: That was paramount to me. It was really important to me.
Costa: That seems to be process dependent, as well as creator dependent.
Delgado: I didn't want them to be that expensive because I want them to be affordable for people to buy.
Costa: In reading about your background, I was really surprised to learn that you are, well, a pretty young guy!
Delgado: [laughs]
Costa: And I do mean that to be as deeply insulting as possible! I am honestly amazed at the level of skill and knowledge you've accumulated.
Delgado: Thank you.
Costa: It's impressive to me to see what you have managed to accomplish. Not to mention the projects you have worked. God Bless. It's been real pleasure.
Delgado: Thank you. I appreciate it and I appreciate everyone's interest in my work. I'm flattered that people think enough of my stuff to buy it.
Ricardo Delgado's Age of Reptiles: The Hunt trade paperback, Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare trade paperback, and Carnivores lithographs are available in finer comics shops everywhere.