The arc of John Ridley?s career reaches back into the early 1990s where he wrote for shows like Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and others, as well as cinematic features Three Kings and Undercover Brother. But his 2013 Academy Award-winning turn as the writer of 12 Years A Slave, coupled with his writing on TV series American Crime and Five Days at Memorial, show a deeper development in terms of storytelling and truth speaking into the universe. While his writing is now included in the DC and Marvel pantheon, largely with Black Panther and Batman, the depth of his storytelling continues to deepen. From the New York Comic Con, Ridley shared about his motivation and the stories he shares with the world.
?My mom was a teacher and my dad was a doctor, and I come from a service-oriented family,? he shared. ?I love what I do, but how does that improve the world that we live in? There was a desire to tell stories that would have an impact, and challenge people to be uncomfortable. It?s not about whether they agree or disagree but to acknowledge certain facts. It?s been an evolution. I?m thankful for the graphic novel space to tell some more fantastic stories, but they are grounded in certain realities.?
While Ridley has continued the storylines fostered by author Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Black Panther series, he has also introduced a new black Batman, as Lucius Fox? ?other? son dons the cowl. In a one-shot, he tackles the Penguin’s rise and fall in ?One Bad Day,? and does some heavy lifting on crime, punishment, and race in GCPD: The Blue Wall. Several installments of these storylines drop October 18, and the author warmed to sharing about his latest creations.
?In ‘One Bad Day’, you have someone who has a criminal empire, the beating heart of every bad thing that happens in Gotham. Everyone loves the villains. They?re complicated, interesting. The Penguin is someone I?ve grown up with like so many readers, someone at this point who is very indelible in terms of what they represent. I wanted to take some of the ideas that had been baked into the equation, and figure out how those pieces fit. Sixty-four pages in one shot, but that was the attraction. And then there?s some introspection of my own mixed in. How did this person get there? When you get to where you?ve always wanted to be, you wonder if you can get there again. How much of it was luck? How much of it was the people around you? How much of it was you stumbling forward? How much was it you? Is the ride sometimes better than arriving or being at the destination??
Examining the heroes and the villains, Ridley can?t help but considering real life, too, even if he?s reflecting it on comic book pages with made-up characters. ?You look at life, and you see the cycles of society. Sometimes we say life is getting worse and more challenging. You ask, ?Where are the leaders of yore?? They weren?t perfect, but they had these kinds of skills and they led these things. Were they really better? Did men and women rise to the occasion? Did their Imperfections make them better because they were compensating in the best possible ways or did it make them worse??
?No great person thought they were really great and that?s what made them great. Is greatness what makes a person great because they were born that great? Is it Excalibur and the sword from the stone. Is it because I could be the kid who could pull the sword from the stone? It?s mythology and hero worship. I personally don?t want to see leaders who are pristine from top to bottom but people who can overcome whatever that is and can see that irrespective of my failings, when it comes time to do right, I know right and I know how to accomplish it and I?ll do whatever it takes to make right happen for the good of us all. I think those people do exist. At its core, however we tell these stories about heroes, they have value.?
Ridley realizes that there?s a person?s internal wiring and thinking, and then there?s the added layer of how people look at another person and what they think about them. This is especially valuable to Ridley in terms of tackling questions of a person?s value in terms of race, gender, and sexuality, as considered by society. ?How do people perceive you and look at you one way or another? How do I perceive myself when I?m alone? How does the world perceive me when I leave the house?? he asked. ?I get treated one way when it?s, ?oh it?s John Ridley at Comic-Con? and another way when I?m just me riding the subway. For me, centering these stories around people of color, it?s what I was missing growing up. As much as I love comics and storytelling, you realize that this isn?t a world that I recognize. A thinking, caring person would say that everyone deserves to feel that joy reading these stories, without tempering it by realizing that they?re missing something. Emotional, philosophical, and fundamental reasons lead you to choose to make a story that reflects you. People who are part of the family of narrative appreciate that, and there are others who will read it and not get it, and that?s fine.?
The writer still values the art even as he?s creating words, reflecting on his own childhood appreciation for the comics and his work to now tell more of those stories for a diverse audience. ?I?ve been fortunate to work with great artists for the right stories. I can?t give enough credit to their ability to be cinematic. The most important part of a comic is the art! I?ve gone to the comic book store and picked up a comic and barely read the text. There?s a connection between graphic novels and storyboarding,? Ridley says, before adding, ?I was an acquaintance of John Singleton and he would say that part of what made him become a director was because he was a comic book nut, and the consequential storytelling form.?
Just like Singleton pushed boundaries and confronted stereotypes in film, Ridley continues to do this through his arc of storytelling in little squares with dashes of color and worlds we?ve visited before.
?I?d separate I am Batman and Black Panther, because they exist more in the mainstream. To tell the mainstream story with a Batman who happens to be black. Outside of the mainstream with The Blue Wall or The Other History push interaction and conversation. These are stories that are intentionally underscored in their narrative outside of the prevailing culture.?
He continued, ?In The Blue Wall, particularly because it follows out of Gotham Central, I wanted it to be grounded in reality. Montoya is Latin-x, her second, Davis, is a black man, the rookies are an Asian American female, a hispanic Latin-X, and a young black guy. When we discuss policing in community, there are issues because of the binary definition of a person by their race, but when we talk about systemic bias, which I absolutely believe in, we still have to allow for the things like faces and races to change, are there still biases baked in. When we change things in the equation like the race, gender, or sexuality, can we distill it to look at the systems? When we look at Freddie Gray in Baltimore where officers of color were involved in that, it?s more complicated and painful.?
?I?m trying to be aware of that, and what I can say to a person to a kid picking up Batman, or Black Panther, The Other History, or The Blue Wall. I?m trying to be aware of who the audience is, and being aware of their capacity to read it. You?re seeing a Batman who is black – maybe that?s all I have to do there. With The Blue Wall, I?m hoping you?re challenged by something difficult, challenging, and cause you to consider things that you struggle with. You may love one and hate the other, but at my age, as much as I love comic books, to have the desire and capacity to work with large media companies who say that this is possible is just incredible.?
Check out John Ridley?s work available digitally and in print now, with more coming soon on October 18.
