Up, up and away: Everett man finds audience for superhero comics

EVERETT — Thorvald the Viking, grandson of Odin, is cursed to wander the Earth in search of adventure for 10,000 years. If you think that sounds like something a child dreamed up, you’d be right.

The Norse demigod appeared in the first comic book that Everett resident Carlos Raphael drew as a kid. At 13, he passed out Xeroxed copies of the hand-drawn comic throughout his neighborhood. That was Raphael’s first attempt at breaking into the comic industry, and it wasn’t his last.

The art school dropout pitched numerous superheroes to publishers throughout the 1990s, all unsuccessful. But Raphael. now 52, has found an audience for his characters through self-publishing under the name Champion Comics. His Instagram bio reads: “Just a small publisher in an ocean of comics, trying to make an impact.”

Raphael doesn’t draw the comics himself, citing a lack of patience. Instead, he writes each story and then hires freelance artists to complete his vision. He then sells the finished product directly to readers online and at conventions.

Since 2016, Raphael has used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to cover the cost of printing and production. So far he has raised a collective $25,000 in revenue across seven different campaigns.

Last month he digitally released issue #1 of “The New Remarkables.” The superhero team includes crime fighters like The Night Demon, a masked vigilante aided by two sentient wisecracking guns. Another team member is Trapdoor: Arachnid Assassin, a wandering gambler with an alien battle-suit.

“Some of the characters are admittedly analogous to things we’ve seen in the past,” Raphael said. “But it’s the direction I take them, it’s the stories that I put them in that make a unique experience.”

Raphael said it takes about six months to make a comic, which typically are 24 pages long. He finds a lot of his freelancers on comic-related Facebook groups and has worked with people from as far as Argentina, Indonesia and Singapore.

One of the artists Raphael contracts with is Oliver Dela Cruz, who lives in The Philippines. Dela Cruz told The Herald he started freelancing for Raphael in April and has drawn concept art for 42 characters, plus four comic book covers.

Dela Cruz does graphic art as a hobby and said some of Raphael’s assignments can tricky. Sometimes Dela Cruz is given sketches for reference, but most of the time he has to draw a character based on written description alone. One character took Dela Cruz six days to finish.

“It’s unorthodox, unusual, out of the norm,” Dela Cruz said of Raphael’s characters. “They are very unusual for me (to draw), but it’s a very good challenge. He has this wild imagination.”

Raphael’s lifelong passion for caped crusaders was sparked in 1975 by a gift from his mother, “Power Records Presents: The Incredible Hulk At Bay!” It was the first comic he ever read. The best part, he said, was the record accompanying the comic that narrated the story.

“It just blew me away,” he said.

And Raphael wanted more. So he went to a local gas station and, unbeknownst to his parents, used his lunch money to buy “Incredible Hulk #183” off the rack. He was 8 at the time.

“My mom found out, but she didn’t really get too mad at me,” he said. In fact, from then on she helped expand Raphael’s collection with comics she picked up at garage sales.

Raphael said his favorites starred Hulk, Thor and the horror monsters Dracula, Wolf-Man and Frankenstein.

“It’s the fantasy element and being drawn into those worlds,” Raphael said about what drew him to comics. “And a lot of times you’ll see yourself in the character.

“It’s a medium that goes on and on, so they’re never-ending stories. You just continue to follow down that rabbit hole for as long as those storylines interest you.”

Growing up, Raphael decided he was going to make his living in the comics industry. In 1990, he enrolled in The Art Institute of Seattle. He wasn’t the best student, he admits, skipping class to go hiking or spend time with his girlfriend.

“I lost focus,” Raphael said. “And then I realized that the artists there were phenomenal, and I was pedestrian at best. So even though I had the skill to get in, I was just way behind those students. So eventually I just decided to go to regular college.”

But Raphael didn’t give up on his dream. Throughout the 1990s he worked with comic artist Jason Metcalf to develop characters and pitch them to publishers. The two first met at a comic shop in Ellensburg and at the time were both students at Central Washington University. Raphael was the idea’s man and Metcalf did the art.

Metcalf said Raphael’s characters are a cross between the “iconic sampling of superheroes” of Marvel’s “X-Men” and the urban grittiness of DC Comics’ “The Watchmen.”

“God blessed Carlos with a lot of creativity. He’s definitely full of ideas,” Metcalf told The Herald. “It seems like his wheels are always turning. He’s always on the verge of creating something new.”

Raphael said they had a lot of “close calls,” but no deals were ever made. So he put his comic ambitions on hold to focus on raising his five daughters. Today he works as a client care specialist for a consortium of radiologists. In 2011, he decided to give comics another go with the release of “American Revere #0.”

Raphael said his audience is small. His best-selling comic sold 1,000 copies, with most comics having sales in the hundreds. But his audience is dedicated and his work rewarding. In 2019, Thorvald the Viking, a character dating back to Raphael’s childhood, starred in a comic of his own: “Thorvald the Viking versus Taranis the Thunderlord.”

Raphael said holding the printed copy in hand was a dream come true.

“There’s nothing like having something that you created when you were as fresh-faced as I was, and then years later get this in from the printer,” Raphael said. “I made a promise to that 13-year-old kid that no matter how long it took, that I was going to make it. So 40 years later, there he is on the page.”

Eric Schucht: 425-339-3477; eric.schucht@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @EricSchucht.