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A Conversation With Osmar Ramos Caballero by MANUEL FRAU RAMOS

Back in December 2022, we interviewed Osmar Ramos Caballero, an emerging comic book artist who resides in Holyoke. Osmar has published two Latinx oriented comic series. The first one, LAS BRAVAS #1: La Dama de Oro‏ came out in April 2022, followed by LAS BRAVAS #2: Vicky Vampir, published in September of 2022. Osmar is a graduate of the EforAll Accelerator Program, based in Holyoke. This program offers a unique combination of immersive business training, mentorship and access to an extended professional network. We present an abridged and edited version of our interview with Osmar.

Osmar Ramos Caballero

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life story.

Osmar: My name is Osmar Ramos-Caballero, 37 years old, Founder/ Owner/CEO of Gala Comics. Gala Comics is an independent selfpublishing company that creates comic books with unique Latino/ Afro Latino/Taíno Superheroes in Spanish, with an English Glossary in the back of every book. I make these comics for the Latino Community but it is a medium for anyone and everyone to enjoy, whether you speak Spanish or not, whether you are Latino or not. I was born and raised in Havana, Cuba until I came to the United States by plane in the year 1997. During the end of the 80’s and into the 90’s I remember most of my childhood. Streets full of life, people walking everywhere because we have a year round tropical weather, live music, the dancing, the endless parties, the love, but on the other side, Cubans work everyday super hard to put a portion of food on the table for their families. Even though I was having fun, as a kid I knew exactly what was going on around me. And yet, we all lived like every day was our last so simple happiness such as partying, dancing, and music became the overall medicine for sadness, hunger, and depression. I come from that type of mentality, always work hard, get the job done, no room for laziness, always keep on moving/creating but always balance it with a smile on your face dancing Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, Cumbia, and other music styles in order to make peace with yourself and to give thanks to the ancestors for another day. I’m old school I guess.

How and when did you first begin creating comic books?

Osmar: I began creating comic books when I was 6 years old when I was in Cuba. To this day I remember my first comic, blank paper 8 ½ x 11, double sided, action packed, full of square patterns and stick figures fighting non stop from beginning to end. That was my first comic. At that same time I entered a Havana Drawing Contest where I won first place. I don’t remember what I drew but my grandmother still has my winning medal in Cuba.

What made you decide to become a comic illustrator?

Osmar: What made me decide to become a comic illustrator were my experiences when I lived in Spain as a teenager. During that time, I went to an art exhibition open to the public and, of course, I needed to see those pieces of art. After I finished, there was a table with blank pieces of papers and pencils so I started drawing my own superhero. The more I drew the more people surrounded me with the disbelief that I, a 15 year old boy, afro cuban living in Spain, could draw this good in a short amount of time without any prepreparation. Most of my drawings would be done in 3 minutes or less. Kids would ask me to draw them their favorite superheroes - Batman, Superman, Spider Man, Thor, Iron Man, Wolverine, and so on. But something happened. Once I drew these superheroes they were too easy for me to do simply because everyone knows these heroes around the world therefore it was not challenging for me to keep drawing them. Afterwards, the 6th kid came up to me asking to draw another famous superhero. I refused to do it, switched gears on the spot, and said to the kid, “I have a better idea. How about I draw YOU as a superhero?” The kid was astounded by the idea. So I asked him if he wanted to have a cape or not, with or without muscles, what kind of hairstyle he wanted to have, and so on. After I finished, I signed it and gave it to him. I never forgot his face full of happiness and joy. Once the kid showed it to his friends, more and more people came to the table so I could draw them as superheroes, kids and adults alike. At that point I made the decision to become a comic illustrator but with the rule of never copying any other superhero out there. My characters have to be my own style, and in my own way.

Which authors and artists were your early influence or inspired you?

Osmar: To be honest, at the beginning, as a child I had no influence from any one author or artist. I didn’t look up to anyone, even though ironically enough, my grand uncle is a very well known global artist called Choco. As I got older I started to be fascinated by Greek Mythology, Yoruba Deities, The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell, Renaissance Art, Greek Philosophy, the book of Don Quijote, Manga/ Anime (Japanese Comics/Cartoon Movies), World History, observing and analyzing the human behavior of others around me as well as my own, and last but not least, Kung Fu and Samurai Movies. These influences later on became my main sources towards opening and expanding my imagination.

Do you have any formal art training or are you self-taught? As a graphic storyteller artist, what tools do you use for drawing? Do you use digital software?

Osmar: I’ve been self-taught since I was 6 years old. As a child from a 3rd world country like Cuba, kids know very well their family situations. I never asked my family for toys. For me it felt disrespectful

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to ask for toys knowing how poor my family was. So in a way I decided to pretend to be a kid, obey the rules, do well in school and do what needed to be done so I could be something my family didn’t have to worry about. I did that by entertaining myself with a pencil and a blank piece of paper, and then I let my imagination do all the talking and go wild. My first comic was on a two-sided paper where I drew action packed stick figures. I’ve been using paper and pencil ever since, with some new tools such as a ruler, a really good quality eraser, sharpies, black ink pens for inking the comic books and alcoholbased markers. Even though I’m 37 and I have a lot of patience with technology, to be completely honest, I have zero patience with digital software when it comes to illustrating a comic book. I am very comfortable doing the books by hand because that’s what I like.

Do you prefer drawing or coloring the comics? Which one do you find more challenging?

Osmar: I prefer to do both because they are both very exciting to me. I have to admit that what has been challenging is doing the coloring. Drawing a character in black and white has always been easy for me. The difficulty comes in when I try to visualize the right colors for my characters. Most of the time I’m very happy with the results but sometimes it becomes a challenge when I notice that some colors are not meant to be in certain designs. In my books I try to incorporate as much color as possible because that’s what I see and translate from my head at the moment but once I notice that certain colors don’t match or don’t go well with my characters, I redesign it all until I am satisfied with the final outcome. It’s like being a fashion designer for superheroes like Edna from The Incredibles. Edna and I have a lot in common. It’s definitely a process but I find it exhilarating.

Please talk a little bit about your creative process in developing an idea and your characters. What serves as the inspiration for them?

Osmar: My imagination is a machine full of ideas 24/7. I tend to have thoughts of characters that I’ve done and new characters for me to design in my head all the time. I have this weird thing that when I talk to people, I am paying attention but at the same time I imagine designs of characters, the way the book is going to be made, and I even see action sequences. When I’m alone I act out what I wrote to see if it makes sense to me or not. When I have a fresh idea I rush to get paper and pencil and then draw it quickly. What really serves as the inspiration are a couple of things, but one of them is the fact that nowadays a lot of minorities in the comic book community are always crying about diversity in the superhero genre, which I understand very well. I have yet to see Latinos in the MCU, except in the Black Panther Wakanda Forever movie, where, in my opinion, Latinos were very poorly utilized. I never understood why people cry about diversity and gender politics when the answer is very simple: create your own independent comic book, do your own thing and move forward. In a medium such as comic books where the hardcore values are entertainment and storytelling, these hardcore values are a huge part of my motivation when I do my books. Yes, I want Latino/Afro Latino Superhero representation in comic books but I also want to have that in my own universe solely with entertainment and storytelling. I am not political whatsoever nor do I have a political agenda, so the last thing I want is to force my audience to submit to my beliefs, my philosophy, political messages or affiliations.

Are any of your comic characters particularly special to you?

Osmar: That’s a very interesting question. Honesty, all my characters are very special to me, heroes and villains alike. There is a little bit of me in every character. Someone did ask me once if I was going to create a superhero/villain in my image so I can be in my own books, and I said no because it is not relevant to my storytelling and my comic book universe. I don’t want to see myself in my books, I want to see my creations instead.

What are your goals for the comic books, and where do you see it going in the next few years? Do you have an endgame in mind?

Osmar: I would like to have sponsors or grants that can facilitate me hiring Latino/Afro Latino writers, digital artists such as Angel Colón, who I want to be the artist/director of Book Covers for Gala Comics. My overall ambition is simple but complex at the same time, to conquer the world (easier said than done) with my comics, which will always be available on Amazon but the next phase is to have the books in every comic book store plus Barnes and Nobles all over the country and Latin America plus Europe, Africa, and Asia. I’m already doing the first stage, which is to start with comic books. The next stage however, which will be in a year or two max, is to make phone calls, make appointments, and travel to streaming service headquarters such as Amazon Video, Netflix, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Apple TV and so on, so I can pitch potential TV series for each superhero group that I have, with the non-negotiable caveat that my team needs to be and has to be 100% part of the casting process because all my characters are Afro Latinos, Taínos, White Latinos, a little bit of everything so I don’t want any misunderstanding or misconceptions about the process. The third stage is Video Games. I’m already designing 2 types of video games for Gala Comics. The first one is a superhero card game with lots of fun and amazing visuals, and the second one is something new I’m designing as well. It will look like a superhero fighting game but with a little twist of adobo y sazón. Movies need to be on the table as well. At the end of it all, I would create my own Streaming Service so all my content would be there with the caveat of a surprise that I can’t disclose at the moment.