It’s a sad time on the indy scene as our fan favorite hero “The Midnight Tiger” and it’s creator Ray-Anthony Height are separating…. here is what he has to say
OFFICIAL STATEMENT:
So, in regards to Midnight Tiger, unfortunately there will be no more work coming from me with the character. Other than being the creator of the character, my ties to the new series just out from Action Lab Comics is minimal, at best. Loose plots and a variant cover. For over a year I have pretty much moved on from the character since working on the Lion Forge series SUPERB and fill-in gigs at Marvel . I believe that if not for Midnight Tiger and ALE I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I was able to capitalize on and move forward in my career.
Which is why I am more than happy that, with the help of Vito Delsante , the last act of me doing anything Midnight Tiger related is to help Eric Van Elslande to have some exposure as well. I implore you to pick up the new series and give Eric and the new creative team a look. However, my time with the character is over and if this new MT series isn’t successful, I hope the character will be laid to rest. It costs so much money, time, and effort to produce a comic, let alone a series. If a series is DOA, the creative team & publisher should move on.
RELATED: MIDNIGHT TIGER #0 Review
As for my current work status, seems I’ve found myself between gigs and working on very small design and cover work. Over the course of the last 2 years, unless it’s a large publisher, I have learned to pick work I’m interested in. So, it’s not personal if I pass on an offer. Best to get someone who is genuinely interested than. They are sure to create more inspired work than someone doing it for a quick buck.
RELATED: THE MIDNIGHT TIGER #1 REVIEW
That said, I am choosing to use this time to leisurely work on a new creator-owned idea until something I’m interested in comes along. Something I own and control 100% and can take as long as I want to do it. Something that’s purely my own tastes and ideas so that I have the most fun working on it.
Lastly, much love goes out to the Midnight Tiger fans who have supported and loved the character from day one & beyond. He was my first real character that got any traction and also made me learn the Do’s & Don’ts of creator-owned comics. Midnight Tiger will always have a special place in my heart, but it’s way past time to move on. My next C/O project will be MUCH better!
Make Comics!
-Ray
There you have it guys. Ray needs a break from it all. In his defence, though the series lost something once it got a bigger audience. When we broke news on the character back in 2013, we were instantly smitten and the fact that our post went viral suggests that something resonated with our audience. Since then, however, things just felt lukewarm.
We wish for the talented Ray-Anthony Height nothing but success in all his future endeavors, you are talented beyond words and you continue to have our love and support. Be safe and be happy my friend.
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More as it breaks!
When I read Ray-Anthony Height’s words, I’m left feeling speechless, and a maybe just a little numb. I want to say I’m surprised to hear all this, but there were other clues that I noticed throughout the early and mid-parts of the year that makes me not as surprised as I would be.
Just a handful of small things: a seeming listlessness towards the near-arriving book that featured his own character in it. A sense of frustration at some of the trolls who accuse Mr. Heights of creating a “knock-off of Black Panther,” despite any similarities being superficial and with all of the direct defiance of the explicit and implicit differences of both characters — they’re both superheroes with superhuman powers whom are themed after big cats, and that’s where the similarities end, and, when you get down to it, even those similarities have different nuances to them that makes even this bare-bones comparison misleading. Oh, and they’re both Black, which must mean all Black men with cat motifs are the same, like how all Black men with even vaguely similar electric-sque powers means stereotype for some reason. What makes the trolls trolling even worse (assuming they didn’t sincerely think they knew what they were talking about, which would actually make it even worse) is that Midnight Tiger was created during a time when Black Panther wasn’t even a house-hold name. Well before it, and maybe even before the movie was announced (but I’m not 100% on that).
Other, more ephemeral signs were drawn from the “Midnight Tiger: The Stronger”‘s release. It was meant to come out in April as the second character showcased in Action Lab’s Actionverse anthology series, “Actionverse, Featuring”. #1-#6 was helmed by the character Stray, and Midnight Tiger’s story would have begun at #7. I got the feeling that Mr. Height came off as more genuinely excited for the book in the time leading up to April, too. But then, the book didn’t drop. Instead, “Actionverse, Featuring” was cancelled, or something, and “The Stronger” was resolicited for August as its own 4-issue miniseries. I haven’t heard anything on why this was the case (I mean, such matters are ‘need to know’; not something they would ever talk about in a way that could end up online), but I get the feeling whatever the reason, it wasn’t anything good.
This brings me to something else: I recall a recent-ish Instagram post of Mr. Height’s that featured an old (relatively, at least), unpublished original character of his called “The Griffon”. In that post, he made mention the desire to go back to this character concept and actually spend time telling The Griffon’s story, but in his own time. The post felt like it carried the connotation of Mr. Height being fed up with creator-owned characters being tied up in someone else’s company (not just the Big 2). His superhero team called “The Icons” have a similar fate of being written into Midnight Tiger’s universe, which made all the sense at the time it was done, but who are now stuck, for lack of a better term, with Action Lab. (I’ve heard tales of a coming comic, but I’ve never seen hide-nor-hair of said comic featuring “The Icons”.) I remember seeing concept art of The Griffon on Deviantart a few years ago and reading a very passionate response comment by Mr. Height where he poured his feelings out. Now, he’s written this, where he’s stepping away from his creation, Midnight Tiger, giving the big distinction and implication that it’s “not his creation anymore”. He even alludes to what he said in the Instagram post regarding The Griffon not too long ago (maybe June or July. There was no real indication that he was stepping away from Midnight Tiger, or, implicitly, The Icons, within that post; just a weird but overlookable dissonance of how he talked around Midnight Tiger, which had no context until now).
All in all, I guess I feel sad. Midnight Tiger is one of my favorite comic characters, definitely among my top Black Superhero favorites, and so much of that comes from the energy and passion I sensed from Mr. Height’s creation that I resonated with. So much of Mr. Height’s heart and soul went into Gavin Shaw, making him so utterly cool and alive. So seeing how all this turned out? I guess it’s giving me a sense of mournful loss. 🙁
On this matter, I am not sure how I should feel going forward.