{"id":1778,"date":"2011-12-16T13:36:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T18:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=1778"},"modified":"2011-12-16T14:24:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T19:24:29","slug":"comic-book-master-billy-tucci-draws-on-personal-faith-to-create-a-christmas-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2011\/12\/comic-book-master-billy-tucci-draws-on-personal-faith-to-create-a-christmas-masterpiece.html","title":{"rendered":"Comic book master Billy Tucci draws on personal faith to create a Christmas masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s today’s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Child is Born<\/em> is a work for passion for Billy Tucci. <\/strong>I just had the opportunity to chat with the in-demand comic book writer\/illustrator about his latest work, a masterfully-rendered graphic novel telling of the Nativity story available in comic book stores and\u00a0 and at his newly-developed\u00a0 Apostle Arts website<\/a>.\u00a0 I have a copy and I can tell you that each panel is like a work of art in-and-of-itself and as a whole it stands as an example of beautiful storytelling.<\/p>\n

Billy’s name is one known to anyone who seriously follows comics.\u00a0 As the creator of epic heroine Shi<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>he is one of the most-successful writer\/illustrator’s in the business whose notable works include the well-received six-part miniseries Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are some highlights of our conversation:<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>What led create this book?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong>\u00a0 For at least ten years now, it\u2019s just been something that has really been on my mind to. (It’s been) a real passion project of mine.\u00a0 But, you know how it is. You have several doubts — am I the one to do this book?, first and foremost. Am I talented enough to take this on?\u00a0 And, secondly, I\u2019ve been real lucky in this business.\u00a0 Those of us who make it, we can make a really good living doing it and I have and, again, I\u2019ve been really blessed…So, this really would be a labor of love…<\/p>\n

…I\u2019ve always been very spiritual. I\u2019m a Catholic. I wasn\u2019t really raised a Catholic.\u00a0 We never went to church but when I went into the Army after college is when I got my first Holy Communion…I would go help out at the church because I wanted to receive my first Holy Communion. So, I had a nice book and I studied and it was terrific.<\/p>\n

Then last year, in June of 2010, my wife (Deborah) was diagnosed with breast cancer and she just had…a terrible year and a half\u00a0 \u2013 from the surgeries to the chemotherapy to all the medication to just the psychological torment. It was a tough, tough year for us \u2013 \u2018cause now I\u2019m , you know, playing Mr. Mom and to be honest with you, I can\u2019t make macaroni and cheese.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>How many kids do you have?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>We have two boys.\u00a0 I\u2019m so spoiled…I\u2019ve known my wife since college and she\u2019s been doing my laundry, paying all the bills, everything like that. Even in school, I had a phone bill in my room and she took care of that. I never paid it. You know, I\u2019d just give her my checkbook and stuff. I guess I had to grow up. So, it was tough but it wasn\u2019t so bad because we really came together.\u00a0 I mean we had a really strong marriage before that.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>How long are you married?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:\u00a0<\/strong>13 years.\u00a0 But this really opens your eyes to what\u2019s really important \u2013 like, you know, family and faith and having God in your life. You\u2019ve got a friend, you know, in God and He\u2019s the most powerful entity the universe has ever known, the One that created it all. So,\u00a0 your\u00a0 strong…with Jesus by your side,\u00a0 if you just recognize it and open your heart to Him. It was really good\u00a0 and it got to the point where I\u2019m like \u201cI want to do this book!\u201d\u00a0 And she said \u201cGo for it!\u201d<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>How is she now?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong> She\u2019s doing great.\u00a0 She\u2019s still gonna be on medication for the next five years\u00a0 but, as of now, she\u2019s all cancer free\u00a0 so thank God for that.<\/p>\n

(Getting back to) how the book came to be,\u00a0 a year ago I was in Austin for a convention\u00a0 and met Evan Archilla. Evan\u2019s\u00a0 grandfather (Lt. Colonel Eliel Archilla) was one of the heroes of The Lost Battalion<\/em> books. Evan came from the San Antonio area just to meet me and we just hit it off like that.\u00a0 Going out to dinner that night, he just hit me with “So, you’ve done your magnum opus<\/em>. Do you believe this is your magnum opus?”<\/p>\n

And I said “Well, no, to be honest with you. What I really want to do is I want to tell the story of Christ. I want to do the Christmas story.” I never told anybody that. For some reason, I told him and he thought it was real interesting and I got a call from him about a week or two later.<\/p>\n

(Evan invited Billy back to Texas where he introduced him to his friend Jason Peet. They wanted to know if he’d be interested in partners in making his dream come true.)<\/em><\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong> We just hit it off like pea and carrots, the three of us, and we all had the same common goal…The most important thing is the message. It\u2019s to try to spread the Word of God…the true meaning of Christmas.\u00a0 And that is more important than anything else.<\/p>\n

You know, if we sell 50 copies of this , so what? What a great adventure!\u00a0 If we sell a million copies of this, well , the more we can give to charities. We\u2019re already partnered up with World Vision<\/a>. That\u2019s a really terrific charity and they help people all over the world.<\/p>\n

The three of us just went on this adventure. I just started studying up on it more and more and, of course , you know the basics of the Christmas story but if you look at it in (the Gospels of) Matthew and Luke — aside from a few lines, a few verses in the Old Testament — it\u2019s minuscule compared to the entire Bible…<\/p>\n

…So, there\u2019s a lot holes to be filled but you want to stay true to the Gospels. So, that\u2019s when I started researching and reading…Ben Witherington, Darrell Bock, all these guys, these Nativity scholars (and) working with local churches and asking them (for help)…But, of course, it all came back down to what\u2019s in Matthew and Luke. (That) is really what the book is based on — to keep to that but to try and add a human element to it.<\/p>\n

JWK:\u00a0 <\/strong>To tell the story. you and your partners founded Apostle Arts. Will you produce more books?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong> That’s our plan.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking to do some children\u2019s books. I really want to do Seven Days<\/em>, about the Easter story.\u00a0 I would love to do that for Easter 2013.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Seven Days<\/em>?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>I\u2019d call it Seven Days<\/em>.\u00a0 Just think of those Seven Days<\/em> and how they changed the world and saved the world, really.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we\u2019re hoping to do next\u00a0 and to really do a lot of Christian-themed books. Perhaps they may not be Biblical accounts but using metaphors and analogies for the Bible. You know, take the stories and maybe put them into modern situations.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Are you talking about developing a whole new line of comic books?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong> Absolutely!\u00a0 Add some kind of light to the comic book industry…<\/p>\n

…(Back to A Child is Born<\/em>), I gotta tell you, God told me to do it…I felt it in my heart. <\/strong> And, if I have faith in Him, He\u2019ll have faith in me and help me every step of the way.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Why’d you become a Catholic?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>My wife\u2019s Catholic. I\u2019ve always been very spiritual. I\u2019ve always believed in God. I just never had that\u2026<\/p>\n

We had a family tragedy. My brother\u00a0 was killed in a car accident by some drunk driver and my mother\u2019s a widow so I think she might have lost her faith…<\/p>\n

…Meeting my wife and going to church on Christmas, I really liked it.\u00a0 She\u2019s a churchgoer and always has been.\u00a0 I just feel very comfortable there.\u00a0 I feel very comfortable in the Catholic Church. I feel very comfortable in the Greek Orthodox Church.\u00a0 I feel secure there even if you\u2019re just sitting within the walls of the church. It just that…positive energy, God\u2019s love that\u2019s vibrating through it, abounding through it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place of comfort and it\u2019s very inspiring…even in my darkest moments when I\u2019ve gone there…You know, I don\u2019t need a church now.\u00a0 I can be up in the mountains.\u00a0 I hunt and I fish. I can be out on a boat by myself and just at a lake or something and just think (about God’s love) and it\u2019s wonderful. It really is.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Tell me about Shi<\/em>? That also has a lot of spiritual themes running through it.<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI:<\/strong> Oh, sure.\u00a0 Shi \u2013 Ana Ishikawa, the main character \u2013 she\u2019s a product of two cultures. One is her mother who is Catholic and worked as a Catholic missionary after (Ana’s) father\u2019s death and then you have a her grandfather\u2019s side where he pretty much raised her…and this samurai mentality.\u00a0 He was really raising her to partake in the war (with) another sect of medieval samurai…Of course, through the course of the story\u00a0 she finds her faith\u00a0 and realizes that this isn\u2019t right and now the whole point is that she\u2019s become the hunted and she has to use her wits…In the beginning it\u2019s like a war story where there\u2019s killing…and now she has to turn that around.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big story about forgiveness, responsibility. I\u2019ve been real lucky with it. It\u2019s what led me to be able to talk with you on the phone.\u00a0 If that book wasn\u2019t so successful I would not be here right now.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Does including spiritual themes add to the richness of\u00a0 a traditional superhero story?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>There are great one-dimensional characters \u2013 like say Captain America who is good and pure and Superman — but not everyone is like that. Ana (of Shi)<\/em>\u00a0 isn\u2019t any sort of a\u00a0 super hero. She has no superpowers and there\u2019s a lot of gray in it \u2013 like life…But, then again, I always feel that there are two powers in the universe. There is good and there is evil and it depends what side you listen to and which path you decide to follow.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Besides Seven Days<\/em>, what other projects are you planning?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>I\u2019m doing a couple of books. Hopefully, I\u2019ll be doing another Sgt. Rock<\/em> book. I did Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion<\/em>. I\u2019m just a huge advocate of the American soldier…and how these men go so far to foreign lands to help and to die for people they\u2019ve never met.<\/p>\n

We have a new Shi<\/em> series coming out in the new year, as well.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Any plans to get into movies or television?<\/p>\n

BILLY TUCCI: <\/strong>Hopefully. We\u2019ll see. We have a film deal right now about Shi<\/em>. We have a\u00a0 producer, Mimi Gitlin (Thelma & Louise)<\/em>, so it looks good.\u00a0 Say a prayer for me, please.<\/p>\n

JWK: <\/strong>Will do.<\/p>\n

Again, A Child is Born <\/em>is available at local comic book stores (where I’m told they can’t keep them on their shelves) and at ApostleArts.com<\/a>.\u00a0 There you can buy individual copies, six packs or in bulk (for churches and organizations).<\/p>\n

Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s today’s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. A Child is Born is a work for passion for Billy Tucci. 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