Brad Cook chats with CJ Valin and Jaime Castle about their Harrier superhero trilogy…
The comic book medium tends to be synonymous with superheroes, but you can really tell any kind of story in it. Check out Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Joe Kubert’s Fax From Sarajevo, and Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories for just a few examples of that fact.
And since we all know you can tell any kind of story you want in a novel, why not tell a superhero tale in that medium? That’s what writers CJ Valin and Jaime Castle set out to do with Harrier: Justice, the first novel in a trilogy that picks up where their previous series, Raptors, left off. Both series are what are known as young adult novels, although they will likely appeal to anyone who wants to read superhero stories in prose form.
Raptors: Sidekick introduces readers to Sawyer William Vincent, also known as Black Harrier’s sidekick (he prefers the term “partner”), Red Raptor. When Black Harrier goes missing, he has to step up and prove his mettle as a hero. That book sets up a trilogy.
The Harrier trilogy jumps ahead to a time when Sawyer has taken on the Black Harrier mantle but now lives in a world where crimefighting is illegal. Costumed vigilantes who break the law are given a lifetime sentence in a prison at the bottom of an ocean.
What was the genesis of the Harrier series? Where did the idea come from and how did the two of you work together to build that story world, as well as the plots of the books?
Valin: Harrier is a continuation of the story of our main character from the Raptors series, Sawyer, who was a sidekick superhero to the original Black Harrier and has now taken on the mantle himself. We really enjoyed writing the original Raptors series and readers seemed to like the books (the series has over 5,000 total ratings on Audible, with about a 4.5/5 star average, and the first book won a BIBA award), so it made sense to continue the character as an adult.
But we also wanted to give the series a fresh start so that someone could jump in without having to read the Raptors books. We’ve gotten positive feedback from both types of readers — those who’ve read Raptors and those who haven’t — and it seems to work as both a sequel series and entirely on its own.
What we call the “Raptorverse” originally started from a TV pilot I wrote that won some contests. I decided I wanted to write some prose stories in that same universe, using some characters I had created all the way back when I was a kid. After I had written some stories and a couple of novellas, Jaime was gathering short stories for some superhero anthologies he was publishing and asked if I wanted to contribute, which I was very excited about doing.
He also asked if he could write some stories in the Raptorverse as well, and I loved the idea. Starting with the first story Jaime wrote, Baron Steele, he was able to flesh out the universe and come up with great ideas and additions that I never would have thought of myself. It was really a pretty basic concept before he started working with me. From then on, we decided to start writing books together, and so far we’ve written six (three Raptors and three Harrier). We have a great system for writing together and our ideas always mesh very well and our styles complement each other.
Castle: CJ and I are both comic book nerds to the max. I often describe my office as “Marvel and DC vomited on the walls and I refuse to clean it up.” The concept of Harrier was, of course, birthed out of the Raptors books. The question was “What happens to Sawyer now that he needs to take up the mantel?”
We don’t love the deconstruction of superheroes concept that seems so prevalent in today’s world. We want good guys doing good things for good reasons. That’s Sawyer. That’s Frank. That’s… sort of Alex. So when vigilantism is outlawed, the only option Sawyer has is to become an outlaw. He didn’t make a choice to fight against the Counter-Vigilante Taskforce. They aren’t his enemy. The enemy is—and always will be—the bad guys. Regardless of how it affects Sawyer, he will fight for good.
Justice, as a book, came from a lot of the question: what if a vigilante went too far? Of course, we’ve seen that answered in The Punisher. But what if vengeance had nothing to do with it? What if that vigilante’s only goal was to stop crime, and “do good”?
Sawyer has to learn to draw a proverbial line in the sand: how far is too far? Not for him… “No killing…” right? So what if someone else decided a forty-seven cent cure was in order? What if a bullet was all it took to end crime, regardless of how big or small the offense?
As Sawyer William Vincent grows up, he realizes the world isn’t as black-and-white as Franklin Douglas III has led him to believe.
What kind of themes did you want to explore with the Harrier books and why?
Valin: In my mind, the Harrier books are about growing up and taking on more responsibilities after you’re done with high school. I teach high school seniors myself, and I’m always trying to get them to realize that it’s time to start figuring out where their life is going, even if they are going to change course along the way.
I know how difficult it is for many teenagers, especially nowadays, when most of them don’t already have jobs like we did when I was in high school. Sawyer was a teenager in the Raptors series and had others to lean on, but in Harrier he’s mostly on his own, at least in the first couple of books. He’s having to figure out not only how to be an adult, but also how be a solo superhero for the first time.
But mainly with our books, we want to entertain the reader/listener and give them the types of fun superhero adventures we used to love when we were reading comics when we were young. Our main goal is to entertain rather than get overly philosophical or political. Not that we shy away from it completely, it just isn’t our focus.
Castle: The theme of Justice is… well, justice. From all angles. For me, I’ve always learned that the best form of justice is reconciliation, but not everyone holds those beliefs. That’s why the opening line of our book description in Sawyer’s own words (which may honestly be a bit of mine) is: “Justice—a concept without a universally accepted definition. To some, it means reconciliation, while others deliver it with swift and violent judgment. For me? I just want to not be considered an outlaw for years of serving and protecting New York City.”
CJ: How do the Harrier books compare to the Raptors series? And will there be more Raptors books coming out?
Valin: The Harrier books are a little more adult and may be seen as a sequel series for those who’ve read Raptors, since it’s the same universe. But they also stand on their own as a new series, and we did everything we could to make sure new readers/listeners know what’s happening and who the characters are without having read Raptors.
The Harrier books also have a bigger scope than Raptors did, especially when you get to the third book, Invasion. As far as new Raptors books coming out, we’d love to write more, and I know Jaime feels the same way I do as far as not even being close to being tired of writing in this universe. We’ve talked about going back and doing more books that take place in Sawyer’s earlier years, so that’s a possibility.
Will there be more Harrier books after the trilogy is finished?
Valin: Just like with more Raptors books, we’d love to continue with Harrier. We have plenty of new ideas that we’ve already discussed, but it really depends on how they sell and if readers want more.
Castle: If it were strictly up to me, we would write these books until one of us dies. They are such a blast—so fun, so light, and frankly what I think the superhero genre needs. Are there some serious issues? Sure. But it’s all bathed in humor and action.
The question of whether there will be more depends entirely on the demand for it. If the Harrier series performs as well as Raptors, and the fans are engaged and wanting more, we will provide it.
Jaime: How did the two of you connect, and what was your co-writing process? Has it changed much since then?
Castle: It’s a small-known fact that Sidekick was a 2014 novella before I got involved in the series. However, I read it many moons ago and REALLY loved what Chris did. It gave me the feeling of my childhood love of comics in a modern day.
Throwing no shade at Marvel or DC, I will simply say they haven’t delivered on the novel end of the industry. There’s a severe lack of any long-form prose from either team. So, when I read Sidekick, I knew I needed to be a part of it.
It took me several years to find the time and opportunity to present the idea of turning Chris’s 35,000-word novella into a full series. We started with the bones that was The Red Raptor Files and built upon it. That filled out a world bible and 3 books, but the story simply wasn’t done.
Furthermore, with Harrier, we wanted it to be made accessible to those who hadn’t read or didn’t want to read Raptors. So book one reads like a brand new series, without the need for knowing the long past the characters carry with them.
We vetted it through people who DID read Raptors and plenty who didn’t, just to determine if 1) we kept the same flavor that so many people loved from the first trilogy, and 2) didn’t confuse the new readers by referencing a ton of stuff that made them feel lost. I am happy to say I believe we accomplished both of those goals.
How did your personal interest in superheroes inform the creation of the Harriers universe and the storylines the two of you created?
Valin: When I was very young in the early ’70s, I became a fan of Batman from watching reruns of the Adam West series and animated shows from the ’60s, and then Super Friends came along and I started asking for the coloring books and then comic books. One of my earliest memories is going through those giant treasury editions of the comics and trying to draw that way.
So I’ve been a Batman/superhero/comic book fan for over 50 years. I started creating my own characters shortly after that, originally to give myself something to draw in my own comic books, and some of them have evolved into the superheroes and villains in the Raptors and Harrier books. Even though Batman has always been my favorite character, I started to prefer Marvel Comics once I started reading, so I was always torn when someone asked if I preferred Marvel or DC.
My initial idea for Harrier and Red Raptor when I did the early short stories was to try to write Batman (or DC) types of characters in the Marvel style. And the way I see that primarily working is that Batman is Batman and pretends to be Bruce Wayne, and the same with Superman and Clark Kent. But Peter Parker is actually Peter Parker and just dresses up as Spider-Man. And Tony Stark just puts on the armor to be Iron Man, but he’s still Tony Stark. And my starting point was “What if Peter Parker was Robin? What if Tony Stark was Batman?”
So, whereas Bruce Wayne puts on an act and pretends to be a billionaire playboy who really drinks club soda, Tony Stark is actually a womanizer who’s also an alcoholic. We’ve moved farther and farther away from that initial concept as time goes on, but that was sort of the basic premise in the beginning.
But it seems like no matter what we do, someone is always saying we copied this or that. Superhero comic books have been around since Superman began in 1938 and these types of stories even farther back with pulp heroes, so wherever we go with the stories, someone will say it’s been done before.
And I can’t even tell you how many times something that we’ve already written that’s about to be published has something very similar happen in a current comic, TV show, or movie. I’m constantly texting Jaime and saying, “Guess what they just did on The Boys?” or “You’re not going to believe what happened in the Flash movie.”
And sometimes reviewers will say, “They obviously took this from this Batman storyline,” and we’ll both think, “That’s funny, I never read that Batman storyline…” So we try to be original with our storylines, but it’s not always easy, especially with how much is out there and how much we’ve absorbed over the years as pop culture addicts just like anyone else who’s writing superheroes.
Castle: Superheroes are my first love, so to speak. My favorite is Captain America, followed closely by Batman. I grew up disliking Spider-Man, but as I got older, I fell in love with the way the writers blend Peter’s civilian life with the mask-wearing, crime-fighting alter-ego. That’s why the concept of Raptors is so fun for me. We see Sawyer, Alex, Frank, and others in the light of their “real lives” as well as their “other lives.” Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell which is which.
Please give some basic background on yourself and your other works as authors.
Valin: I’m also a high school social studies teacher and I’ve done a lot of other things, from comic book inker, to professional musician, to background actor, to paralegal. My writing started out for small comic book companies and then I started focusing on screenwriting.
I won or placed in a whole bunch of contests and wrote some scripts for producers and had some things optioned, but nothing has been made yet from any of my scripts. I also got my masters degree in military history and expanded my masters thesis into a book, published by Fireship Press, about my 5x-great-grandfather, Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Douglas.
Around 15 years ago I started doing more prose writing and had some short stories published in various anthologies, including some of Samuel Peralta’s Chronicles anthologies, Patrice Fitzgerald’s Beyond the Stars anthologies, and Peter David’s recent anthology, The Fans Are Buried Tales.
All of that was written under my full name, Christopher J. Valin, and can be found at my Amazon author page under that name. As CJ Valin, I’ve written the six books in the Raptorverse and a trilogy of science-fiction books with Artie Cabrera that I’m very proud of called Gravity City.
Castle: I was born on a dark night—as they are wont to be…
My background is lengthy enough that it could fill a book no one would read. I’ve lived many lives, as they say. From a touring metal musician and songwriter to a full-time pastor, graphic artist, author, and owner of Aethon Books.
I’ve got two awesome kids, a 9-year-old boy named Oliver and a beautiful 6-year-old girl, Juneau. I’ve been married for almost 20 years to the love of my life. We got married when I was Sawyer’s age and haven’t looked back.
CJ: How do you juggle teaching, family, and writing all those books? Do you just not sleep much?
Valin: I definitely don’t get as much sleep as I’d like to. I’ve had to give up a lot of things I used to do, like a habit of watching football all weekend, playing video games all the time, and some of my other hobbies in order to squeeze in writing time. Luckily, I’m a pretty fast writer and I write even faster with a partner, so that helps.
And being a teacher can take up a lot of time, but it also means I have quite a bit of time to write over the summer and on spring and winter breaks. Most of my writing is done when the rest of my family is off doing other things or is asleep. I’m not sure how balanced my life has been, but somehow I make it work.
Please feel free to add anything else I might have missed.
Valin: Both the Harrier and Raptors series are free on Kindle Unlimited and Audible Plus, so if you belong one or both of those, give them a shot! There’s nothing to lose.
Castle: You can find me on just about all the social media channels under Jaime Castle or Author Jaime Castle. I’ve got 30 or so books, all of which can be found through my Amazon profile, or www.jaimecastle.com. You can also find all I’m involved in as the co-owner of Aethon Books at www.aethonbooks.com.
Many thanks to CJ Valin and Jaime Castle for taking the time for this interview.
Brad Cook
