Roman P. Stanley: Heroic Bureaucrat

That's how I described my creation for the class in Character Design and World Building being taught by Rocketo mastermind Frank Espinosa this semester (as seen in Entertainment Weekly's Must List 2006!). The assignment was to create a hero "for adults." I resisted the temptation to make some kind of Ralph Bakshi-esque "mature" cartoon. No, the spirit of the assignment was to create a hero adults could relate to. Others were charged with making heroes for children or teens. So here's what I came up with, a la Sculpey.



My thought was that the typical hero for kids and teens is a power fantasy, some indestructible or physically imposing figure in the superhero comics mold. So an adult hero would be a sharp contrast: someone more intellectually tenacious than physically strong. Someone who represents the classic adult tension between individual and social responsibilities. I thought of the most convincing heroic figures I've seen in media and life, and the heroic bureaucrat was born.

He's an amalgam of the title character from Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, button-down rule-stickler Edmund Exley in L.A. Confidential, and some good friends of mine who are tireless social workers. He's really not so much a bureaucrat as a civil servant who cares too much to let anything cross his desk without thoroughly resolving it, no matter how inconvenient the process or unpopular his actions may make him. And he's a punk rocker (but not a very good one). The taxing nature of his job combined with his after hours passion for music mean he's well on his way to a physical and emotional breakdown (hence the sunken eyes). But he's hanging in there for now.

I'll share more designs as the semester progresses.