Ray “Tony” Claxton and Brian Robbins

Brian and Ray became fast friends a few years back as coworkers who quickly discovered they shared a passion for the art of the comic book.

DarkRaven and his trusty sidekick, The Blue Tit (um, it’s a bird, they’ll tell you), were born.

Ray, of Rochester, NY, and Brian, of neighboring Irondequoit, NY, have since launched a webcomic that chronicles the story of two friends—strikingly similar in name and appearance to themselves—and their superhero alter-egos.

Ray (a.k.a. DarkRaven)As a youngster, Ray preferred Crayola crayons to catcher’s mitts.

“I made my first comic when I was eight,” he says, “by stapling two pieces of paper together, and used stick figures to illustrate the awe-inspiring epic, The Fox and the Hound vs. the Earthquake. It was riveting.”

Ray’s mom bought him his first comic when he was in seventh grade—Uncanny X-Men #211—and he says he’s been hooked ever since.

Brian, a gifted caricaturist who can render ink-pen likenesses of people in moments, also started out early drawing pictures.

Brian (a.k.a. The Blue Tit)“I vaguely remember drawing Scooby Doo while watching him as a small child—me, not Scooby,” Brian says. “From there, the more drawing I did, the better I got.”  

Paid off for him early. By first grade, Brian had snagged an award in a local drawing contest.

In their collaborative work on Tales of the DarkRaven, Ray writes the scripts and Brian draws the frames. They both pull inspiration from an encyclopedic list of genres, music and artistic movements.

“I’m a well-rounded geek,” says Ray, who points to sources of inspiration as varied as Film Noir, Art Deco architecture, techno music and Medieval fairs.

Brian looks to the cartoonists themselves, giving a nod to Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Matt Groening as his artistic muses.

The pair are currently finishing up Tales, and Ray has an eye toward developing a graphic short story, Malevolent, that stars supervillains. He’s also studying animation in the hopes of developing a short film down the road.

DarkRaven will soon wrap up. For now.

“I'm excited—and a bit sad—to see our first collaboration come to an end,” Brian says. “But I'm very excited to see where our other projects will take us, what new things we'll be working on together, and finding out where DarkRaven will go from here.”

To be continued ... !

See more: www.darkravencomic.com

Say hi: ray.claxton@yahoo.com, brianjrobbins@yahoo.com

Video: The tongue-in-cheek Tales of the DarkRaven follows an ordinary guy who transforms into a caped, would-be savior after auditioning for Who Wants to be a Superhero? It’s a premise ripped from the pages of Ray’s life. Check out Ray's 2007 tryout for the Sci Fi Channel show.