Andrew Nadeau is a Chicago comedian and writer, who runs a comedy show in Chicago at Lincoln Lodge called Spitfire. He also hosts the "Here’s Where It Went Wrong" podcast, writes for some sites and publications.
Phil Thompson is an illustrator based in Chicago, who runs the company "Wonder City Studio". Most of his work is architecture-themed, so he wanted to do something completely different and "a lot lighter."
Andrew had been looking for a new project during the pandemic since he couldn’t get on stage and Phil knew Andrew's comedy writing from Twitter and was a big fan. So the two decided to create something together and that's how "The Mediocre Superheroes" was born!
It is not so usual to see superheroes in ordinary situations, having a job interview or simply minding their own business. That's why we got curious how Phil and Andrew came up with the idea to show the other, not so "super" side of superheroes.
Andrew shared that in their first meeting, they each came with a notebook full of ideas, and the one they kept coming back to was this idea of, "in a world with powers, not everyone that has them is going to be impressive. Either the powers or the people themselves, and they’re still going to have all the human foibles getting in their way."
Andrew continued: "It’s gotta be tough hearing everyone’s thoughts as a psychic, so how much harder would that be if you’re insecure? Which led to our first character in Captain Psych. Then we added a guy who can talk to animals, but is very socially awkward, the idea that being able to talk doesn’t mean you’re good at it. This was Goose Whisperer, and his Goose sidekick. Fabrikator, who can build anything but is incredibly inefficient. And Robolt, a super strong, super fast robot, who doesn’t understand humanity or why he should have to save us."
The artists loved how absurd some of what’s just accepted among mainstream heroes is. "A guy that dresses like a bat is an insane concept. We feature established heroes a lot because we wanted to put those extreme characters in a normal situation. With the utmost respect, of course, we wouldn’t exist without the work those comics have done."
"And those characters fit perfectly where they are, in their books and movies. But people sometimes fantasize about heroes as if they’d fit in our world. We wanted to show how awkward and funny that might actually be, to have to make awkward small talk in an elevator with an adult man dressed as a big bat."
The artists revealed that creating the universe of mediocre superheroes was quite a challenge. "We deliberately wanted to build a world, but that means we have to stick to the rules of the world. A lot of webcomics have either interchangeable or kind of blank-sheet characters. If you come up with funny dialogue you just make a character to give it to. Ours have specific personalities and would behave a certain way. I think it makes them much more relatable, which was the goal, but also means we might have an idea we love but have to say, 'That doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re making.'"
However, according to Andrew, all of that leads into the best part - actually getting to make it. "It’s so satisfying when we can go back and forth on the dialogue and the art and suddenly reach a point where we both totally see the picture and feel like it fits in our world."
Andrew revealed that he is passionate about creating something that he believes in, that also makes people smile. That’s why he's in comedy in the first place.
"I like taking the hardest things to go through and trying to find what’s funny about them, using them to make somebody else laugh, to hopefully make their path through them easier. And then to have the opportunity to combine that with Phil’s talents, to see something in my head I want to make real, and I can tell it to him and he can somehow take his own vision and make that a reality, that’s an incredible thing."
Andrew continued that it never stops being amazing to him that each week they’ve built a new piece of an entire world that just lives in their heads until it’s down on that paper. "And then suddenly it’s real, and the rest of the world gets to share it with us. It’s a very childlike sense of wonder. Like I get why having a picture hung on the fridge is so big for them. Finding out our work was on a fridge, that’d make my week."
Phil added that he's passionate about being able to really play with the scenarios and characters that Andrew comes up with - to let his mind wander. "It's very interesting, too, to go back and forth with Andrew to see how he envisioned something vs how I did, and often we find new angles of humor in the exchange."
Andrew: "I think there’s a combination of, of course wanting to entertain, but also wanting to show that there’s very little that we struggle with as people that’s unique. Every awkward, embarrassing situation, every dumb mistake, every huge swing and big miss, it feels very personal and like no one can relate. But it’s a feeling absolutely everybody is familiar with, and I think showing that there’s not some paragon of flawlessness, even in a super world, we’d just have different versions of the same challenges. They wouldn’t go away, and that was something we loved the idea of sharing."
