Drawing on Experience

Peter Oropeza tells how, as a teenager, he put a gun in his mouth, squeezed the trigger and . . . nothing.

Until then, he had been all exaggerated machismo--a swaggering homeboy in a Mid-City gang clique. But his long-suppressed memory of having been sexually abused as a child burst from his subconscious, bringing enough guilt, shame and pain to make swallowing a bullet appear to be the only way out.

Everything in his life seemed to have stopped working. Now, mercifully, so had his gun. Oropeza eventually found another way by pursuing art--”the only thing I was good at.”

His drawing skills landed him a job three years ago as art director at the small firm that developed Street Sharks, now a hit animated television show and a popular toy line. And on his 29th birthday on Oct. 29, he published his own story as a comic book of superheroes, “Undercover Angels.”

Oropeza’s angels are a racially balanced group of four reformed street toughs--black, white, Latino and Asian American--who become police officers patrolling a futuristic metropolis called High Tech Central in the year 2020.

A blinding light transforms these men in blue into thickly muscled superheroes who fly through the air on their own wings, wear helmets that give them X-ray vision and don “gravity grinder” boots capable of kicking in the heaviest door.

Oropeza, who now lives in Downey, will give away several hundred copies of his newly minted comic books Thursday to youngsters enrolled in the after-school Jeopardy Program for at-risk youths at the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division.

Three months ago, before the comic book was published, Oropeza gave youngsters in the program posters of his soon-to-be-launched angels.

“The kids were very impressed,” said Officer Richard Dixon, who works with the Jeopardy Program. “When they saw the poster with the Angels, the kids just flipped.”

For all the fantasy in Oropeza’s comic book tales, the story line is often grounded in his own experiences. The irony of his being a gangbanger-turned-police-advocate is not lost on him.

“I did not believe police officers were here to help when I was in the gang,” he said. “Cops were the enemy.”

*

Given the circumstances he grew up in, the real surprise in Oropeza’s life is that he is still around to talk about it.

His younger sister Olga did not make it. Four years ago she died at 23 of a drug overdose.

“When she died, something in me died,” he said. “And something in me was born. She always inspired me to do better, telling me to keep my dreams and not give up.”

His suppressed memory of having been sexually abused as a child was recovered in his teens when a different relative molested his sister, Oropeza said.

“I started thinking I was feminine,” he said. “My whole childhood was being tough. Now I felt disgusted with myself. I felt I couldn’t be around men.”

He said he went into therapy to deal with the recovered trauma and began focusing on art. He started doing elaborate graffiti, a talent that got him kicked out of Hamilton High School in his senior year.

Still, he continued concentrating on art, taking classes at several private schools. As he built his portfolio, a street fight nearly accomplished what that faulty gun failed to do a few years earlier.

“In 1992 I was stabbed in the back while helping a friend who had been attacked,” he said. The knife punctured his lung, triggering what he believes was a near-death experience.

“I passed out and saw a light,” he said. “I went through a tunnel. It was so peaceful. I wanted to get closer to the light. I heard this beautiful sound. Then I stopped.”

Suddenly he was aware that he was above the ambulance as it rushed through the streets, he said. He could see through the ambulance roof, he said.

“Gradually I could see the paramedics,” he said. “I heard one say: ‘We got him back.’ Then I felt nothing but pain.”

After recovering from that brush with death, Oropeza opened a small graphics studio, turning out logos, fliers, ads, cartoons. He put a flier advertising his business on a Mercedes and soon received a call from David Siegel, president of Street Players, the West Los Angeles company that developed Street Sharks.

Siegel hired Oropeza as his art director.

“He’s very artistic, energetic and creative,” Siegel said. “He’s got great ideas. He really wants to give something back to the Latino community.”

*

Just as Oropeza feels that he was transformed by a surreal, supernatural light, so are his Undercover Angels.

“Ever since that near-death experience, my intuition has been like a voice within telling me certain things,” he said.

On a trip to Mexico, he saw a crow in flight, outlined against the brilliant sun. He said he immediately thought of making his superheroes birds.

“But then I didn’t think kids would like feathered superheroes,” he said. Then he thought about making them angels since they symbolize protectors, he said. He finally settled on a combination of police officers and angels.

He brought together a team--writers, sculptors, artists, cartoonists--to produce the first comic book and models of his characters.

Said Siegel: “He wants kids to learn what not to do from the things he has experienced.”