Ricky B. Rat
Ricky B. Rat (or “RICHARD BARRETT RATERIFF!!!!” as Mama Rat calls him when she’s yelling at him) is a punk rock rat-man in his early 20s who works as a recording studio flunky/go-fer who may have a bit of a drinking problem, though he prefers to call it a hobby.
According to Ricky, he was born in the alley behind the legendary punk dive bar CBGB’s in New York during one of Johnny Thunders’ final shows.
His mom, however, insists Richard grew up in a perfectly nice suburban neighborhood with one of those big stupid 90s shopping malls with the marble tiles in white, pink, and green where he and his friends used to hang out and spend their allowance at the record store and the arcade.
His friends say he still lives in Mama Rat’s basement. And that Johnny Thunders was long-dead before Ricky was conceived… but Ricky never was good with numbers.
Ricky has one sister, Becky… at least as far as Mama Rat knows. And Ricky and Becky have decided it’s best to keep it that way, hence their three “cousins” they keep in touch with from down in Florida, all coincidentally born after Papa Rat moved there to work on the cruise ships.
Anyway, Ricky’s a sketchy sorta dude, albeit with a sweet spot. He only hears what he wants to hear, but maybe that’s just because of all the tinnitus and hearing loss from too many years of loud rock n roll (even at his young age). He loves his girlfriend Baby, cheese, rock n roll, and mushrooms… not necessarily in that order… and his guiding principles are a battle between “What Would Sid Vicious Do?” and “What Will Mama Rat Yell At Me About Next?” (Alternatively, “What Can I Get Away With Without My Boss Big Mike Noticing?”)
On the one hand, he idolizes Sid Vicious and is obsessed with living the rock ’n’ roll cool dude dream. On the other hand, he sometimes hears the voice of God and strives to do the right thing and make Mama Rat proud. On the third hand, he’s fully on board with the old Poison mantra of “Nothin’ But a Good Time” and that voice he hears might just be the ’shrooms talking.
Hilarity and mayhem ensue as Ricky tries to reconcile all these forces and relates incidents from his life to us in a series of comics, graphic novels… and, probably sooner rather than later, podcasts.