Gail Simone's Blog, page 1038

Amy sells out: For all the cis people in my life:

Amy sells out: For all the cis people in my life::

thefullmetalbitch:

It's not "cisgendered" or "transgendered". It's cisgender and transgender.
Cis and trans are fine to shorten.
Do not refer to someone as transgender or transsexual without prior identification and/or permission.
Do not use "transgender" or "transsexual" or…

Thank you for this.

True Thing I Just Read...

…in a review of Firestorm.

The reviewer didn't like it, that's fine. But man, I was disheartened by how many people objected to the very IDEA of talking about race in a superhero comic. Not that they objected to the execution, just the very idea that a white hero might have white privilege and that a black hero might be unhappy about it at all. Just bringing it UP pissed a lot of people off immensely.

Anyway, this is a real quote from the review's final paragraph.

"In summation, why is there a black guy, and is he seriously expecting us to believe that racism against black people is a serious issue in a first-world country in this day and age?"

I…wish I could say I was surprised, but I read quite a few such comments.

Bleah.

superherocomics:Have I mentioned I love the Birds? Because I...

superherocomics:

Have I mentioned I love the Birds? Because I really, really do. Here are just a few reasons why.

That is a lovely list of moments, thank you

spastasmagoria:murphysbride:cellfangirl:chandeluresinitaly:...

spastasmagoria:

murphysbride:

cellfangirl:

chandeluresinitaly:

sclez:

That day Diana taught a child how to unleash the fucking fury.

Diana is so precious. 

Wonder Woman, teaching women and girls how to kick ass like a mother fucking boss since 1941.

Best part of the entire movie

(besides Nathan Fillion being one of the voice actors)

This also gets an instant reblog every time I see it on my dash. THIS IS MY WONDER WOMAN.

That bit was mine!

APE IN A CAPE: angrysunbird: gailsimone: seapeas: whywhy must you say these things...

APE IN A CAPE: angrysunbird: gailsimone: seapeas: whywhy must you say these things...:

ablipintime:

gailsimone:

fyeahlilbitoeverything:

angrysunbird:

gailsimone:

seapeas:

why

why must you say these things that will never be true

Working with Marcus could happen, I would LOVE that to happen.

I don't know what the editorial plan is for Cass right now, though. :(

However, if Marcus is drawing it, I will be…

She was in Batman Inc. before the reboot, Morrison says she'll be there again. Ironically enough she probably made off better than Steph in that regard since she already had a pre-defined role and new identity pre-reboot, whereas Steph had the rug pulled out from under her.

I'm pretty sure Batman, Inc. is why we were all told she was unavailable right now. Believe me, a bunch of us tried.

Her being in Batman, Inc. might be the best possible news for the character in some ways…she might get the kind of platform that few other books would provide her, and that can be very positive for a character's long-term visibility.

But it still sucks, waiting around.

What about Renee Montoya? Do you know if she's "unavailable" due to Batman, Inc. too? Or are people just not using her?

Last I heard, they had not yet decided who was going to be the Question (this was a while back, they could have chosen by now), but they definitely said that Renee is in the new 52.

TW: for extreme racism and white lady who treats people like dogs.

amn051511:

Okay, I normally don't blog about my experiences because they're few in numbers but this one just made me lose my shit.

Today I was going to get some tea and coffee for my mother and I before we went to my aunt's house to celebrate my cousin's birthday. I passed by the Timmy's inside the gas station to get it. There was this white woman standing there dressed in winter clothing and I swear I probably only gave her a 30 second glance because she was staring right through me the entire time I was about to walk inside and get something from Timmy's. I waited in line to order and this bitch started.

"It isn't nice to stare at people. You shouldn't stare at people for dressing differently than you. I am dressed appropriately for my culture and for Easter. You shouldn't stare at people it's very rude."

"I wasn't staring at you though, but alright."

"Yes you were, you were staring at me and it's rude. You should apologize for being so rude and learn to show some respect for your elders. The generation today is so disrespectful." 

"I am not going to apologize because looking isn't against the law and I wasn't STARING at you, lady. You're the one who approached me and started talking to me. How about you learn how to leave people alone?" (the girl behind me started laughing at her at this point.)

"I most definitely did not approach you. You were STARING at me and STARING is rude. I have a mixed-breed child and she is very respectful."

"Alright, I am mixed-breed child too, do you want an award for it? I give respect to people who respect me and you're talking down on me for no reason."

"My daughter is a mixed-breed child from the Tutsi tribe, the most powerful tribe in Africa. She also speaks 3 different languages."

"Hahaha. You have no idea what you're talking about, white lady. Stay in your element. And so what, I speak a bunch of languages too."

"Defiant child under 30, you should learn some respect. My daughter never talks to people the way you do."

"You need to learn to respect people in older to get it, WHITE LADY. My mother is outside, how would you feel? You're talking to someone's child that way, someone's daughter. YOU need to learn to respect people before you get it. You don't deserve my respect."

"My husband was a Tutsi killed in the genocide, and my daughter is a Tutsi mixed-breed child. She is from the most powerful African tribe."

"I'm a Hawadlo, Mohamed, Ibrahim Isse bitch. How does that make you feel? My grandfather was the sultan of his tribe. How does that make you feel? I'm Somali, I'm from a powerful tribe to but this is Canada. I'm not running my mouth on about it because it is no longer relevant. Shut the fuck up already and write a book about it if you feel so strongly."

"Even the Somalis know that the Tutsi are powerful and I am BRITISH."

"What does you being British have to do with anything? You're an uneducated racist. Listen lady, I am done talking to you. I did not come into Tim Hortons to discuss tribes and history with a white woman who doesn't know how to shut the fuck up about shit she has no understanding of. You are irrelevant, you're white and if you have a superiority complex because your child is mixed. You know nothing of the Tutsi or any African tribes and you are sick. And I'm going to go now since my tea is done and oh yeah fuck you. Fuck everything about you, stupid bitch."

I went off but for good reason. White women can be so demonic. If anyone comes at me with a "NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE" post I will tear them to fucking shreds.

Fuck everything and fuck stupid uneducated people who don't have an ounce of respect for people. I'm not going to go on about the possible mental health issues people had because people will probably get on me about ABLEISM. Well guess what, this woman was SICK and that doesn't excuse her from treating me that way. She saw my mother and walked past us and said nothing but my mother stared her down and I could tell she was scared. 

Fucking white supremacist pieces of shit. I was in tears because of this shit. Fucking stupid bitch. I am still angry.

I am so, so sorry this shitty thing, this awful person, happened to you. I hope you are okay.

This woman is scum. She didn't deserve to even be in your presence. I don't have any words, I just hope you are okay. And I hope that filth steps in a sewer and doesn't know how to swim.

APE IN A CAPE: It's Interesting...

APE IN A CAPE: It's Interesting...:

constellation-funk:

gailsimone:

… I spoke with someone recently who said they wondered what their life would have been like without geek culture, and they seemed to totter a bit on whether or not it would have been a good thing.

I certainly have had some unpleasant experiences because I was a nerd, or a fan of nerd things. I…

I do think there is a specific difference between geek culture and geek artifacts; I don't think the two are necessarily inextricably linked. I can (and do) read comics without going to cons, for instance.

It is interesting that glam rock acts are listed in your examples of geek culture, specifically Ziggy Stardust. It does raise the question of what geekery actually means, since the general cultural consensus is that David Bowie is the coolest person who ever lived and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars sort of cemented that image of him as such. What is geeky, exactly, if that album and that persona can be labeled as such? (and I'm absolutely not saying they can't because I think there's definitely a case to be made that they are) Is Tarkovsky's Solaris geeky? Is Fantastic Planet? Krautrock? The work of Henry Darger? How does one describe geekery as an ethos as opposed to a demographic?

(this turned into more of a free-form musing than an actual response to anything)

I understand the separation between culture and artifact, but I might suggest that if you have the latter, you are holding a piece of the former.

And there was definitely a time when Bowie was outsider music. His reputation as a universal genius came much later.

I think 'geek culture' may not be the best wording, but I certainly imagine some musicians as fantasists, certainly Wagnerian opera appealed to King Ludwig II in that manner. Is a musician different from an artist or a novelist in that sense? If so, why? 

Alice Cooper and Ziggy Stardust were characters, Diamond Dogs is a futurist concept album, certainly. I think they fit right in there.

And, sure, it is possible to hate fantasy and enjoy, say, Lord Of The Rings for the swordfights, but I would maintain that even those with the smallest imagination like Star Wars and Tolkien for the the fantasy on some level, assuming they like them at all.  I think there's still a big chunk of the mainstream that dismisses virtually any SF or fantasy culture as silly or juvenile. It's a fairly recent development that the AVENGERS or AVATAR can actually BE the mainstream. Even the Wizard of Oz wasn't a big hit when the film debuted.

It may be that we all define what is beloved geek culture by purely subjective standards. That may, in fact, be the only definition that means anything.

It's Interesting...

… I spoke with someone recently who said they wondered what their life would have been like without geek culture, and they seemed to totter a bit on whether or not it would have been a good thing.

I certainly have had some unpleasant experiences because I was a nerd, or a fan of nerd things. I definitely put myself apart from other girls my age in school, for one thing.

So I asked myself this question, would my life have been better if I had never taken a fancy to FLIGHTS of fancy?

For me, it's no question. Even aside from meeting my beautiful husband playing Dungeons and Dragons, even aside from fantasy and manga helping to draw my son away from social anxiety, even aside from having a career that I love writing the things that make my heart most glad, I still would never trade.

I try to imagine a world without Lord of the Rings, without comic books, without Star Wars or Star Trek, without Galaxy Quest and Ziggy Stardust, without Alien and Stephen King, without Black Canary and Harry Potter, without Cerebus and Strangers in Paradise, without Skyrim and Moebius, without Hellboy and the Flaming Carrot, without Jack Kirby and Doctor Who, without Godzilla and the Shadow, without Cthulhu and Chun Li, without Tarzan and Plastic Man, without role-playing games and Game Boys, without the Simpsons or Futurama, without Judge Dredd and Sandman, without the Exorcist and Sergio Aragones,  without Mystery Science Theater and Disneyland, without Creepy and Alice Cooper, without Nightmare Before Christmas and Snoopy, without Leia and Lois and Lilo and all the other heroines who taught me that being female didn't mean you couldn't be kickass.

It's weird, but not only can I not imagine my life without all of these things (and lots, lots more…), I can't actually imagine my life with ANY of these missing. So much of what I love in life comes from geeks and nerds and genius fantasists. So much of my sense of wonder and my sense of humor were honed by the quality of these well-made things, these adventurist visions.

I grew up on a tiny farm in the boonies, miles away from anything. No television, very little to fire the imagination. My love of fantasy started with Beatrix Potter and never slowed down for a moment, since. In a way, there's a direct line from the first time I heard a Peter Rabbit story being read to me at bedtime to pretty much the entire life I live at this moment.

It all feels like a gift, something given to my life that I truly love.

Why would anyone ever want to give all those worlds up?

thehappysorceress:xdivinechaosx:HAPPY NATIONAL MISFIT...

thehappysorceress:

xdivinechaosx:

HAPPY NATIONAL MISFIT DAY!!!!!! 

DARK VENGEANCE!!!!!!!!!!!
SSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 This took so much longer than I thought it would haha, I'm a bit exhausted. I hope I finished it before it was too late! haha 

It's wonderful—-thank you so much!!!

Good lord, I just want to reblog all these beautiful pieces! Look at this one!

A few words from Misfit's "Mom", Gail Simone

thehappysorceress:

Talk about a scoop! I feel a bit like Lois Lane & readers, am I thrilled to share the following with you:






When I first thought of the character, she wasn't really much of a character in her own right..she was designed to be a pest, a less-goofy-but-still-annoying Bat-mite style character specifically for Oracle.  I love Oracle, I loved writing her. But her life was so ordered and so removed from other people in some ways that a little chaos now and then really made for fun stories.  So I created Misfit, who originally took over the Batgirl mantle without anyone's permission.

I gave her teleportation powers (the 'bounce'), partly in tribute to Bat-mite, and partly because it was the EXACT power that would make her the biggest pest to Oracle.  She could bounce past even the best security, and would show up at the worst possible times. What I didn't really reveal was her origin…her SECRET origin, more about that in a minute.

I never intended her to count as a real Batgirl. She didn't wear that mantle long, and she didn't have Barbara's or Cass's approval. So I never counted her as an in canon Batgirl, really, but some disagree.  She immediately became hugely polarizing, which was great fun.  The DC editors were a little cautious…because I deliberately made Misfit annoying. And she DID annoy a lot of readers, many still don't like her.

But a funny thing happened, a group of readers that LOVED her sprung up immediately. She had blogs written about her, fan art, tons of cosplayers (probably the most popular cosplay option of any character I have created). A great many young girls in particular seemed to adore her. I think she symbolized a specifically young, female type of fun that is rarely seen in superhero comics. In some ways, she was the anti-Black Alice. Even though both had tragic origins, Alice has a dark, sad attitude, and Misfit is made of bubbly optimism.

I remember getting the first sketch of the character from Nicola Scott. I had suggested that Misfit's costume look like it could be made from a laundry hamper full of wadded up clothes, and Nicola, as always, nailed that immediately.  I kind of love that Misfit has an outfit you can cosplay so easily, and it gives her a different feel, visually. No one designs like Nicola…she made Jeannette and Junior and Misfit just like how I dreamed of them.

It was a weirdly fun bit of synchronicity that the "M" on her shirt for Misfit resembled a bat, somewhat. So it made her look like the Bat-family, even while maintaining her own name and not being just another bat-spinoff.  Interestingly, this apparently is part of why she isn't in the new 52 yet. I heard this second hand, but…

…apparently, Scott Lobdell likes the character of Misfit and wanted to use her in the New Teen Titans, which would have delighted me. But, because an editor thought the "M" on her shirt was a bat-symbol, they thought that Misfit was still tied too closely to the bat-family and she was dropped from the roster. I tried to explain that it's an 'M,' not a bat, but by the time the mistake was realized, it was too late for her to be on the team. Weird! But it was nice of Scott to try, he was actually great about it. It's no harm done, it's an understandable mistake, but it's a shame, Titans is a hit book and she would be great in the new 52.

It may still happen, some people are trying to bring her back. But it's too soon to say if they will succeed. I hope she does, young girls need heroes they can relate to, as well.

Finally, a little reveal.  I don't know if they ever would have let me do this, but the parents we saw in her origin were not her real family. They were her adopted family.

My story was that Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe wasn't born here at all.  She was
born on Gemworld.

That's right, like Princess Amethyst, Misfit was Gemworld Royalty, princess
of the Ruby House.  When her family was killed, she was sent to Earth to hide,
and her memory (except for her power to bounce and her phenomenal fighting
skills), were erased.


If you go back and read the stories, you will see Charlie bragging about her glamorous life, when the reality is she was a homeless orphan. But it's not ENTIRELY a lie because she really WAS a princess as a child, but that memory had been paved over.

I love DC history, and I adored the Amethyst book. The secret princess myth
is very, VERY potent stuff for young girls, particularly those who, like I did as
a girl, a very powerful fantasy life, to make up for a less wonderful reality. I
wanted Charlie to be a double-twist…she THINKS she's a princess, but we
find out she's really poor and homeless and an orphan, but then it is revealed
that THAT is the lie and that she really IS a princess.

I love the idea of a Gotham City fairy tale. Those two elements collide
rather fiercely.

I am revealing this now because IF we can get Charlie back, the Gemworld
origin more than likely will not work, and her story might have to be
simplified a little bit.

So in my headcanon, one day, Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe finds her memory and
the way back to her home, and her remaining loved ones.

Somewhere in the ideasphere, Misfit smiles and wears a crown.

Misfit's secret origin!