Gail Simone's Blog, page 1150
November 7, 2011
Grrr
Sick of people bagging on cosplayers, even if it's other cosplayers.
It's a very personal art, it requires above all, some courage to put yourself out there like that. There's no "right" way to cosplay. The kid wearing Iron Man pajamas may be having just as much fun as the person with an insanely expensive custom manga outfit. And may be making people just as happy.
Seriously, if it REALLY somehow, deep down, bothers you to see people having fun portraying characters they love, keep it to yourself. It's YOUR problem, not theirs. Believe me, when you start spouting that stuff, it doesn't make THEM look bad. It makes YOU look bad.
It's just people having a blast and expressing themselves. It's what genre fiction is about.
nanayena:
gailsimone:
nanayena:
My Lady Blackhawk costume at...
Lawl, photobombed by Rossy.
My Lady Blackhawk costume at MCM Expo.
Had loads of fun wearing it, certainly didn't get as much attention as if I were wearing a cat but still very very fun. Gail Simone signed my hat (I hope she posts her photos, I met her with friends who were dressed as the Secret Six and she signed Bane's chest, she was just so lovely) and had really awesome fist bump moments with guys who actually knew who I was dressed as.
Sorry to anyone walking behind me up stairs, that skirt is only 10 inches long but I did have the decency to put on a pair of Barbera Gordon Batgirl knickers over my tights to save your eyes!
Hopefully I'll be able to get together with Fran Sparklypants in the near future and we can get some awesome Huntress/Blackhawk photos.
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You were a PHENOMENAL Lady Blackhawk!
You totally had the Zinda attitude. Half of her cosplay seems to be the acting and you nailed that on TOP of a spot-on costume.
You guys almost made me cry, I was so moved by your art and grace. I absolutely loved it, I will remember the Secret Six (plus one!) that I met in London forever!
I'm so moved that you liked my costume. Normally I tend to be in costumes where I am covered, I have a few hookups with the way I look, don't we all, and so I felt very brave being in this costume and feeling comfortable. I had one negative comment at the end of the day which absolutely broke me down into tears, cosplayers can be so harsh but reading this from you (zomg Gail Simone *fangirls*) really gives me the confidence to show my face more and not always hide behind masks and theatrical makeup.
Thankyou so much, this really means so so much to me.
Lawl. Crying whilst I type this but I'm grinning like a fool at the same time!
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Okay, I admit I don't maybe understand this whole thing, but…you are absolutely beautiful, I hate to think of you feeling you have to 'hide,' ANYTHING. You are gorgeous! I hope you do know that.
Second…wait, who had something negative to say? What could they POSSIBLY have to say?
Point them out to me and I shall give them a piece of my mind. Screw those people, you were a fantastic Zinda, a lovely and adorable person, and you made everyone who saw you very happy, ESPECIALLY me, and I happen to know a little something about Zinda!
November 4, 2011
Scandal and her beloved
Are still my favourite panel from Villains United
I just love how Scandal cuddles up with Knockout here, and how tender and beautiful this is.
It's moments like this that are what make Scandal, Knockout and the rest of the Secret Six so much more interesting to me than the average 'anti hero' usually is. And the amount of love and compassion that radiates from this panel just fills me with warm and fuzzy feelings.
God I miss them so much
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It's odd, isn't it, that it was somehow more acceptable to show genuine love and tenderness in a book about villains than many 'heroes' seem to show these days. It's almost like that oddball political notion that compassion=weakness has somehow infected our superhero books at both of the main companies.
I'm happy to be called weak, then. Because compassion and love take courage, and people who don't know that are missing the whole point.
magnificentbastich:
Mad Hatter and the S6.
I prefer the...
Mad Hatter and the S6.
I prefer the Mad Hatter and the Penguin to the Joker and Two-Face so much that I can't even explain.
You Know What's A Lovely Day?
At the great Paul Cornell's request, we took the tube and train out to where he and his lovely wife live, in the English countryside, and they escorted us to go see neolithic, pre-historic sites all over among lush, rolling green hills.
We saw burial burrows, went inside of one, saw huge henge formations much bigger in scope than Stonehenge, saw the white chalk horse on the hillside that's ancient beyond words, it was absolutely one of the best days of my life.
Paul is a born storyteller and he grew up in this region, you can see the white horse from his mum's back window (and this is the fun thing, we stopped to have a lovely cup of tea at his mum's house, she is absolutely magical).
We ate lunch at the Red Lion pub, an old, old pub next to the Avebury (sp?) henge. The stones there are massive, weighing sixty tons, some of them. Going up on a hillside and seeing that below is incredibly moving and uplifting, somehow. It also felt like every great rural bbc show come to life.
Finally we went to Paul's house, which is full of comics and books and dvds, like mine, and got a lovely curry, and saw the church in their village, got a little backstage tour, it was incredibly beautiful, one of the most beautiful small churches I've seen.
I'm telling you, if you ever get a chance to have Paul and his wife squire you all over the countryside, JUST GO. We laughed and talked the whole time and I fell in love with a whole new side of London, that was very aged, indeed.
Going home today, I shall miss it all terribly.
November 3, 2011
nanayena:
My Lady Blackhawk costume at MCM Expo.
Had loads of...
Lawl, photobombed by Rossy.
My Lady Blackhawk costume at MCM Expo.
Had loads of fun wearing it, certainly didn't get as much attention as if I were wearing a cat but still very very fun. Gail Simone signed my hat (I hope she posts her photos, I met her with friends who were dressed as the Secret Six and she signed Bane's chest, she was just so lovely) and had really awesome fist bump moments with guys who actually knew who I was dressed as.
Sorry to anyone walking behind me up stairs, that skirt is only 10 inches long but I did have the decency to put on a pair of Barbera Gordon Batgirl knickers over my tights to save your eyes!
Hopefully I'll be able to get together with Fran Sparklypants in the near future and we can get some awesome Huntress/Blackhawk photos.
************************************
You were a PHENOMENAL Lady Blackhawk!
You totally had the Zinda attitude. Half of her cosplay seems to be the acting and you nailed that on TOP of a spot-on costume.
You guys almost made me cry, I was so moved by your art and grace. I absolutely loved it, I will remember the Secret Six (plus one!) that I met in London forever!
London
I love it here. The people have been so lovely.
We saw a play at the National Theatre, went on the London Eye, saw the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Madame Tussaud's, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, did a cruise on the Thames, saw Big Ben, the London Film Museum, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and a ton of other stuff.
Today, Paul Cornell and his lovely wife are squiring us about to see pre-historic sites, henges and stuff. Can't wait.
But man, are we tired.
November 2, 2011
tranquiilquin:
There are like a thousand reasons why I love...
There are like a thousand reasons why I love Gail Simone and the comics she writes. There so good. My favorite series is called Welcome to Tranquility and I love it so much I've bought every single one. It's written so well and the leading main character is a black woman which is something I don't see at all when reading comics. I also loved how she wrote Wonder Woman by the way and Birds of Prey. I would love to meet her one day and have her sign every comic I have thats written by her. Jk. But she deserves so much respect. I enjoy reading her work, no matter what it is if she writes it I will read it.
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Well, thank you SO much for this incredibly kind note, it's totally made my day!
Thomasina Lindo might be my favorite character of all time to write that I've created, I just love her so much.
I would be delighted to sign all your comics…do you live near any conventions?
November 1, 2011
thehappysorceress:
Off-Duty Birds, commission from Astro...
Off-Duty Birds, commission from Astro (nogutsnoglory)
Ack!
QUIT MAKING ME MISS MY GIRLS!
This is adorable!
October 30, 2011
theemeraldbar:
So, today I went and visited my mother for the...
So, today I went and visited my mother for the day. The train ride from Chicago to home is a little over two hours. The dcwomenkickingass tumblr's match-up between Scandal Savage and Zatanna got me thinking about Scandal Savage and why I like her so much. This, new comics, and Queen consumed much of my train ride.
I miss Scandal Savage in my monthlies. I really do. The only reason I was one of those people up in arms about the DC reboot was because I wanted Secret Six in my folder every month. The stories were tremendous, the art was astonishing, the books were both dark and twisted but were also hilarious (I'm still not over King Shark eating a jar of "I Can't Believe They're Not Eyeballs!"), and, of course, Scandal Savage was there.
Scandal meant to me now what Wonder Woman meant to me as a kid. When I would read my cousin's comic books, they were always about Captain America, Batman, and Spider-Man. The comic books I got dealt with troubles in Riverdale (read: thrown away). One day we went to the baseball card shop so they could get new comics and there on the spinner rack was Wonder Woman. There on the cover of her own book was a woman who kicked ass and was a leading member of the Justice League! She was equal to Batman and Superman! The thought of Wonder Woman blew my mind. Reading Wonder Woman almost gave me a stroke. She wasn't a damsel in distress. She wasn't indecisive. She wasn't like anything I had ever seen.
Scandal Savage felt like that. However, I wasn't a kid. I was in my mid-twenties, and loved the magic and story-telling of comics, but felt that perhaps I wasn't going to be wowed like that by a comic book character ever again. Along came Scandal.
Scandal Savage kicked ass. Scandal was a lesbian who wasn't totally defined by her sexuality, and it was amazing. Gay comic book characters are either overtly gay, or they are treated like a gay family member in a WASPy family (you know they're gay, but you don't really talk about it). Scandal was gay, but it was just a part of the interesting patchwork that made up her character. Gail Simone wrote this character with such grace and heart that nothing about the character felt forced or showy. Scandal, the human side, felt real. She was gay. She had family issues. She fell into a depression when Knockout was murdered. She didn't take any shit from anyone. She attacked Bolt for groping her. She was sexual without being a dippy sexual object. She had tattoos. She could hold her own in a fight. In other words, she was incredibly human and became one of the best-written characters in any comic universe.
There were many aspects of Scandal Savage that I could look at and say, "There I am. I am represented in comics because you are here." Sometimes reading Secret Six was like being a kid and reading Wonder Woman. Scandal felt like a high five to my soul. The world of comic books was just better because she was there once a month. In a comic world full of Batman, Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Lantern Corps, and other regular monthlies, Scandal shined brighter than the rest. I know the character isn't dead and could possibly return in the new DCU, but I also worry about what would happen if she were written by anyone other than Gail Simone. Gail Simone nailed it. I probably couldn't thank her enough if I tried.
Scandal, I miss you, girl!
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I've been wanting to respond to this amazing and heartfelt post for a while. First, thank you for the lovely, moving thoughts. It means a lot. Whenever I go to a con, the thing that always haunts me is that there are so many portions of the audience who are not represented well in the comics themselves, or are represented spottily, or flat-out badly. I'm talking about things like ethnicity, gender roles, country of origin, sexuality, that sort of thing. It's clear that many readers identify with characters that don't specifically represent those aspects of their lives—I've met a ton of black readers whose favorite character is Spider-man and hundreds of women whose favorite is Batman. But it'd be nice to have a comics universe that looks like the readership, and not the readership in 1958, for example.
Scandal was interesting in her genesis. I wanted a lesbian character who was not about the straight male gaze, someone with a rich life of her own. When I said to DC that she was going to be gay, I planted my feet and was ready for a fight, because I'd heard that at some companies they didn't really DO gay characters overtly. And sure enough, I got a message back that they had a concern about that.
So man, I had my arguments ready, I was going to fight for her, just TRY and tell me she can't be gay, guys. I dare you.
So I got the email back from my editor, and the only note was, we think it's great that she's a gay woman, but we don't want her to be portrayed exploitatively.
That was the sole note.
So I had my feet planted and fists up and didn't have anyone to fight, suddenly. You know that feeling where you assume the worst and prepare for it and are completely disoriented when something good happens, instead? That.
I love Scandal, I love how she can slip from middle management mode to don't-you-try-to-fuck-with-me mode in a heartbeat. I love how she's not intimidated by anyone, I love her friendship with Jeannette, I love her yearning for Liana's naivete, and her I-will-walk-through-Hell love for Knockout.
Her relationship with Bane was something I think a lot of us yearn for, a father figure who will move Heaven and Earth for you, who puts you first in all things. Most of us didn't have that. I think at first, she was almost humoring him, but it quickly became more real than her real family ties and a million times more rewarding.
I love Scandal. Thank you so much for your thoughts, I am glad she means so much to you.
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