Gail Simone's Blog, page 233

sorry if this is a question you get a lot, gail, but considering there is a large number of queer women in the world of batman but queer men are near non-existent, do you think more queer male characters should come out/be created? (personally i think two-

Yes, I absolutely do, which is part of why I made Catman canonically bi.

I don’t doubt that a lot of the lesbian characters were created with the best of intentions, I don’t. But it’s also true that for many people, super-hot gay WOMEN are a lot more palatable than a gay man, and that’s just insulting to everyone.

I am trying to do something about it, I’ve created several gay male characters but I only have one mainstream book right now.  We need to get everyone on board. I love Batwoman and Scandal and all of those great characters. I want them to get a lot of love and exposure.

But it’s absolutely glaring and ridiculous how few gay male heroes there are at the big two. It’s too crystal clear to be accidental.

comicsodissey:SWORDS OF SORROW #4 (OF 6)LOVE THIS SO...

comicsodissey:

SWORDS OF SORROW #4 (OF 6)

LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

Are these cosplayers on tumblr? If you’re here, can you sound off so I can give you credit? I only know you by your twitter handles! 

Strix/Mary is without a doubt my favorite character. I love what you have done with her and hope she is around for a long time.

Thank you so much! I really cringe when I think how close we came to not having her (she was supposed to die at the end of her first appearance). 

It was totally Scott Snyder who said, “Are you kidding? We have to keep her, she’s awesome!”  I thought the Talons were supposed to die, but everyone loved her origin story so much that they talked me out of it (thank goodness!), and now she’s probably my favorite in the new Six to write. 

I love people who are trying, who are overcoming impossible things. That’s what makes Strix magic for me. 

Are there any artists you've had difficulty working with?

Very, VERY rarely. It happened fairly recently, sadly, it wasn’t a personality thing at all, they just quit communicating with everyone on the team. It was weird and baffling.

I don’t really think I can remember any more difficulty like that. I’ve had a couple artists ask for script changes for religious reasons. I had a very wonderful Muslim artist who grew uncomfortable drawing young women. I had a Christian artist who objected to a pose they felt was too close to a crucifixion. I try to respect those types of things and even if I strongly disagree, I don’t want to ask artists to draw stuff they feel truly uncomfortable with.

I have had a few artists who had a hard time laying off the cheesecake. A little surprisingly, most of those artists were women. 

OH! I have had a couple artists who had a very hard time drawing comedy, they would draw even comedy relief scenes with too much sincerity. Sometimes this happens with artists where they don’t speak English as their first language (but even this is very rare!).

I think the only time there was a significant problem like this was when I worked with Rob Liefeld on Titans. It was fun, I liked what he did, but we never formed a cohesive unit. I didn’t figure out how to write for him, that’s on me. 

I can’t think of any personal problems. All the artists I have now, I would take a bullet for them. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to work with the people I have worked with, it’s a dream come true. I am close, close friends with many of them, and almost all of them have said they want to work with me again, so they must like me okay, as well. :)

Problems are very, VERY rare for me that way, but when I start a new book with a new artist, I always do three things;

1) I ask them what they love to draw. If it’s monsters, I put them in. If it’s barbarians, if it’s aliens, whatever. It goes in. I ask what characters they like and try to get them.

2) Ask them what they hate to draw and try to banish it as much as possible. There’s an Eisner winning artist who drew a book for years that was all talking heads. Now they can’t stand that. If we work together, I will write the opposite, wide vistas and cool action. A happy artist is good!

3) I always tell them that the choreography and panel suggestions are just suggestions, if they have a better idea, they should do it.  It’s ridiculous to think a non-artist is going to always know how to design a page better than an artist who thinks about this stuff all day every day.

I'm curious since you answered the other anon--If you could make some more existing male characters be canonically not straight, which characters would you choose and what would their sexualities be?

Huh. I honestly am cautious about answering this, this kind of thing takes a lot of thought. You don’t want to just make these choices arbitrarily, that’s not good for anyone.

I always felt Aquaman would be pansexual, somehow. Have no idea why. I know he loves Mera, he just might like some other people, too!

I was hoping you could answer this question. why do comics avoid relationships? I mean, ive seen more divorces in comics books than I have marriages, and it confuses me that we can have things like Superman being married and Spiderman being married and Was

It’s believed that if you do serial fiction, especially fiction that lasts for decades, pairing an iconic character with a love interest is a dramatic dead end. It’s also believed that it ages the characters. People say on shows like Cheers and Moonlighting, once the characters got together, a lot of the tension that made those shows fun was gone (I have no idea, I have watched very little Cheers and no Moonlighting). 

I have some sympathy for these concepts, I get why publishers believe them to be true. But so many of my favorite stories had the characters in relationships, I don’t know, I miss them a lot. 

Hey Gail! In regards to the question about LGBTQA characters in the Bat-books, was Silver's sexual orientation ever stated? Just curious!

I don’t think it was…I know his P.A./co-monster hunter was in love with him, but i don’t think it was reciprocated.

fromgothamtolatveria:Secret Six #4 - DC ComicsWriter: Gail...

fromgothamtolatveria:

Secret Six #4 - DC Comics
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Tom Derenick

It’s a fair question.

madunphy:I’m catching up on Red Sonja and I really love this...

madunphy:

I’m catching up on Red Sonja and I really love this panel where she looks smug as fuck.

Written by gailsimone

Art by Walter Geovani

One of my favorite issues, and Walter Geovani is AMAZING.

lesbiansorceress:Swords of Sorrow #4The wildest Dynamite...

lesbiansorceress:

Swords of Sorrow #4

The wildest Dynamite crossover epic ever told continues at whole cities
are smashed together in the prelude to inter-dimensional war! It’s
Martians versus Monsters versus Barbarians and more, with the women of
Chaos on the wrong side of Good Vs. Evil…plus, where are Red Sonja,
Vampirella and Dejah Thoris in their worlds’ time of need? Guest stars
galore in this massive tale of battle, blades and bikinis! 

(Release date: 12th August 2015)

Funnest crossover ever!