Gail Simone's Blog, page 308
March 10, 2015
pinstripesuit:BUT COMICS ABOUT WOMEN DON’T SELL!!!111 cries...
BUT COMICS ABOUT WOMEN DON’T SELL!!!111 cries every neckbeard fanboy into the void
I don’t like that ‘neckbeard’ thing but HOORAY ABOUT BOOKS WITH GIRLS AND LADIES AND STUFF!
The Scripts I Will Have At La Mole Comic Con and Emerald City
Just for those who asked and those who voted…
It looks like I will be taking:
BIRDS OF PREY #6, one of my favorites, featuring the beloved fight between Shiva and Huntress
SECRET SIX #1, this is the new book, first issue!
BATGIRL FUTURE’S END, featuring the League of Batgirls. Woot!
RED SONJA #13, start of my favorite Sonja arc!
I think this is the most fun group of scripts I have picked yet. Whatever is left from La Mole, if any, we will take with us to Emerald City Con. I may hold some back for Emerald City anyway so I have some for readers there, haven’t decided yet.
Each script is $15.00 US, there are no reservations, there are only 30 copies of each, they will never be reprinted.
Hope to see you at the cons!
poc-in-the-batfamily:BATS OF COLOR: what Nell Little and Tiff...
BATS OF COLOR: what Nell Little and Tiff Fox are made of: sweetness,spice,strength and social awareness.
An Experiment!
Raise your hand here if you identify as female and like at least some cheesecake art sometimes.
Please list artists who do it well, or show an example, if you can!
http://ittygittydiddynator.tumblr.com...
I forgot to share, but I did an update on my GoFundMe yesterday!
Hi, everyone!
I have most of the nitty-gritty worked out, and my bank loan is arranged. I’ll also be picking up my van on Monday, unless something happens to delay that. When that happens, I’ll update this with pictures of my van,…
Please help the real life Vengeance Moth (the character was based totally on her!), my dear friend B.A., if you can!
Her car was totaled and she needs to replace it with a disability-friendly van for basic life necessities.
She is the best person and my favorite snarkstress and I JUST LOVE HER, OKAY.
If you can help with a few dollars, BLESS YOU! But if not, please signal boost…donations have slowed down quite a bit and it would be lovely to help make this happen!
Okay. Trust Me On This.
I just read one of my favorite things in ages, my mind is completely blown.
It’s a short little work called INSPECTOR PANCAKES.
YOU NEED THIS DAMN BOOK. EVERYONE NEEDS THIS BOOK.
It’s…I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s a gorgeously illustrated book in the style of the classic Little Golden Books that were popular many years ago. It’s about a crime solving dog in France. Hilariously, it tells both a kids’ story, and an adult story at the same time.
It is gorgeous, it is smart and it is hilarious. But more than that, it’s one of the most brilliant uses of visual storytelling I’ve seen in ages. It’s a tiny miracle.
I am going to buy a ton of these to give away as presents. Right now, only the digital and audiobook versions are available. Seriously, take a look.
It’s written by Karla Pacheko and illustrated by Marmulla.
I am not kidding, this book is AMAZING. Please please please take a look, you will love it!
Comics In Mexico?
Okay, thank you SO much for all the helpful tips about Mexico City, I am writing them all down! HUGE help!
But I realized that I don’t know much about comics in Mexico. When I was a kid, I had some Mexican Tarzan comics that were really very very cool, but I am embarrassed to say that I am ignorant of how they are presented now.
What is popular in Mexico? Is it more American comics or more locally-produced stuff? What genres are most popular? Do the American comics that come down there get translated, mostly? Are comic shops common?
I am a little ashamed that I don’t know this stuff already, but I aim to get educated about it. I have always had lots of readers from Mexico in signing lines but I haven’t yet taken the time to learn what the industry is like down there, that’s my bad.
Can’t wait to learn, though!
Did you know that your previous run on Secret Six was going to end before Flashpoint/New 52 happened? It seemed to end with a lot more closure than most of DC's other series around that time.
Yes, we had plenty of notice, thankfully.
I always intended for it to have the ending it had, my feeling was that a certain character in the book would eventually feel that being that close to happiness was going to make him weak. He’s wrong, but that’s the tragedy of it.
March 9, 2015
Tips For Mexico?
Any advice for a first-time visitor to Mexico City?
We have some good points of interest to see, but I’m wondering if any folks who live there, or are more familiar with it, have suggestions for travelers going there for the first time.
Thanks!
Hi! :) Are you and Kelly Sue DeConnick friends? Please tell me that you and Kelly Sue DeConnick are friends.
No, we hate each other and are VICIOUSLY COMPETITIVE!
Heh.
The truth is the answer is easy, “yes, we are,” but also that just doesn’t quite cover it.
When I started in comics, it was a weird-as-hell period. There had been female writers in the mainstream books, but most of them had left for other fields. There was almost NO ONE doing a superhero book at DC or Marvel who was female, and the ones who showed up seemed to quit or get forced out quickly.
It was a lonely time. I still get hate mail, but the public showing of contempt for a female writer of superheros back then was ENORMOUS. And websites allowed it, even encouraged it. Reviews could be brutally sexist, they never wanted you to forget that you were FEMALE and comics belonged to BOYS. I can barely even express…the recent stuff that happened to Janelle Asselin (which was awful) was common as dirt, it happened out in public, and there was never an outcry about it.
It could get very discouraging. I am stubborn as hell, or I would have quit. I remember some of the things that were said, and I just shake my head. And some of the pros who are out there now? They were in the cliques that went along with this stuff. I mean, the culture was just that pervasive. Stuff we make fun of now, that was common practice then. And this wasn’t thirty years ago, it was ten years ago.
For a long time, and it still happens a lot, EVERY panel I was on, I was the only female. I was offered every book with a female lead, including a thing called ‘Supermom.’ Every con wanted to do a Women in Comics panel and it was always the same questions and it got exhausting.
The saving grace was the readers. The general readership never bought into this stuff. That’s why I am so eternally grateful. Those people, mostly guys, bought my work because they liked it and they were secure enough to support it. They didn’t come from a place where they were threatened by a female writer wring Deadpool, and over and over again, they made my books into hits. It those early books had flopped, and they would have, if the readers had been the misogynists they are often accused of being, I guarantee you I would be back to doing hair for a living by now. Women don’t get as many chances to fail, in general.
Thank you again, readers. Honest to God, you have no idea how grateful I am. The simple act of buying a book really made a big change, and I believe (publishers have told me) that the success of my Deadpool and Birds of Prey and other titles opened the door a little wider for other female writers.
Sadly, there was also an extra-competitive vibe in the female comics community at the time…I thought it would all be sisterhood and go, team! But it wasn’t, a lot of women had bought into the notion that there could only be ONE woman in the room and they did not easily welcome another (not all, but many).
But it was still a number of years before we got a lot of new female writers that stuck. I tried to be encouraging, I am constantly trying to bring in new voices (and bring back great writers who have left). I do everything I can to try to help.
And then along came Kelly Sue DeConnick and Marjorie M. Liu in particular.
We are all friends, absolutely. We don’t live close by, we don’t hang out, I have only met each of them a couple times in person. We don’t email every day.
But when they came into comics, it was completely clear that they were not going to be ‘one of the guys,’ or easily intimidated. They immediately started producing exceptional, extraordinary work. They blew away expectations and just produced stunning stuff, and they weren’t going to be pushed out. They made their own terms.
I cannot explain how happy this made me and continues to make me.
I absolutely adore them both. If you say something bad about one of them to me, you are in real danger of a punch in the snoot.
I love that they are talented, informed, and opinionated. I love the passion they bring to comics. I think they did what I did, instead of trying to fit into a narrow slot in comics, they made their own space and comics can damn well work around it. No one cheers louder at their successes, because I love them both, but also because I know it will make a huge difference in how female writers and characters are perceived. The seeds they plant today are going to pay off in mighty forests in the next few years, wait and see.
Anyway, we are friends. But more than that, for me, they had my back more than once, out of simple human kindness, and I think they know I have theirs. I have said it before, I don’t actually know them tremendously well…
…but they are my sisters.
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