Gail Simone's Blog, page 434
July 25, 2014
A Day Off
I won’t be posting any more John Byrne images for today. Just one day, tomorrow I’ll be back. This is the reason why.
John Byrne today on his website:
Just spent a few minutes on the IMDb, clicking thru images of fans in costume at San Diego. A reminder of one of the many reasons I don’t do…
Fucking hate this attitude about policing cosplayers and hate it even MORE when pros do it.
Infuriating.
Also, I don’t know your wife, but tell her that I said she was EXACTLY the perfect size to cosplay Batgirl.
EXACTLY right.
July 24, 2014
An Eternal Question
Whenever a new character appears in mainstream comics, that is from a rarely represented, or poorly represented, marginalized group, there is a question of…
…do you do publicity mentioning it, or do you just present it as a story like any other?
I have gone back and forth on this a lot, and I don’t think any group has a real consensus.
I used to think, hey, let’s make a big fuss, let’s let people know! Representation is important, let’s get the word out!
And now I am not so sure. It feels very weird to me to do a news story saying, “oh, this character is ______.” It feels like asking for cookies, like it does a disservice to the people being represented.
So, I don’t really do that. When Alysia Yeoh came out, I agreed to two interviews only. The media explosion that made it even to late night talk shows all came from just two stories.
With the Movement, which had, I think, one of the most diverse casts of any mainstream comic ever, we didn’t ever do an interview about that. While books with much less diversity actually made headlines on that topic alone. And now, the Movement is canceled. ;)
But it still feels like the right choice to me. Treating those characters like any other characters still feels right.
Am I wrong? Is it better to get the word out? The female Thor, Falcon as Cap, those are going to get huge sales, they got tons of media notice. And sales will be way up from where they would be if no one had said anything about it.
And sales is an important indicator, as much as we wish sometimes that it wasn’t. If female Thor and black Captain America do great business, that will very likely be a great thing for comics and representation.
To me, it still feels a little weird. But I want those books to be hits, I want books with representation to be hugely successful.
The thing that gives me the most pause is, I know the vast majority of potential readers don’t follow comics on Tumblr, or news sites, or twitter. The only way they would ever know about a female Thor is if it gets huge publicity. So is it better to talk about it like it’s huge news?
I had this discussion with a youth counselor in North Carolina, and he was absolutely ALL FOR doing publicity when new lgbtq characters were in mainstream comics. He used them as an aid when dealing with lgbtq kids who were struggling with acceptance. And he said the news stories of things like Kevin Keller at Archie and Alysia in Batgirl were a big deal to his kids.
So that gave me pause.
I still don’t know the answer. Big publicity can feel like exploitation, and even further marginalization.
But if it’s not mentioned at all, then the word doesn’t really get out, and the people who might most enjoy that representation may never get to see it.
I don’t have an answer for this at all, I’m just curious what you all think.
EDITED TO ADD: I don’t think The Movement failed for this reason, by the way.
5 Quotes Worth Remembering From SENYC
5 Quotes Worth Remembering From SENYC #tbt #femalesuperhero
… And they’re all from the Reimagining the Female Superhero panel!
It’s Throwback Thursday here at Girls Gone Geek, and I wanted to share a few new quotes from the panel that made the trip to SENYC worth it.
Enjoy! (more…)
Yo, Lumberjanes, though. So damn good.
THAT’S WHAT I KEEP SAYIN’!
hey Gail, my friend and I going to try to write and draw a few short story type horror comics over the summer but just realised we have no clue how to write a comic, have you got any tips or anything you could give us please? also I love your writing so mu
LOTS of info at comicssurvivalkit.tumblr.com for this question. Good luck!
July 23, 2014
Hiya, just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying reading your articles on 'Women in Refrigerators.' They've been very helpful in my research for a meta article I'm doing. I was curious if you feel that things have gotten better in comics as regard
We seem to go through waves.
It gets better, then we get a bunch of crappy shock value stories that seem all too familiar. Then it gets better, again.
One thing that I am very suspicious of right now is the late-comer to the cause…people who have never cared about the female readership, have sometimes openly been scornful of the female readership, suddenly acting as though they have cared deeply all along.
I think some creators have suddenly woken up and seen who is going to cons, who is writing on Tumblr, and thought, “Uh, oh. Better look like I care!”
If someone didn’t care about the female readership and characters until this past year or so, I am a little skeptical of their motives. Maybe motives don’t matter, I don’t know. But I do remember the writers who have pushed for better representation before it became a statistical necessity.
And I buy their stuff! :)
Hiya, just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying reading your articles on 'Women in Refrigerators.' They've been very helpful in my research for a meta article I'm doing. I was curious if you feel that things have gotten better in comics as regard
We seem to go through waves.
It gets better, then we get a bunch of crappy shock value stories that seem all too familiar. Then it gets better, again.
One thing that I am very suspicious of right now is the late-comer to the cause…people who have never cared about the female readership, have sometimes openly been scornful of the female readership, suddenly acting as though they have cared deeply all along.
I think some creators have suddenly woken up and seen who is going to cons, who is writing on Tumblr, and thought, “Uh, oh. Better look like I care!”
If someone didn’t care about the female readership and characters until this past year or so, I am a little skeptical of their motives. Maybe motives don’t matter, I don’t know. But I do remember the writers who have pushed for better representation before it became a statistical necessity.
And I buy their stuff! :)
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