Gail Simone's Blog, page 646
September 20, 2013
I'm sympathetic to your cause — I'm also a straight white male and lifelong comics reader, but I've had trouble getting into your comics. I've tried. But the problem I've found is when Social Justice becomes the DEFINING characteristic of a book/character,
Who exactly in my books is defined like this?
Is inclusion alone enough for them to be ‘defined,’ in this manner? I am trying to think of a character that I write that is defined like that.
I'm sympathetic to your cause — I'm also a straight white male and lifelong comics reader, but I've had trouble getting into your comics. I've tried. But the problem I've found is when Social Justice becomes the DEFINING characteristic of a book/character,
Who exactly in my books is defined like this?
Is inclusion alone enough for them to be ‘defined,’ in this manner? I am trying to think of a character that I write that is defined like that.
I'm sympathetic to your cause — I'm also a straight white male and lifelong comics reader, but I've had trouble getting into your comics. I've tried. But the problem I've found is when Social Justice becomes the DEFINING characteristic of a book/character,
Who exactly in my books is defined like this?
Is inclusion alone enough for them to be ‘defined,’ in this manner? I am trying to think of a character that I write that is defined like that.
Another Question Of The Day
This is a bit more complicated, but I’m just curious.
The thing I get a lot now when people say they hate my guts is that I am a ‘social justice warrior,’ or something similar, and obviously, they don’t mean it in a good way. They mean it as an insult.
I am not sure why someone who fights for social justice should be insulted by this. I also don’t claim to be any wonderful fighter for social justice, I think I am barely learning a lot of this stuff and have a long ways to go, and more than that, I feel like that title should be reserved for people who have put rubber to the road, who did great deeds.
Maybe that’s unrealistic, I don’t know. But I hear it a lot, almost always as an insult, not just about me…it seems like people who actually ARE POC or LGBTQ or talk about disability activism, people who actually live those lives and have the temerity to, you know, TALK about it sometimes, those people are almost always the targets of anonymous people calling them some mean variation of Social Justice Warriors.
Like I said, I don’t quite get why it’s insulting. I gather that because these anonymous people don’t think it’s important, they don’t believe anyone else does, either.
But let’s just ask everyone. Supporter of how these topics are discussed or detractor, just interested in hearing your opinions.
What do you think of the social justice movement as displayed on social media, like Tumblr, Facebook, and blogs?
Do you think it makes a difference?
Has it made you change your mind or position, ever?
What would you change about the way these topics are discussed, if you could?
Question Of the Day
What is the nicest/most personally meaningful/funniest comment you ever received about something you did creatively?
COCOA (or Coco?)! Please Resend!
Dang. I must be exhausted.
I received a dm about an appearance in Florida, and I accidentally responded publicly, and then I accidentally deleted THAT without making a copy.
Well DONE, Ms. Simone!
Cocoa from Florida, can you please resend your contact info asap?
Also, unsure of the spelling of your name, please forgive me, I only saw the letter briefly!
blindhusksdream:
The Movement 2s cover has such cute noses and the bottom left black woman has the...
The Movement 2s cover has such cute noses and the bottom left black woman has the best eyes ever, but I also really love Mouse’s feet and hands and the feverish colour scheme of 4, and all the awesome fight-faces being pulled on 3 as well as its colouring, which makes Katharsis (I presume?) stand out so well.
(All the other stuff is sterling too, I just particularly like those bits.)
We have been REALLY lucky about Movement covers, we got fantastic artists on those.
My favorite is the extraordinary VIRTUE solo cover, I just can’t imagine a more perfect single image for the book. The fact that it’s a LGBTQ WOC solo on the cover didn’t even hit any of us ‘til later, but I would imagine that is something that hasn’t happened much in mainstream comics.
A Couple More Things About This Marriage Deal
These thoughts are very random, so please forgive me, there are just a couple things I have remembered over the past few days.
First, I would love love love to see Batwoman married. I think that could be a magnificent story, a wonderful symbol, and also help differentiate her from other heroines.
Two quick facts…I have seen several people say that at one time, Barbara and Dinah were going to date, or Barbara was going to fall in love with Dinah, but DC stopped it. I have to say, I would be totally fine with this, I would love to write it, but for the life of me, I never came across such a plan or even heard of it. If I am TOTALLY missing something, or if a different writer had such a plan, I would love to know about it. But I never heard of such a thing.
If it’s true, I would be pretty surprised. Anyone know the source of this story?
Second, this is something that oddly slipped my mind when this whole thing was going on, but I had suggested a same sex wedding in Wonder Woman years ago, and DC approved it even back then. The story was going to be that Hippolyta felt she could not pursue love while she was queen. And so, at the end of the Olympian arc, she was going to hand the crown to Diana, and IMMEDIATELY walk over to Phillipus and give her the tokens of an Amazon engagement and propose.
Dan DiDio approved the idea himself, as I remember. At the time, the idea of a same sex wedding of a major character was still very new in mainstream comics, and I think it would have had major, major impact, as it’s not just a character, but Wonder Woman’s MOM. But beyond that, I think it would have been terribly beautiful and romantic, two women marry after 3000 years of duty prevented it.
I’ve mentioned this a few times in the past, the only thing that prevented it from happening was that I left the book and we had to leave a clean slate for the new team.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the Batwoman situation. But it is interesting to note that this fairly ‘radical’ idea (at the time) sailed through pretty easily even a few years sooner.
AND it’s my biggest regret on Wonder Woman, that we didn’t get to do that, it would have been lovely!
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