Gail Simone's Blog, page 953

One thing I've always admired about your run on Secret Six was how you managed to weave the crazy (the get out of hell free card for example) and the tragic (Ragdoll's origin for another example), as I'm currently developing a comedic webcomic about the po

Okay, well, here’s the thing. I LIKE the emotional roller coaster of tone changes, but they have to be done with care. Life is like that…a few days ago, we were crying because of some bad health news of someone close to my family, but when she came over, we started joking and laughing and sadness became something else, still sad, but also grateful and laughing.

That’s really what I think storytelling is, you want to engage more than one connection, you want to have more than one speed in your gearbox. Don’t be afraid to put some funny in your tragedy, or some sadness in your joy. Emotions are polyphonic, you don’t have to play just the melody, you can play the chords that support it, as well.

One way to do this is with people who have a difference in POV. If one character laughs at a sight (say, Ragdoll) and another cries a the same sight (say, Scandal), then you are already showing emotional complexity.  Every character has a different level of awareness and self-awareness, don’t forget that. You don’t have characters react the way YOU would react, you have them react the way THEY react.

Tone is kind of like the horse you have to tame. Look at what you want to convey with your story and aim towards that always. But you can have your characters REACT differently, and that will provide the complexity we are talking about.

I will say, I love comedy, I love funny stuff even in sadness, even in horror. But what I don’t love is zany. When the characters are acting zany, I just find that lacking in discipline, as a rule. My least favorite Deadpool stories are just going straight for laughs, no drama, no wit, just, HEY! Here’s Deadpool with a banana up his ass! or whatever. I would say in most cases, if your characters are being zany, as opposed to funny, you’re probably deep in the realm of desperation and maybe should retreat immediately. ;)

Hey Gail, I was wondering since you write so many different characters with so many different personalities, do you ever have a hard time getting into some of their heads? And do you ever have a hard time keeping their personalities distinct and separate,

I don’t. For whatever reason, this seems to be a problem I don’t have. Mark Waid very sweetly compliments me about this often, that the characters all have their own voice, no matter how many are in an issue. It’s a comment I treasure, obviously, because Mark is simply one of the best writers comics has ever had.

I think it’s because generic dialogue and character hits my ear the way off-note singing hits a musician’s. It just grates…bad dialogue, bad character work, they drive me positively batty. So it’s something I pay attention to…I don’t write a story until I KNOW the characters, and I mean really know them. Once you know their story, and what they dream of, and where they came from, and what breaks their hearts, you can write them fearlessly without concern about them seeming generic.

Anyway, that’s what I think about that, it’s never a problem, I never feel like I have to make one character stand out from the rest. If I did my homework, they already stand out.

At least, I hope so. :)

Hello Gail. I look forward to when your and Jim's new project comes out. I have kind of an odd question for you. I know that you used to work full time as an hair stylist and write comics part time. If you could style the hair of any comic book characteer,

Anything generic. I don’t mean this to be mean, but some artists give women very generic, outdated hairstyles, and they almost always want the hair to be long, which I think they equate with sexiness. If a woman’s hair is short, it’s almost always very severe and not flattering, which is just a big morass of obsolete nonsense.

Pre-52, I would probably have changed Oracle’s hair…sometimes it looked great, and sometimes less so. I might have liked to see Wonder Woman’s hair in a more distinctive style, something timeless but unique.

YES I THINK ABOUT THIS STUFF A LOT.

Did you hear that Lady Shiva has been drastically de-aged for her first appearance? Apparently she grew up alongside Dick. So it looks like Cass has never existed now.

I did hear that today. I am not in the loop on those two characters, but I hope Cass returns, even if it alters her origin. She’s too good a character to stay on the bench.

Feminist Batgirl: Batgirl #12: What Happened? SPOILER WARNING

Feminist Batgirl: Batgirl #12: What Happened? SPOILER WARNING:

feministbatgirl:

How very disappointing. After seeing the preview, my concerns about this issue were high, but I thought the story would resolve those. I was wrong. Here are my two main problems.

Why use a guest star to make the title character look bad? If Kate is a strong character, then there is no need to…

Totally sorry you were disappointed! It’s always a bummer when someone doesn’t like an issue, especially when they have been so supportive.

The issue is being very well reviewed but I completely get what you are saying.

The thing is, it’s not that Barbara lacks confidence in this issue, or that she can’t get a shot in. There’s a difference here, in that Batwoman comes in guns blazing, ready to fight. Batgirl doesn’t WANT to fight.

It’s a different fight from most comic book fights, in that it’s not two people going full-out. Batgirl is reluctant, and she doesn’t really believe that Batwoman is bad. She’s not like Wolverine or Batman, who might throw punches FIRST and figure out if they were necessary later. Throughout the run, we have tried to show Batgirl as having strength, but also being a little smarter and more compassionate than just another cowl-jockey.

If she’s really, really wanted to give Batwoman a fight, she would have. At least that’s my take on it. I’m not saying who would win. But in that moment, it makes sense to me that Batgirl would hesitate.

Hope that makes sense.

Sorry you didn’t care for the issue!  :(

Hey Gail! Out of all the Birds of Prey characters, which do you miss writing about the most? I only ask cuz it was your BOP comics were the first comic series that I truly fell in love with :)

That is impossible…I want to say Black Canary, but at least she is still out there in a good book. I miss all of them; Oracle, Huntress (Helena B.), and Zinda.

Miss them a lot, probably always will.

My Geek Girl Con Schedule This Week!

Remember, a ton of cool people will be there, including Greg Rucka, Jen Van Meter, and Bryan Q Miller (I’m trying to get BQM to be on the Batgirl panel, help me convince him!).

Please come say hi, I can’t recommend this event enough.

Here’s a link to a good page with a lot more info:

http://www.geekgirlcon.com/gail-simone-at-geekgirlcon-12/

From the site:

Saturday, August 11, 11:30 a.m. – Gail Simone and the Batgirl of San Diego

Sunday, August 12, 11:30 a.m. – A Fate Worse than Death: The Last “Outsider” in Popular Culture – Disability

However, we knew you couldn’t handle just one panel with Gail, so today, we are happy to announce that Gail will have her own spotlight panel on Sunday, August 12. Check out the details below.

Sunday at 1:30 – 2:20 p.m. (Room 205)
SPOTLIGHT ON GAIL SIMONE
This spotlight will start with a freewheeling discussion with critically acclaimed author of comics and animation, Gail Simone, and include a question and answer session at the end. She will be discussing her comics work, from Deadpool to Simpsons to Birds of Prey to Batgirl, as well as her views on females in comics and other social issues. This promises to be a lively hour with this popular and entertaining writer!
Moderated by Erica J Heflin

Gail will also be doing a media signing starting at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday (check out our full signing schedule). And just to top off this super sundae of awesomeness with a huge bowl of cherries, Gail will be hanging out in the GeekGirlConnections room from 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on Sunday. During this hour, Gail will be reviewing portfolios and talking to aspiring writers one-on-one.

Dang it! THAT IS CUTE!

Dang it! THAT IS CUTE!

Accents And Dialects

innerbrat:

kathryn-eliza:

gailsimone:

“ There’re accent variations within English, it’s not just an ESL thing. And having one character mention another’s accent is more awkward than some triggering grammatical idiosyncrasy within their dialogue.”

This is continued from the previous question about dialects, and I would agree with the first bit. No one really seems to get offended by a broad Boston accent, but attempts to portray some dialects are pretty horrible from the get go.

The second part I take a bit of issue with, because it’s just an example of a way to convey the information. And it depends 100% on execution. If it’s done clumsily, it will look awkward and obvious. Done well, you won’t even notice.

I would actually say that a big part of comics is compensation, we have to compensate and substitute for the lack of audio and movement (and other limitations of the form and individual artists). A good comic is usually full of such techniques. As I say, if done well, they are pretty unobtrusive.

Haha bad Boston accents are THE WORST and make us all sound incomprehensible.  It’s very rarely done right, most people in Boston don’t have heavy accents, and the stereotypical Boston accent is very tied to social and class issues.  (Watching most movies that are supposed to take place in Boston/have characters from Boston  is painful, especially Catch Me If You Can—ugh that accent was so embarrassing, NOBODY SOUNDS LIKE THAT IN NEW ENGLAND. Those movies are why people are so surprised I don’t have a “Boston accent”, because the accent they’re thinking of is a cartoon.)

 I mean, we definitely have Boston/New England accents, but there actually is a distinction between a Boston accent and a New England accent (which of course varies slightly by state; a Mainer sounds pretty different from a Rhode Islander), and most people the metro-Boston area don’t really sound stereotypically Bostonion.  Being from an upper-class suburb, I’ve internalized a lot of negativity towards heavy Boston accents, since they tend to be associated with people who are uneducated and working class, and I’ve been fighting to overcome that for years.  

My Language Acquisition class spent a lot of time examining people’s preconceptions and associations with regional accents, because when you’re in education you really have to work to make sure that you and the class as a whole affirms everyone else’s regional dialect and that nobody feels stupid or ashamed because of the way they speak. Accents and dialects are a huge part of a person’s identity and shaming someone for their speech and forcing them to only speak in “accentless” American English denies their identity in addition to forcing them to strive for something that doesn’t exist. It’s really difficult to identify the stereotypes you hold about people who speak in certain dialects (positive and negative, hi Americans who fetishize British accents and think people with Canadian accents are adorable and harmless), but I think it’s SO important just in general, especially when it comes to African-American Vernacular and, for us northerners, southern accents.  Debate was actually amazing in helping me learn to take people with heavy southern (and midwestern) accents seriously.  It’s hard to think someone with an obvious twang is a hick when they’re totally schooling you in a round. 

This whole conversation, agh.

Accents are not dialects. Dialects are not accents. They appear to have been used interchangeably and it bothers the heck out of me.
Dialect: a regional variation within a language.
Accent: The pronunciation of that language.

Everyone has an accent and everyone has a dialect. This is important.

Writing characters’ dialogue in a way that emphasizes accent are nearly always jarring, and seem to serve the purpose of othering the character. Emphasize a Briton’s dropped ‘H’s or a Southern American’s long vowels or a Brooklynite’s lazy ‘tt’s and what you’re saying is “the other characters in this book - the North Eastern or North Western US residents, usually - they speak PROPER English. This guy? What she’s saying isn’t NEARLY as important as how she’s saying it!” Because everyone has an accent, but you the writer have chosen to other this one person, you’d better have a reason for doing it.

Dialect is variations in language. It’s the words you say and the grammar around it, and in this case, it’s just as jarring to have a character not speak in the appropriate dialect for their background. If you want to be true to a character’s origins, pay attention to the idiosyncrasies of their dialect. The “y’all”s and the “bloody hell”s and the “standing on line” ness of the words. That should be all you need to mark a character’s origin.

And if it isn’t then you probably shouldn’t trust yourself to throw in accent markers.

TL;DR: Write in dialects, not in accents.

(And for goodness’ sake, if you’re writing a character with a dialect not your own, get a proof-reader. There are, I know for a fact, hundreds of Britons on the internet who have considerable experience in Brit-picking. We like it!)

Great points, and I am sorry if I used the two terms interchangeably, I was typing fast and could easily have messed up.

But I will absolutely guarantee you, having a native speaker proof your work, while a necessity and a good idea in general, is no proof against complaints of this nature whatsoever…I once had an Italian professor proof some dialogue and people still complained. People are sensitive about this stuff, you can’t blame them at all, because caricature is so dehumanizing.

It’s something you have to do your best at…the other choice is a lack of visibility, which is no choice at all.

Sometimes like a really bad attempt at a southern drawl or a Brooklyn accent really pulls me out of a story.

Sure, that’s another problem entirely, that it just LOOKS awkward and reads awkwardly. I have a lot of family from Oklahoma, and the way they speak, to my ear, is fun and bouncy. But to actually write it on the page, it looks like I am saying it sounds ignorant. The only way to really make it work is to give that dialogue to someone as fun, feisty and noble as Lady Blackhawk.

It really is something to be done with care, is my main point. There are issues of self-worth wrapped up in dialect and it is often used as a tool to alienate and diminish people, so being sensitive about it is completely understandable.