You Can Only Find the Best Version Of Wonder Woman in Sensation Comics

You Can Only Find the Best Version Of Wonder Woman in Sensation Comics:

alexdecampi:

io9 published a nice article recently praising Sensation Comics and featuring my Wonder Woman story, among several others. As Sensation Comics is ending soon, I wanted to speak a little piece about why it worked, and some of the editorial dynamics of how it is created versus the main Wonder Woman comic. In essence: why we may not see the strong points of Sensation repeated elsewhere with Wonder Woman.

Sensation is edited in a special projects/digital office, an office which is sadly under-utilized in the internal turf wars of DC and faces shutdown/restructuring as a senior male staff member finds it unnecessary… despite the plaudits its books (including Sensation) have achieved.

The main Wonder Woman comic is part of the Superman office. Now, the Superman office allegedly employs no women, and a cursory glance over the mastheads of several Superman titles and Wonder Woman seems to confirm that allegation. The reason, I’ve been told by several people who work or used to work at DC, is because one of the most senior editors is a sexual harasser with multiple incidents on his HR file. I don’t use “alleged” here because at least one incident (grabbing a woman’s breasts) happened publicly at a corporate social gathering with multiple witnesses. There was also something about sticking his tongue down an artist’s girlfriend’s throat when the artist was in the bathroom. Again, public gathering.

It is not known to me whether the no-chicks-in-Supes-office diktat is the preference of the harasser, or whether it’s the HR department crossing its fingers and hoping to Jesus they don’t get hit with a liability lawsuit so big it’s visible from space. This guy was kept in the move to Burbank despite his record – allegedly because he has blackmail on one of DC’s most senior staff members.

Now, of course you don’t need women on staff to tell a great story with a female character. I’m not saying that. And plenty of women have written rotten stories with female characters. I am just positing that this situation in the Superman office may not be the best environment to foster innovative, compelling stories about DC’s foremost female character, in the way the Batman office has done so well recently with Batgirl, Gotham Academy, and even reaching back to things like Gotham Central and Batwoman. 

I’m also talking about it because man, I am sick to death of corporate comics telling me they caaare about me and my lady-dollar as a reader, and then continuing to employ / protect known harassers. Kids, there are five known big-name, vindictive harassers in comics, and about three bad drunks. Two harassers are writers employed by DC; one is a DC editor; two are writers employed by Marvel. 

Not only does protecting these people disrespect female readers, it disrespects all the creators and editors working hard at those companies to make awesome comics for all readers. DC and Marvel are not the Augean Stables. There are many, many good people at these companies, and things have gotten immeasurably better over the past decade for readers who are not cis/het white dudes. But we’re not done. Diversity isn’t a fad senior management can get away with giving lip-service to. You can’t celebrate black culture and not employ black people. You can’t hold up female heroes while coddling male harassers. WE SEE YOU. 

Indie comics are not perfect – at one of the companies I work for is a Bad Drunk, who again has done harassing shit (to other men, though het) at public social events. I believe he’s been taken aside by HR and told “ginger ale or GTFO”, but I don’t want your take-away to be that DC/Marvel Bad, Indie Good, cuz it ain’t that clear cut.

It isn’t even really a comics problem. You get ANY company with hundreds of employees and statistically speaking, at least one of them is going to be a screaming fool who should never be allowed alcohol or thinks mailing dick pix to female employees is a gas and fuck her if she can’t take a joke. But it’s what senior management does about these people that matters. 

The irony is that nothing will be done by DC and Marvel about these harassers, but I will be blacklisted (even more than I already am) at the Big Two. And I do not care. While I have great affection for some of the characters owned by these companies, and love many of the creators and editors who work there, these corporations have repeatedly shown to me over 2015 that their senior management’s values and priorities are not a good fit with my values and priorities. 

(Don’t worry about me, folks – my current creator-owned workload right now is more than enough to keep me working 12 hour days for the foreseeable future.)

(also, inb4: “I’ve worked with everyone in that office and they are absolutely lovely and committed to world peace and hugging squirrels” “she was asking for it” “misandry!” “but Gail Simone!” “she couldn’t take a joke” “I love current Wonder Woman, shut up bitch” “you’re just sour grapes, fuck u” “where is the PROOF, does anyone have videos or pictures” “men can be victims too!” “they just put a black woman in Superman, sit down, it’s all good now” “u can grab titty and be a good editor too!”)