Inside Out

If you’re just jumping in now, I’ve decided to cede the responsibility of coming up with column ideas to you. For the next few weeks, I’ll be answering the questions you ask <here.

You guys are pretty awesome–I now have an embarrassment of riches, if you define “riches” as “questions that run the gamut from pertinent to marvelously bizarre.” I will do my best to answer them forthwith; in the meantime, feel free to keep asking away.

Today, we’re going to talk about work.

Benel R Germosen asks: How much unsolicited material do you read for Dark Horse?

Very little. Most general unsolicited submissions go through Samantha Robertson, Submissions Editor and Guardian of the Slush Pile. People do sometimes send unsolicited material straight to specific editors, but since I’m not exactly famous, high-profile, or a full-fledged editor, I don’t get much of that, either.

1percent asks: Hellboy is getting pretty old to still be considered a boy, isn’t he? Will he ever officially become a man, maybe have a Hell-Mitzvah?

Actually, you’re not the only one to come to that conclusion–around 1996, the “boy” in the character’s name was changed to “man,” but the new name lasted only a single issue and was retconned out after a brief but bitter legal battle with a condiment-monger concerned about what they perceived as trademark infringement. All copies of the issue in question were subsequently tracked down and destroyed by Dark Horse’s black ops division, and no record of it remains.*

*Lies, all lies.

hippokrene asks: What are the most rewarding and the most frustrating parts of your job?

The most rewarding part is having the chance to play a part–however minor or peripheral–in making really, really good comics. I’ve been lucky enough to work on what I think are some of the best series currently in print, and having the opportunity to contribute to those is an enormous privilege for which I couldn’t be more grateful. I believe wholeheartedly both that comics should be good and that it matters that good comics exist, and being able to apply that in practice as well as theory feels awesome.

The most frustrating part is the social element. I have the social skills of a geranium accompanied by really bad social anxiety–I’m one of those people who writes out notes for phone calls so that she won’t freeze up and stammer as soon as the conversation starts–and conventions, parties, and the general social scene that comes with the job scare the hell out of me. Being the new kid doesn’t help, since it adds to the impression that I’m crashing a party where everyone knows everyone; the upside is that of course that’s something that ‘s improved (and hopefully will continue to improve) with time. I’ve also had the good luck to make some wonderful friends, both at Dark Horse and at elsewhere, who have been nice enough to make a point of introducing me around and generally holding my hands to keep me from bolting.

You can discuss this column here.

July 5th, 2008
Categories: Editing, Hellboy, Personal, Questions, general . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

When summer kicks into Portland, it kicks hard, and my shitty apartment (oh, how I loathe this place. But now is not the time to talk about mold, ridiculously inept construction, or tragic lack of rent control laws) is not air conditioned, which means the temperature in here is about two hundred and seven degrees Fahrenheit.

This is not conducive to creativity. Or to much of anything, apart from drinking tonic water and lime juice and whining about how hot it is. Also, my in-laws are in town, and I have been Very Stupid and committed to more projects, in and out of work, than I have time for.

Which is all a long-winded way of asking you to do my homework for me, because it is WAY easier to write from a prompt.

Post questions in the comments thread, and I’ll do my damnedest to answer them in the next several weeks. I figure that if each of my readers asks a question, and I answer a question a week, that should at least get me through July…

Ask away!

June 28th, 2008
Categories: Questions, Uncategorized . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

When I tell people that I work in the comics industry (which, incidentally, I’ve been doing for two years, as of last week–booya!), they almost always immediately assume that I’m an artist, and shortly thereafter, they look confused and ask me what exactly a comic-book editor does.

From now on, I will just link them to Friday’s Editorial Conference, by Greg Hatcher, which makes my job sound about as superheroic as I like to believe it is:

“No one ever puts down a book or a magazine or a comic and thinks, ‘Man, that was great. That was one hell of an editor that put that thing together.’ Yet most of the time it’s the editor that makes it happen.”

Right freakin’ on!

Pull up a chair and talk about editing here.

June 18th, 2008
Categories: Editing, Publishing . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: 1 Comment

I’m not going to enumerate what’s wrong with Tokyopop’s godawful Manga Pilot contract. Other people have already done so beautifully and thoroughly, and there’s no need for me to rehash what’s already been expressed eloquently elsewhere.

What I am going to do is take advantage of this particular debacle to repeat a point that I’ve belabored at length to friends and on forums–but not yet in this column.

It is hard as hell to break into comics (or any industry) as a writer or artist. And it is awfully easy to jump at the first chance you see to get your work published and visible, and, in the process, to make horrible mistakes. There are entire businesses built around exploiting newcomers and aspiring professionals, and there are people who will cheerfully take you for all you’re worth and do so in a way that will leave you with no legal recourse whatsoever. It’s reprehensible, and it’s infuriating, it’s awfully common.

So, here is my Excellent and Useful Advice to Aspiring Comics Creators:

Don’t Rush In.
It’s easy to be blinded by the excitement of being offered what looks like your first professional contract. Don’t. Take the time to read any document before you sign it (no-brainer, right?) and to become at least superficially familiar with the terms that are likely to come up.

Know Your Rights.
Pick up a copy of Tad Crawford’s Legal Guide for the Visual Artist or the equivalent, and read it; then pass it along to your friends and make them read it, too.

Know What You Want.
As you learn what goes into professional creative contracts, know what you are looking for. Know what points are negotiable and which will be deal-breakers for you. There’s nothing inherently wrong with signing away rights–IF you know what you’re doing and have a good reason for it–but know your terms and don’t let anything slip past.

Question Everything.
If you need or want clarification on a point in your contract, ask BEFORE you sign it. If the wording is unclear, request that it be rephrased.

Check References.
Talk to creators and agents, and see what they have to say about the publisher. Have any of them worked directly with that publisher? If so, are they still working with them? If not, why not? What works well for one creator may not be good for another, so the wider a range of people you can talk to, the better.

Support Unscrewed.
As far as I know, Unscrewed is the comics industry’s only creators’ rights watchdog organization. It is a grassroots project that rose out of creators’ frustration with a horribly exploitative publisher who had a long history of thoroughly abusing the artists and writers he hired, and who was able to get away with it because there was no organized means for creators to warn each other about this scumbag. Since then, Unscrewed has been doing its damnedest on little-to-no budget and volunteers’ efforts to keep an eye on the comics industry and help prevent the kind of shit that led to its founding. It is the kind of organization that works best if you work for it–the more people involved, the better and more through and effective a resource it will become.

Don’t let publishers get away with this shit. They know better, and you should, too.

Discuss this column here.

June 9th, 2008
Categories: Creators, Publishing, activism, rant . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

I spent last weekend at the Emerald City ComiCon (which is awesome, by the way, and which I heartily recommend to anyone who hangs out in the Pacific Northwest or is interested in heading in that direction for a few days), mostly working at the Dark Horse table. It was pretty low-key–we weren’t doing any in-booth signings or sales, just giveaways–which meant we had time to chat with a lot of the people who came by.

One of the people I talked to was a guy in his thirties or forties. He had stopped reading comics decades ago but had returned recently; when I asked him why, he said it was because of Young Avengers, specifically Hulkling and Wiccan: for the first time in his life, there were gay characters in superhero comics who were more than stereotypes, with whom he could actually identify.

This stuff matters more than most of us will ever realize, because we are more or less privileged enough to see ourselves–or at least facets of ourselves–reflected in almost everything we read. Our paper mirrors are everywhere. We have a lot of representations to choose from. This is why it matters when there are–and when there aren’t–characters of color, queer characters, non-Christian characters, disabled characters. This isn’t just about demographics, or representation. It’s about identification and validation: the day you finally get to open a book and discover that it’s not just lip service, that comics really are for you, too. That someone gets it.

Think about what that means for a minute. And when you choose comics, and read comics, and make comics, keep thinking about it. We need more mirrors, and we need mirrors that reflect a wider range of faces, because there is NO ONE who does not crave–or does not deserve–that moment of genuine identification.

Tell me about your paper mirror moments–or the ones you’re still waiting for.

May 16th, 2008
Categories: Superheroes, activism, conventions, diversity, queer stuff, race . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

I’ve been working on this review for a while, and it’s been giving me a lot of trouble, because when I try to express my thoughts on Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword, I usually end up bouncing up and down and making enthusiastic noises of inarticulate glee. These are behaviors that are generally frowned upon in critical circles, and they translate poorly to text, so I’m going to try my damnedest to use actual here.

Hereville is good. It’s really good.

It’s the kind of good that makes me want to carry a copy with me at all times, just so that I can look at it every few minutes as a reminder that any world that produces books like this one is probably worth the benefit of the doubt.

Comics that can honestly be described as all-ages are few and far between. Knitting a narrative that appeals to adults and remains accessible to and appropriate for kids is no easy feat. Imbuing that story with layers of rich culture and tradition without overwhelming readers, and doing so while slyly subverting both form and trope take serious skill.

Barry Deutsch is seriously skilled.

In many ways, Hereville is a classic coming-of-age story, the first adventure of a fledgling hero. It’s also a cultural narrative, steeped in the language and traditions of Orthodox Judaism. But at the same time, it’s full of contradictions and quirks that turn heroic convention topsy-turvy. It’s telling that the story begins with a friendly argument, as Mirka (the eleven-year-old heroine) and her stepmother Fruma discuss the theology of knitting.

Fruma herself is perhaps Deutsch’s most visible wink at tradition: as the heroine’s stepmother, a woman with “odd looks” (including “the longest nose of anyone in Aherville”) and a stubborn fondness for argument-for-argument’s-sake, Fruma could easily have turned into a tired misogynist sterotype. But even though—or perhaps because—she forces Mirka to knit and plays devil’s advocate in every argument, Fruma is cast as Mirka’s mentor and ally. She’s challenging rather than vindictive, and we are led to believe that wisdom and experience inform her cheerful antagonism. And role in Mirka’s story is more empowering than authoritative: Fruma’s lessons, both subtle and direct, are what ultimately allow Mirka to defeat a troll and take the first steps toward her destiny as a dragonslayer.

Fruma’s complexity is characteristic of Deutsch’s approach to storytelling: he excels at simultaneously celebrating and questioning the tradition that saturates his narrative. The Orthodox Jewish rituals and traditions are no less warm and beautiful because of the limitations they impose on Mirka, nor does that beauty render her frustration any less acute or her ensnarement in the rigid roles of her culture less unfair. In the world of Hereville, nothing is simple—and its complexity makes it all the more accessible to readers used to the intricate tangles and contradictions of real life.

Deutsch is an experienced editorial cartoonist, but Hereville is (to the best of my knowledge) his first attempt at a full-length comic, and that inexperience shows through a handful of rough spots. Both designs and style develop and refine over the course of the comic, and the difference between the art at the beginning and the end is a bit jarring—a difficulty common to webcomics when they make the transition to print form. And while Deutsch’s sepia-toned palette looks beautiful by day, it becomes a good deal less discernable in nighttime scenes, where muddy coloring comes close to obscuring the art; Deutsch’s narrative (and readers’ eyesight) would be better served by more emphasis on shadow and less on general darkness.

But if there’s any lesson to be learned from Hereville, it’s that the quality of craftwork is determined not by snagged yarn or adherence to patterns, but by innovation, intent, and intricacy—and despite a few dropped stitches, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword is an exquisite piece of work by any standard.

You can read Hereville a bit at a time starting here–as of this post, twenty-four pages are available online–or get the whole first story in either digital or paper form (which I heartily recommend) via the links in the sidebar.

And while you’re waiting for your copy to arrive, you can discuss this column here.

April 30th, 2008
Categories: Reviews . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: 2 Comments

Phew–that was a lot of con. Today was more intense at the table, and I hardly had any time to wander. Now, I am entirely braindead, so again, just a handful of notes before I crash. Proper write-up and forum thread tomorrow.

-No matter how cool you are, Sky McCloud is probably way cooler than you.

-It always kind of blows my mind to discover that people other than my parents read Inside Out.

-Colleen Coover drew a pirate with a strap-on in my sketchbook! How awesome is that? PRETTY DAMN AWESOME!

-One of the fun things about cons is meeting friends of friends. I had long conversations with Raina Telgemeier and Dylan Meconis about how much we all love Dean Trippe (and you should, too).

-I met a wonderful woman named Maria who’s starting a geekspace-for-women website called .51 (Premiering May 1, 2008 at http://www.dotfiveone.com/). She is ridiculously neat, and we are going to interview each other once her site is up and running!

-Have I mentioned that I adore Barry Deutsch? Not only does he write a fuckin’ brilliant feminist blog and make splendid comics, he also loves Baker Street, one of my all-time favorite comics.

-My favorite artist-I-just-discovered-at-this-con is probably Maxine Frank (actually, she found us).

April 27th, 2008
Categories: Creators, conventions, fandom . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

Today, I got up way the hell too early in the morning (after staying up way the hell too late) to table for Girl-Wonder at Stumptown Comics Fest.

Now, I am utterly exhausted, and I have to be at the awards ceremony / Saturday afterparty in a bit under an hour, so I’m just gonna post a couple highlghts…

-I have so many new comics! And zines! And buttons! And friends!

-Barry Deutsch is awesome, and I am knitting him a silly scarf. Look for a review of his comic Hereville on Inside Out later this week.

-Liz Prince drew in my sketchbook! She and her boyfriend are every bit as charming as you’d guess from her comics.

-I met a really rad woman who’s in a band called Kleveland (after what someone said when he couldn’t remember the name of the islands where the Amazons live–how cool is that as a source for a band name?).

-I also met a super neat student teacher named Meghan. You’ll be hearing more about her ‘ere long.

-I think I’ve officially met Dave Stewart three or four times at this point. He keeps changing his hair.

-I fangirl Erica Moen SO hard. Last year she taught me how to make little paper stars, and this year, she had a ton of gorgeous new prints. I kind of want to spend the rest of the con following her around and just kinda basking in the awesome.

-Ooh, and she’s right next to Christopher Baldwin, whom I also totally fangirl and actually *did* hover around a bit (in a friendly, non-stalker-y way!) last year. I could just sit under their table and alternate adoring gazes up at each of them.

-Oh, and it’s not con-related, but last night, the pharmacist at Walgreens recognized my name from the fact that I assistant-edited the first couple issues of Umbrella Academy. That has NEVER happened before, and it was more than a little surreal.

No comment thread for this one, ’cause I’m utterly braindead and this is just a super-quick update; when I post a full con recap tomorrow or Monday, I’ll add a link to that comment thread here.

April 26th, 2008
Categories: Creators, Girl-Wonder, conventions, fandom, general . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments

For your amusement and enlightenment, I’d like to take this opportunity to present an honest-to-fuck panel description from the good folks at NYCC:

“Girls Who Kick Ass: How do the ladies creating comics do it? They’re constantly blowing us away with the most outrageous and provocative titles. Jenna Jameson (Shadow Hunter), Colleen Doran (Distant Soil, Reign of the Zodiac), Amanda Connor (Birds of Prey, Painkiller Jane, Lois Lane ), Louise Simonson (New Mutants, X-Factor, Superman) and special guests reveal why they know what Fan-Boys want.”

Heidi sums it up nicely over at THE BEAT:

I would love to hear Colleen Doran’s thoughts on art history and freelancing… Amanda Connor’s ideas on design and the current state of superheroes… Louise Simonson’s unsurpassed viewpoint on storytelling and creating lasting characters… and sure, what the hell, even Jenna Jameson’s ideas on why celebrities are flocking to comics to get their next optionable property. But when all these people are grouped together solely on the basis of gender it’s dumb, patronizing and, frankly, sexist.

What Heidi doesn’t mention is that Girls Who Kick Ass is only one of THREE panels focused on those exotic girl-birds: two on women in comics, and a third on women in animation. And that’s not including the MINX panel, the general panel on comics for girls, which bring the total up to five.

“But wait,” cry you, my six loyal readers, “Isn’t this a good thing? Haven’t you been campaigning for more awareness of women in comics, as industry professionals and fans? Shouldn’t you be celebrating the fact that there’s enough interest—and enough women—for not one but FIVE female-focused panels?”

Yeah, well, you’re all fired.

No, I didn’t mean that. Come back, it’s okay. Rachel’s just a little grumpy. Maybe her womb’s been wandering, or maybe it’s that time of the month. You know how girls can be.

Seriously, though, lean in, ’cause Momma’s gonna let you in on a secret about being a woman in comics:

It’s a hell of a lot easier to be a woman in comics than it is to be a female comics professional anywhere else.

You doubt? Let me explain.

Despite what the magazines would have you believe, there are an awful lot of women working in the comics industry. I believe Friends of Lulu has a couple lists, which I highly recommend checking out–they’re never quite up to date, because this industry has a crazy turnover rate, and they misspell my last name, but they’ll give you an idea of the scale we’re discussing.

And guess what? This is not a new phenomenon! Gail Simone was not the first woman to pen a superhero title; I know women who’ve been working in this industry since before I was born. We are not exotic birds or tokens. We are writers, artists, letterers, editors, designers, pre-press technicians, scheduling coordinators, vice presidents, publicists, printers, and everything else you can imagine.

What these panels mean to me is the systematic othering and marginalization of the many, many women who work in the comics industry. To call out sexism, to honor the accomplishments of individual women—these are important and necessary, and there is a lot of ingrained misogyny that still needs to be pried loose. But each article that reinforces that familiar mirage—the lone woman making her way in a man’s industry—washes the rest of us a few shades closer to invisibility.

And by the way—the description of that panel is sexist, demeaning, juvenile, and generally fucking awful, and I’m disgusted and ashamed that a convention that’s supposed to be representative of the industry I work in and love not only buys into but spews back out this kind of bullshit.

Want to know how the ladies creating comics do it? THEY WORK THEIR ASSES OFF—just like the guys. The biggest difference is that we have to deal with this shit.

I won’t be at New York Comic-Con, but if you are, and should you happen to wander past this panel, I’d like to suggest a few questions:

-How do you feel about being invited to participate in a panel based on your sex—rather than the projects you’ve contributed to, your experience in the comics industry, and your accomplishments as a writer and/or artist?

-Do you think that “What Fan-Boys want” might include reassurance that comics remains a boys’ club, and that women in comics are anomalies? How might the title and description of this panel reinforce that idea?

-What is a total neophyte doing on a panel with three seasoned comics creators who are industry legends in their own right?

-What role does your vagina play in your creative process?

You can discuss this column here.

April 10th, 2008
Categories: Creators, Publishing, conventions, fandom, invisible women, media, rant, women in comics . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: 1 Comment

“You can take the girl out of academia, but you can’t take the academia out of the girl.” -Kate Corrigan, B.P.R.D.

One of my worse-kept dirty secrets is that I do academic research for fun. My friends and colleagues give me a fair amount of shit for this, and I cheerfully counter with the above. It’s true, at least for me. I love the intense cerebral discourse of academia. I love the intricate interweaving of the theoretical and the practical. When I was in college, I assumed that I would go to graduate school, and then build a career in academia; I went straight from earning my B.A. to directing a college writing center. 

I am no longer in academia.That’s not entirely true—I remain involved in academia. But I am no longer part of the Academy. My entrance to the exclusive club of the comics industry came at the cost of both my academic status and the means to advance it. I lack that vital institutional affiliation. And I lack a physical analog to the academic conversations I still pursue by way of listservs and personal correspondence.

I miss it like crazy.

Within the (mostly virtual) academic circles I frequent, I’m something of a rogue scholar. My background in writing center studies and my current vantage point outside of organized academia make me more prone to challenging artificial strata and what I see as cripplingly narrow definitions of “legitimate” scholarship. These days, I tend to go in on the defensive, a little punk, a little pissed off: a riot grrrl stomping around the ivory tower. I figure if I make it clear that I’m not pretending to be what I’m not, it’ll take the real scholars a little longer to catch on and push me back into the margins.

This past December, I was feeling deeply conflicted about my involvement in academia—there had just been a ruffle on the comix-scholars listserv that started when some poor sap asked if anyone know of good comics shops in London and was immediately and nastily attacked for bringing down the tone of the discussion. Over the next forty-eight hours, it grew into a spectacularly bitter fight (which had been brewing and splashing up occasionally for at least as long as I’d been subscribing to the listserv) over the definition of legitimate scholarship and what (if anything) distinguished it from fandom, lay scholarship, and dilettantism. I don’t post much on the listserv, because I recognize when I am out of my element: most of the participants are professional academics, and many of the discussions relate to their individual specialties. I spoke up in this conversation because it was on an issue I had spent a good deal of time studying and considering, and to which I thought I had something useful to add.

My mistake.

I’d like to think that there was a decent conversation, or at least a remotely useful one—that the entire thread wasn’t effectively sideswiped out of the air when a fellow with a Ph.D. decided that it was time someone put this presumptuous little bitch in her place. The topic foundered, lingered halfheartedly for less than a day, and died. It has not come up since; nor have I posted to the listserv since that conversation, although I still read from the margins.

So, anyway.

As I mentioned above, I’m not particularly confident that I belong in academia on the best days, and the scalding public rebuke left me shaken and wondering whether I had any right to be there at all. And all of this happened three days before the deadline for submitting abstracts to the 2008 UF Conference on Comics.

To be continued…

In the meantime, you can discuss this column here.

April 8th, 2008
Categories: Personal, academia, general comics, writing . Author: Rachel Edidin . Comments: No Comments