Month: November 2020

DC, after recently announcing the cancellation of the Minx line (my thoughts thereon remaining unprintable), has gone on to announce the cancellation of Blue Beetle, Birds of Prey and Manhunter.
Of course, rumours immediately abounded that BoP in particular wasn’t actually going to be cancelled, just relaunched after a spell, and this may well be so. But fuck it. Comics companies continually lie to their fans, and second-guessing them is extremely tiresome. While I never believe a word about upcoming storylines, I save myself some energy when it comes to cancellations, and discuss what they are actually saying.
I am not actually die-hard opposed to the resolution of series, even ones I really adore. I am okay with stories that end witness Sandman, or better yet, witness Alias, one of the best superhero titles of the last decade, with a definite beginning, middle and end. Jessica Jones went on to other things, some of which are awesome (Young Avengers) and some of which have been pretty pallid (Mighty Avengers), but Alias was no worse off for its ending. Provided Blue Beetle, Birds of Prey and Manhunter hit it out of the park in their conclusions, I won’t mind that they do conclude.
What I, and many other activist fans are worried about, is the fact that removing these titles significantly decreases the diversity of the DCU. These are not just titles where women and people of colour played starring roles; they are titles where women and people of colour were the focus, of the title, and of the storylines. With them gone, the DCU becomes that much more focused on the intriguing adventures of white dudes.
Newsarama asked Dan DiDio about this, thusly:
3: With that news in mind, and to bring in some of the themes of questions that were posted, with the cancellation of Manhunter, Birds of Prey and Blue Beetle, you’re moving back towards virtually all male characters in title roles (Supergirl and Wonder Woman notwithstanding) and they’re all rather WASP-y.
Diversifying the line has been something that you have championed in the past, so is this a situation where you’re buckling down for now, or a rejection of the ideas of a more diverse DCU by the market?
DD: In this particular case, since I know what’s on my schedule, I feel very confident that we are not walking away from any of those issues. Like I said, Birds of Prey goes away, but there’s an Oracle miniseries coming which places a prominent female character front and center. We have Supergirl running and reaching a new level of prominence and success. We have Vixen still running as a miniseries right now. We have Secret Six running, with strong female characters in the lead, we have Power Girl about to premiere, we have Wonder Woman who is the preeminent female character in all of comics.
In terms of diversity, one of the things we did in regards to bringing in the Milestone characters is that we brought in the true ethnic mix that made that line so unique. I have to believe that what the future holds for those characters is that not only will they be appearing in both touchstones books like Justice League and Teen Titans, but also in their own books somewhere in the foreseeable future.
So, realistically, it may seem like we’re shrinking things, but what we’re actually looking to do is to give every opportunity for success, and if these books cannot achieve the level of success and not achieve the goals we set for them, we’ll rest them for the moment, and come up with new ideas and new concepts which will diversify the DC Universe and hopefully attract a larger audience in the process.
This is mildly encouraging, but only mildly. Firstly, awesome as miniseries might be, they are not titles; they do not provide a similar impact upon the common memory of a comics universe. A miniseries starring Vixen does not make the DCU as commendably diverse as an ongoing title would. Secondly, Super Girl, Wonder Woman and Power Girl are all excellent characters, when handled well, but I will point out that they are also all white women. Not since Batgirl (also cancelled) has a non-white woman been a title-carrier in the DCU.
And thirdly, it’s not enough to include women and characters of colour in your team books, though it is an excellent start. How they are presented in those titles is also of vital concern.
If Mr DiDio is really concerned about the promotion of diversity in his books, he might want to take a close look at the team titles he retains, and consider a few changes:
He might want to have a word to Ed Benes about his ludicrous female butt shots in the pre-eminent team title. (If he is determined that characters must be sexy sexxors, he could grab Nicola Scott or Dale Eaglesham, both of whom are more than adept at drawing sexy sexxors of any gender, and who rarely sacrifice storytelling for sexxorness.)
He might make it a point of editorial concern to prevent colourists bleaching characters of colour or artists from portraying them with Caucasian features.
He might want to enact overall editorial policies that actively resist moments of sheer racist stupidity, such as the moment in The Elongated Halloween where Vixen refers to her past self as ‘Intombi’ and a note helpfully reveals that this means ‘young girl’ in African.
He could stop referring to ‘strong female characters’. Unless one is clear as to the specific strengths of the characters, it’s a term that is commonly invoked to describe the mere existence of any female characters in a title, and thus lacks all meaning. (And are there so many weak female characters that we must so distinguish the strong ones? Why is there never reference to strong male characters perhaps because good male characterisation is automatically assumed to be a strength of a story? ‘Strong female character’ shouldn’t be a description of a title’s outstanding feature. It ought to be a default.)
I’m saddened, but not devastated, by the cancellation of these three excellent titles. I’m pleased that the head of DC editorial avers his awareness of diversity issues and his dedication to maintaining and improving the diversity of the DCU. However, I have a hard time believing him. Until I see better all-around portrayal of diversity, especially in comics that merely feature, rather than star, women and minorities, I don’t think I ever will.

Have you heard of Lady Bullseye?
She’s got a really twisted character and has a really fascinating history—inspired as much by [manga and Japanese film character] Lady Snowblood as Bullseye,’ Brubaker shares. ‘It’s explained in the first issue why she’s chosen that name. It ties into her origin. I like to play with people’s expectations sometimes, and when someone hears ‘Lady Bullseye’ they think of a very specific story. Hopefully the story we’re telling completely subverts that.’
So, you know, in Daredevil #111 it turns out she’s a crazy sexy ninja assassin (a very thorough summary, with pages, is here). This is actually exactly what I thought when I first heard ‘Lady Bullseye’, familiar as I am with Bullseye (crazy assassin) and the Dragon Lady stereotype (sexy ninja). Maybe the subversion lies in leading me to think, ‘Phew! I guess that’s not going to happen!’?
But what, Karen, you ask, is her motivation? Well, it turns out that as a girl she was kept as a yakuza sex slave and driven ‘nearly insane’ by rape. (Quote: ‘Tortured. Used. Broken.’) Until Bullseye happened by on a job and inadvertently inspired her to fight back, wherein she escaped and ripped out an armed sex slaver’s throat with some keys. All she needed, y’see, was inspiration.
According to interviews, Brubaker tossed the idea for Lady Bullseye around with editor Warren Simons and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. These are intelligent men with years of experience in comics, and I cannot easily ascertain how they could possibly have arrived at this character concept without once pausing to realize how closely it resembled something assembled from a Make Your Own Sexist Stereotype Kit.
So I have very thoughtfully made it all up.
Scene: Marvel Bull-Pen.
Joe: Guys, we need more strong female characters! That is what the people want! So, let’s come up with a strong female character for Daredevil.
Ed: Hear hear!
Warren: Wait, strong as in…?
Joe: Strong as in strong, you know. Strong female characters. Everyone loves them.
Warren: Well, there are lots of ways for characters to be ‘strong’. They could be more than normally courageous, or be very capable in crises, or possess a sharp sense of humour, or be physically adept, or-
Ed: Physically! That one.
Warren: It’s just that a lot of people use ‘strong female character’ as a way of saying ‘a female character’. It’s become a pretty meaningless descriptor. So I think it’s important to be specific about the qualities that make her actually strong.
Ed: Okay, so how about… She’s an assassin!
Warren: … I guess you’d have to be pretty strong to assassinate people!
Ed: Hey, the kids are into Japan, right? Manga is cool! I like manga! What if she was… a ninja assassin?
Warren: That’s very original and shocking!
Joe: A sexy ninja assassin!
Ed: A crazy sexy ninja assassin!
Joe: A crazy sexy ninja assassin with ties to the Hand!
Warren: Good point; she needs some sort of connection to the Daredevil mythos. She needs to be inspired by someone important in the Daredevil rogue’s gallery.
Ed: Possibly by another crazy assassin?
Joe: Some sort of crazy assassin who was extremely important to the Daredevil mythos with a connection to the Hand?
Ed: I’ve got it! How about Bullseye?
Joe: I like it! We could call her Bullseye Girl.
Warren: Bullseyette.
Ed: Bullseyina.
Joe: Bullseyelle.
Warren: Lady Bullseye!
Joe and Ed: Yes!
Ed: She needs something extra though. A dark secret, haunting her past. Some form of torment that drove her insane and made her the twisted psychopath she is today. She needs an origin story that totally subverts what the reader would first think when they hear ‘Lady Bullseye’.
Warren: Well, I’m stuck.
Ed: I know! If only I could think of something totally original. And shocking.
Joe: Guys! Guys! She’s a female character, right?
Ed and Warren: A strong female character.
Joe: So… I’m just throwing this out there as a wildly original and shocking stab in the dark… what if… the reason she’s a crazy psychopath is because… she was repeatedly RAPED?
stunned silence
Ed: Joe, you’re a genius. That is incredibly subversive.
Warren: I am so originally shocked right now.
Joe: Well, my work here is done! disappears in a puff of rainbow glitter
Exeunt, with Divers Alarums

I would like an extra seven hours in every day and some sort of additional appendage, please. And a pony. Made of gold.
This is by way of an apology, insofar as I make them, for my utter slackitude over the last several weeks of this column. Many things have happened I turned 27! The Secret Six title started again! The Runaways and Young Avengers began another crossover! Several commenters on scans_daily and stupid_free were utterly appalled at the way Genius (my review/interview) hints that possibly police in L.A. are not always kind and gentle neighbours to people of colour in low-income neighbourhoods and there might be some complex and interesting dynamics worth exploring in a comic*! but I have not written about them, because I have been writing about other things, and, not incidentally, giving myself some really spectacular muscle cramps. Also, baking. Go me!
During this period of GRC neglect, many wonderful things have been happening in the magical land of Girl-Wonder.org! Here are but a few:

• Planet Karen is back, with its eponymous author! This is news that’s definitely worth a celebratory glass or ten.
• The Feminist Friendly Comic Book Store Map has been well and truly debugged. It is freaking awesome. Visit and review your favourite stores, to the delight and convenience of your peers, and the honour of your LCS.
• Spoiler Space is looking for submissions (ignore that date). Share your feminist and intersectional activism thoughts on comics and the comics community, enter the caption contest, or scribble up a comic submission. Reprints of material you’ve already published elsewhere are welcome.
• Girl-Wonder.org is partnering with Cerise, the online feminist gaming magazine, for a special October issue on the overlap of gaming and comics! Cerise is looking for submissions details are here! Topics can cover any intersection of comics and gaming, from creative to fannish. What can the industries learn from each other? What are the best game-based comics or best comic-inspired games?
• As part of this joint venture, keep an eye out for Cerise bloggers stopping by Girl-Wonder.org in October, and your chance to win combined prize packs. (Also, Cerise-editor-and-my-best-friend Robyn Fleming and I will probably interview each other again. Fun with accents, and maybe that story about how we scarred Justin Pierce of Wonderella fame with our wild party girl ways. [Speaking of Wonderella, did you know that you can now buy it in book form?])
• Rachel Edidin has stepped down from her Board of Directors position. We are sad to see her go, but she’ll still be blogging at Inside, Out and fulfilling her position as one of the Mod Squad!
• As a result of Rachel’s reluctant resignation, we have a Board seat free. We’re holding a by-election all Girl-Wonder.org volunteers are eligible to run and vote, so get your nominations in to me at [email protected] by September 21st. Self-nominations are welcome!
• A heads-up our big yearly fundraiser, the Art Et Cetera Auction, fast approaches. It’s running October 6 12, and the donated items are freaking awesome. Keep an eye on the frontpage newsfeed as we start highlighting donations on the run up to the auction opening!
  And that is all for now. I hope to resume this column’s regular-ish schedule in the very near future. For one thing, Misfit keeps bouncing in and wondering very loudly if perhaps I would like to drink straight spirits from the bottle, and the last time I ignored her hints I eventually woke up with a concussion. I rather like my brains unbruised.
• I highly recommend Naamen’s take on the Genius uproar, here he also includes a links round-up to other commentators. For my own part, I wish to observe that the people who complain that Genius has a Mary Sue for a main character and is poorly written compared to the other Pilot Season offerings are perfectly entitled to their opinions, even when one of the other offerings stars a famous novelist who dreams perfect translations of ancient tablets found on Mars and who wields Excalibur. The novelist a professional writer then earnestly narrates the caption, ‘Mankind was notched down a peg or two on the food chain,’ which is my favourite line in a comic for months.

In an unprecedented event on this column, I’m going to dial down the anger. Don’t worry, it’s just a brief fit and sure to pass soon.
Your not particularly humble columnist was recently exceedingly gratified to receive the following email from someone who wishes to be identified as an ‘independent comics publisher’. He had for me a request:
‘After reading your column of Joss Whedon, I was curious if you could be of some help to me by providing me with a list of cliches surrounding super-heroines in mainstream comics. I’m not looking for a critique of artistic styles, etc, because I feel that stuff is fairly obvious. What I’m looking for are the sort of things that you and your colleagues have noticed regarding flaws in characters like (1) Buffy, (2) Wonder Woman, (3) Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, etc. I’m in the midst of writing the female lead for my OGN and I’d like to only commit full-conscious acts of deliberate misogyny (joking), if any at all, so any observations, thoughts, or what have you on the above heroines or others like Supergirl and Ms. Marvel that come to mind would be greatly appreciated.’
‘Well, shucks,’ I thought. ‘How awesome is that? Who says that no one listens to angry girls?’ And after confirming it was okay to use his request for this column, I made a list.
How To Write An Original Female Lead Character In A Fashion That Doesn’t Drive Karen Crazy:
Bechdel’s Law: Important, Damnit:
1) Is she the only female character in your magnum opus?
Is her position within an ensemble cast ‘the girl’? As in, you have ‘geeky guy’, ‘strong guy’, ‘goofy guy’ and ‘the girl’? WARNING WARNING WARNING.
If you have only one female character, then it had better be airtight justified by the setting/plot, and she should be scrupulously backgrounded and fleshed out. And seriously, best not to do this at all. Throw some more female characters in there, preferably of different ethnicities, body shapes and ages, as appropriate. Don’t fall into the ‘default gender = man’ trap.
2) Does she talk to other women?
3) … about something other than a man?
Random selections from my personal experience over the last 24 hours shows women talking to each other about: comics; booze; the Israel/Lebanon crisis; travel plans; their neighbours’ kids; novel editing; RPGs; Ani DiFranco’s new album; anal sex; the vast number of people who write for public consumption who really can’t write; internet trolls; work; the weather; and Disneyland.
Basically, is she a real person? Real people talk about all sort of crap and a little off-hand dialogue goes a long way. Check out Birds of Prey, Alias and Ex Machina, where women talk to each other about men, but also, among other things, about food, their costumes, their jobs, art and politics.
Character Design:
4) What is she wearing?
Is it appropriate to the climate/society/personality/powers/financial circumstances/occupation of the wearer, or at least as appropriate as what the men around her are wearing? Is she wearing it for herself, or for her readers?
Supergirl wearing a frilly almost-skirt which magically never shows her underwear sewn for her by Ma Kent is character-assassinating fanservice. Power Girl’s famous boob window can be either ‘strong woman proud of her body’ or ‘LOOK BOYS BOOBIES’, depending on the artist, the writer, and the reader.
If you find yourself saying things like ‘But she just won’t be as sexy in cargo pants,’ stop and ask yourself a) why you think your female lead character must be sexy and b) whether this is a character design imperative for your male characters (and why not?).
5) Was she/is she going to be raped?
Many, many female characters in comics have been raped or sexually assaulted, often to provide motivation for male characters or to prove that her rapist is really, really evil, really! Because her rape is, oddly, all about him.
Rape is a tricky topic, since studies show something like one in four of women in the First World can describe being sexually assaulted, often by people they know. In developing nations, stats are harder to acquire (especially since in many cultures being raped outside marriage is proof of non-chastity and rape within marriage is perfectly legal) but it’s generally shown to be higher still. So a lot of women in the world have been raped, and it’s numerically realistic for at least one of your many female characters to be one of them.
But does the reader really need to know she’s been raped? Is it vital to the story? Not all of the character-building process needs to be explicit on the page.
If you must write about rape, and think you can handle this topic with sensitivity and a lack of sensationalism, proceed with extreme caution. Particularly avoid ‘this is the only reason she’s fighting/causing crime’ or ‘it’s not actually her reaction to the rape we’re concerned with, but that of her male romantic interest/colleagues/friends.’
Feminism In Comics:
6) If she objects to sexism, make sure it’s actually sexist.
I adore Carol Danvers from the tips of her blonde hair to the soles of her kicky black boots, but when Ms. Marvel was descending into an alcoholic mess, she dismissed objections to her increasing recklessness as ‘It’s just because I’m a girl!’ when actually it was because she was flying into battle drunk off her ass.
The fact that real sexism exists and might be an issue for female superheroes was neatly glossed over. Instead ‘Sexism!’ is clearly presented as Carol’s pitiful excuse for the negative response to her self-destructive behavior. This wonderfully diminished the impact of misogyny personal and institutional as a real, often insidious force that really impacts women.
7) ‘I hit boys!’ is not a strong feminist statement.
Buffy Summers how I loathe what was done to this character ended up forcing oral sex on a male character over his repeated verbal objections. To a musical sting. The writers, I am fairly certain, did not actually realise they had written a rape, particularly as this same character later attempted to rape Buffy, which was not treated as at all amusing.
See also: Men forcing demonic power into the First Slayer = metaphysical rape and utterly despicable. Buffy using Willow to force demonic power into possibly thousands of young women = empowering!
Women are entirely capable of stupid or evil decisions. But those decisions should be treated as such by the text, not lauded as a turning of the sexism tables.
8) Are misogynistic situations presented uncritically?
Does your creation perpetuate stereotypes and misogynistic tropes without thinking about them at all, or does it problematise them? Misogyny, like racism and homophobia, exists. There’s no reason it can’t make an appearance in your work, but it shouldn’t be endorsed by it.
In the Birds of Prey story ‘One Day; Well-Chosen’, Oracle and Black Canary engage in some slut-shaming of Huntress. Misogyny! Then they realise they screwed up and make amends. Misogyny criticised within the text!
9) If you’re a man, consider getting a female feminist pre-reader.
If you’re a guy, you have male privilege. This is not your fault. However, even if you’re a feminist, your privilege may well be blinding you to parts of your work that might be offensive or dumb. Why not ask a female feminist to read over your script? She isn’t every woman, or every feminist, but she might be able to spot something you missed.
If this sounds like a lot of effort to go to just to keep the feminists happy, remember it’s not about that. Presumably, you want to write the best damn comic you can. Realistic female characters = good characterisation. Good characterisation = good writing.
Finally: I am neither every woman nor every feminist. What do you think, dear readers? What character stereotypes piss you off? What have I missed? What have I got, in your opinion, plain wrong?

Following yet more reports of harassment at conventions, Girl-Wonder.org was moved to action. We are proud to launch the Con Anti-Harassment Project.
(Because conventions should be fun.)
The Con Anti-Harassment Project is a grass-roots campaign designed to help make cons safer for everyone. Our aims are to encourage fandom, geek community and other non-business conventions to establish, articulate and act upon anti-harassment policies, especially sexual harassment policies, and to encourage mutual respect among con-goers, guests and staff.
We offer a con database with contact information, template letters for writing to con organizers, policy tips for con organizers who want to establish such a policy, and a moderated safe-space forum available for those who want to discuss their experiences or accounts of harassment.
Conventions can’t completely eliminate harassment. They can be prepared to act upon it when it occurs, and send a clear message to harassers that they are not welcome.

John of Comics Oughta Be Fun helps out little stuffed bull Bully with a serious note:
Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: ‘These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, ’cause I wanted to see what her reaction was.’ This was only one example of several instances of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.

1. One of my friends was working at a con booth selling books. She was stalked by a man who came to her booth several times, pestering her to get together for a date that night. One of her co-workers chased him off the final time.
2. On Friday, just before the show closed, this same woman was closing up her tables when a group of four men came to her booth, started taking photographs of her, telling her she was the ‘prettiest girl at the con.’ They they entered the booth, started hugging and kissing her and taking photographs of themselves doing so. She was confused and scared, but they left quickly after doing that.
3. Another friend of mine, a woman running her own booth: on Friday a man came to her booth and openly criticized her drawing ability and sense of design. Reports from others in the same section of the floor confirmed he’d targeted several women with the same sort of abuse and criticism.
   Quite simply, this behavior has got to stop at Comic-Con. It should never be a sort of place where anyone, man or woman, feels unsafe or attacked either verbally or physically in any shape or form. There are those, sadly, who get off on this sort of behavior and assault, whether it’s to professional booth models, cosplayers or costumed women, or women who are just there to work. This is not acceptable behavior under any circumstance, no matter what you look like or how you’re dressed, whether you are in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit or business casual for running your booth.
   On Saturday, the day after the second event I described above, I pulled out my convention book to investigate what you can do and who you can speak to after such an occurrence. On page two of the book there is a large grey box outlining ‘Convention Policies,’ which contain rules against smoking, live animals, wheeled handcarts, recording at video presentations, drawing or aiming your replica weapon, and giving your badge to others. There is nothing about attendee-to-attendee personal behavior.
   Page three of the book contains a ‘Where Is It?’ guide to specific Comic-Con events and services. There’s no general information room or desk listed, nor is there a contact location for security, so I go to the Guest Relations Desk. I speak to a volunteer manning the desk; she’s sympathetic to the situation but who doesn’t have a clear answer to my question: ‘What’s Comic-Con’s policy and method of dealing with complaints about harassment?’ She directs me to the nearest security guard, who is also sympathetic listening to my reports, but short of the women wanting to report the incidents with the names of their harassers, there’s little that can be done.
   ‘I understand that,’ I tell them both, ‘but what I’m asking is more hypothetical and informational: if there is a set Comic-Con policy on harassment and physical and verbal abuse on Con attendees and exhibitors, and if so, what’s the specific procedure by which someone should report it, and specifically where should they go?’ But this wasn’t a question either could answer.
   So, according to published con policy, there is no tolerance for smoking, drawn weapons, personal pages or selling bootleg videos on the floor, and these rules are written down in black and white in the con booklet. There is not a word in the written rules about harassment or the like. I would like to see something like ‘Comic-Con has zero tolerance for harassment or violence against any of our attendees or exhibitors. Please report instances to a security guard or the Con Office in room XXX.’
   The first step to preventing such harassment is giving its victims the knowledge that they can safely and swiftly report such instances to someone in authority. Having no published guideline, and indeed being unable to give a clear answer to questions about it, gives harassment and violence one more rep-tape loophole to hide behind.
   I enjoyed Comic-Con. I’m looking forward to coming back next year. So, in fact, are the two women whose experiences I’ve retold above. Aside from those instances, they had a good time at the show. But those instances of harassment shouldn’t have happened at all, and that they did under no clear-cut instructions about what to do sadly invites the continuation of such behavior, or even worse.
   I don’t understand why there’s no such written policy about what is not tolerated and what to do when this happens. Is there anyone at Comic-Con able to explain this? Does a similar written policy exist in the booklets for other conventions (SF, comics or otherwise) that could be used as a model? Can it be adapted or adapted, and enforced, for Comic-Con? As the leading event of the comics and pop culture world, Comic-Con should work to make everyone who attends feel comfortable and safe.
   Con harassment: it’s an ugly and disgusting reality that embarrasses the geek community and actively discourages participation.
   Recent examples:
   The Open Source Boob Project.
   KC describes being harassed at the Girl-Wonder.org/Cerise party at WisCon.
   Rachel talks about the ‘Free Hugs’ guy who tried to wheedle one after a ‘no’.
   Cheryl Lynn recounts the extra-special racism of sexual harassment.
   Delux_vivens likewise.
   Yaoi/yuri paddles, or, don’t fucking hit people.
   Basically, no one is entitled to touch other people’s boobs or butts or hair. No one is entitled to verbally harass or stalk people. No one is entitled to smack other people into performing sexual acts for their pleasure. It doesn’t matter how drunk/high/horny they are; there is no excuse. If it’s not consensual, it shouldn’t happen.
   You’d think that’d be obvious, but apparently not.
   And since it’s not, SDCC definitely needs to take further steps to address it.

Reviews (And Interviews) Week continues with an interview with Adam Gallardo, writer of 100 Girls.
100 Girls has an interesting and involved publishing history. Would you like to outline it?
AG: I think the term is ‘sordid.’ But here goes: 100 Girls was originally published online at Darkhorse.com. I was the Internet Content Editor and sort of abused my position to make that happen.
Todd (Demong, my cocreator) and I spoke with DH about publishing the comic and we were told that it would have to be a four issue mini-series, and we knew even then that we wanted to tell a bigger story than that.
We shopped it around and got a ‘no thanks’ from a few publishers and then these folks that Todd knew in Canada, Arcana Comics, asked if we’d like to do it with them. We said, ‘Yes, please.’ They published the original seven issue series and two collections.
Then someone at Simon and Schuster saw it (honestly, I’m not sure how or when) and asked if we’d be interested in doing a collection in one volume. Again, we said, ‘yes, please.’
That’s it.
It seems as if the S+S version is getting more attention than the previous collections.
AG: Yes, definitely. Arcana just cannot bring to bear the same marketing power that S&S can.
I realize that might sound like a slight against Arcana, which it is not. They have been great to work with and they’ve done everything in their power to get the book out there. The reality of the direct market, however, is that small publishers have a hard time.
Is 100 Girls in any way a reaction to the way girls and women are often treated in superhero comics?’
AG: It is. In mainstream comics anyway, it seems that women have only two roles to play: that of either vixen or victim. I remember looking around at other forms of pop culture and wondering why other mediums did a better job of portraying women. SF films especially does a good job. You’ve got Sarah Connor, Ripley, Buffy. I wanted that for 100 Girls. A strong, female character who resembled the women that I knew in my real life.
And another thing: I remember that one of my first, and only, dictates to Todd was, ‘do not make her sexy!’ I am so tired of seeing women, and even young girls, drawn as if by thirty-year-old men who hyper-sexualize anyone lacking a penis. I was so lucky to run across Todd because his reaction to all of my ranting was to say, ‘that’s how I feel.’
You’ve mentioned that one of the themes you were hoping to explore in 100 Girls is the idea of people making choices (and they seem to be generally choices made in horrific circumstances). Are you happy with how that plays out in the narrative?
AG: I am generally happy with how it plays out. There are things I would change if I could, which is probably true of any piece written on a more-or-less monthly deadline, but with that one aspect, yes, I’m happy.
And I should add that it’s definitely something we’ll see play out more in future storylines.
There’s a lot of graphic violence in the story, which is unusual for comics with teen superheroes (though less unusual for YA in general). What are you trying to do with that?
AG: That’s interesting since, right after your review went up, I saw another which called me to task for the amount of violence and Sylvia’s reaction to it.
I’m not sure how much I want to talk about this since it’s something I want to explore later in the comics. But I have no interest in writing a violent comic where the violence serves no purpose, or is glamorised, so I hope people wait to see what purpose it serves.
The putative bad guys in 100 Girls get almost equal footing with the protagonists. What’s the reasoning behind that choice?
AG: I think that if I didn’t give them lots of ‘screen time’ then I’d just be creating straw men for Sylvia to mow down, and if I did that, then the violence would have no weight. I wanted to write all of the characters as rounded as possible.
Plus, no one really wakes up in the morning, wringing their hands and cackling about the evil they’re going to perform that day. Everyone thinks they’re the good guy in their own story.
What can we hope to see in Book Two?
AG: Sylvia falling in with a pack of homeless kids and a big, blue monster! It will maybe be ready in time for next year’s Comic Con, but that might be stretching things. I have my son to take care of, Todd has animation work, and we’re trying to get another series off the ground, so it may be a bit later than that.
Will we get to see more of Sylvia’s mother?
AG: Do you mean her cellular donor or her adoptive mother? And either way, the answer is yes. Not in the next story line, but the one after that. I think it’s important to show Sylvia in a normal (or as normal as possible) setting to offset the weirdness of her powers and such.
I also want to explore a little bit what it must be like for the Boys to be what they are.
The possibility of a movie has been raised, as I understand it, more than once?
AG: This is the point where I lower my head and weep. Hollywood types, most of them very nice, well-meaning people, have been expressing interest in 100 Girls for going on five years now. And we’ve come very close a couple of times, but with no results.
Well, we can hope! Thanks for your time.
AG: Thank you!

I interrupt Review (And Interview) Week to point out two vital pieces of information.
One. It’s International Blog Against Racism Week (because speaking against racism helps).
This year’s theme is intersectionality, which is vitally important to feminism, (for reasons I have gone further into here) and yet is all too often ignored. Check out the community, grab an icon, make a post, read widely, link widely. Think. It’s good for the soul.
Two (and somewhat related). Girl-Wonder.org’s zine, having blithely tripped along a path of many twists and turns, has gone online. You can read the first issue of Spoiler Space online, or download it for your tree-killing pleasure.
In honour of the week, I especially recommend to you Wasart’s ‘A Gambit for Minority Characters’ and Rob Schmidt’s ‘The New, Improved Dawnstar’.

100 Girls
Adam Gallardo and Todd Demong
Simon Pulse, $9.99 USD

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when your particular brand of mad science involves cloning 100 girls with different superpowers and conditioning them to be weapons, you more or less deserve what happens when they wake up, find out, and get really, really angry.
The teenagers-constructed-to-be-weapons idea isn’t itself original, but 100 Girls has some interesting twists, which I don’t intend to spoil overmuch. In this first installment of what I hope will expand on the promise it shows, Sylvia Mark discovers her amazing acrobatic powers during a fight with a bully. Running away from her adopted parents, she’s accosted by some men in black, and takes them down with breathtaking ease.
Then her clone-sister turns up and says she can feel the others, out there.
After that, it gets interesting.

I’m not a huge fan of the art Demong’s caricature-style faces don’t really appeal to me but it’s certainly expressive, and the kinetic force of the fight scenes lifts right off the page. It’s also worth noting that there are plenty of visible characters of color in this world a reasonably impressive detail when many of the main characters are cloned from the same white woman.
Gallarado and Demong don’t shy away from the implications of the world they’ve created: the girls’ solutions are not peaceful ones, and there’s blood a-plenty. But there’s also something beautiful about this vision of young women uniting against the military/industrial interests that literally lay claim to their bodies.
The characterisation is really the most endearing quality of the book. There’s no easy demonisation here the villains are people too, loving people who have nevertheless committed vile crimes. And despite what has been done to them, the girls are still teenagers, with all the triumphant recklessness that implies. My most favourite moment comes when the interestingly-grey Dr Carver confidently reels off a list of action items to take care of before the girls arrive after all, she says, it’ll take them at least 48 hours to formulate a plan to infiltrate the facility.
‘You might wanna rethink that 48 hours thing,’ Sylvia tells her from off-panel. ‘We decided that plans are for wussies.’
Fans of Gen-13 should find plenty to love in this book; fans of literally empowered young women making terrible choices from terrible options, likewise.

Shannon and Dean Hale are the authors of the fantastic fairy-tale remix Rapunzel’s Revenge (which I review here). Shannon has also written a number of works for young adult and adult readers, including Princess Academy, a Newbery Honor winner. I was delighted to take the chance to talk to Shannon about the writing of Rapunzel’s Revenge.
A foundation for much of your work is in the reworking and retelling of fairy tales and canonised texts. What is the appeal of these stories? What creative opportunities do they offer?
I’ve always loved fairy tales, but it’s the ones that irritate me the most that I find inspiring. ‘The Goose Girl’ was just too brief, too much unexplained, and my mind didn’t stop working over it, trying to solve the puzzles and problems it left me. ‘Maid Maleen’ was fantastic, but dealt briefly and unfairly with the maid character. Her story became Book of a Thousand Days. With both of those, I stayed pretty close to the skeleton of the original story.
With Rapunzel’s Revenge, the fun is taking a well-known fairy tale and unraveling it. The advantage of this instead of just writing an completely original story is the Grimms’ version is in constant dialog with ours, asking questions and creating complications that wouldn’t be there otherwise. It’s also satisfying on a personal level, because Rapunzel is to me the most irritating fairy tale of all time and I couldn’t let it stand without having a snarky thing or two to say about it.
Rapunzel’s Revenge is very much a Wild West themed fairytale, with all the romantic appeal of the frontier. What’s the source of this interest?
It all started with her hair. Dean and I wanted to combine our two passions: fairy tales and superhero comic books. Which fairy tale hero would make the coolest comic book superhero? Rapunzel was our conclusion. Because she used her hair as whip and lasso, going Old West was a natural leap. Besides, we wanted to use the visual format to its fullest, and the Western landscapes and themes are so iconic, so cinematic, so just plain fun we relished diving in head first. I did a lot of research on the Old Westnot the true history but Hollywood’s, hunting for archetypes we could play with. The prison break is a big onealso, the revenge plot, stranger comes to town and helps out the locals, man vs. wild nature, despot gets his/her comeuppance, enslaved folk break free, privileged youth is cast out of society only to return stronger and take over, etc. And things like cattle ranchers, bad sheriffs, friendly outcasts, troubled townsfolk, wandering entertainers, mines, railroads, settlers… We were shameless about cramming in as much as we possibly could in 144 illustrated pages.
Rapunzel makes short shrift of the blond, blue-eyed, square jawed adventurer who would have been her rescuer and love interest in earlier versions of the story. How did you come to include him?
Yes! We called him ‘Prince.’ This goes back to the whole Rapunzel-being-the-most-irritating-tale-of-all-time thing. In the original story, the Prince visits Rapunzel in her tower, but instead of bringing a rope or ladder, he just keeps coming back with arms full of ‘silk’ for her to weave into her own ladder. Doofus. She ended up having his love children, so I can guess what his real motivation was for continuing to visit and keeping her locked up. Scoundrel! Rogue! Sicko! We were tempted to cut the prince character out of our story altogether, but it was just too fun to give him a guest appearance, let Rapunzel see him for what he truly is, and have her own little revenge. That’s the name of the book, after all. Of course plot-wise, Rapunzel’s main revenge is against her kidnapper and captor, Mother Gothel. But in another sense, her revenge is also against her treatment in the original story. And that’s part of the fun in doing retellings!
There are a number of characters of colour in the story, from Rapunzel’s partner Jack to a sizeable proportion of side characters (good and bad) and background faces. Was this something you’d discussed in the creation process?
It was. When Dean and I wrote, we didn’t assign any of the characters race or ethnicity. But when we discussed the project with Nate (the artist), one of the things that was very important to us was that we represent the full spectrum of people in this land. Although Gothel’s Reach is mythical, it was inspired by the American Old West, which was very culturally diversesettlers from the east and Europe, African Americans, American Indians, Hispanics, Asians, etc. And on top of that, we added other mythical creatures and fairy tale folk. It seems like the stereotype Old West figure is the white cowboy, and I didn’t want the story to be so chalk full of white cowboys that it got boring. We left it up to Nate to assign the look to all the characters, and I think he did a fantastic job.
Of course beside the white cowboy, the other major figure in the Old West is the Indian. In our world, the equivalent of the Indians were the original settlers of that land. They would have already settled the choicest spots before immigrants came. So when the immigrants arrived from the Old World, instead of driving the original inhabitants out, they co-settled and those spots became the territory’s major cities. So most of the Indians of our world are urban city dwellers. Nate’s original sketch of Jack had him as a blond, but when we saw him, we all were unanimous that Jack should be this world’s equivalent of an American Indian. I love Jack. Nate is illustrating the sequel now, entitled Calamity Jack, that will give more of Jack’s back story and then continue the story from the end of Rapunzel’s Revenge. it’s an urban caper tale and maybe even bigger and badder than Rapunzel’s Revenge.
You have a four year old son, whose bedtime reading, according to your blog, becomes more and more exciting. What sort of comics do you hope will be available for him to read?
He already reads comics, of course! He likes DC Superfriends, Marvel Adventures: Avengers, Tiny Titans, Powerpuff Girls, Owly. Dean dusted off his Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham. While Max doesn’t read yet, I’ve noticed he’s much more likely to sit down with a comic book on his own and look through it than he is with a picture book.
It seems like for years the comics industry was so determined to be grown up, kids were forgotten. But with comics creators writing for their own kids now and traditional children’s book publishers getting into the game (like Bloomsbury) there’s plenty out there. Age appropriate books are so important, as are plenty of realistic and varied characters. I think it’s just as important (or perhaps more!) for boys to read books with female main characters as it is for girls. I would also be pleased if said girls got to wear pants on occasion.
Your other writing is solo work, but for Rapunzel’s Revenge you collaborated with your husband Dean and artist Nathan Hale (no relation). How did you work the collaboration process? Were there any really epic battles?
Shannon: The collaboration was surprisingly bloodless. We all agreed that I’m in charge and the boys are my contract workers. Right?
Dean: Yes, I am currently bloodless after the ordeal. Seriously, though, the contract worker thing is something Shannon and I discussed, and I was all behind being the toadie. Or the ‘Unseen Puppeteer,’ as I prefer to think of myself.
Shannon: Anyway, Dean and I discussed lots before writing, then I’d write the first draft, leaving holes if I thought he’d be great at filling them, which he was. He’d go through, changing stuff I wrote, and I’d go back, changing more stuff. At this point, we honestly can’t remember who wrote what, though there is an ongoing battle in which both of us claim the funny lines. Then Nate pretty much had free reign.