Lower Regions
Alex Robinson
Top Shelf
Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax is dead. Like everyone who’s ever run around a fantasy world hitting bears with an ax, or found a fiendish use for Mage Hand, or attacked a gazebo, I owe him a great deal for his impact on my imagination.
I choose to mark this sad occasion, then, by reviewing a comic that lovingly explores and celebrates Gygax’s perhaps most honoured gift to the world of games the dungeon crawl.
Lower Regions is funny, gruesome, and the hero is a woman with an axe, so you know I’m there already.
The black and white art is great, with exceptional facial expressions and body language carrying the story, and the inventiveness that went into the monster roster is fantastic, but the real appeal of this book to me is its star.
The barbarian protagonist is fantastically good at hacking and slashing her way through the many monsters of this tightly plotted story as she hunts for her stolen boy, and for horrible revenge on his kidnapper. Assisted by her adorable and useless halfling companion, she’s mentally creative when physically outmatched (in the best tradition of rules-lawyering) and gorgeous in her blood-spattered fury and determination.
I think I’m a little in love.
A heroine as competent and intelligent as this puts a lot of credit in the ‘good depiction of gender’ column, but unfortunately, there’s an entry on the other side of the ledger as well. The only other visibly female character (and the monsters are mostly naked, so the sex of the humanoid ones is fairly obvious) is a female bat-demon, and both her attack and her bloody death are extremely sexualised.
As ever, a straight depiction of sexualised violence is almost guaranteed to throw me out of the story where an old-fashioned decapitation or disemboweling is not, and it’s annoying to find a repetition of the good woman versus sexy sexy danger trope in an otherwise thoroughly entertaining comic.
This aside if you can put it aside Alex Robinson rolled an 18 on Charisma for Lower Regions. If you’re up for some bloody black and white fun, I can highly recommend it.

H EM GEE, you guys, OH EM GEE. Right now Oracle is so very! I can’t EVEN! Usually I wait for Karen to reach a sticking point in her lit review and resort to hard liquour, or run around her room and skid on a tossed pamphlet and fall down or, like, leave the house, because otherwise she’s all ‘Misfit, did you move my book piles/eat my last packet of chips/drink all my Diet Coke and leave the empty cans in the fridge with the tabs carefully popped back up so I’d think pixies came and drank it by magic?’. And then I feel bad.
But she was working and wouldn’t stop, and I totally needed a break, so in the end I just bounced in and knocked her out a little bit. She’ll be fine. It’s not like I BROKE HER ANKLE or anything.
So! Mailbag!
Dear GRC,
I have been deaf since childhood, a disability which is important when it comes to the ways I communicate, but central to my abilities as a crimefighter. I have absolute visual kinetic recall, which allows me to copy exactly any move an opponent makes, which, in addition to my own well-honed skills, is of some use in my sometimes bloody career. Of course, there are disadvantages, too I’m unable to work as effectively in the dark, and I encounter all the ordinary difficulties of the deaf, like people assuming I’m stupid, or failing to face me directly when they speak so that I might read their lips.
However, recent events have been confusing. On an assignment for my new team, I managed to masquerade in Tokyo as a (hearing) airbrained heiress. Also, although my co-workers sometimes remind each other to look directly at me when they speak, they regularly hold conversations with me while half-turned, or with their backs to me entirely, or speaking through masks that cover their mouths. And yet, I seem able to understand! It’s almost as if, during these periods, both they and I forget that I am actually deaf.
Can you explain this?
Echo.
Dear Echo,
Oh, I’m totally sorry, but I have no idea! Oh wait! Maybe you’re totally a Skrull! I hear that, like, everyone over your way is a Skrull.
And if your teammates aren’t talking to you properly and haven’t even noticed that you understand, (and everyone knows that COMMUNICATION is probably the most important part of teamwork, and anyway it’s definitely not making people wash dishes or telling them they’re too young to be a Bird of Prey or hiring other girls who are ALSO teenagers if you haven’t NOTICED) then they are either 1) big old disrespectful jerks or 2) also Skrulls!
So that works out, because if they’re disrespectful jerks and you’re a Skrull then you’re not on the same side anyway!
Smack them good! Jerks.
Love from
Misfit!
Dear GRC,*
I’m a Japanese woman who has taken up the title Judomaster. During my first adventure with superhero team Birds of Prey, I managed to not only understand and take part in English conversations, but participated in a number of linguistically demanding jokes. I was proud of this facility with the language.
mightymegarod.jpg
I have since joined the Justice Society of America and have mysteriously and tragically lost all competence in English. Now I am not only incapable of my previous humour, but understand only a few words of the conversations happening around me. I suspect some of this dialogue constitutes jokes about me that I cannot understand, which I find extremely discourteous.
Why have my English language skills deserted me? I feel as if I am being forced into the stereotype of the inscrutable and silent Japanese woman, and entirely resent this change.
Yours,
Judomaster.
Dear Judomaster
So THAT’S where you got to! Man, I was so worried. Because when teammates don’t turn up after their family business they were taking care of you’re supposed to worry about them and I am all about teamwork!
It really sucks that you’ve lost your ability with English, because I bet you worked really hard! I’m trying to learn Spanish, because have you seen Blue Beetle? Under the carapace he is totally cute in a scruffy way! Although his file says he has a girlfriend. But maybe not forever, who knows, right?
Anyways, my point is that learning other languages can be really hard and for someone to just steal all that effort from you and make you silent and unable to comprehend jokes about you is just gross. Also, what are your teammates doing, making jokes about you that you can’t understand?
My advice is that you come back and join the Birds of Prey and maybe that will fix your English problem! You can have Black Alice’s room.
Love from
Misfit!
Okay, this one is kind of not an actual letter, but like a conglomerate of letters:
Dear GRC:
I have big spherical breasts and they stick out instead of obeying the laws of biology and gravity even when I’m clearly not wearing a bra and sometimes when I’m upside down and they look inhuman and weird and I’ve never had plastic surgery, please help me, have I been experimented on by aliens?
I enclose two of about maybe ten thousand pictures demonstrating my totes icky situation.
donnamorescaryboobs.jpg
scarywandaboobs.jpg
Thanks bunches,
Everyheroine.
Dear Everyheroine,
These letters stuff the mailbag fuller than Black Alice’s bra. Oh yes, I DID say it! My socks with the purple kittens on the cuffs are missing and I don’t think that’s COINCIDENCE!
But that couldn’t be the reason for this many letters all about impossible stick-out boobs, because I don’t have that many socks. So I’m going to say, yeah, aliens? Invisible aliens with a gross-tesque interest in bizarrely altering women’s bodies?
The only thing I can say that might make you feel better is that I know sometimes it goes away. Cos I used to look like this (which isn’t totally awful or anything, but still, like, no wonder I managed to get into clubs six years underage):
misfitbigboobs.jpg
And now I look like this:
misfitweeboobs.jpg
See! There’s hope!
Love and totally boundless sympathy,
Misfit
PS) WASH THEM AND GIVE THEM BACK.
Uh-oh. Karen’s groaning. Guess I better bounce back to Mopesville and totally ignore Ms I Dress In Black And Am So Much Cooler Than You some more.
Catch you next time, guys! Don’t forget, I’m the one and only MISFIT!

Dear Interwebs,
It has recently come to my attention that some of you have confused Karen Healey (that would be me) with Karen Ellis (that would be the creator of Planet Karen). Some people seem to believe we are actually the same person, which is either inaccurate, or a really nefarious plot for world domination that requires one person with two bodies on opposite sides of the globe.
And it is certainly not the second! That’s crazy talk, which only miscontents and ne’er-do-wells would even contemplate believing for a single foolish second!
So it has to be the first, which is not only far more likely than that scurrilous rumour about cloning in a secret laboratory, but is also an understandable mistake with two young white women publishing online under the umbrella of the same organization with identical first names and similar surnames, it’s no wonder that people mix us up.
To assist you in your confusion, which owes absolutely nothing to those mysterious tales of a black-hearted mage, I have prepared a helpful chart.
Karen Ellis Karen Healey
Karen El’Lives in Bristol, England. Lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Publishes a daily comic, Planet Karen. Publishes a weekly-ish column, Girls Read Comics (And They’re Pissed).
Has black hair. Has red hair.
Occasionally channels unibrowed Russian giant Octobriana. Occasionally channels hyperactive American superhero Misfit.
Is a talented artist. Once drew a stick figure with both legs the same length.
Is diabetic, and restricts her sugar intake. Is licking cream cheese icing off a spoon right now.
Dresses Goth. Is wearing pink pyjamas.
Is not at all a doppelganger from the frightening world of Mirror. Isn’t either!
So there you have it! Not at all the same person. Try to keep this in mind: when our demonic armies roll inexorably over the screaming earth, there may well be a test.

I simply cannot handle the art. I suffered through Ed Benes’ bizarre butt focus in Birds of Prey for the sake of a) His facial expressions, which were rather lovely characterisation and b) Gail Simone’s writing. I was enjoying JLA, and I like Dwayne McDuffie’s writing as a rule, but I cannot read the series when I know I will be greeted with images like this:
notwhitemari.jpg
1) I think it is safe, at this stage, to say that Ed Benes really likes drawing women’s butts. This is more than I am personally comfortable knowing about a complete stranger, but outside of my personal preferences and more to the point, it is utterly inappropriate to regularly position or twist every female character so that when she’s, for instance, supposed to be staring down an enemy, she’s actually presenting her impressive and lovingly detailed ass to the reader. Unless the story somehow calls for it, the focus of almost any given scene ought not be a female behind.
2) Mari Jiwi McCabe is not a white woman. Benes managed to portray Vixen as a (somewhat sharp-nosed) immigrant from made-up-but-not-at-all-white African country M’Changa in Birds of Prey, so I assume he has forgotten that her facial features and skin colour ought not to look Caucasian. Clearly, he needs a reminder of this salient fact. So does the colourist.
This page is sexist, racist, and atrocious storytelling. It handily destroys the suspension of disbelief necessary to maintain a fantasy narrative. I’m left so painfully aware of the fourth wall plastered to the female characters’ backsides, and wondering why Mari woke up white, that the story Benes is presumably meant to be telling with this art comes in a distant and limping third.

I was sitting in the otherwise empty house at night watching a show about serial killers when I decided, curiously enough, that I’d much rather write about a show about serial killers.

The show in question is Criminal Minds, which follows the gruesome adventures of the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit as they profile and hunt monstrous persons, picking up a fair bit of trauma and PTSD as they heroically but humanly make the world a slightly better place. I like it extremely, not least because it plays with gender-role stereotypes a lot and has, in the main cast of seven, three distinct female characters who talk to each other about things other than men.

I bring to your special attention the tenth episode of the third season, True Night, written and directed by Ed Bernero. Spoilers herein!
The episode is not only very obviously The Crow via Sin City, but features quite a bit of comics industry fun, including a guest star playing a comics writer, quotes from Frank Miller, and a signing at a store with some cutely dialoguing geeks.

It’s at that scene that my hackles went up in anticipation. One of my pet peeves is the way female fans and creators are so often made invisible by the industry, the academy, and mainstream media. Every time someone runs a story with the same wide-eyed, astonished headline ‘Look! Girls read/write comics!’ I growl. Yes! Amazing! It’s not like they’ve been doing it for decades!
I’m not arguing against bringing attention to women in the industry, but I’m annoyed by how often it’s presented as something new and astonishing, because it’s only shocking that it’s taking so long for people to notice. It really doesn’t help when the stereotype of the male comic book fan is constantly reiterated in the mainstream (usually as the butt of the joke) and the female fans scarcely get a look in.

So in the Criminal Minds comics store signing scene, I was at first encouraged by the episode’s inclusion of female fans lined up waiting for their idol. At the very least, it was a start. But the scene ended, and every comics insider with a speaking role fans, store owner, writer and agent was male.

‘Oh, show!’ I complained, and moved on.

But this story has a happy ending, because later it’s revealed that there is indeed a comics fan among the women featuring in that episode. She’s one of the main characters.

In fact, Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) is the team’s self-proclaimed ‘Oracle of Quantico’; a brilliant hacker who used to work outside the law and now works with it*. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a fan of this guy,’ one of her colleagues tells. ‘Oh my God, yes! He’s a genius!’ she returns, utterly unembarrassed. Later, she instructs the same colleague in the ways of Miller. She’s female, she’s a comics geek, and it’s not a big deal.

Oh, show!

Frank Miller’s All Star Batman And Robin, the Boy Wonder is generally so very bad that pointing out just how terrible it is in respect to the portrayal of women feels a little unsporting.
“Oh, FRANK,” I want to sigh, much as if a puppy had shit on my doorstep or a two-year old had drawn on the walls. “Batman doesn’t say “cool”. Alfred never addresses women to whom he has just introduced himself as “love”. Your characterisation is a mess, your dialogue is laughable, and repeating things over and over again in captioned internal monologue isn’t hard-hitting drama; it’s just dull. Clean this mess up, and don’t do it again.”
But Frank Miller isn’t a puppy, and neither, regardless of the issues in his issues, is he a two-year-old boy. He is a grown man hired by DC to create the “most anticipated title of the year.” Miller is a comics writer with a towering reputation, good circulation numbers, and a painfully apparent contempt for anyone with a vagina.
So, even though pointing out the misogyny in ASBAR (pronounced “ASS-bah”) is easier than beating ducks in a barrel to death with a crowbar, I’m going to do it anyway.
Here is the original Vicki Vale, introduced in Batman #49 in 1948*:

And here is Frank Miller’s Vicki Vale:

You may have noticed that her butt is talking.
In Miller’s hands, photographer Vicki Vale becomes a gossip columnist “gadfly” who struts around her apartment in lacy lingerie and fluffy heels, sipping a martini, and dictating to herself while Gotham City gleams in the huge, uncurtained, picture windows behind her.

Ah, how far things have come for women in comics!
The rightly renowned Bechdel’s Law refers to movies, but could equally well apply to comics or at least arcs. A character in Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For states that she won’t watch a movie unless:

• There is more than one women in it, and;
• they talk to each other, and;
• about something other than a man.
  Well, of course ASBAR doesn’t pass, but what I find totally amazing is that Vicki (who can’t talk to another woman, since the only other woman in this issue is about to get shot in the head) is actually talking to herself, and it’s still about a man.
  Actually, it’s three men! Superman (hot; possible penis of steel) Batman (crazy man who will never get the girls) and Bruce Wayne (rich; hot). Men she wants; the man she doesn’t want. All about the mens! The only thing that will stop Vicki Vale from thinking and talking about men is witnessing a brutal double murder.
  But let’s not blame Frank right away! Maybe it was the artist who’s responsible for this soft-porn adolescent fantasy. Maybe the cheesecake poses and buttshots were totally Jim Lee’s idea!
  Oh, how I adore the days of director’s editions.
  Here, in Miller’s own words, is how he wanted Vicki Vale to be portrayed:

Frank wants you to drool over Vicki Vale. She’s hot! She knows what she’s got! She’s strutting around her own apartment technically alone but you, dear reader, you are allowed in to watch. She’s stripped down for you.
She doesn’t actually have a personality, other than being “restless”. But that’s okay! Lacy panties, gorgeous face who needs to pay attention to characterisation when you can spend paragraphs describing her body?
And she won’t do anything vulgar. Vulgarity, apparently, is reserved for Frank.
Oh, FRANK, you misogynistic slimeball. Whyfor the steaming pile of crap on my doorstep?
There’s more to be said about poor Vicki, including her eagerness to drop everything in favour of a spur of the moment date with Bruce (so much for having to work), but really? Ducks in a barrel.
Tune in tomorrow, true believers, when I suppress my gag reflex and press on to ASBAR #3. In a shocking turn of events, Miller’s Black Canary spends all her time thinking about a man.

• This picture has those awful white boxes because the only copy of it I could find had photoshopped captions added from ASBAR. It’s here, and it’s hilarious.
  ETA: Better scans here and another excellent demonstration of forties Vicki here. Thanks to Marionette.

Cecil Castellucci, author of two titles in the Minx lines of DC Young Adult comics for girls – The PLAIN Janes and the forthcoming Janes in Love graciously gave up some post-jury-duty time to answer a few questions. In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll say that Cecil and I have the same literary agent, but I hadn’t any contact with her before this interview.

KH: The PLAIN Janes has been listed on the Amelia Bloomer Project list for young readers, which lists feminist books for young readers. How do you feel about that?

CC: I feel most excellent about that.
I’ve known about the list for a few years and always thought that it was super cool. I never thought that I would have a book on the list, because even though I feel my books have positive feminist values in them, I kind of thought it went to books about Amelia Earhart and stuff. So when I found out that The PLAIN Janes made the list, it was like the coolest thing ever.
I’m a staunch feminist. I am proud to say I’m a feminist. And it always bums me out when I hear young girls saying that they aren’t feminists. If they can read a book like mine and the others on the list, the ones that are fiction and sort of not ‘scary’ to them, but are totally feminist, I think it’s all good. It makes that word less charged and it also lets the ladies sing out

KH: One of the criticisms leveled at The PLAIN Janes was that all the Janes are flat characters adhering too closely to high school stereotypes jock, geek, drama queen. Do you have any response?

CC: Glad you asked. Yes. I did that on purpose.
The point was to have all the characters be radically different and have different ideas of what cool would be and then come together with this one thing: Art. By accenting their differences, I felt that it was easier to talk about their strengths and uniqueness.
Also, those ‘cliches’ are a shorthand. We all know what a typical jock, drama girl, nerd, etc. are. Or at least we think we do. In The PLAIN Janes, if you look closely, they are all those things on the surface, but they are more than that. Even Cindy, the mean girl is more than just mean. Even James is more than just the Queer kid.
So I am very glad that everyone noticed that they were those stereotypes. I just wish that they saw the bigger picture of what I was trying to do.
I learned a lot from those comments though, and put a lot of thought into trying to make the characters still totally themselves, and their ‘stereotype’, but also a little more fleshed out in book two. I hope that people will see that.

KH: Another criticism actually came mostly regarding the preview that DC released of the first few pages, where Jane rejects the ‘cool kids’ table on the grounds that they look too cool. People saw this as hypocritical of her would you agree?

CC: Well, the preview pages don’t tell the whole story. For example, it didn’t show that Jane used to be a blonde popular girl like Cindy. And that after the bombing, she makes a conscious decision to change her world view. I mean, it does say that a little on that page, ‘I used to be her.’
And once again, Cindy and Jane form a kind of friendship, or a truce. Jane doesn’t totally reject Cindy and Cindy doesn’t totally reject Jane. They coexist. And cool is redefined.
I don’t know! This is a hard question! Maybe I don’t fully understand it! I never even knew that people were upset about the preview pages!

KH: You just don’t obsessively Google yourself enough.

CC: Drats! I fail!
Anyway, the other thing is that maybe people were reacting to it seeming like a ‘typical’ high school story. There are certain tropes that are a short hand. And then there is room to play. I think that I played with it.
And like I said, previews don’t tell the whole story. I don’t like it when I see a preview of a movie and then I’m like, ‘Damn, now I don’t even have to see the movie.’

KH: The bombing of Metro City bears obvious parallels to the WTC attacks, and dealing with the fear of knowing that ‘nowhere is safe’ is a constant theme of the comic. As a former New Yorker, was this a case of drawing from experience?

CC: It was drawing from experience, but I was not in NY on 9/11. I was in an IRA bombing when I was a young girl and that was where the personal part of it came from. I wanted to write a story that dealt with that fear that I had as a little girl and also the fear that came collectively from 9/11. I wanted to write a story that deal with the idea that the world can be mad and that we need to find hope and beauty in it. I purposely did not make it the WTC attacks, nor did I make it any specific city in America because I wanted the story to be free from the specifics of those events, while still dealing with the basic ideas.

KH: The book’s most emphasised theme is the redeeming quality of art and the way that beauty can combat fear (while, paradoxically, also cause it!). Is that something that’s personally important to you?

CC: Absolutely. I do believe that art can save.
I think that art, all types of art, whether professional or amateur have a way of reaching right down to the core of our humanity. And while art has the power to heal and to give voice to our fears, to connect us in this lonely world, it also has the power to cause it. Or to rally Think of Gurenica.
Art has the power to make us see the world in a new way. A play, a book, a painting, a dance. Anything. I believe in art as being one of the most human things that we can do. I believe that is the secret to our ability to come up with new ideas, invent things, make new technology, reach for the stars.
Pretty much all of my characters in all of my books are saved by art or find their fundamental self through art.
I LOVE ART!

KH: You’ve mentioned that it was important to you that the Janes have different body types. The dramatic Jane is distinctly solid, and sports lover Polly Jane is tall and thin, for example. However, though there are several characters of colour in the crowd scenes, the main characters all seem to read as white. Was this intentional?

CC: Well, Polly Jane is Latina and Theater Jane is Asian.

KH: Wow, I totally didn’t read that at all.

CC: Yep. That’s why PJ has the Frida Kahlo look. And Theater Jane, totally Asian.
In book two, Janes in Love there is a lot more diversity. (It is something that is equally important to me as body types)

KH: The reason I ask the question is because a friend of mine pointed this out to me and she was upset, because to her the art read white white white.

CC: That’s a total bummer! Not white at all. Even Cindy is Latina Cindy Sanchez.
In book two, we see more of PJ’s crush, Isaac, who is African American and there is a new character named Rizwan.
I think it’s one of those things, too, where the more time you have with a series, and hopefully I’ll get to do a book three, the more time you get to really fill your world up in an organic way.

KH: Well, I’m glad, but honestly, looking at these pages right now, I would never have seen it if you hadn’t just said.

CC: That’s so sad! Another thing I worked really hard on! Maybe had it been color it would have been easier to spot.
[Note: The artist for The PLAIN Janes is Jim Rugg, not Ms Castellucci, in case this interview erroneously gives that perception.]

KH: Possibly it’s a result of reading so many comics where you may just as well assume everyone’s white unless it’s totally obvious.

CC: Yes.

KH: (Or, in the case of Connor Hawke, isn’t obvious enough.)

CC: laughs
Like I said, something that I am totally on! I’m all over it like a jam on bread!
In all of my books, I have a lot of diversity. (For example, another thing, just fyi, is that Brain Jayne holds her books in front of her chest because her boobs are too big and that upsets her. That’s a body thing.)
While it’s true that my main characters are white, their worlds are not.

KH: What flavour jam?

CC: Grape.

KH: Speaking of book two, Janes in Love! Would you like to tell us about that?

CC: Yes! Janes in Love follows the girls right after book one ends. So we see what happens with Damon and with John Doe and the repercussions of that.
There is also a dance. And crushes. And of course art attacks, despite the trouble that it caused. I really think that book one and two make one big story.

• * * Janes in Love SPOILER WARNING! If you avoid that sort of thing, scroll down until I tell you it’s safe. * * *

KH: Does James find love?

CC: He does not find a boy to go to the dance with. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t try. (ie. go to a queer cafe and sit there.) And it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t find love one day, even if it’s not in this book.
If you are asking because of queer content, I can tell you that one of the Janes has two dads, and that a girl in the book may be questioning her orientation.

KH: No, I’m asking because I think he’s adorable and I want him happy.

• * * SPOILERS OVER! * * * Go about your day. CC: Oh, I love James! LOVE LOVE LOVE James! He is so funny and makes me so happy. If I get to do a book three, I’ve got mad plans for him.

KH: And he’s so brave!

CC: Yes, he really is. Totally himself.

KH: He sits there with his Queer Club notice every day.

CC: I know. I love him!
People criticized me for that, too. As unrealistic.

KH: No, some kids are really that brave.

CC: But you know, I went to an arts high school, and everyone was out. Yeah.
And also, I think that James is just totally self assured. He has a great sense of self. That’s why he’s the only one who is brave enough to sing at noon that day. He just is that cool.

KH: Uh, I seem to be abandoning all my journalistic objectivity. So, finally. Did you really spend six weeks in line for The Phantom Menace?

CC: laughs Yes.
I slept on Lou Rawls’ star every night in a tent. And I thought the movie was terrible. However, it was a wonderful adventure to do that. And I wear my Queen Amidala tattoo with pride now.
[Do you] have any more questions about that, which I am happy to answer?

KH: I am privately wondering how you peed.

CC: You can publish my peeing answer!
I went across the street to the Roosevelt Hotel and peed and did my business and brushed my teeth. There was also a guy on the line who lived two blocks away from the line. Him and I became buds. So we would march people over to his house (he gave me the spare key) and let people take showers.

The Pro is an Image comic by Garth Ennis, drawn by Amanda Conner and inked by Jimmy Palmiotti. It’s about a female prostitute who’s given superpowers by a horny alien, pees on the face of a vanquished foe in full view of the UN general assembly, gives a Superman stand-in a blow-job and ultimately saves New York.
It’s one of my favourite stand-alone comics.
In the introduction, Ennis explains that: ‘We realized we weren’t going to be taking any shit for sexism or misogyny on a book drawn by a woman.’ Yeeeeeah, right, because no critic has ever pointed out the misogynistic elements of a work by women before.
I’m not going to give Ennis a hard time for sexism and misogyny, because I think what he manages to pull off here is a nasty, really funny story about a woman who is upfront about the disgusting society that has economically coerced her into prostitution. With bonus superheroes, because continually pointing out that superheroes in real life would either be brutal fascists or naïve and useless morons is just how Ennis rolls. Fortunately, this time, it’s not boring or gross for gross’ sake there’s some fantastic social commentary going on at the same time.
The thing about prostitution and here and henceforth I’m referring specifically to female prostitutes is that the culture of the West goes on and on about sexy being great and empowering for women I’m totally empowered to take pole-dancing lessons, how freeing! and then the worst thing you can say to a woman is to call her a whore.
Because god forbid the sex that’s constantly commodified actually be a commodity offered by real women (often but not always economically disadvantaged, often criminalized, often raped and beaten and murdered by the same people that seek their services) instead of fantasy constructs. God forbid prostitution be viewed as just another sometimes unpleasant, dangerous job people do for the money to pay their bills. God forbid it ever be a viable career choice. It can’t be, because sex is involved, and humans can never, ever be rational about sex, especially when it involves women, because you’ve got to control women and their awful female bodies or they’ll invite sin into the world via apples.
Be sexy, girls! Sex sells! But don’t sell sex, or you’re a dirty wretch who doesn’t deserve basic human rights or dignity. P.S. If you’re physically or economically forced into being a prostitute and it’s not a free or fair choice, don’t worry! You’re still filth.
Anyway.
The Pro is not the story of all prostitutes, for which, points, but the story of one woman. For her, prostitution is neither a glamorous career, nor demonized as the province of women fallen from puritan ideals. The Pro freely acknowledges that she hates her job (in fact, she has two the other is waitressing at Denny’s, which is not enough to pay the bills). But she refuses to feel even slightly guilty for being a prostitute, and stays foul-mouthed and cynically contemptuous of attempts to ‘reform’ her. Superheroing, she says ‘sounds better than sucking cock for a living’, but the hypocrisy of the superhero game makes you wonder:
Speedo: ‘We’re the League of Honour; the security of the planet rests in our hands! I mean do you know how many supervillain team-ups we’ve defeated? How often we’ve saved the world from some unspeakable cosmic menace?
The Pro: Shame you could never fix things so I didn’t have to suck dick to feed my kid, isn’t it?
Ennis is not quite fair, of course concentrating on one aspect of social justice doesn’t mean you’re necessarily blind to others but within the context of the story his League of Honour is so monumentally unaware of the mundane and awful real-world horrors the Pro has to cope with that her dismissal of their ‘games’ is entirely justified.
There are other possibly-problematic elements. I read the jive-speaking Lime as not so much mocking the inclusion of Black characters in superhero teams as sardonic comment on the clumsiness of writers engaging in tokenism rather than characterization. The Lady who speaks in the exaggerated rhetoric of sisterhood is picked out by name and by manner as the overly-perfect, pedastaled one-girl-on-the-team: not a satire of Wonder Woman, but on the pitfalls of making her stand for all ‘womanly’ virtues. Your mileage, however, may vary.
I’m not enthused by the portrayal of explicitly Muslim terrorists, nor overly happy about the Knight paying the Pro to dress as his sidekick the Squire and masturbate. (Batman’s a potential pedophile! How never-been-done-before!) Ultimately, though, there’s only the one scene I cannot stand: a john who began the book by shooting at our soon-to-be-superheroine is later discovered to have mistreated and assualted several women, including ‘ass-raping them in the backseat’. He’s accosted by the Pro and many other prostitutes, and gang-raped. Presumably this is supposed to be a scene of totally hilarious revenge, but when it comes to rape, I have absolutely no sense of humour.
Conner’s cartoonishly vibrant, humanely expressive art for once dehumanizes the situation: depicting women lined up with rape implements including a fire hydrant, a weed-whacker and a Christmas tree while their victim screams off-panel trivializes rape to the level of wacky cartoonish violence. It’s a ‘the biter bit!’ punchline that fails to engage with the issues of power and control the book otherwise doesn’t shy from.
Incidentally since it comes up later in the story someone in the aftermath of rape-by-chainsaw wouldn’t merely be missing a sphincter and requiring 30 operations to reconstruct their asshole. They’d be dead. If you’re shooting for superheroes in a context of real-world consequences, then keep it real.
But all in all, I like The Pro a lot. It’s not a book I’d recommend to everyone, but if you’re into brutal, funny stories about mass destruction, naïve superheroes and super-realist, unrepentant women doing a job the world loves to hate them for, then The Pro may be for you.

You may remember my reviews of superhero romance novel Karma Girl and its sequel Hot Mama, and my previous interview with their author, Jennifer Estep. Hot Mama prompted more questions! If you have questions of your own, good news Jennifer has volunteered to answer them, and offers two copies of Hot Mama and one of Karma Girl as an incentive. All you have to do is ask a question to be in to win.

Hot Mama‘s Fiona ‘Fiera’ Fine is a very different character from the more mild-mannered Carmen, the star of your first book. Was writing from her perspective a different experience? Who do you like best?

It was a different experience because Fiona Fine is a lot more confidant and outspoken than Carmen Cole. I hate books (especially first-person ones) where it feels like you’re reading the exact same character again, just with a different name. So, I tried to make Fiona completely different and distinct from Carmen. I gave her a different personality, different powers, different quirks, likes, dislikes, etc.

I also gave Fiona a completely different perspective on superheroes. Fiona loves being a superhero she loves the perks, the attention, the superpowers. She likes being able to cook a pizza with her bare hands. Sure, it can be a drag having to run out on your date to save the city, but Fiona realizes it’s a small price to pay when people’s lives are on the line. Being a superhero is her job, and she enjoys it. That was a lot of fun for me to write.

Honestly, there are things I like about both characters Carmen’s attention to detail, her dogged determination, her bravery in the face of impossible odds, her massive T-shirt collection.

Then, there’s Fiona. I like a lot of things about her, too. She says and does exactly what she wants to, no matter what the consequences are. She’s not afraid of anything, and she’s not going to let anybody get the best of her. She’s Fiera, for crying out loud. The best superhero around. J
I found the way you engaged with body image in Hot Mama to be really interesting. Fiera, unlike other superheroes, doesn’t have to work on her body to keep model-fit, because her fiery metabolism burns off the massive amounts she has to eat every day so, of course, everyone in her civilian assumes she’s bulimic. Was this inspired by anything in particular?

I think we’ve all struggled with our weight and fitness at one point or another. Letting Fiera eat whatever she wanted to and never gain a pound was my own sort of wish fulfillment. Who wouldn’t love to be able to pig out on pizzas and burgers and fries without any consequences? Cheese fries are a particular weakness of mine. Sigh.

Except I started thinking there would be consequences. Instead of ‘with great power comes great responsibility,’ my thinking is ‘with great power comes great annoyance.’ Having superpowers would be really cool, but they’d also impact your life in good and bad ways. For my characters, I try to think about some of the bad consequences. Plus, it’s just fun to torture my characters. J

Fiona doesn’t eat so much because she loves food she eats because she has to in order to keep up her strength and, ahem, firepower. And there are plenty of downsides like her hefty grocery and restaurant bills. She spends thousands of dollars a week just on food. And Fiona says more than once that her eating so much grosses people out and puts a damper on her dates. So, there are social consequences as well.

As for the bulimic idea, what would you do if you saw a woman eating buckets of fries and dozens of burgers without gaining any weight? You’d think there was something wrong with her. But since this is Bigtime and a superhero send-up, people jump to the wrong conclusion instead of the more obvious one. Fiona must have an eating disorder, instead of being a superhero with a high metabolism. Sort of like Lois Lane always assuming Clark Kent was off polishing his glasses instead of being Superman.
Fiera’s fashions are bright, crazy designs, which read like they were a lot of fun to create. Do you have a favourite Fine fashion?
Hmm … this is a toughie. I suppose my favorite would have to be the ‘short, sleeveless, silver lame number with lots of cowgirl-like fringe in strategic places’ that Fiona wears to meet the Bullucis for dinner. Dazzling that borders on tacky I would so want to find a dress like that in real life!

But all the fashions were a lot of fun to come up with, and let me unleash my own inner designer a la ‘Project Runway,’ but without the judges’ bitchy comments. J
I really love your sex scenes I think they’re fun, hot and not weighted down with tiresome stereotypes about what good girls do and don’t. Author Tate Hallaway once said something along the lines of ‘You can tell it’s a feminist romance when he goes down.’ Would you agree?

Well, I write female characters who are just as strong, smart, self-sufficient, and screwed up as men. I really like to focus on the woman and her journey to find out what makes her strong and smart and special. Self-acceptance and embracing your inner superhero is a theme in my books, along with getting your dream guy. If that makes me a feminist, sign me up.

Women like sex just as much as men do whether they’re so-called ‘good girls’ or not. I’ve always wondered what makes people ‘good girls’ or ‘bad boys.’ What is it exactly? Leather jackets? Motorcycles? Knee socks and pigtails?

I’m not writing the next great American novel, and I don’t want to. I’m writing female-centric comic books campy, superhero fantasies. I want everything about the books, including the sex scenes, to be fun and sexy and entertaining. Writing the same old sex scene is boring for me, and I’m sure it would be boring for readers to slog through on the page. It’s a fantasy so why can’t there be chocolate whipped cream involved? J

You’ve said that you’ve taken care to make the cast of the Bigtime books diverse. Would you like to elaborate on that? Why is diversity important to you?

I do try to make the characters as diverse as possible and not just when it comes to race. I give them different nationalities, ages, jobs, body types, flaws, etc. I think diversity is important because the real world is diverse we don’t all fit into those cookie-cutter demos that advertisers love. We all have our own strengths and hang-ups, and I try to make my characters and world as well-rounded as possible, amid all the brightly colored spandex and over-the-top action. Basically, I want anyone to feel like they can be a hero or villain (or at least relate to them) when they pick up one of my books.

So, I’ve got folks like Henry Harris (African-American technology reporter and superhero); Lulu Lo (Asian computer hacker and information trader); and Piper Perez (Hispanic chief financial officer and superhero fangirl).

There are fashion designers (Fiona Fine and Bella Bulluci); journalists (Carmen Cole); event planners (Abby Appleby); businessmen (Sam Sloane); cops (Chief Sean Newman); and restaurant owners (Kyle Quicke).

There are middle-aged men and women (Berkley Brighton and Joanne James) and seventy-something men (Bobby Bulluci).

Irish folks (Fiona Fine and Chief Newman); Greek folks (the Bullucis); Southern folks (Carmen Cole); and Northern folks (Sam Sloane).

People with money (Sam Sloane) and people who work for a living (Carmen Cole).

Cool, buff superheroes (Fiera and Striker) and geeky, out-of-shape superheroes (Halitosis Hal and Pistol Pete). Smart villains (Frost and Intelligal) and not-so-smart villains (Scorpion and Siren). Aging superheroes (Granny Cane) and young villains (the Tween Terrors).

The one thing I’m pretty consistent about is that everyone has a college education, works, and supports themselves (even the villains). Because I think that’s an important message to send.

I know I’ll never make everybody happy when it comes to diversity or the books in general no writer can do that. But I do my best. That’s all I can do.
The heroes of Bigtime seem almost as concerned about their merchandising as they are about saving the world. If there was to be a collectable made out of the story of your life, what would you like it to be?

Great question! Hmm … all right, I’m going to have to tell you two things because I just can’t decide. I’d love to have my own Pez dispenser, either of me or some of my characters.

The other thing that would be cool would be a bobblehead doll, but with clothes/accessories you could put on it, sort of like a Mr. Potato Head. That would be really great for my superhero characters and show both sides of their personalities.

Now I really want these! A girl can always dream …
You’ve written that you ‘don’t like stories about people, especially women, being victimized’, of which there are sadly a surfeit in superhero stories. What would you like to see more of in superhero fiction in relation to women?

I’d like to see more realistic depictions of women who aren’t superheroes. You don’t have to have the power to shoot lasers out of your eyes to be strong or worthy of being a hero. I’d like to see more women who consistently do normal, rational things, like use their cell phones to call the cops and not walk down dark, deserted alleys by themselves late at night. More smart, professional, college-educated women of all ages, ethnicities, and sizes. And I’d love to see more superheroines who don’t have any powers (a la Green Arrow), but go out and kick ass anyway because they want to make the world a better place.

I’d also like to see a really good female villain. Somebody who is not maniacally crazy or otherwise a head case. A female villain who knows what she wants and is determined to get it no matter what. Someone who is smart and capable and ruthless because she wants to be not because something in her past (abuse, murdered parents, etc.) made her that way.

And the angst. I think everybody, even the male characters, needs to tone down the angst a bit. You guys all have superpowers, cool costumes, and immunity from prosecution for destroying public property. Enjoy it a little!

But maybe the thing I’d like to see the most are more realistic body types, especially when it comes to women. I know I’m banging an old drum here, but most of the women in comic books would put the buffest supermodel to shame. And some of them are scary, especially the ones with the ripped thighs that look like tree trunks. Creepy, not sexy. And I swear Wonder Woman’s costume gets skimpier every time I read a new issue. She’s going to need a Brazilian wax before long!

And the boobs. Can we please get rid of the big, bazooka boobs so many of the women have? Those women would tip over in real life! They’re just boobs. Every other person has them. Get over it, guys.
The third Bigtime book, Jinx, is due to be released in 2008. Would you like to tell us a little about that? What else is on your writing to-do list?

Well, my publisher plans to re-release Karma Girl and Hot Mama in mass market paperback form in July and August, and then Jinx will hit shelves on Sept. 2, also in paperback format. So, folks can catch up on the series all at once.

Jinx is about Bella Bulluci, a fashion designer and wannabe artist. Bella’s superpower is luck, which manifests as a form of static electricity. (Which means Bella has very big, Einstein-like hair). Since luck can be good or bad, for every good thing that happens to Bella, so does something bad or at least awkward and embarrassing. Like finding the last seat in a crowded movie theater, but sitting down in a puddle of soda.

Bella hates her power especially since it gets her mixed up with Debonair, a suave art thief. Also, there are two new ubervillains Hangman and Prism, who are determined to steal a priceless sapphire from a museum for their own nefarious purposes. Danger and explosions follow. J

I’m also working on the fourth Bigtime novel, titled Nightingale. That one will be about Abby Appleby, an event planner whose supersenses drive her super-crazy.

And I’ve also finished two new urban fantasy books, which I hope to turn into series.

The first book is called Live & Let Spy, and it’s about Abby Tome, a Druid who’s forced to become a spy to stop a ring of magical terrorists. It’s not quite as over-the-top as my Bigtime novels, but it’s still a bit of a spy spoof and a lot of fun. Think the TV show Charmed crossed with the James Bond movies. In addition to being a superhero fan, I’m probably the biggest James Bond fangirl around. Then again, Bond is really just a different kind of superhero, isn’t he? J

The second urban fantasy book is called Gin on the Rocks. It’s about Gin Snow, a professional assassin who gets double-crossed and framed for a murder she didn’t commit (for a change). But Gin is one cool customer, especially since she’s can control the elements of ice and stone. Gin on the Rocks is darker and grittier than what I usually write and set in the South, so it has sort of a Southern Gothic vibe. But I think fantasy fans will enjoy it, especially folks who like kick-ass heroines.

I’ll be posting more info and some chapters from both books on my Web site soon. So, check out www.jenniferestep.com for more. Until then, happy reading!

Student Mindy Owens fulfilled the dream of many a comic fan when, as the webmistress of Runaways The Comic, she was approached to co-write Runaways Saga #1 with comics scribe C. B. Cebulski. Mindy has since gone on to write several other Marvel comics with Cebulski, and braved finals, the holiday season and a giant storm to answer some questions. Thanks, Mindy!

KH: In case any of my readers are tragically ignorant of one of the best superhero comics out there, would you like to inform them why they should be picking up Marvel’s Runaways?
MO: Everyone should be picking up Runaways because it really is a unique title and a breath of fresh air. Back when I first started reading comics, I ended up falling out of love with them as I didn’t find one that really spoke to me. I stumbled across Runaways and became more in love and obsessed with comics than I ever had before. The premise itself was exciting and fun: a somewhat normal group of kids finding out their parents are super villains and then trying to take them down when they are on the run/in hiding. Another aspect that pulled me in was that Runaways is very character driven rather than plot driven. Not to say nothing happens, but I love the down times as much as the action sequences. These were characters that you could enjoy reading sitting in a van waiting for bad guys to show up or having an epic fight with their parents
KH: It’s always exciting when people go from being fans to creators (who are also fans!). How did that play out for you?
MO: It was and still is a surreal experience to think about. I started the fansite as a way to help promote Runaways, which has all had critical acclaim but lacked readers. I knew Runaways could catch on and have a stable fanbase, but it seemed almost impossible to get people to read the title in the first place. I was really worried for a long time that Runaways was about to be canceled at any moment so I spoke about how much I loved the title and why everyone should be reading it.
Going to comic cons, I’ve met a lot of people who’ve all told me that it was my constant pimping of the title that got them to give Runaways a try. While it’s nice that people say that, I never wanted to have comic fan notoriety or become known as the mega-Runaways fan, much less did I ever think that it would get me into writing comics. I just didn’t want Runaways to be canceled. When C.B. sent me an e-mail asking if I could help him with the Runaways Saga, I figured he just needed an answer to a continuity question. Instead it turned out he wanted me to help him co-write it. And it’s all been snowballing from there.
KH: Sadly, Runaways the Comic hasn’t been updated for a while. Any plans to revisit the website?
MO: Runaways the Comic hasn’t been updated due to me now being a freelance writer for Marvel (conflict of interests and all of that). I love the website and I’m actually looking for someone to take it over for me. If anyone is interested please let me know!
KH: For Runaways Saga, you wrote the narrative through the voice of Molly, the youngest Runaway. Was she a hard character to get a grip on?
MO: Molly was extremely tough to write. With an adult or even a teenage you have so much flexibility in what a character would say and also how they would say it. When it comes to writing a twelve year old, it’s easy to write her voice too young or too old. You are constantly writing between those two and also keeping it in Molly’s speaking style where she misuses words and says things that shows that she can easily misinterpret everything that’s going on yet she’s also got a very sharp mind at the same time. Writing forty-four pages of only Molly? Joss Whedon and Brian K Vaughan had it easy
KH: You’ve mentioned before that one of the things that appealed to you about Runaways are the varied and realistic female characters. What else would you like to see more of in comics?
MO: Stuff I wold like to see more of in comics? There was this old X-Men comic with the whole group eating breakfast and the entire scene was funny (I remember Iceman froze Beast’s pancakes and Gambit was talking to himself) and a really nice break from the action, action, action. Don’t get me wrong, I love comics where there are huge fights, stuff blows up and sound effects galore but I also miss the downtime and all of the character interactions.KH: You’ve done some more work for Marvel. Would you like to tell us a little about that?
MO: I’ve also co-written the Ultimates Saga and an issue of Spider-Man Fairy Tales with C.B. We’ve got some other projects lined up that we’re both pumped up for. The Ultimates Saga was a retelling of the events of the first two volumes of the Ultimates as told by Tony Stark. The issue of Spider-Man Fairy Tales I co-wrote involved Spider-Man meets Cinderella with art from Mike Allred. That one was really fun to write and a real treat.
KH: Some critics read the recently-released Ultimates Saga as a sexist work. Among other points raised, the most damned section appears to be the depiction of narrator Tony Stark hiring publicists whose job descriptions apparently include having sex with him. Do you have any response?
MO: The whole issue was written from Tony’s perspective and he was written by Mark Millar to be rather womanizing and a lush. Tony has shown a great deal of love and concern for his female teammates, so I don’t find him anti-women. Are womanizing and sexism the same thing? Both do blur into the other quite a bit. We also have to remember that Tony has six months to five years to live, so that’s also affecting his character to ‘live it up’, hence the heavy drinking and copious amounts casual sex. As far as the publicists, Tony would mix business with pleasure as much as possible. As long as it’s consensual between all parties….
I think there are a lot of ways to analyze all the Ultimate characters as none of them are black and white but varying shades of grey. I love to see people discuss the characters and their actions and Tony’s actions can be read many different ways because he treats lots of different women in lots of different ways. I don’t think anyone is really wrong how they see Tony as there is plenty of evidence to back up any claim.
KH: Do you have any plans for the comics-writing future?
MO: I have some more comics lined up to co-write with C.B. (Avenger Fairy Tales) and I just got an offer to write a self contained story for an anthology from Image Comics. There are also some pitches that I almost have done (let’s keep our fingers crossed) that I think will go over really well. More info to follow!
KH: Finally, Brian K. Vaughan vs Joss Whedon: Cage Fight. Who walks out?
MO: Brian K Vaughan. Fun fact: the K stands for Killer.