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Kelly Sue DeConnick on her feminist comic,”Bitch Planet,” and its same sex storylines

*Some images are NSFW*

The feminist sci-fi women’s prison comic Bitch Planet was already a tour-de-force at the first issue. Those “noncompliant” tattoos you’ve been seeing around? That’s where they’re from. As of Issue #4, the same sex couple we were waiting for was introduced and it looks like there’s only more awesome ahead.

While we’re counting the minutes until we can see what happens in Issue #5, writer Kelly Sue DeConnick was kind enough to take some time out of her packed schedule to talk to AfterEllen.

AfterEllen: Congratulations on Issue #4 of Bitch Planet! It’s thoroughly enjoyable.

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Thank you very much!

AE: I’d been dying for you to get some same-sex content in there so we could feature the book.

KSD: Well, you knew it was coming! Renelle and Fanny are the only characters we’ve outed at this point, but no doubt they’re not the only two in the prison… But they’re important to our plot. Fanny and Renelle are significant characters going forward.

AE: So probably more queer-lady storylines…? It is a women’s prison. What are you going to do?

KSD: [Laughs] Yeah. This is a tough one, too. I get asked all the time about this and about trans representation… It’s coming, but I also don’t want to tell people that. I totally understand why people ask me that question—I’m not being critical of the asking. Representation is vital. I get that. But I don’t want the most important thing about these characters to be gender identity or their sexual identity. Straight characters have the luxury of getting to be just people in a story, not carrying the weight of entire groups of people’s experiences. I want the same respect for our non-cis or non-straight characters. I want to make sure I know who they are and I’m writing their whole person, not just putting forth their gender or sexual identity as character. I’m a straight white woman-no one would ever write me and mistake my straightness for character, you know? That I am attracted to men is a tiny bit of what makes up me. I would feel like it was such a false portrayal of who I am. That said, oppression and bold defiance of oppression can certainly skew that equation-because no one tells me I can’t love who I love, I have the luxury of not having to fight for that part of my identity… Oh, lord. What I am so inelegantly trying to say is that it’s a balancing act. Yes, we have queer women and trans women in our book.

AE: That’s actually one of the things I love about Penny. I saw a review or two that treated her as The Overweight Character. But when you read the book, what stands out is her personality. She’s actually the funniest character.

KSD: Yes. Penny is strong as shit. And there was no way to not deal with her weight, because it’s the thing that most offends the Patriarchy. It’s the reason that she is so maligned. So there was no way that her weight wasn’t critical to her backstory. But there’s a lot more that you’ll find out about Penny and her family and her relationship to the events that got us where we are. She’s funny and she’s strong as shit, and everything will hinge on her eventually. But she also comes from an important place. I don’t know what else to say.

AE: Can I ask where you got the idea for the series?

KSD: It’s so hard to say, really. There’s no moment where it springs fully formed into your head. I was coming up with a whole bunch of pitches. Just brainstorming a page of two-sentence pitches. And I ended up not doing anything with them for that particular project, but I kept adding to them and keeping it as my running idea list. I had the ridiculous title Bitch Planet, and I had “gladiatorial women’s prison.” I think that’s about all I had on there. And then I met [Bitch Planet illustrator Valentine De Landro] at Fan Expo, and we corresponded a bit about working on something, and we tried to get things to line up for some work-for-hire work, and the calendars never worked out right. And, at some point, we realized that we don’t have to wait for someone else to do this project. We could just do something. So I sent him this list of ideas to see if there were any sparks. And he wrote back that he liked a few here and there, but the one he was really responding to was Bitch Planet. OK, Bitch Planet it is! So then we had to figure out what the hell it was. And during the first period where I was really trying to brainstorm it, I was at this point where I was taking lot of heat online for my perceived feminist agenda. And I thought, “If I’m going to be accused of being an angry feminist, honey, you ain’t seen angry yet. Let me show you. Let’s steer into this curve.” So then it became all about getting out of our comfort zones. And taking some risks and going where we were afraid. Val will tell you that sci-fi is really not his jam.

AE: That’s surprising. He draws it so beautifully.

KSD: Right?!

AE: On that note of being uncomfortable: There are dark comics out there, but I don’t think I’ve seen one that’s dark in the way that Bitch Planet is. And then there’s a feminist essay in the back of each issue. Was that hard to sell?

KSD: The beauty of Image [Comics] is that I don’t have to sell anybody on it. Once Image approves your book, it’s your book. So you do with it what you want. I’ve given them a heads-up for nudity and sex, and they just laugh at me. “What, do you think you’re going to shock us?” I don’t have to clear anything with anybody. It’s just me and Val who are the ones who have the final word. Our team is respectful of each other. We’re kind of a big team and everybody puts their thoughts out there, but there is never any “Oh, I don’t know about this feminist thing…” Fuck it. We’re doing it.

AE: Speaking of this feminist thing, I loved it that Issue #4 was late because you were re-doing the shower scene to make it less “male gazey.”

KSD: The first one. The second one is supposed to be male gazey. There are two sex scenes—

AE: Oh, I’m aware.

KSD: [Laughs] Right on. The second one is meant to be presented in contrast to the first. So the second one is supposed to be the conventional seduction: This is how it’s usually done, if we’re getting meta there. But in the second one, it’s Kam… I’ve seen it critiqued as a honey trap thing, but it’s not. It’s presented in contrast to the first. I mean, it says “OBLIGATORY SHOWER SCENE.” There’s a bit of self-awareness in this book. So, yes, the second one is seductive, for the male gaze. It’s presented in that way that we always see it done. But the first one is meant to be more authentic. But it’s a performance as well, so there’s another layer there. But that’s the obligatory, right? “We’re performing this thing for you.” But we’re going to make you think about the fact that we’re doing it.

And the problem that we had was that it just kept looking—how do you do this? They’re beautiful women, and they’re doing something that is sex, and is therefore sexy. So how do we do this and not have it be salacious? And we wanted it to be personal. The moment I think that it is the most personal is when Renelle looks at camera and says, “This is all we have.” But it took us a while to get to that idea. We kept talking about the idea of watching the watcher, but figuring out how we wanted to convey that visually. There was a point where Val was drawing the guy behind the wall so you could sort of see him through the wall. There were a lot of different ways that it was done. And then we thought no, let’s turn the camera around and watch him. And then let’s call attention to it by having this big space around this tiny hole. And cover it up so you can sort of see what’s going on, but you can’t get a good look at these women. Or have the action really be happening in the gutters. So, that was tough to come to! Val came up with parts of it, and I came up with parts of it, and we went back and forth. My first idea didn’t work, and his first take didn’t work. And so we just decided that we couldn’t fuck this up, and we were going to keep at it until we got it right.

AE: I really appreciate the fact that you did that. It’s interesting because queer feminist consumers of pop culture have that dilemma a lot. The puzzle you had with that seems so similar to the gymnastics that AfterEllen readers have to do all the time: Liking female bodies, but not the way they’re presented in pop culture, or being interested in a lesbian sex scene, but having a problem with the fact that it’s done for the male gaze. So much of lesbian sex is served up for men, when it’s something that men are irrelevant to.

KSD: The whole thing is kind of fascinating. I was reading a script the other day that was so clearly written assuming a male viewer. There was a panel description of a woman in a top position in a sex act, and it said, “We want her.” Well, I’m happy for her… And, you know, any sexuality is a spectrum. I can appreciate a beautiful woman and the sexuality of a woman. It’s not that I’m going “No, no!” It’s that the assumption is so deeply ingrained. And I know they were not assuming lesbians either. You’re talking to dudes! You’re talking to dudes! That annoys the shit out of me.

AE: I liked the fact that Kam makes it clear that she’s not gay or bi, but she explicitly defends the right of Fanny and Renelle to have private time. I had already liked the character, but that added an interesting layer to her.

KSD: Yeah. Kam believes in love. And I don’t think she’s particularly compelled to distinguish. There are reasons for that, but, again, spoilers… Kam has a history. She has people in her life who have taught her, well, what I consider to be good family values.

AE: You have this comic full of fascinating female characters in an all-woman environment. Have you had to deal with shippers much? Do you worry about the fan pressure to get characters together?

KSD: Oh, I’m a shipper’s worst nightmare. It’s so sad! Because I don’t tend to think about people’s romantic lives. It’s not much of an area of interest for me. I really enjoyed writing the Carol and Rhodey scenes [From DeConnick’s well received Captain Marvel run], but it was only after I realized I needed a shortcut way to explain that Carol was giving something really important up by going into space. “Oh, a relationship. That’s good. That’s a solid thing that’s easy to understand and get across in two pages.” There’s nothing wrong with thinking about romantic relationships. Every writer has their obsessions and their themes, and it’s just not where I go. I write a lot about identity. I write a lot about anger. I write about daddy issues. I think every writer, weirdly, writes about those. Everyone in the Marvel universe writes about daddy issues. I mean, when you think about Spider-Man, the Marvel universe is founded on daddy issues. I mean, come on! Iron Man? Hello! …But those tend to be the themes I return to. You know who does amazing relationships in comics? Brian Bendis. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage — that is a beautiful, complicated, real, loving, adult relationship that I adore. But that does not tend to be where I go. But you know, God bless them! I don’t have a problem with it. And if you’re so invested in my characters that you want them to be involved with each other, that’s great. There is no down side to that. I will take it.

AE: My understanding is that you have deliberately avoided watching Orange Is the New Black.

KSD: YES! And I’ve been dying to watch it, too! Of course culturally, you can’t help but pick stuff up. And I’ll have people tell me stuff: “Oh, the way you do the backstories—Orange Is the New Black does that too!” And I’ll think, “Goddammit!” And When Fanny was designed, one of the women on our team said, “Oh, she looks too much like a character on Orange Is the New Black!” No! She doesn’t! She can’t! Because that is not possible! And Val wanted to know which character, and she sent him a picture, and, no, she wasn’t. I hear nothing but good things about it. It’s very similar to when I was working on Pretty Deadly. I’m actually still working on Pretty Deadly. But when it was first coming out, I didn’t know about John Hickman’s East of West until East of West was coming out, and I was furious! And of course I was not mad at John, but there’s that feeling of “Goddammit!” at the universe. So I made a conscious decision not to read that. And I’m a big fan of John’s, so that bummed me out. I figure there will be a collection of trades by the time I’m done. I’ll take it in all at once. I’m not trying to not be influenced, I’m trying to not be paralyzed. For instance, if I had known the thing about the backstories, I would have re-thought our structure, because I would have been trying to distance myself from it. If I had known that John also had a personified Death, I don’t know that Pretty Deadly ever would have happened, because I would have been paralyzed by that. Now, our books could not be more different from what I’m told. I’ve heard that his is a very sci-fi thing and mine is not scifi at all. It’s more myth than science fiction.

AE: I think Bitch Planet is very much its own thing. I can see where people connect it with OITNB because it’s women in prison, but it’s not something that’s ever in my consciousness when I’m reading it.

KSD: I have a sense of what the story is. I know what the set-up is, but I don’t know what the tone is.

AE: I think you can enjoy both in very different ways.

KSD: Good. People seem to. It’s been mentioned, but no one is comparing it or saying that one is better than the other. It’s more like “Orange Is the New Black in space!” or “If you like Orange is the New Black, you’ll like…” Whatever. I’ll take that.

AE: I don’t want to try to lead you into spoilers, but is there anything else you can tell us about Fanny and Renelle?

KSD: Oh… Renelle has a secret. I mean, everybody has secrets; that’s not really… Renelle has an important secret. Something Fanny doesn’t even know.

AE: Whoa. And will we learn more about how they got together?

KSD: Yes. Not a blow-by-blow. But there are bits that you will find out. When you’re writing a comic book, you only have—well, in this case, it’s 24 pages, but usually you only have 20 pages—to get somebody to feel like they got a whole story. They used to do that in the old days with only 16 pages, but they also wrote tons of text in the captions, and we don’t do that anymore. So we have a relatively small amount of space to give somebody the feeling that they’ve had a meal. It’s analogous to an episode of a television show. You want to feel like you’ve had a whole story that’s part of a bigger story.

So you need to be really, really disciplined about what goes on the page, because you have room for no fat. Everything that goes on the page—and I can’t say that I make this 100% of the time, but it is 100% my goal every time—everything that goes on the page either has tell you something you need to know about a character or it has to forward my plot. It’s the only way to do it. So for that reason, there’s stuff that I know about the characters that are fun details that somebody might enjoy, but aren’t necessarily things that you particularly need to know. And if I can get them in along with exposition you need to know, I’m going to do it. When I’m at my best, I can use it to get across something you need to know, and everybody wins. But it’s always got to be in the service of keeping things moving.

AE: Thanks so much for talking with me. Is there any question that you wish I’d asked you that I didn’t?

KSD: I don’t think so. Good talk!

Bitch Planet #5 is due out July 29. In the meantime you can follow Kelly Sue DeConnick on Twitter.

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