Veteran comic writer Gail Simone focused on the Wonder Woman series in the first part of our interview with us. In the second part, we ask her about LGBT characters in comics, the Birds of Prey series, and the new lesbian Batwoman series.
AfterEllen.com: You mentioned in a comment you left on our site that “Comics have a ways to go regarding decent portrayals of LGBT characters, but we they’re getting better, thank god.” Which comic series and LGBT characters do you think are most interesting/promising in this regard? Gail Simone: Oh, there are a few. It’s a small handful, but still a huge improvement over just a few years ago.
Manhunter had a great mix of gay characters. We have the new Batwoman coming out, featuring a lesbian lead character, as written by Greg Rucka, who is very good with this stuff. Over at Marvel, Young Avengers is good in this regard.
The dumb thing is that the gay comics readership is one we should be welcoming with open arms. They are spectacularly supportive and communicative and just essentially a dream audience. That’s not to say they don’t call it when they smell bulls–t, because they do, but I’m continually delighted to see the verve and swerve of the gay comics-reading community.
They own comic stores, they provide some of the best voices in the comics press and in comics criticism. It’s just ridiculous to let them down for some dusty perceived fear of alienating some small portion of bigots and homophobes in the mainstream audience. It’s not how a vital, vibrant medium should be thinking.
I always say if we insist on being dinosaurs, we deserve the tar pits.
But things ARE getting better…there are more openly LGBT creators, and I personally have never been asked to ‘tone down’ or eliminate LGBT content and I’ve had some in nearly every series I’ve written.
I think we have some catching up to do, but there are a lot of creators that really do understand that it’s not about tokenism, it’s more a question of the acceptance of basic humanity in the work we do. I think there was a time when the industry believed that ANY gay character was going to, I don’t know, I guess mollify the gay and lesbian audience, and so the first tentative steps in that direction were pretty vile and laughable, even if they were well intentioned. You know, sort of pure tokenism, Decorator Man and Scissor Lass.
We’re doing a little better now, thank God. AE: What’s your opinion on the recent announcement about the lesbian Batwoman taking the lead in Detective Comics? Do you think the comics world is ready for a lesbian superhero to lead a comic series, and for a lesbian relationship to be front-and-center in a series? GS: I think they were ready a decade ago, frankly. But comics have been ahead of the trends in entertainment many times, and I think we’re in that position again, in some ways.
Hollywood is certainly imitating comics even in non-comics movies.
And there are always progressive writers like Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, and many others, that are simply always going to be leading the zeitgeist, no matter what project they work on. Most of us have been recruited to do some film writing, so that line is very blurry.
But for Batwoman, they have one of DC’s top writers, best-selling novelist Greg Rucka, telling her story, and he’s dead solid on LGBT material. I suspect it’s going to be not just acceptable, but quite frankly awesome.
There are lesbian relationships front and center already. I just turned in a new issue of Secret Six where the entire story is a lesbian first date.
I think we’ll see more and more of this as people realize the days of burning comics by lunatic bigots are long since gone, and shouldn’t have been taken seriously anyway. If we’d ignored them in the first place, imagine what the industry could have accomplished! AE: What did you enjoy most about writing for the Birds of Prey series? What did you think of the TV version of that series? GS: When I first came to DC, I was very new to writing, and very skeptical about taking a “chick book.” So I was a bit airy about it, didn’t want to write Birds of Prey with its all female cast, didn’t want to write Wonder Woman, all because I was afraid I’d be pegged as a “chick writer.”
I’m kind of ashamed of myself for that. That’s not the way an adult writer should think, not the sort of thing we should worry about. My feminist credentials are pretty solid, I believe, and that’s something to be proud of, not push to the side for convenience.
But the editor of Birds of Prey was this wonderful, smart woman, and she convinced me to try, and it became very successful. Sales went up and stayed up the entire time I was on the book, pretty much unheard of with an all-female cast and no celebrity creators.
What I loved about it, and what people responded to, I think, was that it was a female-centric buddy book. That’s a rare notion in comics, it’s rare in ALL media, actually.
To this day, I’ve still only seen the pilot of the tv series. I didn’t want to be influenced, in my newbie arrogance. But I’ve been friends with the producer of the series for some time, and I know she wanted to produce something much closer to the comic, but was simply ambushed by the higher-ups the entire way. Sort of a shame, it’s a great concept. AE: Are you a fan of the Buffy comic series, and do you think we’ll see more TV shows and movies transition to comic book form, not just the other way around? GS: Whew, this is going to sound terrible, but I have only seen one episode of Buffy, and I haven’t read the comics. I just don’t watch much tv and when I do, it’s usually something awful, American Idolor something. I should definitely be put to sleep for that alone. I watch a lot of Netflix stuff, streaming on my Xbox 360, documentaries and foreign films mostly.
Hollywood and comics are linked pretty tightly right now. I think, even if they stop making superhero films, that won’t go away.
What’s happened is, the nerds have grown up and now they run studios. I am constantly surprised when I introduce myself to some Hollywood bigshot, and bam, time and again, they already know me, they know my work, they can quote it, and I’m far from the biggest name in comics.
On the other hand, if a comic adaptation isn’t from a MAJOR property, like Star Wars, Buffy, or Gears of War, then the profit margin for the property can be pretty small.
I think it’s more likely that Hollywood will continue to use comics as their gold mine, more than the other way around.
AE: You have written a lot of really strong female characters who don’t just preach about being strong, they justare. Does you ever have to fight to let your female characters be that intimidating and, just sort-of, all-powerful? GS: My feeling is, if the character HAS to preach, then you’re doing it wrong. You’ve broken the agreement to tell an honest, truthful story about believable characters. You’ve traded movement for message.
Wonder Woman can be shown to be strong a million ways, and I think giving a long speech is possibly the least interesting of all of them. When you can punch a tank in the face, and make two warring countries declare peace, a long speech about the power of woman is a little redundant.
And thankfully, no, I have to say that the comics companies I’ve worked for, especially DC, where I am currently exclusive, no one has ever asked me to make a female character less powerful or less interesting or anything of that nature.
In fact, sometimes, particularly with female editors, I sometimes have to struggle to show the female characters showing any weakness, or any sign of being less than ideal, less than perfectly ethical.
But I’m not interested in perfection, and I don’t think the readers are, either. AE: What would be your dream comics story to write? GS: Oh, there are a few. I haven’t worked at Marvel for a while but I quite like Spider-man and the female X-men. I love Captain Marvel and his sister, Mary Marvel. I’ve gotten to write most of the big guns at DC, but haven’t YET done a big Batman project.
I have some creator-owned stuff I hope to get to this year. A lovely murder mystery, and a crazy hitman story.
But it’s hard to beat the books I have now … Wonder Woman, Secret Six (which I created), and the creator-owned Welcome to Tranquility, about a retirement community for retired superheroes.
I’m very happy. It’s a joyful career, honestly…to work with these great artists, travel the world and meet readers in different countries. It’s lovely.
