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Comics Debbie Likes

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By Debbie Lynn Smith

This week I thought I’d talk about a few of my favorite comics and why I’m hooked on them.

Lazarus
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Michael Lark

My favorite comic right now is Lazarus. In a dystopian near-future, where there is no government other than the Families who have carved up all the world’s resources and those without, known as the Waste, have very little hope of improving their circumstances. A handful of Families rule, jealously guarding what they have and exploiting the Waste who struggle to survive in their domains. Forever Carlyle is the family Carlyle’s Lazarus, a cybernetic warrior pledged to carry out the family’s dirty work on their path to control their population. Forever is our protagonist and has far more depth than her role as coldhearted killer would initially suggest.

I absolutely love Forever. She is a complex character who is strong and lethal, and yet harbors a soft interior. She actually works against her “programming” as she begins to discover the truth of her heritage and question her allegiances.

Even though Forever lives in a dystopian future very different from our own, I find her journey realistic and compelling. I can’t wait for each issue to come out.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
Written by Ryan North
Art by Erica Henderson

Squirrel girl couldn’t be more different than Lazarus. It is clever, funny and, once again, has a compelling female protagonist.

Squirrel Girl comes from Marvel. Yes, you heard correctly. And yes, I’m not a fan of superhero comics, but this one is totally different.

Squirrel Girl herself, created in 1992 by Will Murray and Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man), but given her very own comic book only this year, is Doreen Green: a chubby-cheeked, awkward, yet preternaturally confident first-year student studying computer science at a college that looks a lot like NYU. She “secretly has all the powers of both squirrel and girl.” For example, she has a tail, and talks to squirrels, and they talk back. Doreen’s favorite pet squirrel, Tippy-Toe, came with her to college, though squirrels aren’t allowed in the dorms; Tippy-Toe lives in a nearby tree and gives Squirrel Girl advice.

What I like the most about Squirrel Girl is that she solves problems not through direct confrontation (squirrel powers vs. cosmic force: not a good match) but through the kind of cheerful turning aside of wrath, the playful offering of alternatives, that actual kids are often told to use in playground fights.

Finally, Squirrel Girl is softer, rounder, shorter and more realistic than your usual super hero.  She’s a great role model for girls and women alike!

The Spirit
Written by Matt Wagner
Art by Dan Schkade

Growing up I was a fan of detective shows. I loved Mannix, Mike Hammer, Honey West, The Cat, 77 Sunset Strip… I could go on and on and I haven’t even mentioned Humphrey Bogart movies!

So when I saw that Dynamite had brought out a new The Spirit comic, I couldn’t resist. I was not disappointed. This comic has all the mystery, noir atmosphere and camp needed to delight that little girl in me.

Set in the classic period of The Spirit’s golden age, the 1940s, the first 12-issue story arc follows the strip’s most beloved characters, Commissioner Dolan, his daughter Ellen, Ebony White and Sammy as they attempt to uncover why The Spirit has been missing, and presumed dead, for the past two years. Has the famous blue-masked hero finally fallen victim to one of the malicious felons or beautiful femme fatales from his lengthy rogues’ gallery of enemies? In the words of Central City’s most prominent headlines: “WHO KILLED THE SPIRIT?”

There are only two issues of this comic out, but so far I’m a fan, though I am NOT a fan of all the advertisements in the middle of the book breaking up the story and assaulting my eyes with images of women with impossible bodies.  But alas, that is the way things are these days so I simply let my eyes glaze over as I look for the next page of story.

I chose to give you an overview of just three of the comics I’m reading these days. I’m reading many more, some of which I’ve already mentioned in previous posts

Kymera Press is a Gateway to Comics

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By D. Lynn Smith

Last month, Kymera Press went to Bubonicon in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bubonicon is New Mexico’s oldest and best science fiction and fantasy convention, held in Albuquerque every August. This year there were 850 attendees. Yes, it’s a small convention, but it is not small when it comes to the writers who attend every year.

Who are some of these attending writers? They are Daniel Abraham, John Barnes, Richard Berthold, Livia Blackburne, Ben Bova, Adam Jarmon Brown, Craig A. Butler, Aaron Campbell, Suzy M. Charnas, Yvonne Coats, Dr. Larry Crumpler, Doranna Durgin, Zachary Gallegos of Mars One, Josh Gentry, Raya Golden, Steven Gould, Sally Gwylan, Loretta Hall, Darla Hallmark, Betsy James, Darynda Jones, Jeffe Kennedy, T. Jackson King, Susan Krinard, Jane Lindskold, Christine MacKenzie, Emily Mah, George R.R. Martin, Victor Milan, Gail Gerstner-Miller, John Jos. Miller, Pati Nagle, costumers Charles & Tauni Orndorff, Scott Phillips, John Picacio, C.S. Plesko, science speaker Benjamin Radford, M.T. Reiten, John Maddox Roberts, Joan S. Saberhagen, Jon Sanchez, Debbie Lynn Smith (me!), Melinda Snodgrass, Jim Sorenson, Caroline Spector, Gabi Stevens, S.M. Stirling, David Lee Summers, Pari Noskin (Taichert), Lauren Teffeau, Sarena Ulibarri, Robert Vardeman, Carrie Vaughn, Walter Jon Williams and more.

If you are deeply into comics, you’ll notice there are very few comic creators here, and even fewer artists. However, if you are a fan of science fiction and fantasy, you’ll be wowed by the above list. I mean George R. R. Martin? Come on. Ben Bova! You must be kidding. Carrie Vaughn and Walter John Williams…Steven Gould and Jane Lindskold…

Bubonicon is a convention where fans can meet and talk to their favorite writers. Novels and short stories are the focus, not comics.

The theme of this year’s convention was “Women of Wonder.” Guests included Tamera Pierce, Mary Robinette Kowal, Catherine M. Valente and Ruth Sanderson, all wonderfully creative women. So this was a great time to bring Kymera Press and its message of supporting women in comics to Bubonicon.

I mentioned in a previous post that Bubonicon fans were very good to us this year. We sold almost as many comics as we sold at the much bigger San Diego Comic Con. That was great, but it wasn’t the most interesting part of the convention. The interesting part was just who was buying those comics.

Of course we had comic fans stopping by the table and picking up issues. Science fiction and fantasy and comics have a lot of crossover fans. But what was really interesting were the people who said, “I don’t usually read comics, but this story sounds really interesting.” Or the people who commented, “I am really caught up by the artwork.”

These people bought our books. They weren’t regular comic readers. They were at the convention because they read novels. Looking through our books, most of these people were surprised by the quality of the artwork and the depth of story. We even had people who bought Issues 1-4 of Gates coming back to our table looking for Issue #5, which hasn’t been printed yet.

In another case, a girl about 8 years old wanted to buy Pet Noir. She finally convinced her mother, but as they walked away her mother said to her, making sure that I could hear, “But you can’t stop reading books.”

To me, this is an example of the stigma comic books have. People just don’t realize how complex reading a comic can be. I talked in a previous post about how reading comics involves looking at the art as well as the words because most of the story is told in the art. Hopefully that mother will read Pet Noir herself and see that it’s a worthwhile reading experience.

I don’t want people to stop reading novels. I read novels and will never give them up. But there is a place for the comic reading experience as well.

Bubonicon showed me that there are people out there who are willing to give comics a try. What we have to do as an industry is reach these people who would be too overwhelmed or intimidated to walk into a comic book store or go to a comic book convention. Actually I get overwhelmed with the amount of great material out there.

Because I also write short stories, I’ve attended a lot of conventions like Bubonicon. I thought that comic conventions were going to replace them in my schedule. Now I think that Kymera Press will probably be attending more of these cons in the future. When there are only two or three tables of comic sellers in the dealers’ room, it’s easier for someone to find a comic that appeals to them and take a chance. And quite honestly, I’d love for Gates, or Pet Noir, or our upcoming Dragons by the Yard to be a gateway into comics for these hungry readers!

 

A Shout Out to Men Supportring Women in Comics

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 By D. Lynn Smith

When I decided to found Kymera Press, I was somewhat hesitant because of all the press about online rape and death threats women in comics were receiving. I was afraid that might happen to me as well. However while some women continue be harassed, I have not been harassed at all. As a matter of fact, I have found men to be very supportive of what Kymera Press is all about.

At conventions I’m constantly talking to men who are looking for comics with strong, women protagonists that are drawn realistically to buy for their daughters. Recently, I got a letter from one of those men:

I am a long-time comic fan and have been enjoying this iconic form of storytelling since I was a little boy. I read the information you provided on your webpage and I find it fantastic that the medium has inspired you to create comics. I’ve recently realized the voice and experiences that people are not getting in the comic world due to the lack of women’s vantage points and style being present.

A woman’s ideas and vantage point are necessary to be able to get a full life’s experience and one of our greatest ways of sharing with one another is with storytelling. My daughters are amazing and I don’t want anyone, or more importantly any idea/culture breeding into their minds that they are supposed to be a certain way or have limits because they are females. I feel comics are a medium that can get positive, supportive, influential concepts, and cultural ideologies out there in our society even though so few people read comics.  I admire and respect very much what you are doing with Kymera Press and the people who are doing it with you and I wanted to just say to keep on keeping on and to make more amazing female characters for women and men to appreciate.

Curtis Shellman

This is just an excerpt of a much longer letter. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have men sending me letters like this. And I’m not alone.

I attended a panel at the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con on women in comics. One of the women on the panel was Renae Geerlings, the managing editor of Darby Pop Publishing. When this issue came up on the panel, she also commented that she has received nothing but support from the men she works with and from male fans.

At the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con, a Marine who was working at a recruiting station stopped by and picked up Gates of Midnight. He came back the next day and told me how much he enjoyed the comic. A marine! This told me I was doing something right with Raven’s character.

There is still a very real problem out there when it comes to women in comics. Just this past month at Gen Con a Women in Comics panel had all men scheduled on it. When women were added, the moderator interrupted and generally treated them with a lack of respect. So the fight for women continues.

However, as with all things, not all men are like this. But as with all news reporting, we only hear about the bad things that happen, and not about all the support many men are giving to the advancement of women in comics. So this blog post is a shout out to all you men who are supporting women in comics and are looking for a strong, women protagonist for your daughters. Thank you for your support, your comments, your reviews, and your letters. They mean the world to all of us.

What Do I Look For in a Comic Book Artist?

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By D. Lynn Smith

I recently answered some interview questions, and one of them was something like what advice would I give to artists wanting to work for Kymera Press. I talked about getting your work up on sites like Deviant Art and not being shy about displaying your work. But I thought it might be helpful to tell you what I look for when searching for an artist.

Kymera Press is a new publisher and we want to support young artists so they can continue to grow and develop. This does not mean, however, that we are going to hire an artist just because they can draw. Yes, drawing is important. But more important is if you can tell a story with pictures.

My previous entries about the writer made the point that, for the most part, the writer of the comic book is invisible. That’s why I’m not a huge fan of narration. I’m constantly trying to cut back on the number of words that appear on my pages. That’s really difficult, but if you have a good artist, it’s much easier.

When I go to sites like Deviant Art, I’m looking for an artist who has posted more than just illustrations. I want to see sequential pages. I want to see how you arrange your panels, if your art tells a story that flows from one panel to the next, if you left some room for dialog bubbles.

I really like to see artists experiment with panel arrangements. A comic that plays with this is Gotham Academy, written by Becky Cloonan and Brendan Fletcher with art by Karl Kiershl. I’m continually delighted by the creative panel arrangement in this comic. So play with the panels: maybe have a full-page illustration with panels arching across the page from the top left to the bottom right. Or have a two-page spread where the panels go across the top of two pages instead of just one.

Something different and interesting always catches my eye. I’m also looking to see if the artist draws a background. Many young artists draw the action, but forget that the characters are somewhere, not standing in the middle of a cloud of nothing.  If they are in a restaurant, are there tables, people, wait staff? Is there food on the table, pictures on the wall?

So if you’d like a job as a penciller or inker on a comic book, post some pages of sequential art. If you don’t have your own story, ask a writer friend, or look for a script online and draw up one of the pages just as a sample.  Show me you can tell a story in pictures.

One of my favorite comics is Bitch Planet written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and drawn by Valentina De Landro. In one of the issues, the action is happening in the foreground while a whole different action, the beginning of a prison riot, is happening in the background. It’s absolutely brilliant. And yes, Kelly Sue wrote it that way, but that’s because she also fills in the background, something I’m working on learning to do. The point is, the background can be as important as the foreground.

Many young artists post a lot of fan art. While these are usually interesting to see, it doesn’t show me that these artists are able to conceptualize their own characters. Building a character is a very important part of the storytelling process. I may post reference pictures for a character, but it is the artist who actually brings that character to the page. When I’m searching for an artist, I want to see if they can create original characters. Fan art simply doesn’t do that.

Finally I’m looking for consistency. When I’m doing a series, I expect my character in Issue #30 to look like she looked in Issue #1. Some artists have a problem recreating a face from one panel to the next.

These are the main things I look for in an artist. Of course there are other things as well, like professionalism, price and just plain niceness! Don’t underestimate the value of being easy to work with.

Why PTSD is an Important Element of Gates of Midnight

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By D. Lynn Smith

My first show working in television was for the Vietnam era drama, Tour of Duty. I was a writer’s assistant, which basically meant I typed any and all changes to the writer’s scripts, formatted the scripts properly, and made copies to distribute to the cast and crew. The second part of my job was to answer fan mail.

One day I slit open a letter and, to my surprise, a grenade pin fell out. I went on to read a letter from a man who served in Vietnam. He wrote that he was dug into a fox hole during a fire fight and pulled the pin on a grenade. Then he dropped the grenade. His life flashed before his eyes, but the grenade was a dud and he was spared.

He went on to write that when he came home from the war, he couldn’t talk to his family about what he’d been through. When his son would ask questions, his wife would shush him. Every night the man went out to the garage and sat there for hours, just holding that grenade pin.

Then he and his family started watching Tour of Duty. After the first show was over, his son asked him, “Was that what it was like, Daddy?” His wife didn’t shush his son this time. And he found himself talking about the episode and comparing it to his experience in the war.

When we received this letter, Tour was in its third season. He and his family watched every show, and talked about the war afterward. And this man healed. His last line in the letter was; “Because of Tour of Duty, I no longer need to keep this grenade pin.”

Even now as I write this, I have tears in my eyes. This was the first time I realized the impact something that is considered entertainment can have on the public. Tour gave vets and their families a way to talk about the war; gave vets a way to heal when nothing else could help.

I was lucky enough to have a similar experience when I worked on Touched by An Angel. I wrote an episode about a 16-year-old gang member who is sentenced to death row for a horrific crime, and meets his father, who is also on death row. The episode was about ending the cycle of violence and keeping the younger brother from going down the same path. After that show aired, we had 14 juvenile detention centers write to get copies because the episode had a powerful impact on the young inmates.

So what does all this have to do with comics? Since Gates of Midnight debuted, I’ve received several letters from people suffering from PTSD, saying that it’s good to see a character who suffers from the same symptoms they do. Just this week I had a young man tell me that it was refreshing to see a soldier (Raven) suffering from PTSD because most television shows and stories ignore that terrible side effect of being in combat.

I find people all around me suddenly willing to talk about how PTSD had impacted their lives. Everyone one of them say that they try to hide their condition because people just don’t understand it. These people aren’t just soldiers, though some of them are. Some are women who have suffered horrific attacks. Some are people who just experienced too much trauma in their lives.

PTSD panelWhen I created Raven, I wasn’t thinking about how this might impact those people, just like the creators of Tour didn’t think about healing vets or I thought about helping incarcerated juveniles. I just wanted to create a realistic character with real world problems. The knife throwing scene in the first pages of Issue #1? That comes from waking my father, who was a police officer, from a nap. It was the scariest thing because more often than not he woke up swinging. Luckily both my sister and I were quick on our feet and never got hit. About a year or so after he retired, that stopped.

So yes, PTSD is a real thing. Many people don’t realize they are suffering from it. Many people don’t realize they have friends and/or family members who suffer from it.

If Gates can create a way for people to heal, the way Tour did, then that is just icing on the cake for me. It’s a consequence I didn’t plan on, but one I welcome. And if anybody out there wants to tell me their stories, I’m happy to hear them. I already plan on using some of what I’ve learned from people who’ve written in, in the next issues of Gates. And I already published one letter I received, with the writer’s permission.

As I’ve stated before, Gates of Midnight isn’t an issue-oriented comic. But I do populate the world with people I’ve known from my own life. I’m trying to make the world of Gates as real as possible, at least as real as you can when there are monsters coming through a gate from another world!

Oh, and the grenade pin, I gave it, along with the letter, to my supervising producer. He’d served in Vietnam as a helicopter gunner. I felt I left this man’s heart in good hands.

In memory of many, in honor of all. Thank you

 

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