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Women In Comics Month: Interview With Kelly Sue DeConnick

In honor of Women in Comics this March, PREVIEWSworld talks with writer  Kelly Sue DeConnick!

PREVIEWSworld: Tell us a little bit about yourself! What are you currently working on? 

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Kelly Sue DeConnick: I started writing about comics — doing some stringer reportage and then writing catalog entries for Artbomb.net. From there I moved on to writing the English adaptations of Japanese and Korean comics (which I did for seven years), then short stories, co-writing and limited series. My first ongoing title was 2012’s Captain Marvel for Marvel comics.

Currently writing Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly as well as working with Universal on several TV adaptations. 

PREVIEWSworld: How long have you been working with sequential art? What titles, companies, and creators have you worked with over your time in comics?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: I’ve worked in the comics industry for the more than a decade, writing original English language comics and adapting Korean manwha and Japanese manga into English for Viz and Tokyopop. On the OEL (Original English Language) side I’ve worked with Image comics, IDW Publishing, Marvel Comics, BOOM! Studios, DC Comics, Oni Press, Vertigo, Dynamite, Humanoids and Dark Horse Comics on various titles. I’m probably best know for Captain Marvel on the Marvel side and Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly, creator-owned.

PREVIEWSworld: Did you have a mentor or hero in the industry that inspired you to pursue a career in comics?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Many. If I had to pick one, probably Warren Ellis. But I’ve received support from many, many people in our industry.

PREVIEWSworld:In your opinion, how has the comic book industry evolved in terms of gender?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: So there are three things that have happened in recent history that have created sort of this paradigm shift in our industry: one is Image Comics surpassed the 10% market-share. Image is the third-largest publisher after Marvel and DC, and they publish comics that are not part of a shared universe. So you don't have to learn a new system — you don't have to go to Wikipedia to start reading comics. Just the same way that you would select any book from any bookstore, you can choose an Image title based on your interests, and, you know, start with No. 1 or the beginning of a new arc, jump in and go. So that welcomes a lot of new readers; there's a lot of new women readers coming from that.

The second thing that happened was the Marvel movies did exceptionally well at the box office. We know 50 percent of that audience is women, and those women came out of those movies going, "Hmm ... I think I might like to find out more about Iron Man or Black Widow." And so they found a comic book store.

The third thing is digital comics. So if you have a smartphone — and you have a smartphone — then you have a comic book store in your pocket, lowering that threshold to readership.

And those three things have meant a flood of women readers are returning to the industry. And it has changed the way we think about our audience, it's changed the way we think about who we hire to work on these books, it's changed the way we think about who we put on the cover, and how we put them on the cover. And we're at a kind of Wild West time right now where nobody's exactly sure how that's gonna wind up. And it's very exciting.

PREVIEWSworld: What stereotypes do you see surrounding women in comics? How could people of all genders go about breaking those stereotypes?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Doing away with the myth that women don’t create or read comics would be a great place to start.

There also remains this pervasive notion that we don’t have more women readers because superhero comics are 90% of our industry in this country and superhero comics don’t and can't appeal to women.

It’s simply not true. There is nothing inherently masculine about heroism, or the pulp aesthetic or power fantasies — believe me, I’m a five foot tall woman. I can teach any man in any room about power fantasies — I promise.

Superheroes aren’t inherently masculine any more than opera, Shakespeare or myth.

PREVIEWSworld: How do you want to see women represented in comic books 10 years from now?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Like people.

PREVIEWSworld:If you could give advice to any aspiring editors, executives, writers, or artists, what would you tell them?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Do the work.

PREVIEWSworld: And lastly, are there any up-and-coming women creators who you would recommend readers check out?

Kelly Sue DeConnick: Emma Ríos isn’t up-and-coming, she’s a well-established talent, but she’s branching out and writing a book now for Hwei Lim called MIRROR and they are both tremendous, so you should check that out.

Tini Howard impresses me. Marguerite Bennett, Kate Leth, Leila del Duca, Vanesa R. Del Rey, Veronica Fish… the list is long. I could go on and on. 


See more Women In Comics Month interviews in our special section on PREVIEWSworld! 

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