Women In Comics Month: Interview With Anne Toole

In honor of Women in Comics this March, PREVIEWSworld talks with writer Anne Toole!

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

Anne Toole: My name is Anne Toole. I got into comics in Junior High, mostly reading DC comics. Since then, I've written for TV,  games, and webseries. I even earned a Writers Guild nomination and worked on an Emmy-winning series, but I kept coming back to comics. I still attend Comic-con every year. I'm currently working on an unannounced console title. That's video game industry-speak for “I can't tell you.” I'm also finishing up another graphic novel title, but I can't speak about that yet, either.

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

Anne Toole: I first started working with sequential art years ago, when a video game I was working on wanted comic book-style storytelling instead of fully animated cinematics. That said, I learned sequential story-telling from real comics people, including Mike Gold, formerly of DC, and Bill Willingham, who started an online comics class for those of us trying to learn the medium. My first commercially published comic, CRYSTAL CADETS, came from indie publisher Lion Forge, and their Roar Comics line.  Almost immediately after, Zenescope published my Grimm Fairy Tales Holiday Edition issue. I have since written two more horror comics for Zenescope, the second will be coming soon!

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

Anne Toole: Jenette Kahn, though I never met her, was the president and Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics for awhile. That told me right away that women had a place in comics, despite how it might sometime appear. My friend, Adriane Nash (ComicMix), introduced me to comics and brought me to my first conventions, so without her and her mother, it might never have occurred to me to write comics. Mike Gold, as I mentioned before, has also been a mentor.

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

Anne Toole: The number of women fans seems to grow every year. More indie publishers means different kinds of stories are getting told, so we're not entirely dependent on Marvel and DC to tell our stories.

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

Anne Toole: Not sure whether you mean the depiction of women in comics, or women working in the industry. I would say a stereotype that comes up a lot is that women are only interested in soft, “girly” books or reading or writing about women. But really, our interests are varied because we're different people. I have no objection to writing a soft book, but I also like writing horror or superheroes, be they men or women. I would hate to be excluded from writing an action title just because of my gender. 

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

Anne Toole: I'd like women to be represented in every way we exist in real life, except maybe with a few superpowers ;) Some of us are strong in different ways, shy in different ways, alive in different ways. I'd love to see that on the page. I wish the same for how men are represented, as well.

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

Anne Toole: Learn visual storytelling, like how to draw a reader's eye across the page,  or keep focus on what's important. It's not just about good-looking art, though that doesn't hurt!

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

Anne Toole: So many! I would suggest Katie O'Neill and Paulina Ganucheau, who worked with me on CRYSTAL CADETS. 

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