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We caught up with renowned comic book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick to talk about her work creating stories for female heroes and using it as a platform to elevate their position across the board.
"Hi, Gamereactor friends. This is the final, the fourth day of the San Diego Comic-Con in Malaga, as you can see in the background.
And I'm here joined by Kelly. Thank you so much for joining us.
I was looking forward to this moment. You're my highlight today."
"Oh my gosh, you're so kind to me. Thank you very much.
So I wanted to talk first and foremost about, you know, how women have been represented and empowered in comics.
Both, you know, in the past, the transition we've seen, because we see a lot of things done better.
But also, there's many things to do."
"So what can you tell me about this evolution and the point we are at right now in this aspect?
Gosh, let's see.
Well, when I first started, like my first New York Comic-Con that I did the Women of Marvel panel, I was the only woman on the stage who was in one of the primary creative positions."
"The last time I did a Women of Marvel panel in New York Comic-Con, there were so many women in creative positions on the stage, there was no place for me to sit.
I sat on the dais, you know?
And it was really important to me at that moment that we stop and acknowledge that, you know?
And also, we were a standing room only panel, too."
"That was another thing that was really cool, was just like the numbers were really there.
And so it was important to say, like, look what we've done, look how far we have come here.
There are a couple of other things we want to keep in mind, which is that, like, this is a restoration, not like a new thing, right?
So women have always read comics."
"We have always made comics.
We have always been the organizers of the earliest science fiction conventions, you know?
And there is nothing inherently masculine about any of these genres.
Or, you know, the joke I always make is that I am a five-foot-tall woman who sort of looks like a child."
"Like, I can teach any man in any room about power fantasies, right?
You know, so if we want to reduce superhero comics to power fantasies, oh, I got you, you know?
But it's not that we're not trying to take anything away from anybody.
It's just trying to be, like, we are here too."
"We have always been here too.
It is worth it to market to us.
It is worth it to make things that center us and our experience.
You know, when we, there's this thing called targeted marketing, right?
So because men are higher status, if you market to men, women will buy things that are marketed to men because that's cross-identifying up."
"But if you market things to women, men tend not to buy those things because that's cross-identifying down, right?
And so that's, so your marketing dollar is better spent marketing to men, right?
So in a capitalist world, then that's what you're going to do because that's the law, right?
You're going to try to maximise profits."
"But what we want to do is make sure that in order to make it so we don't have those high and low statuses, to teach one another to cross-identify by making more stories for and about women and people of other marginalized identities, you know?
You gave me both, you know, some progress that's been made, some huge progress and a little bit of room for improvement or big room for improvement."
"Yes, nobody sit down. We're not done yet.
Exactly, we're not done yet. All right.
Which role would you say cosplay plays into women being more important, better represented and more empowered in these environments and in this sort of universe?
I think it is huge."
"I don't think you can overestimate how much cosplay has changed the landscape in a couple of different ways.
One, you know, attendance at conventions, and I'll be interested to hear what the numbers are here, but attendance at conventions in the United States is actually tips slightly in favor, it's more women than men, slightly more women.
And that is really interesting. I think cosplay has a lot to do with that."
"The other thing is when we imagine these costumes as things that people might need to make and walk around in the world, it makes us think more about how it feels to embody that, right?
And so it makes it very real to think about, we don't want to demonize sexuality, but when we think about idealizing figures, for whom are we idealizing these female figures, and for whom are these costumes made, right?
And so if you're idealizing a man for strength, but idealizing a woman for sexual availability, maybe that's something we need to think about, you know?
For sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk Captain Marvel."
"Yeah.
Of course, a breakthrough, a highlight of your career, as you redefine female characters.
You were nominated for an Eisner, if I'm correct?
I've been nominated for a couple Eisners. I can't remember."
"That's not important. You've been nominated for a couple.
Yes, yes, yes.
So what can you tell me it meant to you, for you, and also for, as we just said, women and strong female leads?
Yeah, I think, I mean, for me, no matter what I do for the rest of my career, Captain Marvel will be in my obituary."
"I think it is, I am very, a long time from now, a very long time from now.
But it's something I'm really proud of, and really grateful to have been given the opportunity to be in that moment, and to see it from so close up.
And to have worked with the phenomenal teams and editors and artists who helped make that book happen."
"And then in terms of what that has done, I, in some ways, I think it gets too much credit, and in some ways, I don't think it gets enough.
Like, I think it's interesting, people think the book sold better than it did at the time.
It didn't."
"You know, I was there.
We were barely keeping alive.
But what it did do, was it invited a lot of women who had maybe tried comics and given up, or not ever really found their way in."
"It was like, oh, if you want to be part of this sort of superhero part of comics, you are welcome here, and here are some stories that will center your experience.
And then, to have that go on and be a Marvel movie that made a billion dollars.
I wanted to ask you about the adaptation."
"Yeah.
Yours was taken as a canon, right?
Yes.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
No, no, no."
"I worked on both films, Captain Marvel and The Marvels.
I had a tremendous, wonderful experience with Marvel Studios.
Brie Larson was incredible, and the directors on both films, absolutely incredible.
But I have to say Mary Livanos, the producer from Marvel, who I worked with on both of those films, is just a very quiet superhero who is really making things happen."
"She's a smart, smart lady, very savvy, really understands comics, really does the work.
And she's got a real good sense of humor about the whole thing, too.
But, yeah, to have a whole generation of young women be able to see themselves as heroes, and a whole generation of young men to see a woman carrying that role."
"That was important.
Yeah, and also, we were talking about this earlier today, too, one of my favorite things about Carol is she's not perfect, right?
No hero today."
"They have to be like that, right?
You don't have to be an anti-hero to be like an imperfect, you know?
But we don't want, you know, like I love Black Widow, but Black Widow is such a, from my perspective, that's such a male fantasy, you know?
And Carol is just, it's like, you know, when Black Widow lands in the superhero tripod pose and she flips her hair back, she looks like Rita Hayworth, you know?
Or a shampoo ad."
"Yes, and it's perfect.
And, like, there's nothing wrong with that.
It's only wrong when that's all we have, right?
Yeah, yeah."
"And so to be able to then see Carol, who tries to do the same thing, and it's like, you know?
Like, oh, that's my lived experience, right?
And I love that.
And I love that it's like, yeah, no, we're all doing our best."
"And you can do this too.
I think that's really important.
Yeah.
If I'm correct, you also did some English adaptations of mangas."
"Oh, yeah.
So in the same line, we're talking about women, since we started this conversation.
First of all, what did that shape you in a way, working with manga?
And what can you say about, you know, women in manga?
In Japan, it's completely different."
"They're at another stage compared to what we just said.
Yes.
Yeah, so it was—I wrote about 11,000 pages of manga adaptations.
Wow."
"And it was an incredible boot camp for comics making, because I got to really focus on character and dialogue and kind of study the way that they were put together and not have to then also be carrying the burden of inventing everything, right?
So it was like going to school."
"So it was absolutely incredible.
And then also just some of the mechanics of Japanese versus English.
You know, Japanese is a very spare language, and it's oriented vertically.
And so when we're making it into English, we need to not only use as few words as possible, but also as short of words as possible."
"So there's almost like a Hemingway thing there, trying to, like, simple and clear, but also have character.
And it's like, oh, yeah.
Like, that's the discipline."
"So that was phenomenal.
And it's influenced my own work very much.
In particular, I would say most clearly in FML, where, you know, we have these breakout moments where the characters will address the reader or address one another outside of the story."
"Fourth wall, yeah.
Yeah, and it's very—in the scripts, they're referred to as chibi.
Chibi.
Chibi.
Yes, even though they're not—they don't look like the little Japanese chibi."
"Yeah, yeah.
So that's a very direct influence.
In terms of the feminism in Japanese comics, it's a very different culture from my own."
"And it was interesting to see the ways in which it really did feel like, oh, there's some things about this that feel like a little bit of a time travel where women were really focused on as only objects of motherhood or romantic love.
That was kind of hard."
"But it's not—I also am not an expert on Japanese culture, and I don't know how much the books that I worked on reflect the larger experience of women.
But yeah, I think worldwide we still have some ways to go.
Absolutely."
"Yeah.
Which character next?
Would you like to give the Captain Marvel treatment to, for example, Scarlet Witch?
You know, boy, I think if I were to set myself up to say I was going to do something like that again, I would be setting myself up to fail."
"I don't think I knew that that was what I was doing.
I was just trying to do something that felt very honest, you know?
A little genius.
Yeah, well, you know, my favorite character in comics is Lois Lane."
"Okay.
But I think it's something that I want to keep just— Just be a fan.
Private.
Yeah, you know, just let that be a thing."
"Let me put that in a different way.
Okay.
You've explored some genres.
Uh-huh.
You've explored both indie and sort of superhero big comics, so what would you like to explore next?
I am working on a graphic novel now, so here's a scoop, because this is not announced, but I can't tell you who it's for or what it's about."
"Only at Gamereactor.
There you go.
This is a Gamereactor scoop.
But I am doing a—I'm working on a graphic novel now, and this will be my first time writing at that scope."
"And it's really—that is really interesting to me.
Wonder Woman Historia were 64-page issues, and that felt—that pacing felt more suited to me, and so to be able to think about, oh, you know, what could I do in, like, 240 pages?
Like, that's very— There's a scale of it."
"Yes.
No clues on the genre whatsoever.
I can't tell you anything more, I'll get in trouble.
But I'm pretty sure women will be strong and well-represented, so thank you for your time, Kelly."
"Enjoy the rest of the day, the final day at the San Diego Comic-Con in Malaga.
Enjoy the grounds.
Oh, they're so beautiful, the floor.
You guys, they have marble floor, like, outside."
"I don't understand it.
It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Thank you so much. Enjoy.
Thank you."
