Posted by Anika

This Friday’s Fangirl is known to Twitter and Tumblr and is a strong voice in support of women in comics. She writes about comics on her blog Written World. Her Tumblr About box states “I don’t believe you can overthink.” And if you have any interest in Green Lantern — read on, she has lots to recommend. Fantastic fans, meet Lisa!

Name: Lisa
Age: 29

Where do you live? Germany

What is your job? Education? On paper, I’m a computer repairman in the US Air Force, the exact equipment changes from base to base. In practice I do more NCO stuff than actual maintenance, making sure young men follow the orders of old men. I joined right after high school, so my higher education is BMT and electronics tech school.

Do you have any thoughts about how the military is portrayed in comics? I’ve always been a bit disappointed about it. Military characters tend to be as masculinized as possible (even when female!) and fall within political stereotypes. Even non-active-duty characters that have established personalities, like John Stewart, seem to have been pulled into a macho military guy persona in recent years.

Tell me about your family: I’m from an Italian-American family in the northeast. Just about everyone I’m related to works in some sort of public service career field or has in the past. My father’s a policeman and my mother a nurse, and my brother and sister are both part of fire companies back home.

How long have you been reading comics? Since I was 12 and had to borrow my sister’s comics.

How do you get them now? I order them from a retailer I met through blogging. I’m about a week and a half behind everyone else. Since the major publishers went digital, I’ve been reading more and more on iPad.

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? I’m reluctant to name any one thing as a favorite comic or character, but I can read stories like Soulwind, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, and the first 9 issues of Morrison’s JLA repeatedly without getting sick of them.

My tastes are very fannish. Morrison’s JLA was my introduction to a lot of DC characters back in the 90s and it appealed to my attention span and sense of weirdness. I still think those first few stories with Hyperclan, Tomorrow Woman, the Key, and Zauriel are the best Justice League stories ever written. Those are the ones DC should be trying to revive.

GL: Emerald Knights took one of my favorite characters from Morrison’s JLA, Kyle Rayner, and teamed him up with the most complicated character in his supporting cast: Hal Jordan. This was years before they came up with Rebirth and making Hal a victim all along, back then they were committed to the idea Hal had started out good as good can be and turned bad. So Kyle had the unusual setup of living in the shadow of his greatest enemy’s heroic accomplishments. Kyle only ever met Hal after he became Parallax, but he’s deeply respectful of history and stories so he has this weird mixture of hatred and hero worship during this era. This was the Kyle story where we got to see the hero worship justified. As a Hal story, it’s wonderful because it shows him handling the entire story of his dark fate with grace and honor and probably opened the way to bringing him back as a hero.

Soulwind is an Excalibur story by Scott Morse. It blends fantasy and sci-fi together so naturally, and it is just such a beautiful book and story I can’t get enough of it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can detail why I love it so much without spoiling the entire story.

A favorite character? My favorite character would have to be Wonder Woman, because I am a sucker for “hero goes out into the world” setups. First woman to leave her homeland in 3000 years, and she fights monsters. I’m also big on Green Lanterns, and I think that’s because by franchise nature all of them have a “going out into the universe” moment. My favorite alien GLs have an even further edge on that, Katma Tui specifically chooses going out into the universe over marriage, and Abin Sur is doomed to die very far from his homeworld.

On the Marvel side, my recurring favorite is Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch. I like his personality and there’s something about an artificial lifeform that almost never has the “I wish I were human and had real feelings” storyline that puts him over the top for me. I wish they used him more.

How about favorite creators? I’m that Grant Morrison fan, the one that lives on ultra-compressed hyperactive storylines with wall to wall weirdness made from random pieces of continuity plus throwaway high concepts.

On the art side, I love the energy and flexibility in Patrick Gleason’s work.

What comics are you currently reading? I’m most excited to see Captain America on a monthly basis. I’ve also been reading a lot of back issues of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern lately.

What are you a) most looking forward to and b) most concerned about with the DC relaunch? The answer to both is Wonder Woman. Since Simone got off the book, it’s been lacking but we’ve had a lot of hints that the more irritating bits about the post-Crisis era (no Amazon tech, there’s a whole tribe of violent Amazons being integrated into the central culture, Diana being younger and less experienced than Superman and Batman, Diana alternately crushing on Superman and Batman) will be erased and replaced with classic elements I really like (the Invisible Jet, the gods really being like GODS, Steve Trevor..etc..). There’s also some problems with continuity such as Donna’s origin, pretty much every use of the Gods in the Perez run, the gutting of her pre-Crisis villains, and Hippolyta’s death that I’d like to see gone.

Aside from that, I’m looking forward to the return of Resurrection Man, Grant Morrison redoing Superman’s origin, Batwoman, Tomasi writing John Stewart and Kyle Rayner getting the job I thought he should have had after Blackest Night.

I’m no longer worried they’ll take away Wonder Woman’s softer side, since Azzarello wrote her in For Tomorrow with caring and restraint even when presenting her with the sword. My biggest worry is they’ll do everything I want, but somehow make everything all wrong anyway. They’ll bring back Steve Trevor, but have forgotten his personality and replaced it with something horrible. They’ll have Diana be an orphan and the Kingdom run by her aunt. They’ll mess up the gods again. They’ll do another meta-commentary with Donna Troy… Or they’ll bring back everything want but throw away the good post-Crisis elements like Artemis, Phillipus and Hestia as a patroness.

Second to Wonder Woman, I’m concerned about Green Lantern NOT getting rebootted. I’m worried that with no creative team shakeup and not even an attempt to use the relaunch to clean house (there is some continuity there that Johns is clinging to, like Katma Tui’s murder by a possessed Carol Ferris, that really could be pruned and some bad ideas like making the Predator the violet entity that could be dropping), the franchise will just devour itself until it’s unreadable.

I’ll admit to being afraid to even attempt to follow Green Lantern. What about the characters and stories attracts you and do you have any suggestions for where a GL novice might start? The thing that attracts me to Green Lantern more than anything is the potential in the concept. And yeah, there’s a lot of bad books with good potential that I never look twice at, but Green Lantern is different. It’s not one of those places where you see a lot of potential and the writers squander it. It’s a franchise of unlimited potential that writers will never be able to fully mine, but some of them have managed to touch on it.

I first saw the concept in Morrison’s JLA, when he used Kyle for all sorts of weirdness like being lost in a world of his own making and creating machines to convert motion to sound without knowing anything about science. That’s what attracted me, the potential weirdness. Then I got to reading and I really really liked the Silver Age setup where aliens from across the universe got recruited as peacekeepers. It gave us an in to cosmic DC and a fascinating team concept. Not only is there potential weirdness through the human hero, he can run into just about ANYTHING in a co-worker. It’s the most diverse possible group, all with the same power. And with the history and scale of the organization, you can pretty much tell any story you want with Green Lantern and never come near Earth.

And the vast majority of these are “going out into the universe” stories. These characters can come from any walk of life, from any type of civilization, and they leave home to deal with alien cultures. They can be any species, any race, any gender, any sexuality, any religion, any shape or size, any background. Anyone who has the necessary virtues (courage, since honesty seems to have been downplayed after Broome left) can be a Green Lantern.

And when they get to Oa, they have to integrate with people who can be any species, any race, any gender, any sexuality, any religion, any shape or size, any background. They have to learn to put aside those differences and work as a team, when all they have in common is courage and the desire to keep the universe in order.

For new readers? The best two places to start are with trades of Hal and Kyle. For Hal, try the Green Lantern Showcases, for Kyle check out the Emerald Twilight/A New Dawn then Baptism of Fire trades. (Be forewarned, the titular “Women in Refrigerators” incident happens in New Dawn.) Following Hal will give you the franchise as it was built, following Kyle lets you see an existing universe unfold through the eyes of a new hero.

After that, on the Hal path I strongly, strongly recommend the Green Lantern/Green Arrow trades because of Hal’s character growth and John Stewart’s introduction. Go with Morrison JLA for more Kyle, then head into Emerald Knights, and Circle of Fire.

For GLC-wide stuff, the collection of Geoff Johns’ personal favorites: In Brightest Day is a really strong collection. Two utter essentials, “Mogo Doesn’t Socialize” and “In Blackest Night” aren’t in it, though. Those are in Across the Universe: The DC Stories of Alan Moore.

Also, if you like alien GLs, check out the second Showcase of GL for Katma Tui’s first appearance (Green Lantern #30), and the Traitor trade paperback that collects a Legends of the DCU story with Abin Sur in the Old West.

When you feel comfortable with the continuity and fond of the characters, you’ll enjoy Rebirth a bit more than as a new reader. Best post-Rebirth stories are Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, GL #7-8 (“A Perfect Life”), GLC #1-3, the GLC: Darker Side of Green trade, the Sinestro Corps War crossover, the “Sins of the Star Sapphire” storyline from GLC (this saves the ENTIRE Star Sapphire revamp), and the “Agent Orange” arc in the main GL book.

What kind of fangirl activities do you do? When I lived in the states I went to conventions, but since I moved to Europe it’s been blogging, Twitter, and Tumblr. I do write letters to the editor sometimes.

Hm. What have you written letters about? I tend to write when I want to give negative feedback. Off the top of my head I’ve sent in letters when Arisia came back in an unzipped mini-skirted monstrosity, when they introduced the Pink Nightmare Star Sapphire costume. I can’t remember what ridiculous stuff I sent in as a kid, probably letters to bring back Hal. I never got published until I wrote in asking them to bring back a young Steve Trevor in the next Wonder Woman reboot.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? I love that there’s stories you can only tell with sequential art, effects that need a sequence of still images as well as the text in order to get everything across. I love a well put together page, where every panel has the right effect for the story and the layout itself helps the overall impression, when you read the page with the action of the characters or you need the text actually on the picture to get the effect. My favorite thing is when writers and artists realize what a unique medium they have an play with it a little.

Why do you read them? I read comics for the same reason I watch/read other media. I like heroic stories, and a lot of heroic stories are in comic form, especially superheroes.

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Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

Today’s Fangirl, Julia, uses Wonder Woman as her avatar on Twitter so that’s who I see when I talk with her. No matter the topic of our email and twitter back and forths — Bucky and Black Widow, figure skating, the depiction of Washington DC in media — it’s Wonder Woman in my mind’s eye. So, there you go, she’s wonderful! Fantastic Fans, meet Julia:

Name: Julia
Age: 39 (the big 4-0 in August)
Where do you live? Arlington, Virginia

What is your job? Education? I have my Bachelors in Communications from the University of Alabama. I majored in advertising and minored in history. But I’ve spent the last bunch of years working as a temp in libraries all over the DC area. Last year I started a wonderful permanent job as an information specialist. It’s a jack-of-all-trades job – some library work, some editorial, some web, some databases and some officey work.

Tell me about your family: I am an only child of two now-retired government workers. Both of my parents read heavily, so I came by that habit quite honestly. I like to say we split up the genres in my family. My father reads hard science fiction and alternate history, my mother reads horror and dark fantasy, and I take mysteries and regular fantasy.

How long have you been reading comics? A very long time now. I joked on my blog once that I blame cartoons on my comic book habit and it’s mostly true. I came into comics in the 1970s through the Super Friends. I started picking up Super Friends, Richie Rich, Justice League of America, and of course Wonder Woman. I didn’t really start collecting comics until 1983 when I came across Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans. (The “Who Killed Trident?” issue to be precise.) Then I discovered comic book stores and back issues and one-day conventions. I dropped out of super hero comics during the 1990s, mostly reading Dark Horse and other indies.

I didn’t really come back into collecting full tilt until about 2002. Some of my friends online were talking about the comics and superheroes they loved. They turned me onto the “Justice League” cartoons, so it felt natural to start reading comics again. This was also when the trade paperback boom was hitting the regular bookstores, so I didn’t have to go to a comic store to catch up immediately.

I’ve always been predominantly a DC fangirl. The first two X-men movies pushed me in the general direction of Marvel and then I started exploring the Marvel 616 on people’s suggestions in recent years. I also started reading manga fairly heavily at that point, although I’m a light reader compared the people I know on twitter.

What’s the comparable difference between comics and manga? It’s easy to focus on the art styles, but for me, it’s more about the differences in storytelling, pacing and structure. I’ve noticed it more recently, swapping back and forth between comics and manga. American comics writers and artists have found a way to squeeze a surprising amount of material into 20-30 pages. Every panel has to serve the story, so there’s very little breathing room. Otherwise, readers start getting impatient that there’s not enough happening. With manga, the pacing is so leisurely by comparison. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of having more pages to tell their story or if it’s just a storytelling convention that has developed. It’s not unusual to pick up a manga volume and the first couple of pages won’t have any captions or dialogue, relying only on the visuals to convey the story. It’s a bit of a shock after reading an American comic crammed with heavy exposition.

The other thing that took time to accept was the length of manga. Manga can either be very short and run only one or two volumes, or they can run to thirty or hundred volumes. I’m used to the open-ended serial format of most American comics, where one arc may ends, but the characters continue on and on. With manga, there may be smaller arcs, but usually they fit into a bigger whole. When I read Mai the Psychic Girl in 1987, it was a shock, because it had a definite beginning, middle, and ending. I really had no reference points for that in comics, aside for treating it like a long maxi series.

Both are different approaches. Each excels in telling a particular type of story. I happen to like reading both.

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? A favorite character? For old time’s sake, I’d probably go with the Wolfman-Perez New Teen Titans, because it’s what drew me into comics.

Favorite character has always been Wonder Woman. Always. Even with all the ups and downs that character has had, the different incarnations she’s gone through, she’s still my favorite.

Second current favorite is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. I blame Ed Brubaker squarely on this one. I went into his Captain America run, expecting to love Steve Rogers (and I do, really!), but I didn’t expect to adore Bucky so much.

How about favorite creators?
Favorite writers: Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz, Greg Rucka, Jeff Parker, Ed Brubaker, Scott Snyder, Jim McCann, Marc Andreyko

Favorite artists: George Perez, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Chris Samnee, Francesco Francavilla, Gabriel Hardman, Cliff Chiang

What comics are you currently reading? Going by my recent pile, I read: Captain America, Legion of Super Heroes, Wonder Woman, Detective Comics, Love and Capes, Stuff of Legend, Green Hornet: Year One and various mini-series and one shots. Because of the movie, I’m dipping my toes in Thor with Fraction’s Mighty Thor and my late lamented Thor: The Mighty Avenger. I read the Batman: Brave & Bold and Marvel Adventures’ Super Heroes, because I miss the innocent days of Super Friends.

Manga: I’m mourning the end of the Hikaru no Go manga that I’ve followed through 23 volumes. I never thought I’d get so invested in a series about a Japanese board game. It’s a series about friendship, competition, growing up… and well… a ghost. But he’s a nice ghost. He just wants to play his favorite game.

Older favorites include (but not limited to) Gotham Central, Manhunter, Queen and Country, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Agents of Atlas, Black Widow, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, Astro City, Matt Kindt’s Super Spy. Also Levitz era Legion of Superheroes and any Earth-2 stories.

Do you have one you are enjoying the most right now?

Comics: Love and Capes mini! It’s the first thing I read when I get my pile of comics. I love its quirky perspective on relationships and superheroes and how the two intersect. Particularly in this mini-series, it’s nice seeing how Abby and Mark’s families and friends react to their new status.

Stuff of Legend is a gorgeous series put out by Th3rdworld Studios’ written by Mike Raicht and art by Charles Paul Wilson III. The short sell is a “dark Toy Story meets Fables”. The art is beautiful and sepia toned and feels like something out of a very well illustrated (and scary) children’s book. Stuff of Legends and Love and Capes are the two series I point to when someone asks the point of Free Comic Book Day, because I wouldn’t have found them or tried them without that added push.

Manga: I love Kingyo Used Books, a manga series from Viz Signature series set around a manga bookstore. You meet the regulars at the bookstore and just the random customers that float through and interact with them. Each chapter relates to or is inspired by a particular manga series. And they’ve included detailed notes at the end.

What kind of fangirl activities do you do? Mostly I write, whether fanfiction or blogging or twitter. I love talking about comics with other fans particularly, seeing what others are enjoying. I’ve attended a few comic book conventions, but I’m limited by finances and location. As mentioned above, I listen to quite a few fan audio shows. I’ve been known to do fannish cross stitch pieces, usually using someone else’s design. But mostly I write.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? Gods, where do I even start? I think what always strikes me is the sheer breadth of comic books, all the genres and moods the stories can encompass. You can read a tough gritty crime book on one day and then find a loveable all ages book on another. There are so many different types of stories that can be told with comic books.

That said I unapologetically love superheroes. I do read other genres, but I always go back to what I know and love. They’re an odd kind of comfort reading. I love reading about people doing heroic things, standing up to darkness in all forms. I think I err on believable rather than ultra realistic. I’ve always been drawn more to the “boring” heroic types. I also seem to have a knack for finding heroes and teams with the most bizarre continuities – hello Hawkman and Legion of Super Heroes!

I love when that perfect synergy happens between a writer and artist, so it’s pure magic. The best comics leave you wondering what happens next and craving the next issue yesterday. They are also the hardest to see go away, because you can’t imagine anyone else writing/drawing those characters.

I love history and continuity in comics. Yes, I will quibble with the best of them. I love the sense of reading a greater interconnected universe and seeing how super-heroes live their lives outside fighting crime.

And weirdly I love how cyclical comics can be. I swore up and down I’d never see anyone lost in the Crisis on Infinite Earths in my lifetime and yet Infinite Crisis proved me wrong. Comics keeps changing and hopefully I’ll still be reading when it changes again.

That’s a good attitude to have! Thank you for sharing with us.
–
Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

This Friday’s Fangirl is ME. Introductions to me are posted here at Fantastic Fangirls, here at Red Carpet Superhero, on my blog, and my tumblr. Or you could read the interview! Fantastic Fans, meet Anika:

Name: Anika Milik

Age: 35

Where do you live? Middletown, Connecticut, USA

What is your job? Education? I majored in Dance (within the Theatre Arts program) at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Currently, I am an admin for the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department at Wesleyan University for which I get a paycheck. I’m also a Mommy, a blogger, an author, a songwriter, still a dancer, a fangirl and more, for which I sometimes get a paycheck and sometimes wouldn’t call a job.

Tell me about your family: I have a husband, two daughters, and three brothers. And my wonderful Balinese cat. My husband, Christian, is also my personal stylist and costumer and did the art for this weblog. His favorite superhero is the Flash (Barry Allen). My older daughter, Kiki, doesn’t like me to talk about her online but her favorite superheroes are The Powerpuff Girls. Her sister, Aeris, however, loves it when I talk about her and her favorite superhero is currently Thor. My brothers are all younger: John, the artist, who likes Supergirl; Fred, the English Studies graduate student, who likes Johnny Storm; and Hendrik, the law student, who likes Batman. My cat’s full name is Ketut Lucy-Cat, I got her in Bali, Indonesia, almost 20 years ago and her favorite superhero is obviously Hepzibah (which, by the way, is actually the name of my childhood pet cat).

How long have you been reading comics? I definitely read Tintin when I was around 9 years old. And I read X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Batman throughout high school. And also Star Trek and TNG comics. Then I went through the requisite “Sandman Phase” in college. And finally, I got sucked back into my superhero roots by way of Heroclix about seven years ago.

Tell me about Heroclix. How did you get into it, and how did it rekindle your interest in the comics? Heroclix is a strategy game played with little figures of superheroes on battle maps of places like Avengers Mansion and The Daily Planet. Christian’s roleplaying group introduced us to it. My first click was Logan and I still collect all versions of Wolverine (which is the most difficult of all my collections as there is at least one new one in every Marvel set; I also have all Lorna Danes but that’s 4 figures total). Christian started playing competitively and Kiki and I’d hang out at the store for the hour. What do you do stuck in a comic book shop for an hour every Wednesday night? You browse comics! I started with X-Men, because of my Logan click. I picked up New X-Men 148 — Wolverine and Jean Grey are stranded on Asteroid M and it is falling into the sun. So Logan guts Jean and carries her outside where they burn to dust.

!!!

I bought that issue and the end of the run (this “omg comics are awesome” fervor might explain some of why I love Here Comes Tomorrow. I had no idea what was going on about ANYTHING so it didn’t matter that I had no idea what was going on with that. Plus there is a sentient sentinel. And Jean’s a princess) and then moved over to my true love, The Avengers.

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? A favorite character? Ms. Marvel answers both questions. As stated before, Brian Reed’s 50 issue run on Ms. Marvel is my favorite comic. It’s not the best comic, not the best story, not the best writing or art, not the “best” anything. But it is my favorite, nothing else even approaches my loyalty to and love for that book.

And Carol Danvers is who I would be if I had superpowers. And she’s possibly even more super without the powers.

How about favorite creators? Bendis, Fraction, Kelly Sue, Jim McCann who made me not hate Hawkeye, Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, Jeff Parker, George Perez. I’ve loved pretty much every thing Sean McKeever ever wrote. Brian Reed, for Ms. Marvel. AMANDA CONNER. And Jimmy Palmiotti, too.

What do you like about meeting comics creators? Well, the ones that I have encountered have all had one thing in common: enthusiasm. Every creator I have spoken with at a convention (or related party) has been as interested in talking to me as I was in talking to them. The truth is, I have a very narrow selection of comics I pay attention to. And I have had to make a point of noting who the creators are. But except for Reed (who I haven’t met), all the creators I listed above are there because I’ve met them and they were wonderful as much as they are there for their work (there are a few I left off despite being a fan of their work, too).

What comics are you currently reading? Um. Yeah. New Avengers. And … Kick Ass 2?

What’s made you read fewer current comics? The first answer is the lack of access. I simply don’t have a Local Comic Store. The closest are at least half an hour away and I don’t need to tell you gas prices are ridiculous right now. On top of the increased price of the books themselves, it’s prohibitory. And as well as being not-that-local, one is a mostly-sports-memorabilia (Red Sox AND Yankees, side by side) hobby store and the other is Newberry Comics, the precursor to Hot Topic. It’s in the mall. We used to go to a store every Saturday to play and judge Heroclix but we stopped playing competitively and then the store closed. Two other stores recently changed owners.

Now, I could mail order my comics or have a subscription at one of these and go once a month, but that’s where the second answer comes in. At my former, now closed, store I was subscribed to “anything with so-and-so in it” and I was allowed to not buy the things I didn’t want. This is impossible without that store. Solicits do not help me understand what comic books Carol Danvers is appearing in (and/or in a real capacity that I want to read). OBVIOUSLY she was gonna be in every issue of Ms. Marvel. Without that, it’s a lot harder. Especially when something like Widowmaker (and I say this with great respect and affection for Jim McCann) is really about Hawkeye. And I also get discouraged when the things I go out of my way to pick up in a timely fashion are canceled because “no one’s reading them” (YOUNG ALLIES) (Or, hey, MS. MARVEL). Yay, I’m no one.

So this is where I’m at. I got Avengers 13 last week because Sigrid told me to and I loved it! That’s the best I can do.

What kind of fangirl activities do you do? All of them. I mean, I write fanfic, I make fanmixes and fanart and fanvids, I fancast everyone (and their offspring), I have epic roleplaying adventures, I cosplay, I blog about comics, I collect and play Heroclix, I collect other figures and glasses and badges and toys, I go to conventions, I quote Spider-Man to my students, I bring up superheroes in every day conversation, I talk and talk and talk. And I interview other fangirls!

What’s your favorite fancasting? I’m glad you asked favorite. There are a few I think really click, like Emily Blunt as Jessica Drew. I still love Naomi Watts for Carol Danvers and Billie Piper for Lorna Dane. But my favorite is my Parker-Danvers-Danvers-Parker Family:

Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson as Carol Danvers and Peter Parker, Ms. Marvel/New Avengers era. Diane doesn’t seem to like superheroes and Hollywood will never let Peter grow up BUT, they play in the movie in my head. And as Carol and Peter’s children:

Jackson Rathbone (Obi-wan “Ben” Parker) and Evan Rachel Wood (Amelia Danvers).

Note that I don’t take full credit for Jackson and that ERW should totally be MJ Watson in the next not-grown-up-Spidey movie.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? I now have an additional respect for everyone I’ve interviewed so far. These questions are hard!

My favorite thing about comics is that they continue. There are no happy or unhappy endings, not forever, it always goes on. Just like life. I read these stories because I love these characters. My characters — besides Carol, there is Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Jessica Jones, Natasha Romanova, Bruce Wayne, Talia Al Ghul, Mary Jane Watson, Tim Drake and Cassie Sandsmark, Lorna Dane and Alex Summers, Mayday Parker, Anya Corazon, Damian Wayne, Mindy McCready… And I’m listing their real names deliberately. I love superheroes but not because they’re superpowered or fight crime, because they’re the type of wide-eyed idealists who choose to (yes, even Batman).

Thank you to Sigrid and Jennifer for asking additional questions!

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Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

This Friday’s Fangirl is a little different. Mostly because he’s a BOY. I know, that goes against the idea of Fangirl Friday (to introduce the internet to the great variety of fangirls out there!) but the truth is women are hardly the only fans being marginalized by the mainstream comic book world. The industry caters to the audience they’re used to: white, heterosexual, men. So, in opposition, here’s me and Allen. We met on Twitter through a love of Carol Danvers and both work to prove comic book fans come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and categories. We hope someday comic books better reflect the audience we are used to. Fantastic fans, meet Allen!

Name: Allen

Age: 23

Where do you live? Conway, Arkansas

Where do you go to school? What’s your major and do you have any career goals? I attend the University of Central Arkansas. I am currently working on a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology, and intend to be a counselor. I’m not sure what demographic to work with, but I want to work with a diverse clientele, esp. Black and LGBT youth.

Tell me about your family: I am the oldest of about 8 children, which involves a long story of divorce, high school pregnancy, and marriage, not in that order though. I have a huge extended family, which means I don’t really get to know everyone, but I’m learning to try.

How long have you been reading comics? I’ve been reading since I was about 16/17. I started when I was watching the Teen Titans series. I fell in love with Raven and decided to learn all I could about her, which led me to buy the second story arc involving her father (which is the one that TT: Season 4 is based on!)

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? A favorite character? It’s hard for me to pick a favorite comic of all time, but I guess I’d have to go with Teen Titans. My favorite character is Raven. I love that she is an empath and I like her powerset.

How about favorite creators? Writers: Geoff Johns, George Perez, Marv Wolfman. They are all involved in writing some of my favorite TT stories (Trigon, Judas Contract, Titans: EAST). My favorite artist was Michael Turner. I loved his crisp art. Just the outlines of characters he draws is enough for me.

What comics are you currently reading? I’m currently reading Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Avengers Academy, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade, and miscellaneous things. I’m waiting to get into a 20+ issue stack of Gotham City Sirens

Gotham girls and young avengers — do you think there is a pattern there? Why do those stories interest you? I love that Young Avengers has a Black boy (still leader? Can’t remember…) and a young gay couple. As far as identification is concerned, I’ve never been able to identify *more* with a team (if Wiccan and Patriot were one person, we’d be golden). And as far as GCS, I love Selina and Ivy and love to see them together (I don’t mind Harley). But pattern? I typically love more well-rounded teams as far as demographics and I develop more emotional bonds with female characters. I love these stories because they just feel ‘different’, though I don’t know what different means. A JLA story can be cool, but I find myself more involved in the stories of the aforementioned series.

What kind of fanboy activities do you do? I frequent the LCS (The Batcave) and wear superhero shirts every Wednesday to celebrate New Comic Book Day. I’ve also gotten into making some tees (Phoenix, Ms. Marvel).

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? I love that comics are another world where people do fantastical things, but have their own hang ups. I read them to see what’s going on with all my favorite characters (some exceptions like New Avengers; I love Carol but can’t really bring myself to get the comic every month).

Ha, where New Avengers is the only comic I get every month. Are some ongoings easier to keep up with than others? Absolutely! Avengers Academy? I can follow every month. Avengers, however, is extremely trying for me. There are some that are effortless, and others that are effortfull.

There has been a lot of discussion about diversity in comics. You mentioned wanting to work with Black and LGBT youth — what do you think of the portrayal of these minority groups in comic books? As it stands, I’m not happy. I love that there are Black and LGBT characters, but I feel they rely on stereotypes. How often do you see a middle class Black character in comics? How about an LGBT character who is a of color? Luke Cage is stereotypical to me, but I admire his no-bullshit stance and I think he’s a pretty positive character in terms of exposure and bravado. If I ever use comics as therapy, I sincerely hope that my clients can see their face. Taking the current representation and portrayal of Black and LGBT characters, I’m not sure they will, just as I don’t.

Online alternative casting Spider-pick Donald Glover with Hollywood traditional casting Spider-pick Andrew Garfield.

How about in comic book fandom (fan discussion, writing, and art, etc.)? To be completely honest, I think fandom is mired in privilege and casual forms of discrimination. If I ever bring up these issues, people think I’m grasping at straws or that it’s not an issue. I will admit, I’m not accurate in what I say and I get carried away in my ideals, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Some comic fans are very quick to support a primarily (or all) White, heterosexual and male status quo. Again, I must admit that I feel the same way about some things. Seeing a Black Hawkeye in a movie will feel ‘weird’, but there is no doubt that it would be indicative of a great social momentum, change, and possibly upheaval. I am afraid of some change, but I don’t want to be so scared of change that comics stay the same forever. I mean, really, 1000 years in the future and there are hardly any Black faces in the Legion?

How might you make changes, if you had the power to do so? Do you have a preference for creating new characters or for changing up existing characters? I’d start by creating a new team of young folks, a la Avengers Academy. Whenever I make up my own teams, I try to be deliberate, but also respectful. One has a Black female leader, a Middle Eastern male with near cosmic power, an interracial gay couple (White/Black), and a Hispanic girl, and a White male. I wanted to have a well rounded team as far as diversity and powers. This could be ‘diversity for diversity’s sake’ or even tokenism, but I try to make it neither. Or, I’d take older characters, like Monica Rambeau, and use them in a better way, put them in the spotlight. In essence, I like new characters and existing characters being used in different ways.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Allen, and good luck in all your endeavors!

Note: The next Fangirl Friday (two weeks from today) will feature ME. My cohorts will be handling the interviewing but if any of you have questions for me, please send them my way!
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Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

You probably know today’s Fangirl from Twitter (she’s a member of #TeamCarol and #AnarchyBubbles) or maybe from Star Wars fandom (she’s an expert). I once compared her to Nick Fury because when she tweets LIKE A BOSS he’s who I imagine, but really I think of her as the Spider-Girl to my Ms. Marvel (so secretly I think Anya Corazon wants to be Nick Fury when she grows up). Fantastic fans, meet Mandy!

Name: Mandy Bulat
Age: 25. A very young, hale, and hearty 25.
Where do you live? With your mom. For reals though, I live in Atlanta.

What is your job? Education? Well, I work in executive relations for an unnamed wireless industry giant. Or a spy. I’ll go with spy. As far as education goes, I have a semi-useless degree in music. It didn’t initially start out that way, but when I graduated it was like I woke up one day and thought, “Wow. I don’t want to do this anymore.” It’s kind of like those 8-year-old pageant queens, but with a lot more loans and a lot less spray tans. (You can see I’ve spent time justifying my life decisions, huh?) Currently, I’ve got one more semester left before getting a Master of Library and Information Science, hold the Library. I’m currently debating on nanotechnology programs so I can live out my dream of becoming Tony Stark.

How long have you been reading comics? Oh, comics. I think I celebrated my one year comics-versary at the beginning of March. I tried several times to get into the medium, but a combination of poor experiences in LCS(es) and not having any idea where to start put me out. I think I can credit a couple of different sources for finally pushing me over the edge. Firstly, my friend Abigail literally besieged me with WHY ARE YOU NOT READING THESE THINGS, READ THESE THINGS AND YOU WILL LIKE THEM. Once I had a cheerleader, I turned to the all-powerful internet and researched generic “Where/How/Why/When should I start reading comics?” Interestingly enough, I stumbled onto your blog and the first post I read was Sigrid’s entry on Warren Ellis’ Global Frequency. Once it was described as being “West Wing-esque”, I knew I had to go buy it. Herein was the problem, I actually went to a LCS and the experience left me feeling slightly humiliated and intimidated. Though I ended up loving the comic, I kind of gave up. Around that time, people were all but shoving the Whedon/Cassaday run of Astonishing X-Men at me. Yeah, same song, different verse. On a happier note, I found a LCS that I absolutely adore.

That’s interesting. I have a long history of awful LCS experiences myself, and the internet is what keeps me from giving up comics. How did you find the LCS you like? I moved to a different area of Atlanta in early 2010, and did a quick googling of comic shops. Dr. No’s Comics & Games appeared as a the closest option to where I lived. I’m pretty sure I made my bff go in on a Sunday with me, and the staff were very helpful and took the time to take me on a tour of the store and explain things to me without making me feel stupid. In addition to actually being friendly as well as paying attention to me, it also helps that the store does not look like a dungeon. (Ahem, other Atlanta-based LCS’s…) This was right around the time that the big Siege event in Marvel was taking place, so there were a host of jumping-on points for me. From then on, I’ve been a regular Wednesday customer. I think a big part of my enjoyment and loyalty to this particular LCS is based on customer service. When the store owner takes the time to pick out books he thinks I will like, or alternately hold a title because I’m generally one of the last people in the store, it makes me feel valued and appreciated. I’m a snowflake, dammit.

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? A favorite character? I am basically the comic book equivalent of a moth to a flame. If it’s bright, shiny, or new I’m going to say it’s my Favorite Comic of All Time. I think it would be easier for me if I textually vomited comics that have Stirred An Emotion and Will Have A Lasting Impression On Me which include, but are not limited to: Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, Marjorie M. Liu and Daniel AcuÑa’s run on Black Widow, Casanova by Matt Fraction, Bá, and Moon, Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee (I… don’t want to talk about it…), and pretty much anything having to do with Fraction and Larroca’s Invincible Iron Man. God, there’s a trend, isn’t there? Character of choice goes to Tony Stark. Apparently, I have thing for the broken types.

So, did you encounter Tony in the movies before the comics? This is a grey area where I’m just confused about what came first: the proverbial chicken or the proverbial egg. I knew there was a movie, but, and this will shock people, I never watched it. I knew there was a comic, but I never read it. I’m fairly sure the Stark: Disassembled arc in IIM and watching the movie happened at roughly the same time. I was a goner, no cure, etc.

Any favorite creators? Oh, this is easy: Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis, Marjorie M. Liu, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Bryan Q. Miller, Jim McCann, Scott Synder, and SO MANY OTHERS. Oh, and can I mention Chris Samnee? If he sketched a snail, I’d declare it a visual masterpiece.

What comics are you currently reading? Is it gauche to just link my pull list? Suffice it to say, I pull a fair amount of Marvel titles save for the Ultimates line (I make an exception for Ult!Spidey), and as for DC, I’ve started to read junior varsity Bat-characters which I’m enjoying. I’ll usually pull whatever Dark Horse Star Wars titles are available as that’s my main fandom. Oh! I’m really liking the revamped CrossGen titles that Marvel’s putting out, too.

What kind of fangirl activities do you do? Well, I blog, but the old homestead is sorely neglected. As I touched upon earlier, Star Wars is where I got my nerd street cred. I’m the interview coordinator for TheForce.Net, and when the planets align, you can catch me on the Forcecast podcast. I *just* started going to cons in late 2009, and was invited to host a social media panel in relation to Star Wars this summer at Star Wars: Celebration V, as well as moderating a couple of panels at Dragon*Con. I guess my main online presence can be tied to social media outlets like Twitter and Tumblr.

My husband listens to the Forcecast all the time, and Mugglecast, and as I hinted before, social media outlets like Twitter and Tumblr, or more precisely, the interactions they bring me, are what keep me interested in comics and all my other fandoms. How would you describe the impact social media has on fandom? Social media is my lifeblood. It hasn’t replaced anything in regards to how fandom has traditionally communicated, but it has made for new avenues in communication between fans, creators, publishers, and celebrities. Part of it has to do with the dissemination of information. When a creator or publishing house announces a new project, or perhaps the cancellation of a title, the tweets, retweets, and emotion begin to spread across social media outlets often before an official story can be published. It essentially becomes real-time reporting with casual users offering their citizen-journalist take on the situation. The more exciting aspect, in my opinion, is the open dialogue between creator and fan. When I can tweet something to Bendis or Kelly Sue about how much I enjoyed their most recent work and a response is given, that adds depth and value to my personal enjoyment of the comic. Moreover, social media, particularly Twitter, Tumblr, and podcasting, deal in relevancy. What makes comics relevant to me? Why should I buy this comic? Why should I care about this character? The responses from these outlets help me determine the answers to those questions as well as building a community around myself of people who share similar views and tastes. Where else can we play Marvel Bingo during the Academy Awards?

Do you think there are any drawbacks? Oh, for sure! There is a level of transparency that you have to accept when you become involved publicly (online at least) in fandom. I went through a period where I had everything locked down because I was afraid 1) of non-fandom friends discovering my ~true self~ 2) there are some creepy as fuck creepers out there on the internet, and 3) there be trolls in those hills. After awhile, I realized that I had pigeonholed myself into a tiny corner of internet real estate, and decided to come out of the geek closet for good. It’s been refreshing, I tell ya what. As far as the creepers go, you just deal. I think it’s different for girls online because for whatever reason, there is that extra ick factor with some people that can’t help but make sexual advances over the Twitters. Either way, that’s why Reed Richards invented the block button. Also, I firmly believe that Thor will smite the hell out of the people that don’t believe that I am Right on the Internet trolls.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? Initially I joked that between working full-time and going to grad school full-time, the only thing I had an attention span for were picture books. In essence, that really is true. I can read quality literature with gorgeous art, while still having the time to savor the details and stories. Part of it is the idea behind the serialized format. Because you have so long to build plots (particularly in ongoings), I think comic readers reap the benefits of well-crafted story-telling. Eh, I’m talking out of my ass here. I don’t know if I can make my point… I like synergy, man. The combination of art and words appeals to me on every level.

One more question: Who’s the Tony Stark of Star Wars? Hah! That’s a good question. To take a really liberal scan of the character you’d have to look for a person prone to addictions: sex, alcohol, being a hero, etc. There’s got to be a complex there, too. Also a drive to atone for whatever actions they blame themselves for…. So, I don’t really know who fits that bill. This may sound kind of odd, but I’d go with Leia. My head-canon for Leia associates her with some of these traits. In some ways, I guess Luke is the Cap to Leia’s Tony? Leia is more concerned with the overall picture I think, a futurist of sorts. I’ll just… put this tinhat back over here and walk away slowly, mmkay?

That is the Best Answer Ever. And obviously Carol Danvers is Han Solo (attention Marvel Marketing). Thanks for chatting with me!

Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

Today’s Fangirl is an old friend of the site who, in my head, was interchangeable with Barbara Gordon for at least the first three months after I met her (this is a compliment, I assure you). She’s my go-to girl for DCU trivia (who doesn’t mind when I text her randomly to ask “what’s Roy Harper’s day job?”) and I wish she was my kids’ librarian. Fantastic Fans, meet Margot!

Name: Margot

Age: 26

Where do you live? Georgia

Tell me about your family: My parents, my younger brother, and a cat. My dad has been reading/collecting comics since the early 1960s, and one day I am going to steal his collection, once I can figure out how to transport it from NY to Georgia. Dad and I are the only ones into comics, though. Most of my reading habits were picked up from him. (Most of my tv watching habits as well.)

How long have you been reading comics? Since I was about 8 or 9. Dad always had comics around the house, but I wasn’t interested until Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series. Dad basically handed me the comics and told me that since I liked Robin and Jubilee so much, I could read more about them. And I enjoyed them, but I didn’t really imprint on anything until I started reading Generation X and Chuck Dixon’s runs on Nightwing, Robin and Birds of Prey. That was when I really connected with comics.

This continued for a while, until I was 16 and Dad introduced me to the people who worked at his LCBS. I knew more about Batman then the manager did, so she hired me, and I worked there until I finished high school.

Nice! What’s your current job? I’m a library tech at a university. I have an B.A. in history (with a concentration in medieval history), half a Master’s degree in education, and I’m one semester away from finishing my MLIS. Eventually, I’m going to be a teen librarian so I can help tweens and teens find the books that they can connect with, and hopefully get more of them reading.

What a great goal. What are some of your favorite tween and teen titles or series? My favorites are mostly fantasy/scifi based – I love anything Tamora Pierce has ever written. For a younger audience, I’ll always recommend Bruce Coville. Susan Collins, who wrote The Hunger Games, also has a middle grade series called The Underland Chronicles which was amazing.

The Ranger’s Apprentice series is a lot of fun, and I’m eagerly awaiting the newest book in Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicles. Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief series is fantastic. The Mysterious Benedict Society is another great middle grade series that didn’t get as much attention as it should have.

There’s simply so much wonderful YA fantasy coming out that I am pretty sure I’ll never catch up on my to-read list – I’m rapidly approaching 2,000 titles on that.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? I love superheroes. I love the relationships between the characters, and the family formed by the different teams. That’s why I love the various incarnations of the Titans so much – they’re a family. They may not always like each other, but they always love each other, and they take care of their own. I love ridiculous crossovers, and I love the teamups.

Honestly, I just love the characters – if I wasn’t so invested in them, comics wouldn’t have the power to make me angry or upset. But just rereading ridiculous moments of Dick and Tim being brothers, or Wolverine and his adopted daughters (Seriously, why isn’t there a Daughters of Wolverine comic? Kitty, Jubilee, Hisako, Laura and Pixie would be the best team ever) also makes me incredibly happy, so it balances out.

Do you have a favorite comic? The Wolfman-Perez run of New Teen Titans, followed very closely by Young Justice, Chuck Dixon’s run on Nightwing, and Generation X.

A favorite character? My favorite characters are Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, and Jubilee. This hasn’t changed since I was 8, and I highly doubt that it ever will. On the other hand, Stephanie Brown is trying very hard to make my list of permanent favorites, and considering how great Batgirl is, this will probably happen.

How about favorite creators? Marv Wolfman and George Perez, Peter David (who I will love forever for Supergirl and Young Justice), Gail Simone, Chuck Dixon, Bryan Q Miller, Matt Fraction and Jeff Parker. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone.

What comics are you currently reading? Not nearly as many comics as I used to. I’m down to pretty much Batgirl, Tiny Titans, and any comic that has Jubilee in it. This is partially because comics are really expensive and my LCBS is horrible, and also because I’ve gotten really frustrated with the direction of comics in the last few years. I don’t particularly like grim and gritty, and so many of my favorite characters have been killed/depowered/are Roy Harper that it’s hard to care. I only have so much energy to be upset about things, and comics were using up too much of it. So I’ve been trade waiting most things, or just waiting to find out from people I trust which comics I should be reading.

“Grim and gritty” is often sold as “realistic”. Do you think realism has any place in comics? Realism definitely has a place in comics, I just don’t think “and now everything is awful” is the only realistic thing. Why does every single superhero’s backstory have to involve rape or the death of a loved one? Why can’t we have the heroes who are just trying to do the right thing? Why does Barry Allen suddenly need to be motivated by his mother’s murder?

And on a related note, why don’t any of these characters actually like each other? Everyone remembers when the X-Men play baseball or the Titans go on a camping trip, but now I don’t even know why these characters are friends, or even if they still are. It was the relationships that got me into the comics, and the destruction of the friendships that are making it harder to care.

Two very good considerations. Though I will say that while “just trying to do the right thing” is a motivation I can admire, it can make it harder for me to embrace that character. That said, layers of motivation don’t have to start at rape and murder. I don’t have a problem with other motivations, it’s just that when pretty much every motivation is rape and murder that it bothers me. I mean, Dick Grayson is my favorite character, and his backstory is murdered parents. It’s when they’ve changed that origin for everyone that it bothers me. Variety – not every superhero needs to just want to do the right thing, but not every one needs to have a horribly angsty past. There’s no reason to retcon Ice’s history, or Barry’s.

All the favorite characters you’ve mentioned are legacy characters, do you think that’s a coincidence? That’s one of my favorite things about comics. I love the complicated continuity and the different generations of heroes, and how they build and change off the previous generations. I love the complicated relationships that the sidekicks have with their mentors, and watching the next generation embrace their roles. (My favorite Marvel superhero team is the Young Avengers, I’m sure you’re shocked by that.)

What kind of fangirl activities do you do? Most of my fangirl activities are focused on Power Rangers these days. I run a recap blog, a fandom newsletter, and a discussion community for the current season. For comics, I reblog a lot of stuff on tumblr, and tweet occasionally, but Power Rangers is pretty much where my fannish brain is these days. I also write a lot of fanfic.

Then there are conventions, which I love. I’ve placed in comics trivia every year I’ve attended Dragon*Con, and usually I’m the only girl who does. It’s annoying. Luckily, Caroline is coming to Dragon*Con this year, so I won’t be alone.

How many girls enter the trivia contest? Sadly, not that many – I was one of a handful the first year I entered, the only one the second year I entered (but they only let finalists play that year) and last year I was one of two.

They restructure the trivia every year, and it’s always a lot of fun. Hopefully next year I won’t forget Bethany Cabe’s name.

So — why Power Rangers? The short answer is “I like superheroes who are good people.” The longer answer is that I like Power Rangers for the same reasons I like superhero comics – the relationships between the characters, the fights, the giant crossovers, and the teams themselves. We’re currently on the 18th season. Some seasons are better than others – RPM, Space and Time Force are probably the best seasons, even if the first four seasons (Mighty Morphin + Zeo) will always be my favorites.

You still get a lot of the same things that comics have – people arguing about how do the powers work or where does this season that involved time travel fit in continuity, and is this still an alternate universe or does it count as main canon since it’s been referenced in other places, etc. Good times.

I honestly had no idea there are 18 seasons of Power Rangers! I watched those early seasons, where everything masked was original Japanese footage. Are they still color coded? And it must be an entirely different cast, right? Are there legacy Rangers or is it all new continuity? The Japanese Super Sentai that Power Rangers is based on is on season 35 right now. It’s about space pirates, and it’s great. I can’t wait for it to be adapted into season 20 of Power Rangers.

They are still color coded. This season’s rangers are pink, yellow, blue, green and red. (The only colors that carry over to every season are red, blue and yellow.) Most of the fight scenes (and the villains) are all based off the super sentai, and this year’s plot line is following very close to the Sentai original.

This season is samurai themed, and it’s absolutely adorable. The cast is new, and most of them grew up watching the show – with one exception. Paul Schrier, who played Bulk on the original series, is back for his 8th season of the show. And his sidekick this season is Skull’s son.

All of the seasons, with the possible exception of RPM are in the same universe. This allows for the once a season teamup with the previous ranger team. We also got two great anniversary specials which had multi-season teamups – the 10th anniversary special brought back 10 Red Rangers, and the 15th anniversary special just decided to bring in all of my favorites. And of course, Tommy (the original green Ranger) came back for season 12, just so he could pick up a fourth color.

What would make a good comic book crossover with Power Rangers? Batman. For two reasons. First, in a really early episode a character makes a reference to the Power Rangers doing to Angel Grove what Batman did for Gotham. Second, I want Carter Grayson of Lightspeed Rescue (season 8 ) to be related to Dick Grayson.

twitter: The2ndBatgirl
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Thanks for being a part of this, Margot, there are some thoughtful responses here that I will be considering for a while. And my reading wishlist just went up, too.

Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl

Posted by Anika

It’s another Friday and another Fangirl! I like to call Sarah my fashion twin on the West Coast; we once had a Shoe Closet Twitpic exchange that sealed the deal. Besides being fabulously fashionable, Sarah sometimes gets to make her living being a fangirl. She’s been our collaborator through Alert Nerd and someday we are all going to write a MARVEL GIRL movie together. Fantastic Fans, meet Sarah:

Name: Sarah Kuhn
Where do you live? Los Angeles

What is your job? Education? I have a B.A. in Communication (with an Ethnic Studies minor) from Mills College. And I’m a full-time writer — I’ve worked mostly in entertainment and geek-centric journalism for the past 12 years, though I’ve also taken weird detours into writing, like, articles for swimming pool magazines and encyclopedia definitions for the official Star Trek website. In other words, I can expound at length about both on-ground pool accessories and the Jem’Hadar. I know you are impressed.

Is there a geek-centric article you are most proud of? Or one that’s particularly interesting? Let’s see…well, I’ve done pieces on stuff like when it’s appropriate to sub in nerd curse words (frak, frell, etc.) for real ones. And I’ve had the opportunity to profile quite a few of my own geek heroes, like Joss Whedon and Nana Visitor. But I think one of the most flat-out fun things I’ve ever done was a series of articles about actors who parlayed small roles on TV shows into something more — like, they were just supposed to be a guest star and then ended up being so popular, they became series regulars or recurring players. I talked to folks like Sean Gunn from Gilmore Girls and Vik Sahay from Chuck and David H. Lawrence XVII from Heroes and it may not have been the most obviously nerdy story I’ve ever done, but it did delve quite a bit into TV minutiae and what makes characters resonate for audiences.

How long have you been reading comics? Since I was a wee child. I started with Archies (I only remember the most randomly random of stories, like the issue wherein Jughead created his own sub sandwich-esque hamburger and named it “The Jughead Burgerino.” Or the Veronica spin-off series, wherein she jet-setted to a different country every issue and had fabulous adventures). But my deep hunger for complicated, near-incomprehensible continuity eventually led me to the X-Men and other pockets of the Marvel U.

Do you have a favorite comic of all time? A favorite character? Oh, gosh. The “OF ALL TIME” questions make me all nervous, cause I will surely forget something. I guess I’ll be a big ol’ nerd cliche and say “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” because it blew my tiny mind at a very young age and has stayed with me ever since and sort of contains everything I think a powerful superhero story should have: massive stakes, gut-churning emotions, dizzying plot spins, and swoony romance. I also adore Brian Michael Bendis’/Michael Gaydos’ Alias, because it blew my mind in a completely different way. And Chynna Clugston’s Blue Monday, Jen Van Meter’s Hopeless Savages, and Javier Grillo-Marxuach’s The Middleman all have that special quality where I feel like they were created JUST FOR ME.

As far as characters go, gotta give it up for Jean Grey and Jessica Jones.

And Jenny Sparks. And Jimmy Woo. And Emma Frost. And Jen Walters. And Lydia Park. And I will keep going unless I stop right now.

What comics are you currently reading? I read everything in trade at this point, so I’m not totally current on anything. I’m always eagerly awaiting new trades of Fables, Terry Moore’s Echo, Invincible Iron Man, Buffy, anything Agents of Atlas-related, and Secret Six, and am looking forward to reading the conclusions of recently-ended series like Air, Madame Xanadu, Unknown Soldier, and the iteration of New Avengers that wrapped up last year. I’ve dipped in and out of various X-Men and Avengers books in recent years, but the stuff I’ve enjoyed most lately has either been in the miniseries vein (like Kathryn Immonen’s Pixie Strikes Back) or sadly short-lived (S.W.O.R.D.). I also dig various webcomics, like Kevin Church’s/Benjamin Birdie’s just-finished The Rack, Max Riffner’s Drunk Elephant, Paul Horn’s Cool Jerk, Chris Haley’s/Curt Franklin’s Let’s Be Friends Again, and Faith Erin Hicks’ The Adventures of Superhero Girl.

What’s your favorite thing about comics? Why do you read them? Well, this will probably sound hopelessly dopey, but I love the way comics combine something so visual with the written word: you can tell a story in such a unique way. Comics provide me with characters I invest in fully and…oh, hell, can I just link to Sigrid’s amazing response to this question? I love what she said and I completely agree. And actually, that relates to something else I love about reading comics: there’s a communal aspect to it, a heightened passion within the fandom. Connecting with other fans on Twitter, geeking out over plot twists at cons, getting into heated debates about which ‘ship you ‘ship: sometimes that’s just as fun as, you know…reading the actual comics.

So, what kind of fangirl activities do you do? Oh, you know — the usual. I tweet, obsess over who they’re going to cast in the Hunger Games movies, get needlessly enraged at people who diss The Vampire Diaries. I wrote a geek novella, One Con Glory, that’s all about a fangirl who enjoys doing similar things. I love going to cons — I was on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con last year called “Geek Girls Exist.” I have a little gang that plays D&D semi-regularly. I’m also part of a couple of nerd collectives. One is Alert Nerd, a small press/website dedicated to fiction, essays, and other writings about geek culture. The other is something called The League of Extraordinary Ladies, and I can’t say too much about it yet…but watch this space: http://thelxl.com/

Tell me more about your own writing. I have three projects I’m working on right now. One’s a TV pilot I wrote with a friend, one’s a novel that will hopefully take me pretty far out of my comfort zone, and one’s an adaptation of Glory for another medium. All three have superhero and/or comic booky elements. I know I sound awfully vague, but I’m always afraid to talk about a thing in-depth before it is A Thing with a capital T. I am hopeful that marvelousness will happen with all of them, of course, but we’ll see.

What’s been the response to One Con Glory? It’s been beyond my wildest expectations — though I guess I’m not sure what I expected, exactly? Outrage at my possibly inaccurate depiction of Dance Dance Revolution? I don’t know. In all seriousness, my heart is warmed by the fact that so many fellow fangirls — and some fandudes, even — have told me they connect with the main character, Julie. She’s grouchy, wildly opinionated, and extremely resistant to change — I don’t think she’s easy to like, so whenever someone tells me they were rooting for her, it brings a small tear to my eye. Also, a few folks that I’m a big, huge fan of have read and claimed to enjoy the book and that makes me all giddy and stuff. I’ve always wanted to read a con-set romantic comedy, so it’s nice to know that other folks apparently wanted to read that as well!

Do you think there is a comparable difference between Geek Culture and Girl Geek Culture? I think big picture geek culture still treats women differently, despite the heightened visibility of lady nerds in recent years. I think the girl geek is still often greeted with either suspicion (are you a real nerd?) or astonishment (hello, girl nerd, do you realize that you are a UNICORN?). But I also think — thanks to the heightened visibility I mentioned — that is finally starting to change. For me, it’s been very inspiring to see geek girl culture become its own thing. There are tons of women who blog about comics now, there are a fair number of strong geek girl characters showing up in various mediums, and there’s a whole convention dedicated to the female geek. None of those things were really happening when I first got involved with fandom. I don’t know if all that really answers your question. Is there a difference between the two? I guess in geek girl culture, it’s a given that a wide range of lady nerds exists. In big picture geek culture, I think it still feels like you have to prove yourself a bit — and that’s lame, cause why do I want to expend valuable time and energy doing that? But like I said, hopefully things are changing.

twitter: sarahkuhn
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Thanks for talking with me, Sarah, and I for one am SUPER excited for all your projects. Good luck!

Posted by Anika
email: anika@fantasticfangirls.org
twitter: magnetgirl