 Yeah, I'll introduce myself and you should introduce yourself. Okay, let's do that each other Okay, you start no go ahead. You're the everyone's here to see you. Well, my name is Marika to Mackie I am the co-creator of the most banned book in America for 2016 Which is this one summer. I write comic books for a living now, which is super weird I currently write For Supergirl for DC Comics and Hulk for Marvel if you're here to ask me about either those two books They're both already written. So there's very little I can do to change the plots at this point And yes, I am I'm a writer and I live in Oakland I'm Casey. I'm also a comics writer. None of my work is banned or actually even published yet It's pending and a comics editor. I was a comics journalist for six years and Mariko and I are good friends Yes, which is why I'm here To moderate the conversation which is apparently in honor of children's book week Which is interesting because none of your work is exactly a children's book. No, but more young adult and Young adult and up. Yeah, I like teenagers. I think teenagers are I mean, are there any teenagers here? You're very interesting to me I think teenage lives are a really interesting point for talking about things. I want to talk about like identity and sexuality Class all of the stuff I think it's a very You know, it's a time when you're sort of trying to decide who you're going to be when you're a teenager as opposed to when you're an Adult when you're supposed to have already figured that out And I think that it's also nice because you have the setting of a high school where you have these people who are kind of all kind of forced to be together in a tiny community, which is fun to write about and Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely a point where I will probably not write about teenagers anymore Like I think this last couple years. I've started to feel like like I'm looking at teenagers like I don't get you guys I don't understand what's going on And I feel like I'm ready to start writing about like 20 year olds You know move up. Was there a particular moment where you realized I don't get you guys anymore and was it snapchat? No, you know what it is. I think that It's something about I mean I think that I have a really strong connection to what it was what being a teenager was like for me and I Don't ever try to write beyond that But I think that it is hard Like I don't tend to write about Facebook or Twitter or any kind of social media whenever I write about teenagers because It's just an impossibly boring thing to write about like the drama of seeing somebody post about you Unlike Facebook or like say that they hate you on Facebook It's like every time like no movie has ever done a great job of showing a social media stream Like movies don't even really know how to do texting very well Maybe Sherlock is the only television series and this is not my idea somebody else did a video about this So I I just find it really hard to make interesting so I don't tend to use it But I think that at some point there's maybe something I'm missing out on in terms of like Talking about teenagers and it's not even necessarily that teenagers are the people reading your books I don't know the demographics for Supergirl, but I See mostly adults reading is anybody here reading Supergirl Okay, let me tell you you're missing out much. You're missing out Traditionally Supergirl has not been even though it should be the most approachable story for either teenagers or for girls Not that girls read a specific kind of fiction over boys But there there are a lot of different experiences that a teenage girl has that when they don't make it into a story I think really leaves out a huge aspect of what it means for that character to make a sacrifice or choose to be heroic And in Mariko Supergirl it set up right away that This character is very torn between friends family sports what she likes to do and also this sort of legacy of power She's inherited which honestly isn't that interesting of a story for an to be told for an adult, right? Right the teenager has more at stake. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that there's something I think when you write the story like it's like Downton Abbey, right? Like or for those of you the L word, right? Like it's like melodrama and I think that you know when you're writing about teenagers It's it's easier for things to be that sort of like big emotional stuff because when you're a teenager, you know, like Not having like having a bad day at school It does feel like the end of the world because you've only been in this world for like 15 years. Bless you So it's tricky And I was actually really excited to write Supergirl because I was like I was like There's a couple teen things like I've always wanted to do a giant alien zit So I got to do that So there was like a couple key things that I thought this is why I should do this book because it would be fun to do Like I thought like what if you're a teenager and you can fly But you can't tell anybody about that like that just sort of seemed like an interesting thing to talk about and The the zit although really gross and beautifully drawn by Joelle Jones as everything in the series is There were a lot of people who had a problem with it. Yeah, super girl is supposed to be like this perfect cute white blonde girl, right and But when you think about it if she was an alien She would probably have even grosser teenage puberty then yeah a human would there were way grosser things I could have done You know what I mean like everybody got off easy if they were super worried about an alien zit I will say that the funnest part of it was that when we were doing the color We were sort of like what color should it be and I was like I wanted to be like a like an like an ivory And they were like alright, let's just stop talk about it Let's just do it like me describing it was much worse than actually seeing it on the page But I think that there is like a you know I think that that's sort of true of YA to like people say like that they don't want you know That they're like one of the criticisms of YA books a lot of the time is like I didn't like the character And I kind of feel like did you like everybody you met when you were a teenager most of the people I knew it when they were Teenagers were jerks, so that's you know, I'm super into Exploring like one of my least favorite things to watch in a movie, but my most favorite thing to write is people being mean Teenagers being mean especially and it's I know that not everybody here is is reading the book So I don't want to spend too much time talking about it But I do think it's a really good introduction to talk about your approach to writing teenagers Being a fan of YA and having YA stories Which is that something that can often happen in YA is glossing over a lot of the things that make people interesting In lieu of making them perfect. Yeah, so a super hero having a zit is pretty revolutionary Which is sad in a comic book It's weird to have broken new ground I'm the first Canadian to be the most banned person in America and Well, my cousin and I are the first Canadians and I made the first alien zit for DC Comics That's what's going on my resume right like that's what makes me that's your legacy right like Margaret I would both the handmaid's tail and I And you drew a three pages at pop. I made it. Yeah, and book exactly that is banned. Has anybody read this one summer There you guys know what it's banned for Oh my gosh, you should talk about that because it's ridiculous. It's banned for obscenity. It's banned for mature themes I think it's banned for LGBTQ content I mean the thing is that the biggest tell for me is that it's banned for LGBTQ content And there's literally two mentions of the word lesbian Where one of the characters talks about the fact that she went to this thing that I made up called Gaia Camp Which is like this circle of what it turns out to be everybody just laugh because you get it right like it's Well, actually Gaia Camp is based off of like an actual thing, which is I think the Michigan women's festival had like a circle That they would sort of send their kids to which was called like Gaia circle or something like that and when I heard about that I was like I'm gonna use that to make it a thing basically So for those of you who don't know when a book is banned. It's not like we're pulling it out of schools We're necessarily pulling it out of libraries What it really means is that it's been challenged so many times that it's at risk Because truly like a banned book is a very difficult thing to execute in America But a book can be challenged so much that different institutions will refuse to use it in curriculum or refuse to allow it as part of education and Particularly when a comic book is one thing that's targeted you can have a book like Hunger Games, right? Which is generally for the same age group right literally teenagers Murdering each other right, but then you have a drawing to go along with something way more benign It's it's difficult to get people to interpret a story. That's told both graphically and With writing versus just text somehow It just short circuits people's brains and the fact that it won a children's book award when it wasn't necessarily a children's book Right set it up in a weird context Yeah, I mean I feel like people were sort of hinting like it was really fun being at all the Caldecott and ala events But there were definitely people who were like congratulations, and there were people who were like this book is gonna have a lot of problems It's like that's really daunting to hear at a celebratory event. So we knew that it was coming But like I mean actually the first thing that I thought of when the book when we found out that we were the most Band was I was like the Hunger Games It's literally a book where children are forced into a situation where they have to murder each other and everybody's like well That's life You know what are you gonna do and I have like two kids talking about going to a camp where there's lesbian kids of lesbian parents And they're like that's not acceptable. We can't ever kids reading that so I do think also like One thing I'm aware of is that you know like with conflict comes change, right? So Deborah Cameron who's my favorite linguist of all time because I'm a lesbian So I have my favorite linguist of all time So she talks about that the time that there's the most conflict around language Especially is when you have a change in the power dynamic So this whole idea for example of like Mars and Venus and men not being able to understand what the way women talk Like when men were suddenly like I don't understand what she wants She's so hard to communicate with that that notion comes with a change in the power structure Where you have women in you know in the office and women in positions of power up, you know with men And I think that this whole idea of like that this content is inappropriate is also affected by the fact that there's more of it It's not just one person writing like you know one lesbian book for kids It's like there's more of it out there And so you know the top five books on the top ten challenge list were challenged for LGBTQ content so and One thing that's interesting is in Supergirl you I think in the first issue or maybe the second you actually use the word dyke I do which is a much more extreme word than Lesbians, right, which is what she used in this one summer, right? I don't think anybody said anything about Supergirl Well, we did actually we had a conversation about it because my editors who are too lovely Straight men were like can you say dyke and I was like of course you can say dyke Well, of course you can say I can say what I can say it. I was like it's me saying it so it's okay But and then actually when I was interviewed for a publication that shall remain nameless I called the character a lesbian dyke in the interview and when it was came out and printed said Lesbian square brackets like they redacted She's redacted my word and put like she means lesbian, but I was like that's not what I said What people are gonna think I said lesbian I would never say that so I think that it is it's like this You know, but I think that also they're the intention of the writer in that case was to say like oh we don't want to use this offensive word and I think that it is you know, it's like hostile territory obviously to step into but Yeah, I think in that in that case too like it's you know The whole idea that something is inappropriate for a younger reader assumes that the younger reader is one thing which I think is You know it's not true, right? Like I was a young queer person. I read really inappropriate books I read my mom gave me this book called like scavengers Which had was about rich people who were cast away on this island that had a lesbian scene in it And that was the first lesbian book I read as a teenager Was this really inappropriate like pulp novel that my mom gave me and you know I turned that okay, but it would have been nice to have something that was about people my age And actually the book I'm working on now With rosemary Valero Connell who's like a new coming up artist It's called Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me and it's actually about like lesbian teenagers and We specifically made the choice to have it be less a book about kind of finding your identity than a book that just just makes them queer from the get-go and then they just like Play out their drama like everybody else What do you feel like some of the risks are to not having? topics like queerness and gender identity and And just identity in general not addressed for young people. Well, I think I Think the thing is is that the it's always there as a subject It's just that one particular story is there about it, right like there's like a story That's like girls love boys, right like the story of girls love boys is in so many books and Like boys are hard to deal with girls of boys and that is hard is like a story that's told forever Versus the idea that you know that there's all different kinds of gender roles There's all different kinds of loving people and all of these things like my friend Corey Silverberg Who's an amazing writer has been doing the series of book with? Toronto artist named Fiona Smith Where he did like he did one book about how to make a baby and then he did another book That's about puberty and it's like, you know It's a book about puberty for all the different kinds of people who experience puberty, right like to experience puberty as someone Who's differently able to experience puberty as someone who's you know in various, you know Financial situations like all of these things and I think the more realities that are out there presented as opposed to just like Girls like boys, you know is important and stories are such a huge way to learn empathy It's not just that people want to see themselves with their own identities, right? But I think that there's a lot of assumptions that a Straight eight-year-old boy wouldn't want to read a book about a queer girl or vice versa That it reinforces this kind of narcissism about our entertainment that we only want to see stories about us That look like us that are for us sure and when we miss that we really miss the opportunity to learn empathy at a pretty important age Yeah I mean I was just at RuPaul's drag con last weekend and I would say like there were 40,000 people over there two days of the con and I would say like 60% of them were teenage girls So I was like this is amazing if you're a teenage girl and your introduction to femininity is drag queens This idea that it is something that you can put on in this theater as opposed to something that you have to do I was like that's amazing. Like I saw teenage girls in lace front wigs I was like what a world we live in today Where you have girls who are like doing like cheek contours stuff like that But to know that it's that it is something that is that is can be fabulous And I didn't discover like I really didn't discover femininity until I was like 20 Because I hated makeup because I just thought brown eyeshadow. I didn't I never understood brown eyeshadow I was like, why do I put like a maroon color on my face? Like I don't like the color maroon Why would I ever put it over my eyes and then When I turned 20 and Mac came out with like peacock blue and all these crazy drag queen colors because they're a very queer company I was like, oh, I get this like this is amazing like why wasn't always like this and I became yeah, like I was fully dragged out for like most of my 20s now I've like I'm a little more subtle now as you can see, but it was you know It was a really great thing to discover that later when it didn't feel like Essential it just felt like something that you know you could enjoy as an artist as opposed to like if you don't do this You're not being a girl So and then you lose, you know Are is anybody here a drag race fan? That's okay. What are you guys doing with your lives? Everybody has homework supergirl and drag race start reading it down Because the next time we're here. We're gonna check. We're not we're gonna check. We're not gonna check So for those of you who don't watch it, there's something really magical about this idea of Of performing gender, right and performing it in a way that's personal to who you are and it can unlock something differently About somebody who doesn't meet identifies that gender Which I think is something that beautifully comes through in a lot of your work not not that literally But this idea of having a certain freedom. I think that's very present in this one summer And dropping some self-consciousness or embracing that time in your life where where you can really decide This is what I like. This is what I want to do And there's so much joy in that Did you feel when you were writing it that this story was ever going to be that challenged or that anybody was going to interpret it as Something that could be potentially dangerous or a bad influence. I had no idea I mean, I was really so focused on capturing this thing of like the summer at the cottage like first of all so the inspirations of the book are very like Like Alice Monroe and Disney the Fox and the Hound that is like the two main That is the two main things that come together for me in this one summer Like this idea of the real complexity, you know of the Canadian literature and like the sort of like that kind of complex landscape and complex cast of characters and Then just this idea of like two girls for one of whom is younger than the other and when one person grows up a Little faster and what that sort of experience is like and so I was so focused on getting that right And then when we first handed it into our publisher Our publisher was like, oh Okay, like this isn't what we thought it was gonna be I had never occurred to me that we were like I think the thing is is they were like well This is a YA book because it's about kids But it's also a book about adults But I was like you can't really write a kids without write about kids without writing about adults because that's what kids are Obsessed with at one age like Wendy wants to be a kid and Rose wants to be an adult so that part of that world is all that she's thinking about and I really wanted to kind of get into that contrast to those things So I can understand why people would say and you know to be clear the book is really not for kids like I think the book says 15 and up or 12 and up And I would say that I've talked to 12 year old to read it, but they're very mature 12 year olds They're like stunningly mature like I had a 12 year old told me that he was really glad that the book discussed miscarriage Which I was like where are you from? It's insane that you exist But I think that it it is a book that is about adults from a kid's perspective And so it's maybe not for every kid, but I also think that You know like there were lots of books that I read when I was I was definitely a kid who was reading up You know, I didn't read like YA. I read like you know Timothy Finley and stuff like that. It's a very morose kid So that's how I you know, so the book is there for a kid who wants to read something That's maybe not necessarily something that fits their life experience or fits what they're really able to grasp at that age But you know, that's all right And you're also writing Another really great adaptation That's is it isn't an adaptation what I said the wrong word Continuation is what I meant. Yeah of lumberjanes. I am I am writing a middle grade prose book series for Abrams books of the lumberjanes series, which I am Like fanatically obsessed with like I love the lumberjanes So it's really weird to get a call and they're like my agent was like, do you know like the lumberjanes? I was like, yes, I do Why I was like she was like, yeah, exactly I was like, I'm not leaving my hotel room until you tell me what this is about I was so excited and I love boom studios. I love everything about that whole like group of people And I love that it's a series of books. That's about like Teamwork and all of those sort of like it's like a buddy thing about girls instead of being about Them being vicious to each other and I just love everything about it And actually I just finished the first book Which is coming out. I think in October. I don't know. I don't actually know what it's coming up Pretend I didn't say that it's coming up this year Yeah, and it was really fun It was really cool to just like get into the heads of characters That you really like because it's funny because I've been writing like Hulk and Supergirl And so to go from that to go from writing Hulk to writing lumberjanes was like just like dancing in the flowers I was like, this is fun. I just ate ice cream and like watch stupid TV and wrote the lumberjanes and it was great Was it fun having more page room with them than a typical graphic novel has you get you get to describe it It's not the exact same Collaborative storytelling where you're doing the pictures and the words. Yeah, well, I mean the thing about writing comics Is you're always writing to 20 pages So like 20 pages is something I'm intimately aware of aware of all the time now Like someone will pitch when we'll talk to me about a comic book story and I'll say like that doesn't sound like 20 pages because that's the way that I think and pacing is so Crucial to 20 pages that it's been come like an obsession So it's kind of fun to just have like a chapter and I was like writing like I was like I'm gonna make this chapter super short because I can It's just over now. This is the end of this chapter. What are you gonna do about it? Like I was really I was enjoying that part of it And yeah, prose is fun like prose is just like because prose is so much about the voice and I think You know with captions in a comic book You're so trying to like not take up space on a page and let the let the pictures really do their job and to just be like It's only me. I'm in charge. It's really just like instead of how do I distill this to the fewest words possible? Right convey who this character is. Yeah, I mean it's kind of like You know being able to have like a weekend where you eat anything you want to versus someone saying you can have one thing One thing that you really want so they have to really think about what that one thing will be So you don't want to blow it on like popcorn What questions do you guys have? Does anyone have any questions? No I think I know I mean I tend to know per project like I I Knew that saving Montgomery so which was the last novel that I wrote I knew I wanted it to be a novel because there's a kind of like internal world thing that I think Although scheme is a very internal book, but I don't know. It's weird Like you just sort of know like Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me I was just like I want to write like a really like John Husey lesbian romance comic and I just pictured it as a comic There's definitely some things that I'll think of his projects, and I'll be like that'll take so long to write I don't know if I want to do that. Maybe we could do it as a comic and then it won't take so long But yeah, I mean the thing with comics is most of the comic book work I do now is kind of presented to me as like do you want to do this thing? so the last three series I've done has just been sort of like offered to me and Yeah, then it's kind of funny because then you're like is this a Hulk story I think it's a Hulk story like really actually what it is is I have various obsessions in my life And I try to think where they'll fit into the story like where I can kind of put them So what project am I working on now like for example? I'm obsessed with baking videos like obsessed With baking videos, and I was like where can I put that like I don't really doesn't fit into the story I'm writing right now, and then I was like I'll put it in the Hulk I'll put it in the whole so the Hulk is obsessed with baking videos because I am obsessed with them And I have I ever been wrong? I don't think I think the thing is is that every project I've ever done especially as a comic Changes by the time it gets to the illustrator because you sort of have an idea of what a book will be And you write this outline, which is like a promise this entirely empty promise that you give to a publisher like here's the book I'm gonna write for you, and then you're like eight months later. Like that is not the book that I have written for you And then it sort of just becomes the project it will be like this one summer was originally a Very fantastical book when we pitched it and there was a lot of kind of fantastical elements And then when I was started writing it. I was like I am not that writer I cannot write like dragons, so I'm not gonna do that and then once the book goes to someone like Jillian Like her take on the story totally molds what the story will eventually be So yeah, like it's weird. It sounds kind of irresponsible to say I'm surprised by a lot of things when they finish, but it is surprising like I just have been looking at the illustrations for Laura Dean and it's so much more because Rosemary is such a lush illustrator It's totally this thing that I didn't expect which is kind of great. Yes Yeah, prose is really Well because with prose the revision is totally you like the only person who can fix what's going to be fixed is the writer So like the revision process takes a really really long time Also because it's like, you know with text. It's so dense right like moving around chapters and everything that gets moved effects everything else And so my editing process takes like you can take a year to edit a book properly, and I'm really lucky because I have really great editors With comics it totally depends It's usually It's kind of more like like shifts Like actually this one summer was edited quite a bit between Jillian and myself as we sort of went through the script and saw What needed to be added and taken away? But the like my part of it is like text so it's not the sort of heavy lifting of it And then with comics with like series like writing Hulk or something like that a lot of the editing takes place in the lettering phase where you have everything is done and then you're just changing the captions around because It's weird how stupid captions can look when you finally see them on the page, and you're like well I'm I'm not a good writer to change all of this stuff Also because the pros the turnaround for comics is so fast It's like a month between when you start and when it eventually comes out. So it's much quicker And you tend to do you kind of need to do edits in the lettering phase because You really need to make sure whatever you make fits with the illustrations And it's kind of like the main my main goal in editing comics. So yes also and Something that I think is really interesting and bizarre between pros and comics is there's generally one way to edit a prose novel and In comics, there are a million ways to write a script to deliver a script To look back on a script. There are writers who don't even write dialogue until they get finished pages to see Exactly what the artist has done There's an amazing comics writer named Brian cave on who I think at this point ten years ago I heard him say this one thing that has never left me Which was when he's writing a script the only thing the only way that he looks at it is like he's writing a love letter to His artist. Yeah that the only person he thinks about telling the story to is the person drawing it So that when he gets pages back It's more that he's he's more inspired to tell a better story based on whatever idea he gave them Well, because you have to it is the thing that's taking up the space on the page is the illustrations And you really have to do those justice like I think that a lot of the times It's not like the especially with captions because I think that there's a right on this that can be like a Overly directness that you can do with captions when you're in the lettering or when you're in the scripting phase Where you're writing a story, but captions aren't supposed to be a story They're supposed to be they're this thing that contrasts with and works with the image on the page And I think it's almost like this Thing where I'm most inspired to write captions once I've seen like I feel like the voice like when they're When you don't see especially because a lot of captions you're not seeing the character You're just seeing whatever is on the page. So I really love doing my edits there, especially with Yeah, well there's acting too in comics like you could see an artist bring back a facial expression And you don't even need the dialogue anymore. Yeah, because they just nailed it on that one panel and well And then you're smart and they get exactly what's being said And then what I want typically want to do is have it be that the captions contrast whatever's on the page and give Information that you wouldn't get like yeah, I am sad is like the most I am sad is only appropriate If you're seeing a character on on the page not looking sad because otherwise it's right there. Yeah for sure Yeah, I take a lot of inspiration from people like Brian and also Like a lot of Canadian comic book writers like Seth who do really interesting things with the way that they write comics and the way that They're writing works with the pictures that are really like I mean with skim it kind of happened by Like not it didn't happen on my watch because I wrote skim as a diary And then Jillian like did a lot of these contrasting things with the images And I think we sort of each had a lot of room to kind of do whatever we thought we needed to do for the story And so I do think of it as I think of is writing to the illustrator But I also think of it as like I'm gonna do my thing and then you can go and do your thing And I try to never get in the way of someone else doing their thing Good question. Yeah, that was good Obviously we had a lot to say about it. Yes The biggest influence on my writing life was Louise Fatigue's Harriet's Harriet the spy just to me the most important child book ever written ever I'm also a huge fan of the outsiders And that was like a big book for me and then yeah, like most of my childhood writing or reading was Alisman row like when I was a kid. I was a super nerd So this is the nerd I was when I was a kid I vowed that I would read only Canadian literature For my whole high school life and I like literally spoke those words Probably while looking at the moon in my bedroom like I vowed it So I read all of Timothy Finley all of Margaret Lawrence all of Alisman row all of Margaret Atwood and that was like that's absolutely Where my work comes from I don't know if they would appreciate me saying that but it's true Currently I'm reading. I mostly read nonfiction because I try not to be too influenced by other Other writing especially when I'm writing YA, which is what I'm doing right now So I have like a pile of really great books that I haven't read yet Because I'm trying to finish my novel first I did read Susan Feluti's book. I think it's called the dark room, which is a really incredible book Really interesting book And I read how to survive a plague by David France, which is also really amazing. So I read really light Really light nonfiction And then I do read a lot of comics. I just finished southern bastards, which is just an amazing series and Actually, if I have one recommend and you're gonna think that you're gonna think no Mariko, but yes The new Flintstones series out of DC Comics is so good is so smart and I can't remember the name of the writer I can't remember either, but it was a dark horse. It was a it came out of nowhere It is just unbelievable and you're gonna think I didn't like the Flintstones. It doesn't matter It's very political. It's about it's about gay marriage. It's about consumerism. It's about PTSD It's about like yeah war. It's about all of these things that you're like, how is this the Flintstones? But it really just blew me away and I kind of like charge you the whole thing And so that is a book that I've been recommending to everybody and nobody believes me But many people have since texted and emailed me and thanked me for recommending that series It made a big splash when it came out people were very surprised of like Also Fred Flintstone is kind of hot and it's weird Yeah, he's like this kind of like beefy ruggedly handsome man I was like actually tying one of my my gay friends and he was like I'm gonna read this book And I was like, yes you are It's really really good. So that's what's been really inspiring me actually like it's really amazing like I think Like I like so many different genres and I love the way that they appear in comics like southern bastards is really this dark vaguely horish Book about the south and football. Yeah, and football which I also like in fiction So yeah, that's been my those have been my my big also not a kid's book not a kid's Really not a kid's book, but the Flintstones is Flintstones totally Anybody can read it. Will you guys go read the Flintstones now? That'd be good. Yes The first thing I ever wrote that was published Well, the first thing ever that was published was when I was in university I Had a bunch of friends who started a literary magazine and surprise surprise they published me in it Which is one way to get published is to help your friends establish a literary magazine and then I didn't get published again until I When I was in when I finished college I moved back to Toronto and I took a woman's writing class with a bunch of Fabulous women and the woman who taught the class was also a publisher and she Published an anthology of people in the class and then she published my first novel Which is mostly stacked up in my mom's basement, so I don't know if you'll be able to find it But yeah, that was when I was 22 I think 20 I'm also a writer. I was a journal. I did comics journalism for a long time. So I mean if the internet is just littered with years and years of Comics writing that I've done My first published comics work comes out this year in an anthology called femme magnifique Which is celebrating women in different professions throughout history and telling their stories I wrote a story about Mary Blair the Disney animator and Editorially I've edited comics that have come out, but most of my writing has been prose journalism and You know stuff for just different Websites I also wrote part of she changed comics, which is a comic book legal defense fund book who defended Mariko and well any time but Morally comic book legal defense fund is a nonprofit that Supports artists writers and creators whose books have been challenged both at Local levels and if it becomes a legal challenge and they put out a book. Oh my god I don't remember when it came out Within the last year called she changed comics about the history of women in comics It's really good. Not just because I in it. Yeah, then magnifique is gonna be really amazing I know somebody who's doing a something about Louise to to you and Like just about every amazing woman you can think of is having a story written about them in the anthology Which is being edited by Shelley Bond And there's a Kickstarter. I think there's a webpage for it and it's really it's gonna be really great Karen Gillan is writing about Bjork Yeah, it's gonna be super cool. It's gonna be amazing. You know, I'm a little intimidated like Everybody just go for Karen and no Yeah, it's it's a very exciting project There you go Go out there and get published. It's not you know, it just takes time. That's all getting published Well, what you said about your friend starting a literary magazine is honestly pretty true about comics that I Think one of the most critical things especially in looking at The people that you've worked with is the comic book industry and the best comics are because of amazing relationships between the creators Jason and Jason on Southern Bastards is completely based on their common History in the south and like all the context that they have for it When you started doing licensed work, did you have any kind of? Any kind of changes to your approach from working with people that you knew really intimately or that you had a different Relationship with versus people that you were a little bit more paired up with editorially I was really freaked out to work with people that I didn't know that I wasn't related to So actually when I first started doing just in general just in general I was like, who are you? My aunt doesn't know you. That's weird related in Canada. Exactly so actually I Generally try to have a Skype with people when I first start working for them Like the first thing is like it's kind of like this arranged marriage like somebody gives you like their work And they're like, what do you think you like this work? This is this person's work. They look very nice. Doesn't he look handsome, right? Yeah, well or however it is it works so I I tend to You know, or I guess it's not every it's like a business partnership basically and I try to be like Really to like the person's art as much as possible So when I have it say I go for like that and then which I always have I've just been really lucky And then I was fill your first was Tomb Raider the first one Tomb Raider was no Tomb Raider wasn't my first one I did a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That's right with Irene co who's also amazing And then so when I first started doing Tomb Raider I basically like forced Philip Seve to Skype with me because I was like I need to see your face I kind of forced this like intimacy on him basically because You're really in it together Like you are going to work also like you're going to ask this person to do this really hard job Like you're gonna ask them to draw things that are really hard to draw and like, you know Draw like fight scenes and murders and all this stuff and I wanted to like trust him So and really over the space of like twelve issues, you know We basically worked together for like a year and a half and you actually I think the work got better The more we knew each other and the more I knew I could just say like Laura fights These guys that would be like the holy thing for like a whole page. It would just say Laura fights men So Laura fights men So, yeah, and then I think since then I've just been really lucky that I've now also Like one of the reasons that it's good to socialize in the world that you work in is so that when you do get paired up with somebody It's likely that you know them So I've had that like although it's funny because Nico Leon who I work with Who I believe lives in Brazil It just so happens that we have the exact same sense of humor Which is a really warped sense of humor. So he and I just happen to like Have that in common and that's why there's like you find the thing that you connect with the person the most And then you make sure that that is something that you you know maximize on So we both have this weird sense of humor And so The whole comic is littered with easter eggs of things that we think are really funny That you really have to like look in the backgrounds to find Any other questions? I thought I saw a hand start to go up No Yes Is there someone you have not worked with yet that you maybe would like to say Oh jeez um Who would I like to work with I have a really long time fan of jeff lemire I've always been a huge fan of his work And I love the kinds of stories that he tells like the Essex county trilogy is one of my favorite comics And I would love to work with him Um On something that would be really great. Um, who else so whoever I'm not gonna say I'm gonna sound like a total jerk Um, I mean, I really like the chance to work with different people like it's been really great working with rosemary Who's like, you know a newer person to comics? That's been I mean a newer person who was also like an incredibly accomplished person and she's like Anyway, she's younger than I am And she's incredibly accomplished. It's really intimidating. Um, who else? I mean, I I'm such a big fan of so many people like any woo. I'm a huge fan of and Yeah, her stuff is super great And I mean even editors and stuff like that like I've been really fortunate to work with a lot of really great editors. Bless you Um, so yeah, I mean, I think it's funny because I think Sometimes they'll think That I just really like someone's work and then I'll think is that a reason to want to like work with them Like I really like southern bastards, but I don't think either those guys I don't think they're like, I want to work with marika tamaki I think it's right because you have to have the right artist for the right story Yeah, you do and you can't like like I've also been offered like I'm a huge fan of many different comics And I've you know been offered some things and I'm like, I'm a huge fan of this character I am not the person to write this book Um, and I think that I'm slowly learning that over time. Like I think that you have to have like a real Desire to do something at this point. And so that's what I'm doing now like um I really like I really loved writing the adventure time series because I was like, I just love this show And I have this really weird idea and they were totally into it I was like, I want to do a best princess ever competition and they were like do it I was like you're rewatching a lot of project runway. I was watching so much project runway Although actually it's more modeled off of america's next top model Except that they're not as mean to each other Uh, so yeah, I mean, I think it's also like sometimes I think you take a project too because you think oh, I'm not necessarily I don't necessarily think that I'm the best suited for this, but I really want Like I would really love to do something nonfiction in comics And so I think it's not necessarily something I've ever done before but I think it would be a really great learning experience. So Like what kind of nonfiction? Like I really loved um, I loved march and I thought like that is a great way Or like what you guys are doing a femme magnifique like to get into something very serious Um and complicated in a comic book form. I just read um, California dream in which is the um What's the name of the mom is in the papa's person Mama cast biography and it is amazing. It's incredible and the illustrations are so good Uh, and I was like this is great because it's an incredible biography of a really amazing interesting person And I think that it's you know, it's amazing to have it I think that that's sort of the place where I feel like Comics can really go is into this nonfiction place. So I'm kind of curious And it's they seem so separate. Yeah other comics like you just There are tons of of nonfiction and biographical and autobiographical comics out there That just don't seem to make the rounds in the same way Well, it's funny because comic book people are the biggest nerds in the world Like nobody has more specific obsessions than a comic book person case in point Chester brown wrote a louis reels comic Which is a book about this canadian Figure in canadian history You know and kate beaton writes all these books about you know, these little comics about Like the boy and nasty boy the jenna jackson song But also like the bronte sisters and all this other and suffragettes and Yeah, I think you know, why not maximize and the thing we do really well Which is obsessed about tiny things that nobody else really cares about I just recently reread my friend dhommer Because I've been on a big true crime kick because I also write ya and I can't read ya while I write it I have to read horrible grisly terrible things. I know you read horrible grisly teenagers You read horrible grisly terrible things But even stuff like that that is such an I can't imagine the pitching process for something like that where it's like Let me tell you about how I grew up with jeffrey dhommer and let me illustrate it for you, right Why not a good comic is a good comic I think you know like I think that There's many comics that have come out that you're like it's about what? March. Yeah, exactly. So you're like movement as a comic, right? No, but I think that's beautiful Yeah, it is like I think that that's kind of and then there is something about comics that is I think inviting to a wide swath of readers um And there it's also, you know, it's not like you're missing out on any literariness because March is a beautiful book not just because it's an illustrated book But because the writing is also beautiful. So, you know I um, this is kind of on topic but off topic I recently found when you work in comics, you tend to have thousands of comics in your house all the time And sometimes you have to move because you have so many books Um, I found this comic. I was sent at one point like an arc. That's trench poetry From world war one and world war two that People fighting in the trenches wrote as they were dying and somebody said, you know what we should do with this We should make a comic. Oh my gosh And I just read it and cried like the impact of it was so different. It's subject. I don't really care about right But I think that visual storytelling has a way of emotionally impacting you in a way that just seeing the words on the page can't Well, and also like one of the great things that so many comics have done is is a medium for people telling very personal stories Like diary of a teenage girl, right where you can really get into You know Get into really deep stuff about you know your own life and a lot of like whenever I go to high schools or Colleges or art schools and people give me their first comics They're typically about like really personal things and there's something about the sort of like metaphorical symbolic Things that you can do with illustration that makes them a really great vehicle for that as well And then you look at people like reyna telgemeir right who up until her last book all of her comics were Slice of life things that had happened to her babysitter's club Um one thing I do see that happens It's interesting is that it seems like women get put into that niche a lot more That they expect comics that are biographical. They expect usually personal stories. They expect That especially women cartoonists that that's where they're going to go because there are so many amazing ones out there um Have you felt any sense of That you're a little bit more compelled to tell personal stories or to infuse your stories with that I'm just a very personal person I think that there was um the first book that I wrote was incredibly personal Um because like I said, I think that there is this kind of like book that everybody has inside of them That's like straight from the heart. It's like a story like like when you're in teenager And you're in creative writing class and then you go to height, you know university and you're writing like stories That you're submitting to magazines. It's usually a very personal story that like starts you off like Almost uncomfortably personal and I feel like as you grow as a writer you figure out a way to tell that story in a way That is literary instead of just intensely personal like that's the real Like struggle is to find a way to be like Confessional without just like making that person on your like on the phone with your friends and they're like, uh-huh, right? Oh, that sounds horrible. Yeah, like, you know, you're trying to get these pictures of my minor Yeah, exactly. I saw the scar So it's hard to get beyond that point But I feel like that is and it's like the grand tradition of women women have this history of being You know like the confessors and the people who are admired and like the personal stuff and Men are more interested in like trucks and being heroes. I guess hypothetically. I think that's changing it I mean, I think like I look at Nate Powell's early books and they're obviously like telling very personal stories and Yeah, I think the one thing is that I found that When I did eventually move into more fictional stuff and move more away from my own personal experience People assume about stuff written by women that it's very personal and autobiographical to the extent that Skin which is this comic one of my first comics I did with my cousin Which is about a girl in a private school who falls in love with her English teacher And when I went to my old high school I was accosted by many teachers who were like, who is this book about? And I was like, it's fiction. It's fiction. First of all, if it wasn't fiction, it would be like a lawsuit So obviously it's fiction But there was this thing and I think that you know, many people When you get interviewed about your books want to know like Where it connects with your own personal life, which first of all like none your business and second of all Like why not have like some faith in a writer's ability to take whatever personal inspiration they have and turn it into Fiction or to maybe just make stuff up. I make stuff up all the time I make stuff up for a living I know in fact, it's funny because sometimes I will though like be thinking about something and I'll be like Did that happen to me or did I write that? And I'm assuming that happened to me. I had like a serious And the thing is I can't call my parents because they never know like my dad always says like that didn't happen And my mom will pretty much guess that it did so I'm completely stuck But I was like, I remember this thing, but I think it's in a book Well, I can't remember what book So Yeah, dementia Um speaking of personal stuff I don't I have no idea how I came across it I found an anthology of kids horror that you or like teenage horror that you wrote Oh, yeah, half-minute horrors Was that really based on your dad? Yes. Okay. You should tell people about this story I had no idea you were in the book and I read it. I was like, this is real So Susan rich is the editor of lemony's lemony snicket and she did this book that was like a For the benefit of something it was like raising money for something And she asked all these writer friends of hers to write 30 minute horrors 30 second horror stories And so when I was a kid when we would go to the cottage Every year my dad would dig us a hole in the sand like a five foot deep hole Like a borderline dangerous for little kids to play in a hole Yeah, like a basically a tiny grave And he would say to us when he was leaving he would be like, well, you know be careful because there's a monster in the hole Anyway, see you later and he would just walk away And what he would tell us is that at night that's when the monster was just like a way to get us inside basically He would say that there was a monster that would be in the hole And my friend I would always be like my dad is lying and my friend would always be like, what if your dad is telling the truth? So, uh, yes, so basically I wrote this story about a hole that has a monster in it uh And uh, yeah, I think I told my dad and he was like, whatever Has he has he admitted? Uh, no, yeah I totally made up a monster and dug a hole every summer just to mess with you Well, my dad is kind of like I mean I like I talk about my dad a lot because my dad was a very, um Loosely connected to The truth like he would say things all the time that you would be like that's not true But he would say it like was such like like when we were listening to the Beach Boys He would be like I used to sing with the Beach Boys like so convicted Yeah, just like very deadpan always with the same Like delivery and you would be like but that's not true That can't be true But then when I was a kid I sort of felt like maybe it is true So I had like huge amounts of my Life for my dad saying things like we used to have so actually one of the inspirations of this one summer is We used to drive when we used to drive the cottage. There was a turkey hatchery On the way to the cottage and every time we drove by it. My dad would say that's where your brother was born Your brother was born there and you know, of course my brother would be like, that's not true I was not born there. And so I'm at Beach Boys tour Yeah, exactly And that's where he was born So like every summer for like my brother's whole life basically and then eventually they tore down the turkey hatchery And they put a p. S storage up there and my dad my brother was probably like, oh no more of the joke And my dad would be like that used to be a turkey hatchery That's where your brother was born So that actually is the one of the sort of stories in the book is about this turkey jerky That comes that they think makes people pregnant and that came from the story my dad told So not exactly the story but like a version of it, but I have used that I have used Things that my dad has said over the years They appear Uh in various things I always tell them like, haha, I put you in a book Do your parents read your comics? Yeah, they do. I mean they haven't read They haven't read any of the superhero stuff yet. I don't think They read Supergirl But um, which has a great dad in it. It does have a great dad It has like a it has a very like Pixar-y Some somewhere between every dad in every Pixar movie and John Goodman from Roseanne. That's total That's basically with conspiracy theories. Yeah, exactly. Well, I love conspiracy theorists What's your favorite one right now your favorite theory? I don't have any favorite theory. I mean, I'm just like, uh, I was watching like I appreciate the person who is like So defiantly refusing to be Like a part of any system, but not recognizing that by refusing to be a part of the system You kind of still are a part of the system Um, so I also like part of the dad's thing is where he like doesn't believe in birthdays kind of was like a version of my dad being like Same whatever he would say like my dad would always tell me like when's your birthday? Like he always pretends like he doesn't know when my birthday is So it's like a version of that. They probably didn't keep good records of the turkey hatchery. No, exactly I wasn't born in the turkey hatchery. My brother was born in the turkey hatchery. I mean, I was born in the habit I was born in the hospital That's true. As far as you know, are we good for time? Should we do one more question if anyone has another question? Yeah, does anyone have one last question? No All right. Thank you guys so much