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Hey, enjoy this TUESDAY UPDATE, as the NEW SCHEDULE calls for!
So, true story, the comic book plot that Wren is describing? Was my original idea for creating my own progressive comic book series. During my sophomore year at college I wrote an article for work on female superheroes, and I was enrolled in a class on women and health care. So I came up with this idea about this derby team turned superheroines whose home town gets transformed by this evil corporation. As it turns out, I don’t have the skills to draw anything action-based right now. But I kept doodling the characters I came up with (Annika, Grace and Hye-Jin were the original three, though their names have changed several times), and I wanted them to have some kind of life beyond the margins of my notebooks. So I thought about the comics I liked, and I get hooked to character-driven stuff like Questionable Content and Dykes to Watch Out For. I figured, maybe I have a chance of making characters that can make this comic that I have no chance of making. I started doodling Wren, Sam, Maria and Candice (and other folks who haven’t shown up yet) about a year ago, and realized that a webcomic at the intersection of social justice and geek culture was something I was dying to see. So I went for it, and like Wren, I feel it’s so incredibly rewarding, if anyone reads it or not.
In other news, I finally got around to reading Yu+Me: dream, and, damn. I’m sorry I only came in at the end.
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↓ TranscriptCANDICE: Ok, you have to fill me in on the comic. How awesome is it so far?
WREN: SO awesome!
WREN: We talked it out, and Sam agreed with the bad guys being a medical technology corporation that’s a front for an evil scientist doing experiments to ‘enhance’ humans, because, exploitation and control of marginalized bodies via medicalization? So a theme we’re all itching to take on. But our heroes – the derby girls who get wise to the operation when one of their team goes missing – are going to gain their powers consensually with a help from a defect from the establishment. Annika gets perfect reflexes and she’s super fast and she doesn’t sleep. Grace has super senses which develop to the point that she takes in so much about everything and everyone around her that she’s basically telepathic. Hye-Jin can control her body heat and project it, but if that control keeps developing she could almost become invincible – we haven’t fleshed out all of the details but, man, thinking about the mechanics of super powers is sooo much fun.
WREN:I’m so glad we’re doing it. All my animosity towards the world, like, melted away when we were working on it.
CANDICE: Wow. That takes a lot for you.
WREN: Right? Making progressive comics is the equivalent of five gay pride parades and a thai iced tea for my soul.
I’m loving your comic so far, and I’m glad I found it right near the beginning. That never happens for me. I’ve been trying to keep up with it for a few weeks now, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I’m also very happy to see that I’m not the only lesbian who wants to be Han Solo hanging around. *Winks*
as a feminist dyke geek who constantly encounters all manner of misogyny, heternormativity, racism, ableism, and cissexism in her geeky indulgences of choice – comic books, gaming, horror, and sci-fi – and in ‘geek culture’ in and of itself; i can’t tell you how happy this comic makes me. been reading from literally the start. keep it up.
Hi! I just discovered your comic and I love it, omg. The characters are all so lively and lovable! I wish they were my friends in RL, I want to talk feminist geek stuff with my friends ;_;
It’s sad how happy I am to see a Korean character with a common, everyday Korean name, haha.
I feel the same way about writing. Some days I think if I didn’t write, I’d end up a serial killer or something. o.O