105. G. WILLOW WILSON: Writing new & exisitng characters for Marvel and DC Comics

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, I'm chatting with G. Willow Wilson about her many projects in the graphic novel world. She's the co-creator of Ms. Marvel, she's written iconic characters like Wonder Woman and Poison Ivy, and she writes novels and graphic novels of her own worlds as well. Willow is so smart and kind, and incredibly patient since we filmed this several months ago and technical issues delayed it and impacted the quality for the first portion. Bear with us for the first few minutes and it will improve. So sorry!

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Ms. Marvel Vol 1
Poison Ivy Vol 1
Alif the Unseen
The Bird King
The Stoneshore Register
Batman One Bad Day Boxed Set

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Ms. Marvel Vol 1
Poison Ivy Vol 1
Black Cat Vol 1
Wonder Woman Vol 1
Alif the Unseen
The Bird King
The Stoneshore Register

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Alif the Unseen
The Bird King

Transcript

00:00:05:19 - 00:00:21:29
Unknown
Well, welcome to literary hype. It's so exciting to talk to you. Thanks so much. Happy to be here. When we found out we were getting you for Tim Bailey, we were all very excited to have you here and now to get to do panels with you. There's been so much fun. Everyone who's been on the panel, Scully. Below is so smart.

00:00:22:01 - 00:00:40:14
Unknown
She's so nice. It's just amazing. I can string sentences together. At this point, I feel like day two a con. You're kind of unspooling, and by day three, you're speaking in tongues. So as long as I'm making sense, I'm good. Well, and I do want to talk about your sign, because this cracks me up.

00:00:40:17 - 00:00:41:21
Unknown
I'm very proud of this.

00:00:41:28 - 00:01:01:19
Unknown
So, yeah, I, so I made several attempts to do, like, a real proper comic convention sign for myself, a booth sign. And I have no graphic design skills whatsoever. I leave that to others. So I should have went online and, like, looked around and I found, like, a plain text template, and I was like, you know what?

00:01:01:20 - 00:01:15:18
Unknown
I'm just kidding. But the really essential information on here and just kind of leave it at that, you know, and, I did it kind of as a gag and people loved it. And so now I take it everywhere with me. So it worked out in the end.

00:01:15:22 - 00:01:19:18
Unknown
It really highlights your sense of humor. We just like this is what you get.

00:01:19:23 - 00:01:23:08
Unknown
Hi. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. This is what it is.

00:01:23:13 - 00:01:31:00
Unknown
But it's funny, even with the I write books, people will ask me if I, do the art for my comic works. And I'm like, if I did the

00:01:31:00 - 00:01:39:13
Unknown
art, I would have a much better side. Unfortunately, I just do the words. You know, that that makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

00:01:39:19 - 00:01:42:28
Unknown
But you have so many projects coming out that we can talk about,

00:01:43:00 - 00:01:55:25
Unknown
Listen to black Cat. Yeah, that's a fun one. I did a little black cat, short for an anthology, and, I'd never written her before, but she's a really, really fun character.

00:01:55:27 - 00:02:19:02
Unknown
You know, most people are more familiar with her. More famous cousins, capital from the DC universe. And so it's been interesting to sort of figure out what makes black Cat unique. How is she different? And I started thinking about her as sort of the, the Marilyn Monroe of that duo. You know, if if we're thinking in, gentlemen prefer blonds.

00:02:19:02 - 00:02:40:14
Unknown
Church. You know, Catwoman, I think, has real ideology. She got her life growing up, and that's why she does what she does. Black Cat was a socialite. She was not short of money growing up. She steals because it's fun. And so she is. Yeah. She's a very fun character to write. This series is very bouncy.

00:02:40:16 - 00:02:56:01
Unknown
If you read my stuff, you know that there's always a little bit of spinach blended up in the smoothie, so, you know, there's there's some real ideas in there, but it's it's light. It's bouncy. It's pretty much the opposite of poison ivy, which is quite dark. So yeah, I hope people check it out. It's

00:02:56:05 - 00:03:10:22
Unknown
I hadn't heard of black Cat before. You talked about it on the panels and I was looking it up and I'm like, okay, this is really fun. I hope so. So what do people need to know about this character before they dabble into this, that they've never heard of it before?

00:03:10:28 - 00:03:20:16
Unknown
So all you really need to know is, she's kind of had an off and on friendship slash romance with Peter Parker slash Spider-Man for many years.

00:03:20:18 - 00:03:41:07
Unknown
She's also got an interesting friendship with his wife, now ex-wife Mary Jane Watson. So she's sort of part of the spider family. But she has kind of her own rogues gallery, her own sidekicks, and, So all you need to know is she's a character from the Spider-Verse. And, honestly, we take care of all of the rest for you.

00:03:41:10 - 00:04:05:18
Unknown
I'm trying something a little bit different with this series. She speaks directly to us, the reader, occasionally in a kind of a Fleabag type of way, if you watch that show. So we get to see straight from her perspective, and she does a lot of explainers with the idea that this is a good jumping on point for people who have no familiar, no familiarity with the Spider-Verse or Marvel Comics.

00:04:05:21 - 00:04:11:07
Unknown
You can just jump right in and she explains things directly to you, or in a way, so super fun.

00:04:11:10 - 00:04:16:15
Unknown
What's it like getting to play with a different format at this point in your career when you've done so much already?

00:04:16:23 - 00:04:24:13
Unknown
it's nice that I'm still given room to experiment a little bit. I mean, that's part of what I love about comics as a medium.

00:04:24:16 - 00:04:47:19
Unknown
You know, people love to say the medium is the message, but honestly, the medium is the delivery mechanism. And within that, you can do almost whatever you want because you're using words and pictures. You have a flexibility to tell a full variety of different stories and a lot of different tonalities. For the simple reason that, you know, the the words and the pictures don't always have to go together.

00:04:47:21 - 00:05:08:27
Unknown
You can do a lot of, sort of contradictory internal kind of, reasoning where the character's thinking one thing and doing something else. And it just allows you a lot of flexibility in terms of your storytelling. And that's part of why I love it, is that as soon as you think you've come to the end, you find something else that's worth exploring.

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:29:18
Unknown
what's your relationship like with the artists that involved in any of your projects, and how does that work out with your story? Translating it to imagery? Yeah, that's a great question. Every working relationship is different. I try to sort of adjust my scripts and my sort of the way that I work to the artists and the colors that are working with at the time.

00:05:29:21 - 00:05:56:08
Unknown
Because honestly, the easier as, as the writer, the easier you can make the life of your artist, the better the book will be. So, you know, if I'm working with someone like Chris Maud, who, you know, loves to these big sweeping vistas and, you know, he goes straight to colors he doesn't defenses or inks. I'll cut down the number of panels on the page so that he can do these sort of massive landscapes.

00:05:56:10 - 00:06:16:06
Unknown
For, other artists who like to do facial expressions. I'll do a lot of, sort of multiple sort of tight images on the page. So we can see the expressions on characters faces. I've learned that 90% of artists hate drawing horses, so I try to keep horses to a minimum. You know, there's things that you sort of learn along the way.

00:06:16:08 - 00:06:32:06
Unknown
But honestly, if, when the artist thinks, you know what, I don't think this layout or this number of panels or this of that and the other will work quite in this way. I'm like, you do the way you think it's going to work best. And I'll go in and adjust the script because, it's it's the art that you see first.

00:06:32:13 - 00:06:47:00
Unknown
And I think it's the art that sticks in your brain just because of the way that we process images for sports. So I try to make the the life of the artist as easy as possible. I'm sure they appreciate that. I hope so. I hope it works. I hope it's, I hope I'm succeeding.

00:06:47:03 - 00:06:50:16
Unknown
And like you mentioned that you have the spinach in your smoothie for these.

00:06:50:19 - 00:07:02:24
Unknown
Do you have the, like, big idea that you want to get across to the reader? Like the important information first, or is it like, oh, I want to play with this character. What message can I tell through their perspective?

00:07:02:27 - 00:07:12:12
Unknown
That's a good question. It really depends on the project. If it's something like black Cat, where the publisher comes to me and like, hey, do you heard of a black Cat series?

00:07:12:14 - 00:07:31:19
Unknown
I will do the latter, where I'll sort of think about the character, go back, read some of the other stuff that's been written and say, you know what? Can I say that hasn't already been said? You know what? What ideas is this character sparking based on? Their the previous stories, the back story about who they are.

00:07:31:22 - 00:07:54:08
Unknown
I like to sort of think about what's their what's their motto in life. Some characters have a known motto that that people have latched onto and loved for decades, tattooed on their body like, you know, Superman's truth, justice in the American way, which is previously truth, justice and tolerance. So we change during the McCarthy era. Yeah, that's that's a fun tidbit.

00:07:54:10 - 00:08:11:21
Unknown
Or, of course, Spider-Man's with great power comes great responsibility. So if a committee if a character doesn't have that, a slogan like that, I try to like, think about if they did, what would that be? What is what is the reason that they do what they do? And I kind of go out from there. And it's.

00:08:11:21 - 00:08:14:20
Unknown
Yeah. So it's different for every, every project.

00:08:14:22 - 00:08:21:24
Unknown
I feel like that's an important thing to keep in mind when you're reading comics, because art does influence culture and society so much.

00:08:21:26 - 00:08:24:22
Unknown
How do you hope your work influences society?

00:08:24:25 - 00:08:52:16
Unknown
Oh, gosh, what a question. You know, weirdly, I try not to think about it too much because I think when you get lost in the macro of it all, you lose sight of the story. But I do hope that especially in a time like this, that readers might pick up these books and be inspired to do a little bit every day to make just the world around them better.

00:08:52:17 - 00:09:14:09
Unknown
I think when we consider how large the problems are that we face, it gets overwhelming and people shut down. But what I try to do, regardless of what I'm working on, is, is leave little bits of inspiration in there that I hope people can take up and say, you know what? I can't fix everything, but I can fix this.

00:09:14:11 - 00:09:41:18
Unknown
You know, even if it's something small. Because I think that's how we move forward as a society is is so bit by bit. If you, if you sort of or at least if I, I start thinking about how monumental the task is. I feel like, oh my God, there's, there's nothing I can do. But I think one of the wonderful things, especially about superhero stories, is they show us what one individual can do as part of a career whole, as part of a bigger community.

00:09:41:20 - 00:09:54:21
Unknown
So hopefully they take that and say, you know what? I'm going to I'm going to do one thing today, and then I'm going to do one thing tomorrow. And and then that's enough. That's all we can expect of ourselves. And then collectively that adds up to something much larger.

00:09:54:24 - 00:10:03:14
Unknown
And you have a you semi unique position of being a woman in comics and putting stuff out that doesn't always please have everyone.

00:10:03:16 - 00:10:14:07
Unknown
So how do you deal with the fanboy culture that kind of goes after when they don't like something? Yeah. I do a lot of muting on social media.

00:10:14:10 - 00:10:23:02
Unknown
my working relationship with social media is I block almost no one because I can be like, a badge of honor for the worst offenders, but I mute an awful lot of people.

00:10:23:05 - 00:10:40:14
Unknown
And, you know, when people are just ranting at the cloud, they tend to run out of steam faster than if you try to argue with them. So I have a very specific way of, of how I can of myself on social media. I honestly don't read reviews. I don't read reviews. I mean, a lot of authors, I say don't read reviews.

00:10:40:15 - 00:10:53:15
Unknown
I'm one of the rare ones who actually, I have not read a single review in ten years at least. And this is not just in comics like I don't, you know, on the rare occasions that I've run a novel or something and it's gotten, a review in a

00:10:53:15 - 00:11:07:00
Unknown
higher profile publication like New York Times, I don't read that either. So, you know, I sort of rely on me to be, rely on friends to say, oh, you know, I go, this review was really good, or wow, this was, you know, and I was there and I'm like, I haven't read it.

00:11:07:01 - 00:11:33:00
Unknown
I'll take your word for it. So, yeah, it's that I really feel that, over the years, I've built a core community that is really great and that I think, has been very meaningful to me. And I hope for many people in that community. And I think once you have that, the sort of tax free outside matter less because, you know who your audience is

00:11:33:00 - 00:11:42:03
Unknown
Exactly. And you're on both sides of the the big fandom of Marvel in DC. Yeah. So what's it like for you crossing that kind of line?

00:11:42:06 - 00:11:54:00
Unknown
You know, it's it's a very niche industry. It's a very specific set of skills to call Liam Neeson. And so the people who have those skills tend to work for a lot of different publishers.

00:11:54:00 - 00:12:19:00
Unknown
And I think the, the rivalry within their industry is, is far, far less of a thing than it is among the fans. You know, it's, people go back and forth all the time. You know, you see the same colleagues year after year. And. Yeah. So you, you build relationships with them as people. So I think it's, yeah, it's not as intense behind the scenes as it is for the camera.

00:12:19:01 - 00:12:20:06
Unknown
I think,

00:12:20:09 - 00:12:28:16
Unknown
which makes sense because so many industry is like even I was in news and you'd trade back and forth between stations, especially behind the camera. Right?

00:12:28:16 - 00:12:29:14
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:29:18 - 00:12:39:15
Unknown
Marvel and DC have such expansive cannons. So how do you balance the canon with what the story is that you want to tell? As a writer,

00:12:39:18 - 00:12:51:16
Unknown
that's one of the hardest parts. Because when a character gets to be 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, there's a lot of back story. And not all of it, makes sense. Some of it is self contradicting.

00:12:51:24 - 00:13:12:25
Unknown
And so one of the biggest tests before I sit down to write any story is to figure out what is still canon, because the universes get rebooted. There are different versions of different characters. You know, some things might be carried over from previous iterations and some things not. And for a lot of things, there is no canon.

00:13:12:26 - 00:13:33:22
Unknown
You know, people say like, well, we brought this up in one issue, and then it was never addressed again. So we can reference it or not, kind of as we choose. And, yeah, it's it's it can be a lot. And the older the character is, the more of a challenge it becomes, because, sometimes not even the editors are sure which iteration is still canon and which are not.

00:13:33:24 - 00:14:02:08
Unknown
And sometimes, honestly, it's the fans who keep the closest track because you'll get, you know, readers who've only followed whoever it is, the Penguin for the past 25 years. And so, like, there they are probably like world experts on Penguin canon, and they do the wikis and they do the all of that other stuff. And so often, if I'm not sure, okay, did this happen first or did this happen or did this get wiped out by this reboot or not?

00:14:02:10 - 00:14:20:05
Unknown
I'll go to the Fan Weekly's because it's often the fans who are keeping the closest track because editors have to edit, you know, five different books and, and keep track of five different stories. And they might not always know the fine details. And, so, yeah, sometimes it's the, the fan edited wikis that have the most current information.

00:14:20:08 - 00:14:36:20
Unknown
So if someone has a really read a lot of comics and they're like, with all the Marvel and DC movies and TV shows and everything, and they're like, well, maybe I want to give this a try. Yeah. But they look at it and there's so much and they don't know where to start. Yeah. What's your advice for someone who wants to just get started in reading comics and reading comics?

00:14:36:24 - 00:14:58:11
Unknown
I would say there's a lot of really fantastic, sort of one and done graphic novels are short runs that are self-contained, that have gone on to really have, a massive impact on the canon. There's Grant Morrison's All Star Superman Springs to mind. Like, if you wanted to just read one Superman book, all star Superman is self-contained.

00:14:58:11 - 00:15:00:03
Unknown
You don't really need to know anything going in.

00:15:00:08 - 00:15:11:03
Unknown
you know, there's there things like that. And if you go to any comic book shop, the, proprietors will be happy to direct you to the things like that. Where. Okay, this is a self-contained run of 2 or 3 books.

00:15:11:06 - 00:15:27:23
Unknown
You don't have to do anything going in. When you come to the end, the end of the story, and the other good place to start is, is start with you know, issue once get on at the beginning, pick one author or artist you like, go back to the, you know, the issue one of wherever they started that book.

00:15:27:26 - 00:15:49:28
Unknown
And read from there. So it is sadly more complicated than, you know, going into a bookstore and picking up volume one of a manga and, you know, like, you can always tell where you are because it's just numbered and they're all the same size and they're all in the same place. And Western comics are a bit of a Wild West, but yeah, walk into a comic book shop and they will be able to point you to great stuff to start out with.

00:15:50:04 - 00:16:17:18
Unknown
Yeah, well, you're in a long run with poison ivy right now. Yeah. More than 30 issues. That's right. What's it like getting to have such a long run with one single character? It's super unusual. And I never take it for granted because especially these days, that's very rare. And I don't think I've ever, written a book where it started out as, you know, an eight page mini and then got a six issue mini series and then became an ongoing like that is incredibly rare.

00:16:17:20 - 00:16:43:12
Unknown
And I'm just thankful, honestly, to the readers who keep picking up the book every month, and letting us do more. So we are closing in on on 50 issues here, which I would never have imagined when we started out. There's really a call these days for, I don't know, feminist eco terrorists, I guess, which the genre itself for this iteration of poison Ivy is unique, and especially to get this long ever run is not normal at all.

00:16:43:12 - 00:17:05:13
Unknown
Not or yes, that is very unusual in the industry. And, you know, I think a lot of success in any aspect of publishing, but especially in comics, is right book, right time. You can have a brilliant book that just comes out into an audience that isn't ready for it. You know, that that maybe is not into that topic or into that genre or whatever.

00:17:05:20 - 00:17:23:18
Unknown
And if you had done the exact same book five years earlier, or five years later, you might have found your audience. So some of that is luck. Some of that is just sort of, you know, looking and seeing what way the wind is blowing and thinking, okay, you know, I'm concerned about this issue. There's other people concerned about this issue.

00:17:23:18 - 00:17:45:26
Unknown
People are talking about this. There's clearly a need for a book that addresses these themes. And in the case of poison Ivy, it's climate anxiety. Really. So she's I think she speaks to something existential that a lot of us are worried about right now is how long before this planet becomes a flaming hot Cheeto of death that is completely hostile to all life, of all kinds?

00:17:45:28 - 00:18:11:19
Unknown
And her methods maybe evil and things we disagree with, but her reasoning is sound and her urgency is sound. And I think that's where the appeal comes from, that tension. Like she's worried about the things we're worried about. She's just acting on them in ways that are terrifying and, and wrong. So that's where that wonderful tension, comes from in that book.

00:18:11:21 - 00:18:31:10
Unknown
You're also the co-creator of Miss Marvel, which is we've seen pop up in huge ways. What's it like getting to see a character that you wrote for Get a show and be on movies and draw such a big audience that really connects with her? Again, it's one of those things that I'll never take for granted, and I still pinch myself.

00:18:31:10 - 00:18:54:01
Unknown
Honestly, I was, I was at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. Or actually, no, this would have been last year. And right by the register there was like stacks of gum with Miss Marvel on them. And I had it kind of an out-of-body moment because I was like, that is amazing to me that this character that we created, we mean me and the rest of the team.

00:18:54:04 - 00:19:18:20
Unknown
And so, you know, if we can get a year out of this, we'll be satisfied. Because the traditional logic in comics is new characters don't sell. Female characters don't sell, minority characters don't sell. And this was the trifecta. So the fact that she's become this integral part of the Marvel Universe and, you know, sold a million copies of TBS is pretty amazing.

00:19:18:23 - 00:19:22:17
Unknown
So do you prefer creating your own characters or playing with characters that exist?

00:19:22:20 - 00:19:45:06
Unknown
They both have their pluses and minuses. I do wish readers would read more creator own stuff. I think a lot of comic book fans get super into either Marvel or DC or like specific properties within these universes, and getting them to pick up books about characters they've never heard of and worlds that they've never seen before is can be tough.

00:19:45:09 - 00:20:06:00
Unknown
So, you know, it is it is nice to get your own playground where you set the rules for sure. The trick is, and the challenge is getting people to pick them up and read them and keep reading them. So. But, you know, it's, I feel like everybody feels that way in publishing. It's it's kind of the roll of the dice when you have your own characters

00:20:06:00 - 00:20:07:07
Unknown
the Stone House Register.

00:20:07:07 - 00:20:33:09
Unknown
Yes. That's right. So what do people need to know about that book? So the stormtrooper register is actually the first book that I've written that is set in the Pacific Northwest, which is strange to me because I've been there for almost 17 years now. And, I was talking to one of our local literary critics, and he was like, I'm kind of amazed most people get off the plane and immediately start writing about how cool and like, you know, interesting and unique the Pacific Northwest is.

00:20:33:12 - 00:20:54:11
Unknown
But yeah. So this is the first one. It's a it's a story about, a failing newspaper in a tiny little fishing town on the Washington coast that gets a new lease on life when a stranger kind of blows up on their doorstep, and asks for a job and sort of proceeds to uncover some of the secrets of this small, very insular town.

00:20:54:14 - 00:21:17:04
Unknown
So it's a story about found family. You will be amazed that it was written before the most recent election because it feels very current. But it's just one of those things where, again, it was right book right time, unfortunately, in this case. But so there's there's a lot of, we unpack a lot of things that are relevant to our current political situation.

00:21:17:04 - 00:21:24:08
Unknown
But at the end of the day, it's it's a story about, people who need each other, finding each other kind of against all that.

00:21:24:11 - 00:21:35:16
Unknown
I could talk to you for a very long time. And I have many more questions, but we are about to get, like, run over by, I can see all the attendees outside the door, just, like, staring us down right now.

00:21:35:18 - 00:21:46:16
Unknown
So as much as I would love to keep talking, I also don't want to die in a stampede. So we'll move on to the last question, which is since this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about right now?

00:21:46:19 - 00:21:53:23
Unknown
I just read a book that was kind of life altering to me. Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, it's a book called Murder Land by Caroline Fraser.

00:21:53:25 - 00:22:05:20
Unknown
And it's this incredible literary nonfiction look at serial killers in the Pacific Northwest. She's a long time Seattle resident. She's sort of asked the question, why does the Pacific Northwest have so many serial killers?

00:22:05:22 - 00:22:20:20
Unknown
And this question takes her all the way back through industrial pollution in the early part of the 20th century, and further back into sort of the geology of the place, and why it has so many smelters and so much heavy industry in the first place.

00:22:20:22 - 00:22:33:13
Unknown
And it is one of the most phenomenal books I've read about place and geography and how those things impacts culture. It's very depressing, but it's beautiful and, yeah, I highly recommend it.

00:22:33:15 - 00:22:38:25
Unknown
Well, thanks so much for taking time to talk to literary hype from Tampa Bay Comic Convention. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.