Talking Comics with Karen Healey

Above: Author Karen Healey.

Today I'm talking comics with Karen Healey, author of the highly acclaimed debut YA novel Guardian Of The Dead.

A fantastic supernatural thriller, Guardian Of The Dead takes place in a pre-earthquake Christchurch, where the boundaries between modern life and Maori mythology blur, as an ancient race of spirits prey on a group of boarding school students. Fast-paced with plenty of character, it's highly recommended for any teen reader who's after something local and original (and that doesn't feature those tiresome vampires!).

Karen is also the co-founder of the feminist comics website Girl-Wonder.org, and is currently working on her PhD, writing her thesis on american superhero comics. She'll be in town this week for the Auckland Writer's & Readers Festival 2011, taking part in several talks: The Listener Gala Night, The Wordy Day Out and Graphic Novels, Comics & Cartoons - where she'll be joined by Dylan Horrocks, Ant Sang and Chris Slane to talk with me about all things comics related.

As a warm-up for the panel on Sunday (buy your tickets HERE!), I wanted to find out a bit more about Karen's interest in comics, particularly the appeal of superhero comics, and talk a bit about the role of sex and gender equality in the spandex set.

Above: A Daffy Duck comic published by Gold Key. Copyright Warner Bros 2011.

AK: What was your first exposure to comics and what was it about the medium that really appealed to you?

Karen Healey: I was about five, I think, and it was a Daffy Duck comic, and I loved it. Then it was Asterix and Tintin and Footrot Flats collections. I was mostly interested in the stories, I think; I've always been a voracious reader, and I liked exotic adventures and mysteries and jokes I could understand (not that there were plenty I didn't get, like what the Dog had against Cheeky). After I started high school comics pretty much dropped out of my life. There wasn't a comics shop in my town, and there definitely weren't any collections on library shelves. So I read fantasy and science fiction and my Dad's Westerns - anything with magic or explosions or excitement. In retrospect, it was great training for both my career as a novelist and for my later superhero appreciation.

I picked up comics again in university, when a friend gave me Kingdom Come for my birthday, another friend introduced me to Ultimate Spider-Man, and then I ended up flatting with Isaac Freeman, who's a Christchurch comics scene mainstay and placed huge shelves at my disposal, bless him.

Above: The NZ cover for Guardian Of The Dead. Copyright Karen Healey 2011.

AK: I was curious: as a prose writer, have comics had any effect on the way you approach writing fiction? Obviously they are completely different beasts, but perhaps in terms of how you picture imagery in your head etc. I know when I was reading Guardian of the Dead there were certain passages where I thought "that would make a good comic sequence" (particularly the supernatural scenes).

KH: Hah! Well, thank you. And should someone want to turn it into a comic, I believe the rights are available.

But I don't think comics have much effect on my methods of writing; certainly not in terms of visual sense or action writing, because I really don't have a good grasp on either. Dialogue comes naturally to me; making a scene kinetically or visually strong doesn't, and I have to work at it. However in terms of thematic resonance and ideas, some comics have had a huge influence on my writing. Dylan Horrocks' Hicksville is cited in my Acknowledgements for Guardian of the Dead for a reason, and there are numerous references to superhero comics in the book, which provide the protagonist with a neat way to reach friendship with her romantic interest.

AK: You're currently writing your PhD on Superhero comics. What is it about that particular genre that appealed to you?

KH: Oh, pretty much the same thing that appeals to me about prose about supernatural or science fictional events. Something exciting is generally happening, set in motion and responded to by exciting people. The big superhero comics titles have the additional advantage of huge, elaborately complex multiverses that have been created by generations of people. Layers and lawyers of content to dig into, very exciting!

Above: The death of Stephanie Brown as Robin IV. Copyright DC Comics 2011.

AK: You co-founded the feminist comics organisation Girl-Wonder.org and wrote the column 'Girls Read Comics (and They're Pissed), where you discussed among other topics, current examples of sexism and gender equality issues in modern superhero comics. What inspired you to start your blog, and was there a particular example that made you decide "I really have to speak out about this"?

KH: What inspired me to start GRC was that Mary Borsellino said, "I'm putting together a feminist comics website, are you in?" Mary started Girl-Wonder.org in response to the death of Robin IV, Stephanie Brown, who didn't get the memorial case accorded to dead Robin II, Jason Todd. But I wasn't reading Batman titles at the time, and I didn't know much about Stephanie, so that wasn't my impetus, and I didn't really have a single final straw to motivate me. I was just so sick of seeing sexist bullshit on the pages and in comics discussion groups. The idea of a feminist space to talk about comics was incredibly exciting, so I got involved immediately.

Above: From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines by Trina Robbins. Copyright Trina Robbins 2011.

AK: Historically there's always been a bit of an imbalance in gender equality in comics in both readers and creators, particularly in superhero comics which is largely male dominated. However, there has been a rapid increase in female readers and creators in the last 15 years; do you think this is helping to providing a more balanced portrayal of female characters?

KH: Well, you know, historically there really hasn't been a huge imbalance. In the Golden Age of comics, there were a hell of a lot of little girls tossing their pennies on the counter to get comics, many of which were drawn or scripted by women - Trina Robbins talks about this in her comics research. The alienation of female readers is relatively recent, but the imbalance is definitely there now.

While I don't think female creators are guaranteed to provide a more balanced portrayal of women, I do think that making a concerted effort to include more women in the industry can make a big difference to other potential female creators. So many talented, driven women are just not interested in superhero comics because there's this metaphorical Boys' Club sign on the cubhouse door. And since I mostly read superhero comics, I think alienating so many creators of merit right off the bat is a huge shame.

Above: Part of a shocking sequence which leads to a rape taking place in the superhero series, Identity Crisis. Copyright DC Comics 2011.

AK: The portrayal of sexuality in superhero comics is another topic that comes up repeatedly in you blog, and it's certainly been a controversial issue in the genre since it's inception (although in the 1940s was more in the subtext; bondage particularly featured strongly: the tied-up damsel in distress, or in the case of Wonder Woman, shades of straight out slavery). Not to get bogged down in the issues of gender equality over time, but the relationship between violence and sex has always been an uneasy one in superhero comics; coming to the forefront in the 1980s when the readership migrated from children to adults with examples like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. It's often being argued since that superhero comics read by a largely teenage audience really aren't the place to discuss issues related to sex and sexuality. Do you think there's some validity to this argument, or is it overly simplistic?

KH: I write fiction for and about teenagers, and I have very firm views on sex and sexuality in young adult literature. Those views are discussed in more detail in this blog post HERE. But in short, I think that sex and sexuality are absolutely valid topics for young adult literature, and that certainly includes superhero comics aimed at a teenage audience.

My problem with many superhero comics is not that they include depictions of sex or sexuality, but that they do it so *badly*. Rape as the best possible motivation for a woman becoming a hero or a villain, for example, or numerous depictions of female sexuality as titillating, rather than as an honest depiction of a character's sexual desires. And then you get things like comics editors being squeamish about showing a gay male couple kissing on-page, where a straight couple can totally go for it, bonus points for female partial nudity. Sex is awesome. Sexism and homophobia are gross.

Above: A scene from the webcomic FreakAngels by Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield. Copyright Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield 2011.

AK: What comics are you currently reading, and what would you recommend for female readers who are interested in superhero comics but aren't sure where to start?

KH: I'm currently reading Secret Six, Batgirl, Birds of Prey, and Black Widow and I'm eagerly waiting on a ton of trades to see if I want to get back into the Avengers and Iron Man and a ton of X-Men titles. Online, I'm reading Oglaf (warning: definitely adult content), The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, The Adventures of Superhero Girl, Bad Machinery , Penny Arcade, FreakAngels, Subnormality and Hark! A Vagrant.

As for recommendations, I really don't know what to recommend for women who don't know where to start unless I know more about the women in question. Readers are really individual. Do they like action? Romance? Intrigue? Mysticism? Do they like comics with a more left-wing, right-wing or centrist slant? Do they like humour? Black humour or slapstick?

I think the best thing for people who want to learn more about superhero comics is to hit the library, (if they have a good selection), or a local comic book store, (if it's decent), or a comics-reading friend's bookshelf (if you trust their taste) and browse, and maybe pick out a few things that suit your tastes. Or hit the internet. There are a ton of "how to get your girlfriend to read comics" lists which may be safely ignored, but review sites that go "Here's a comic I really like because X, Y, Z" can be really handy if X, Y and Z are what you're looking for.

Above: Another cover for Guardian Of The Dead. Copyright Karen Healey 2011.

Thanks to Karen for answering my questions, and for more of her thoughts on comics (there was plenty more to talk about that didn't make it into this interview), make sure you get a ticket for the Graphic Novels, Comics & Cartoons panel this Sunday at 11.15am at the Aotea Centre! Visit the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival website for details. For more information on Karen and her writing, you can visit her official website HERE.

-AK!

EXCLUSIVE: Talking comics with Emily Perkins

Above: Author Emily Perkins. Photo by Jesse Casson, artwork by Dylan Horrocks. Copyright the respective holders.

In this new ongoing interview series I'll be talking to prominent New Zealanders who you may be surprised to learn have an interest and affection for comics.

Today I'm talking with acclaimed fiction writer and local literary star Emily Perkins. She has produced three novels, The New Girl (Picador, 2001), Leave Before You Go (Picador, 1998) and Novel About My Wife (Bloomsbury, 2008) which won both the Fiction category, and the overall Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2009. She has also written and edited short story collections, lectured on creative writing, as well as finding the time to present The Good Word, a literary discussion show for TVNZ 7.

This week she will be taking part in the Orcon Great Blend 2010, an event organised by Public Address and Orcon, in which various creative types are brought together to share and discuss their craft. The theme of this year's event is collaboration, which features Perkins teaming up with cartoonist Dylan Horrocks to produce a jam comic.

The comic focuses on their personal processes and reasons for writing, and was produced by writing and drawing a page each day and emailing it to the other author to continue the story. The 32 page mini-comic modestly titled: All Hail Elle: Destroyer of Worlds! will be performed live on the night by the authors, and available for sale afterwards (the event is sold out, but I'll keep you posted on where you may be able to purchase a copy at a later date).

AK: To start with, how did this collaboration come about; and is this your first experience creating a comic?

Emily Perkins: Russell Brown put us together for the Great Blend, which is all about collaboration, and Dylan came up with the idea of what to do - a dialogue about writing, in comic form. For quite a while I thought I was going to get away with a) not drawing anything or b) getting my son to do the drawings for me. But once Dylan and I met to discuss the project it was pretty clear I'd have to give it a go. He even provided pens.

This is my very first experience creating a comic since probably intermediate school. I haven't really drawn anything since 4th form art. So it's been an amazing surprise and privilege collaborating with Dylan who is such a talented comic artist and writer.

AK: So I take it you read comic-books growing up? Did you have any favourites or recall any particular titles or images that made an impression?

EP: As a girl I read Mad magazine avidly. It made a huge impression on me - often I'd never have seen the stuff they'd be satirizing but the whole tone was so powerfully fun and irreverent. 'Humor in a jugular vein' - !! As well as the satires and fold-ins I loved Spy vs. Spy and The Lighter Side... I have many memories of lying around at a friend's place reading the boys' giant pile of Mads and other comics.

Above: A classic Mad Magazine cover by Basil Wolverton. Copyright Mad Magazine 2010.

Also I loved Asterix, mostly for the character-based jokes and puns, but reading them now with my kids I'm amazed at how tightly structured they are. The illustrations are so lively. And I kind of liked Tintin though more for the exciting settings and Captain Haddock than Tintin himself, who left me cold. And I loved Peanuts, especially Lucy and Schroeder and Pig Pen.

Later I was into Love & Rockets; the characters and stories spoke to me, and I love Jaime Hernandez's style.

Above: 'I Hate You Deeply', featuring Lloyd Llewellyn from Twentieth Century Eightball by Daniel Clowes. Copyright Daniel Clowes 2010.

Also around then, a friend got me into Eightball, and I especially remember 'I Hate You Deeply' - Lloyd Llewellyn, enemy of urban attention-seekers everywhere. One of the most shocking comic images I've seen was where someone (Lloyd?) visualised Lucy from Peanuts as a teenager, topless, with breasts. Wrong and brilliant! And I love R. Crumb and a lot of the Furry Freak Brothers.

AK: As a storytelling medium, comics rely on the unique interaction of words and pictures to create a story for the reader. Did you find the writing process for this particularly challenging coming from a prose background? Did you make any adjustments in your approach to storytelling?

It was liberating at first - like writing in 3D - I loved having a visual way to express an idea - though am not sure how long I'd want to go on relying on symbolism, simile, and metaphor in the fairly obvious way I have in this comic.

'Ellie' is more about our thoughts on writing rather than telling a story. There's a narrative to the dialogue but because of the way we did it - Dylan would send me a panel, I'd send one in response and so on - there was no revising. In my prose writing I rely totally on the redrafting process to figure out what's going on. I did do drafts of each panel, but once it was sent to Dylan that was it, it was going in!

A spread from All Hail Elle: Destroyer of Worlds! by Emily Perkins & Dylan Horrocks. Copyright Emily Perkins & Dylan Horrocks 2010.

AK: Digging a little deeper into the art chores: did you find the act of drawing a freeing experience in terms of communicating, or did it feel more like an additional discipline that needed to be served to produce the story?

EP: The drawing itself was incredibly freeing. It was so much fun! A very different kind of concentration from writing prose. Just the enormous pleasure in making something in shapes and lines rather than in words... I might be hooked. Of course the more I did, the more I realised how hard it is - my limitations began to be very obvious - I'm in awe of those who can get so much expression into the manipulation of the pen. If things worked in my pictures it was often by accident.

AK: Based on this experience, would you consider writing/drawing an original graphic novel? There seems to be a growing list of literary authors giving it a go: Stephen King, Brad Meltzer, Ian Rankin, James Patterson, Audrey Niffenegger among others.

EP: Well, I think it would be totally fun and daunting, learning a whole new discipline. If the right idea presented itself.... it's tempting but I might be happy just being a Sunday sketcher. I'd have to get a whole lot better before embarking on something solo like that - the collaboration was the perfect way into drawing as there was a clear premise and no solo responsibility, and Dylan knows what he's doing.

AK: In the last ten years graphic novels have firmly established themselves as a fixture of the modern bookstore, despite been viewed as something of a novelty in more conservative literary circles.. Going forward, do you believe there's a place for them in the current literary world?

EP: Yes! There's such an enormous range of writing accompanied by images (or vice versa) - from something like the Re/Search edition of JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, to the illustrations Taika Waititi did for Jo Randerson's The Keys to Hell or Jo's collaboration with Seraphine Pick, to more traditionally presented graphic novels or comics. It's a genre with a huge life.

Above: The cover of All Hail Elle: Destroyer of Worlds! by Emily Perkins & Dylan Horrocks. Copyright Emily Perkins & Dylan Horrocks 2010.

A big thank you to Emily Perkins for taking the time out of her busy schedule to talk about this project (don't forget to follow her on Twitter!), and keep an eye on the Public Address website for more updates on the Orcon Great Blend 2010 event.

-AK!