The latest issue of The Gathering comic anthology ships this week. It includes a three-page story I did with artist Paula Cob about the people we meet in dreams. The issue can be ordered here.
Not everyone made it to The Avengers this weekend.
If you like horror and/or creator-owned comics, check out the Kickstarter for Anathema, a six-issue mini series written by Rachel Deering, a fellow Womanthology contributor (she lettered over thirty stories, including “Everwell”). The first issue has already been released to great reviews (I’m eagerly awaiting my copy) and the funds raised from the Kickstarter will pay the art team for issues 2-6. Come on, how many other comics out there bill themselves as a Lesbian Werewolf Epic?
I’m looking forward to seeing The Hunger Games tonight. Red Velvet is also rather excited about the movie in this week’s Cupcake POW! Think they like cupcakes in the Capitol?
Womanthology Interviews
I did a few interviews recently for Womanthology: Heroic. It was a bit weird, and it’s weirder still seeing my name pop up on Twitter along with links to hear me rambling. But here are the links for anyone interested:
Jody Houser Talks Womanthology With Fanboy Comics - The title sums it up pretty well. This was a video (awkward!) interview I did the week before WonderCon at Emerald Knights to help promote their Womanthology signing on March 25th.
Fandom Planet 40 “We Wander Wondercon” - During WonderCon, I did an impromtu interview with Fandom Planet while sitting at the Womanthology table. You can hear it about 17 minutes into the podcast.
I think I sound a lot more comfortable during the audio-only interview, but some of that may have been the people high I got from sitting at the Womanthology table at Artist Alley. There were so many people who came up to say how much the project meant to them. I hadn’t really expected that. It was incredibly moving to see so much support for Womanthology, especially with the announcement that it’s going to be an ongoing.
Today at my local comic shop (House of Secrets in Burbank), I watched a six-year-old girl page through every single comic in Womanthology: Heroic. I may have gotten a bit choked up. Isn’t this exactly who Womanthology was made for?
Shown in the photos are stories by Renae De Liz; Kate Leth; Gail Simone and Jean Kang; and myself, Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake. Reading through with her was Amy, House of Secrets employee and one of the Womanthology Kickstarter backers.
A while back, I asked for creators who identified as LGBTQ to announce themselves and promote their work in a massive thread right here on Tumblr. It got hundreds of responses and tons of links to some incredibly wonderful work, most of which has not yet received the exposure it deserves, quite a…
My name is Jody Houser and I’m a writer focusing on comics and screenwriting. I’ve written comics for several anthologies (including Womanthology) and have created webcomics since 2006. I’m also scripting some longer creator-owned projects. There’s more info and links at my website, MindEclipse.com.
You also need to buy this. And not just because I wrote a story in it (although that’s also an excellent reason).
Market Monday
Womanthology is a large-scale anthology showcasing the works of women in comics. It is created entirely by over 140 women of all experience levels, from young girls who love to create comics all the way up to top industry professionals. All of the short stories will center around our theme for this volume; Heroic. There will also be features, such as Professional How-Tos, a Kids/Teens section showcasing their works and giving tips, as well as a section dedicated to some Iconic female comic creators of the past, such as Nell Brinkley, and much more. Profits of this book will go towards the Charities of GlobalGiving.org.
Everybody needs to buy this book.
Market Monday
Saga #1, art by Fiona Staples
Y: THE LAST MAN writer BRIAN K. VAUGHAN returns to comics with red-hot artist FIONA STAPLES for an all-new ONGOING SERIES! Star Wars-style action collides with Game of Thrones-esque drama in this original sci-fi/fantasy epic for mature readers, as new parents Marko and Alana risk everything to raise their child amidst a never-ending galactic war. The adventure begins in a spectacular DOUBLE-SIZED FIRST ISSUE, with forty-four pages of story with no ads for the regular price of just $2.99!
Here’s a sneak preview of “Everwell”, the story I did for Womanthology with artists Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake. The photo is of the actual book. I got my copy yesterday and it is gorgeous!
Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! This was my contribution to the Womanthology Valentine’s Day PDF. It’s an excellent example of why you shouldn’t have your sidekick deliver your love letters.
I actually had a lot of fun writing this and might do an ongoing series of epistolary comics. Mostly because it sounds so fancy.
The full Womanthology Valentine’s Day PDF can be downloaded here.
This week’s Cupcake POW! Who said girly dresses were a bad thing?
I hope everyone enjoys our story when Womanthology is released! I’m very proud of “Everwell” and so glad I got to work with such awesome, talented ladies.
Today Womanthology is featuring pages from Everwell. What makes this contribution unique is that it has not only one art style, but three. Both artists partnered to tell the past and present of this story with each of their distinct styles. Everwell was written by Jody Houser, with full production art by Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake.
Jody is the creator of the webcomic Cupcake POW! and has written stories for upcoming anthologies including Dead Roots and The Gathering. You may follow Jody on her Twitter and visit her website Mindeclipse.com for more about her writing and comics.
Adriana is an animator located in Canada. Currently She is preparing to release her 3rd volume of her webcomic Fall on Me, due out in April- May. She is also working at 9 story Entertainment. 9 story entertainment will be releasing an animated TV show based on Mr. Rogers “neighborhood of Make-Believe” Adriana is a lover of children’s literature, and she has worked on various projects including, storyboarding, Flash animation and Illustration. Adriana has much of her work on her website, and she has links to her Tumblr, Facebook twitter and more social media sites.
Finally Fiona Staples has worked on titles for Wildstorm, IDW and Dark Horse, Vertigo and DC comics. She has been a cover artist, penciller, inker and colorist.
Fiona is currently paired with writer Brian K Vaughuan on a book called SAGA. SAGA will be published by Image comics in March. Fiona has more of her work online on her website.
It looks like the blog post that started this whole discussion has been deleted. Still, it’s good to see Saga and Fiona’s art getting some more press. Even if it’s for the most absurd of reasons.
Dave Dorman is an artist whose work has been featured in Heavy Metal, the European adult comics magazine which frequently features erotic art and comics.
Here are samples of some of his covers:
Here’s the image he’s objecting to:
His excuse seems to be that he was under the impression, given something Brian K. Vaughan said in an interview about today’s comics being inaccessible to the younger generation, that Saga was meant to be an all-ages book. However, that does not excuse the bulk of his reaction to the image of a mother breastfeeding her infant:
It seems that in today’s desperate-for-sales comic book market, nothing is sacred. In the midst of world-saving adventures, today’s modern heroine breast feeds her child with zero modesty…What a wholesome, family-friendly image!
I find this image offensive, not only for promotion of a comic book, but specifically for a comic that Brian clearly states that he would like to see today’s younger generation pick up and read as he did when he was kid. Rather than a family-friendly heroic saga, this promo art is telegraphing to the world that it’s a series I cannot share with my 7-year-old son.
Is the comics industry really so dead that they have to stretch to these desperate, shock value measures to incur readers? Really?
Jill Thompson immediately responded, “Breast feeding NOT offensive as Comicbook T&A.” Saga artist Fiona Staples has responded with grace and confusion, ”I find it a little hard to fathom why anyone would object to a depiction of breastfeeding, even if it were on a kids’ comic, which it isn’t. I have yet to hear a line of reasoning that makes sense to me. That said, anyone who wants to be grossed out by our comic is of course free to do so.”
Meanwhile, I’m weaving back and forth between wanting to cry and wanting to punch Dorman in the face.
My sister recently had her first child. Sometimes when I’m over at her house, the baby needs to eat. Sometimes my sister can’t be bothered to take the baby elsewhere in the house, or sometime I’ll go with her to my niece’s room so we can keep talking, and my sister breastfeeds her daughter. Every time it’s happened, my reaction to the scene has been one of awe, setting me on a contemplative path of how beautiful, powerful, and oddly efficient nature and life can be. There is something so primal and natural about breastfeeding that is so easy to forget in today’s mechanized world. Watching my niece suckle at my sister’s breast to me is like having a window into the past 100,000 years of hominid history, and for a brief moment makes me think that even with all the horrible things going on in the world today, ultimately we’ll be okay as a species, because most of us can be born, create more life, and sustain that life if we so choose.
In addition, there was some debate yesterday about whether the use of the word “ladyparts” is unforgivably cis-sexist. I don’t have a real answer to that, but as a cis-woman, I do feel the need to feel empowered in my own body, and by how my body is tied to my identity as a woman, because on the whole, society does what it can to take that empowerment from me.
So to hear some cis-male T&A/BDSM artist call breastfeeding a “desperate, shock-value” image that he “can’t share with his 7-year-old son”, makes me want to cry and punch him in the face at the same time.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need more of a female perspective in comics.
