A photo of the four Gail Simone omnibuses I own - Secret Six, Red Sonja, Wonder Woman, and Batgirl
I’ve been hesitating to write about the things I consider to be “special interests”. In the world of autism, there’s a commonly known phenomenon where autistic people have certain things that we are especially interested in and know a lot about. In my experience, autistic people talking at length - or “info dumping” - about their special interests is extremely charming and wonderful, but I know that it can be difficult for others to sustain attention in the niche interests of people like me. So I’ve been debating whether or not to write about these things, so as not to come across as “too autistic” or, I suppose, bore the people who read this blog on a regular basis.
But it occurs to me that this blog is my little space on the internet to write as I see fit. It also occurs to me that my regular readers could just skip a post if they don’t feel up to reading it. Like I’ve said before, I don’t make any money off this blog, and in fact I pay a decent amount of money just to have this space. So if I post about something that doesn’t hold the attention of the people who would otherwise read most of my posts, there’s no actual consequence to that. Therefore, I’m going to allow myself to write an info dump, special interest post.
I think everyone knows by now about my deep love of comic books. I have been a comic book fan since I was 6 or 7 years old. Comic books bring me a ton of joy and fulfillment. I have favorite characters, favorite stories from different titles, and favorite comic book creators.
There are certain comic book artists - meaning the people who draw the stories - who I follow closely, and whose work I will read no matter how much or how little I am interested in the characters. Examples of comic artists whose work I will seek out no matter what are Nicola Scott, Olivier Coipel, Kris Anka, Dan Mora, David Marquez, and Russell Dauterman. If you’re at all interested, do a Google image search for any of those artists and be amazed by how incredible their work is.
Even more than artists, there are certain comic writers whose work I will consistently seek out. These are writers who are just always great, who tell stories that I love. Sometimes these writers get the job of writing characters who are already my favorites - like the current situation of Mark Waid writing Justice League - and sometimes these writers make me fall in love with characters who I never had any interest in - like Jed MacKay with Black Cat or Moon Knight - or the writers will make me fall in love with brand new characters - like Kieron Gillen’s amazing “The Wicked + The Divine”. Aside from the three I’ve mentioned here, other writers whose work I will always read are Kelly Thompson, Kelly Sue deConnick, G. Willow Wilson, Tom Taylor, Colin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing.
There is one writer, however, who is my all time favorite, and whose work brings me a kind of joy, excitement, fulfillment, and heart-fullness that I can barely even put into words. That writer is Gail Simone. Gail Simone’s comics have a kind of magic that I have never seen anyone else capture. The way she writes is unlike anyone whose work I’ve ever read before. I don’t really know how to say it other than that Gail just GETS the characters she writes. It’s like, as soon as you see that Gail is going to be writing a book, you know that you are going to get the truest version of those characters that you’ve ever read.
The first Gail Simone book I read was her run on Wonder Woman. I liked Wonder Woman at the time, but I wouldn’t say she was my favorite. However, the more I read Gail’s Wonder Woman book, the more I realized just how astounding that character is. Gail Simone’s Wonder Woman said so much about gender in a way that I hadn’t experienced before, and the way I felt myself represented in that character was a big step on my journey towards understanding my own gender. Gail’s Wonder Woman was so human, so “normal”, but also so powerful, so inspirational, and so aspirational. Wonder Woman could be the kind of friend who loves you so intimately that she becomes your family, and she could also be the kind of tireless defender and protector you’ve always needed. I couldn’t get enough of Gail’s take on Wonder Woman, and her run on that book is what catapulted Wonder Woman to the very top of my list of all time favorite characters.
Reading Gail’s Wonder Woman made me want to read the other books she wrote. I went and found her earlier run on Deadpool, and was struck by how incredibly funny her writing could be. Then I started to read up on who Gail Simone is as a person. She’s a former hairdresser, which says a lot to me about the kind of person she is because a lot of my very favorite people are hairdressers. She got noticed by the comic book industry because of what she wrote online as a fan, about how female characters were often treated horrifically to advance the narratives of male characters. I became more and more of a fan of Gail Simone the more I learned about her. I read as many books of hers as I could. Birds of Prey, Villains United, Atom, The Movement - these all became books I loved.
Gail’s run on Batgirl made me fall in love with the character of Barbara Gordon. I wrote about Gail’s Batgirl in a previous post, but the bottom line is that Gail’s Batgirl would end up being essential for my recovery from Xanax addiction. I will forever be grateful for the role Barbara Gordon, as written by Gail Simone, played in helping me through one of the darkest, hardest times in my life.
I mentioned that sometimes comic fans are lucky enough to have their favorite creators write and draw their favorite characters. Mark Waid and Dan Mora as the creative team on Justice League Unlimited is an example of that kind of luck for me. There are times when I am extremely dysregulated and I need to do something to calm myself down and center myself, and making lists of random things is something I’ll sometimes do in those situations. The act of thinking about my favorite things and then organizing those things can be an extremely grounding activity. A frequent type of list that I’ll make is my favorite creators working on my favorite comics. I imagine it’s kind of like fantasy football (which I admittedly know nothing about), coming up with your dream team and imagining that dream team coming to be a reality.
I am willing to bet any amount of money that at some point, one of those dream team lists had Gail Simone and David Marquez as the creative team on an X-Men book. The X-Men were my first comic book love, and I was DEEPLY invested in those characters for many years. In a big way, the X-Men became like family to me, and I would spend hours imagining myself in their world, interacting with them. So the idea of Gail Simone - the writer who brings out the truest versions of the characters she writes - and David Marquez - one of the most incredible artists in the industry (just look at his art on The Defenders!!) - working together on an X-Men book was the kind of fantasy scenario I could only dream about. And now, those two creators ARE the creative team on Uncanny X-Men. It’s unbelievable, and every issue that comes out feels like coming home to family in a really intimate way.
Gail Simone’s first novel just recently came out. It’s a Red Sonja book. I was never familiar with Red Sonja as a character, but because I was such a big fan of Gail’s, I read the Red Sonja comic she wrote back when it came out and, unsurprisingly, fell in love with the character. Well, when I found out about the novel coming out, I preordered it on Audible and Kindle and immediately added the hardcover to my Christmas wishlist. I’m only 5 chapters into it so far, but what strikes me so much about the book are the little details about the characters that make me feel like I really know them and the kind of people they are. I’m loving this book so far and I simultaneously want to read the whole thing as quickly as possible, and savor the experience of reading it so that it doesn’t end.
Another thing that I really love about Gail Simone is her social media presence. Her posts on Facebook and Bluesky tend to alternate between praising other creators, hysterically funny jokes and banter, comments about the importance of diversity and inclusion and representation, and encouraging her followers to support their local comic shops. She just comes across as such a genuinely good, kind, compassionate person. Following her on social media, it’s hard not to admire her heart and her humor and her talent.
So, in case you couldn’t tell, saying that I am a fan of Gail Simone is an understatement. Gail Simone is my Elvis, my Beatles, my Beyoncé, my Taylor Swift. She also happens to be my Facebook friend. The day I received a friend request from her after I tagged her in a post, I nearly died of excitement. I’m hesitant to post this entry on Facebook because I’m a little worried that Gail is going to see this and get weirded out over just how big a fan I am. It’s actually a bit embarrassing to admire someone who I don’t even know this much. But being able to read both the creative works and the personal thoughts of such an amazing talent feels like a real privilege, and I feel so incredibly lucky that I get to be a comic fan at the same time Gail Simone is creating comics.
So that’s my nerdy special interest post. Maybe I’ll do more special interest posts in the future, we’ll see. It did feel really fun to info dump about a creator who I admire so much. As always, thank you for reading!!