Kelly Sue DeConnick Quotes

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In a weird way, I think I'm much better at oneshots than longform. So I try to focus on five or six-issue arcs. I have a real fondness for the one-shots because that's where I do my best storytelling.

'Female Convict 701: Scorpion' is based on a manga as is 'Lady Snowblood.' I saw 'Lady Snowblood' in the theater between writing issue three and issue four of the first arc of 'Pretty Deadly,' and I was really surprised how much I was influenced by it.

In popular culture, when women compete, it's usually over a man, and it's usually very nasty. And that is just frankly not my experience. That's just some kind of popular mythology, it feels like. I find it insulting.

My son is such a lover, such a caretaker and so funny. He's seven, and he genuinely cracks me up. And my daughter is a fearless powerhouse. They fill me with wonder and admiration.

Complicated feelings are fertile soil for creative ideas.

Anybody who's read 'Pretty Deadly' knows that I tend to savor an immersive, 'You'll figure it out as you go!' style. 'Pretty Deadly' really does not hold your hand.

We are all shaped by what we do.

I kind of resent the suggestion that there would be something inherent about superheroes that wouldn't be of interest to women. That makes me nuts. I'm a 5-foot tall woman with a quick temper who always looks like a child, so power fantasies are not strange to me.

If you're not interested in your work, you're not doing it right.

Seriously, just buy the [expletive deleted] book. I promise you'll like it. Unless you're [expletive deleted].

My creator owned books sell better than my mainstream books. And that makes no sense.

I tend to choose collaborators who are more courageous than I am. I think it's good for me.

Knew you the second you set foot on my property, kid. Even as young as you were, how could I not? Folks want to blame someone for gals like us. "Her daddy was unkind" or "some fella broke her heart" … Hogwash. You and me've always been like this. Always a little removed. Always… dreaming.
Of higher, further, faster… more. Always more. We came into this world spittin' mad, runnin' full bore… To or from what, I ain't never been able to tell. Over the years, I've come to think of these particular traits as the shared attributes of a chosen people… the Lord put us here to punch holes in the sky.
And when the soul is born with that kind of purpose… It'll damn sure find a way. We're gonna get where we're going, you and me. Death and indignity be damned… we'll get there…
…And we will be the stars we were always meant to be.

You don't usually have to wait a month for a new episode of a TV show. We ask comic readers to wait a month for a new issue, and honestly, given the time that it takes to put them together, a month is really too fast.

Nothing is compulsory. Free will is paramount. But free will comes with the burden of consequences.

I think I'm very strong at dialogue, I think I'm very strong in characterization. I think sometimes I use dialogue and character work to cover weaknesses in my plotting.

With 'Pretty Deadly,' I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a three-act structure in it. I don't know - someone probably can.

I'm not particularly good at page layouts. I make an effort to stay out of the way of the artist. What I'll try to express instead is, 'What we're going for here on this page is the idea of the containment of these women's bodies. So I want them framed as though they're bursting out of the panel borders.'

Gray space is fertile ground for fiction. When I can see both sides of an argument and feel strongly in both directions, then there's a story there, then I can write real characters that I care about and believe in and champion on both sides.

I am a nerd among nerds.

I like my heroes to be imperfect; I like them to be striving. I identify with that kind of aspiration to do better.

'Pretty Deadly' is the story of these immortal and mortal characters, and the mortals' story follows Sarah's family, a black family, through the ages. I never made the choice of, 'Oh, this is gonna be the story of an African American family!'

Have you ever seen a little girl run so fast she falls down? There's an instant, a fraction of a second before the world catches hold of her again... A moment when she's outrun every doubt and fear she's ever had about herself and she flies. In that one moment, every little girl flies. I need to find that again. Like taking a car out into the desert to see how fast it can go, I need to find the edge of me... And maybe, if I fly far enough, I'll be able to turn around and look at the world... And see where I belong.

I used to write reviews for 'Artbomb.' Our policy was to only cover books we loved and recommended.

Because of the nature of monthly comics and deadline, I pretty much have to work on whatever's on fire, I'm afraid.

I just did an arc with Warren Ellis - and no one else on the planet could get away with this, because I think this is like harassment? - But Warren felt like there was a depiction of Spider-Woman where it looked like her waist perhaps didn't contain any internal organs. And he suggested very quietly ... 'You should fix that, or else I will come to your house and nail your feet to the floor and set your house on fire.' ... And it totally got fixed!

With Marvel, I obviously don't own the characters, so there are levels of approval to go through. But I'm very seldom told no, and never without reason. Maybe I've just been lucky; I don't know, but I don't think it's as frustrating as people generally imagine. I act as though I own it all while I'm writing, I think. I hope, anyway.

I want young women to see my name on 'Avengers Assembled' and to know that there are women who write mainstream superhero comics, and if it is something that interests them, it can be done.

You can't write something actively trying to please everyone - you're going to end up with watery soup that way. You just have to write stories you would want to read and hope that people like them.

Writing is hard. Writing that is good, writing that is powerful enough to evoke a change or an authentic emotion or even just an idea in another human being is about as mysterious as an alchemical recipe, but there are a few known ingredients. Craft? Yes, absolutely. Devotion? A load - yes! Humility? Not vital, I suppose, but all my favorites include at least a dash. Before those can be added to the cauldron though, you must have a base of Honesty. Honesty is difficult to find in public spaces these days (and getting harder every goddamn day) but if you're quiet, and patient, you can usually find some hidden in your room somewhere. (It helps to turn off the lights, for some reason.) Problem is, Honesty is invariably bound to Vulnerability and the only thing that cuts the bitterness of Vulnerability is Courage. And Courage?
Well. Courage is the hardest thing of all.

I think women are vital to the future of the superhero comics and the entire industry - as creators, as editors, as consumers, as retailers.

I don't think working in superheroes is slumming it. I'm proud of this form. I like this. There's nothing inherently masculine about power fantasies. There's nothing inherently masculine about superhero comics. There's nothing inherently masculine about mythology. About science fiction.

Girls have always read comics. There's nothing intrinsically masculine about telling stories with pictures.

Romantic relationships are the least interesting thing for me to write about. I'm 45, and that's not the most interesting thing in my life anymore.

The notion that somehow women are wildly different infuriates me.

When I'm looking for a strong female character, or a strong character at all, I'm looking for a character that has a purpose in that story, that has an interior life of some sort. They don't have to be physically strong; they don't have to be morally strong or ethically strong, because men and women come in a huge variety of all of those things. Emotionally, ethically - I'm less concerned with that. I just don't want them to be props. That's the only thing that offends me.

Everything that feminism stands for is everything American, white, red and blue democratic. It is all the same stuff. So, I am boggled that I should have to give up this term that encapsulates what I want for my children, for my world, culture, brothers and sister because someone else thinks it means I don't shave my armpits.

I hate when I get asked, 'What's it like to be a woman in comics?'

I used to be good at clothes shopping and whatnot - at least ,I think I was! - but at some point after two kids and a career that worked out better than I ever could have imagined, I looked up from my desk and realized that I wore the same three t-shirts and 15-year-old jeans every day.

I guess I am conscious of my weaknesses, and I think pacing is probably my biggest. I don't know if I think the clarity thing is actually a weakness. It was a stylistic choice.

I think women have every right to feel like they're the protagonists in their own stories.

Comics are not theatre - there's a very important difference in that the reader controls the page. You can linger on a page of comics as long as you want. You can read and go forward and then move back; you can reread, in one sitting or at your leisure. You can take as much time as you want to take in that story.

Years ago - I used to be an actor - I was in a production of Vaclav Havel's 'Temptation,' and when we started rehearsals, he was in prison. When we closed the show, he was running for president. And it felt incredibly timely and important and also this lucky thing.

You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.

For hard resets, conventions and conferences can be inspiring.

The first gift my husband ever gave me was a pack of index cards. I'm pretty sure the second was a 'Powers' scriptbook. This was well before either of us worked for Marvel.

Part of a writer's job is just spacing out, looking into the air and imagining things.