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Posts tagged Sunita

New Retconned PiQue, plus a sneak peek into Beyond

New Retconned PiQue, plus a sneak peek into Beyond published on No Comments on New Retconned PiQue, plus a sneak peek into Beyond

Politically InQueerect Sunita

Time for this week’s PiQue on Tapastic, in which a younger Sunita (in her retail-workin’ days) has a plan for getting rid of pesky dudes who can’t take a hint.

Okay, so this is something of a retcon. After I came up with the “brand-new” character Sunita, I realized this unnamed woman from an old comic of mine was pretty much identical in personality. The only difference is she’s skinnier. So it’s not that hard to see old-comic Sunita as the younger (think 19-ish) incarnation of current Sunita (who may or may not be pushing 30-ish, who can say?).

Trivia fun time: Archer is essentially a reincarnation of an old D&D character of mine … apparently when I make up a fake person I like to keep ’em around.

concept art for Beyond

In other news, I’m in the midst of crafting a story for Beyond, a queer sci-fi fantasy anthology that’s currently in the works. I’m working away on character designs for my story right now … last night, I sketched out these two ladies. I don’t actually have names for them yet (I have a hard time coming up with names, it turns out),and it’s very likely their outfits will change as I get a better handle on what I want to do about fashion in this world, but for now alls you need to know is LESBIAN SCIENTIST ADVENTURERS. My story will also have non-gendered asexuals, what-if hominids, and other fun stuff, so keep an eye out for further developments.

This is intended as a standalone story for the anthology, though the world and the characters are all featured in my big, epic sci-fantasy book I’ve been writing away on. THAT’S not going to see the light of day for awhile, but it’s been my Big Project Goal for a long time now, so I’m excited to get to work on bits of it for Beyond.

Cheers,

Dylan

Please don’t tell Todd McFarlane

Please don’t tell Todd McFarlane published on No Comments on Please don’t tell Todd McFarlane

Politically InQueerect women who are sick of your shit

Yes indeed, I’m working away on a new PiQue one-pager, which will introduce us to two new characters: Yuki and Sunita, a pair of gamer dykes.

You may well have heard about the recent panel, where straight white dudes like Todd McFarlane declared (superhero) comics to be solely the provenance of straight, white dudes, because of something having to do with testosterone. I really didn’t quite get it, since testosterone is not listed as an ingredient in any of my art supplies, but he appears convinced of this.

The comic I’m working on was not written as a reaction to the panel; I wrote the script for it a couple of months ago, but as you may be able to tell from the excerpt here, the subject matter is not entirely irrelevant.

One of the panelists also suggested that the only correct way to write PoC characters is as though race doesn’t actually exist, I guess because PoC supes are somehow magically immune to racism, like that’s their superpower. I personally would love to see a Black Batman. 1960s Batman bears only the most superficial resemblances to 2010s Batman, so I’m not sure why Batman’s race should be set in stone.

Again, I didn’t cast this comic with people of color as a reaction to that particular discussion (Yuki as a female knight is also a total, but delightful, coincidence), but it does strengthen my resolve to present a diverse cast whose experiences are reflective of what actual, real people in the modern world are experiencing. Pretending racism doesn’t exist would be a huge disservice. That doesn’t mean that PoC characters have to sit around talking about racism all the time. They will also talk about video games, or food, or music! Theater, or books, or movies! Art, or writing, or … you know, “interests” that people sometimes have and like to share with their friends. And it’s really my friends for whom I’m writing these characters, so they get to see some aspect of themselves reflected in my imaginary world, just as they are part of my life in the real world. Being invisible is a neat superpower, but it kinda sucks when you can’t turn it off.

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