Gail Simone

I love any books by Kelly Sue DeConnick or Marjorie M. Liu; it's lovely to have successful, talented female writers doing great work in comics.

The fishnets on Black Canary never bothered me: they fit her character. It's the same for me with the bikini... most people don't wear a lot of clothes in these stories, and it's a big part of what makes her instantly recognizable. Do I want her in a raincoat? Not really.

I try to make every issue new-reader friendly. I remember being frustrated many times trying to pick up new series that were overladen with baggage. The trick is to make that backstory seem like something compelling that they will want to explore rather than an obstacle course they have to crawl through to get to the story.

Red Sonja, she was a hellraiser before Buffy, Xena, and Ripley even existed. When so many heroines in comics were all hung up on romance and the bizarre gender politics of comics at the time, Sonja was out cutting off the heads of dragons and pirates.

I love DC. I love the people there, and I am deeply in love with that universe, but it meant that for a long time, when other offers came up, I always had to turn them down.

My career path is the weirdest thing. I was a hairdresser, I worked at Marvel for a few months, and then I was signed to a DC exclusive for eight years.

With 'Red Sonja', it's a single character leading a book although there's a supporting cast, whereas 'Secret Six' is basically six characters who have equal time and equal place in the book, so it's got a team dynamic that 'Red Sonja' doesn't have.

We have so many fantastic creators - female creators as well as male creators that have their own followings, their own fans, and their own books that are successful.

Catman - what I really like about him is he's a really grounded character in terms of - he's an excellent tracker. We're giving him a set of new skills for 'Secret Six' as it starts again anew. But he's very sexy, very dangerous, unpredictable.

I get very invested in characters; it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work.

The 'Womanthology' book got a lot of people jobs, inside and outside the industry, and I think stuff like that tends to be really effective. You have something in print that you can point an editor or a publisher to, and it makes a huge difference for a lot of people.

If you have something to say, especially that's different and needed, then do it.

People who support Kickstarter, we love them all. We're so grateful we have these products out here that allowed us to keep the copyrights and own them and everything, but people don't realize just how massive an undertaking it is.

People resist and fight against things that are new that they haven't seen before, especially if they make them uncomfortable. But fiction is a safe place to tell these stories and to reach out to people and maybe affect them and make a difference in their lives.

I always look for a story that hasn't been told in the same way. I don't care about a lot of the usual elements people use for a quick drama boost. I want to know, for example, what happens when a man who was victimized by his father tries to be a father to a woman sixty years his senior.

Famously, DC has been pretty great showing gay women, with characters like Batwoman, but has shown fewer prominent men on the sexuality spectrum outside of hetero. It's something we need to address. I also think it's lovely how the readers respond to this.

I think it's important to have diversity in comics for a thousand reasons. It's not just some airy conceptual thing: it's important to reflect the humanity of the readership.

The stuff we're seeing in 'Deadpool' and 'Harley Quinn' now, Plastic Man was doing in the 1940s. It's a character that was ahead of its time back then and the stories are still funny and still relevant.

The first Knightfall story is four issues, and it is extremely focused and intense. People who have read, say, the 'Cats In the Cradle' arc in 'Secret Six' will get some idea of the primal tone of this story. It doesn't let up at all, and it ends in a new place.

People who are exposed to great Wonder Woman stories love her. You have to do your best work and get it out there so people can experience it.

My hope is that we can spread the word: Wonder Woman is not some unapproachable goddess. She's funny, dangerous, intimidating, brilliant, and compassionate. In many ways, I think she's the most human superheroine there is.

Wonder Woman is very much her own character. She thinks big.

Batman has what is quite possibly the best rogues' gallery every created. People who have never read a comic can name half a dozen of his foes, and that's barely scratching the surface.

I love crossovers, I love Wonder Woman, and being able to bring the undisputed greatest warriors of the DCU and Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age together for the very first time is a dream come true.

I have never really gotten to write Catwoman. She's one of the few iconic females at DC, along with Supergirl, that I haven't really gotten to take out for a spin.

When I created Mary for the 'Batgirl' issue of 'Night of the Owls,' there was a lot of excitement at DC. Scott Snyder in particular was a champion for the character, bless him.

Actually, the notion of what is acceptable for a moral government to do seems to have eroded in some ways since 9-11. Not to get too political here, but countries, including our own, seem to have accepted what was once almost unimaginable - condoning torture, for example, and even criminalizing peaceful protest.

One of the things I am most excited about personally is a five-issue anthology I put together, 'Legends of Red Sonja,' which is full of wonderful little short stories written exclusively by my favorite female writers of comics, prose, and gaming.

I have had a lot of dreams come true as a writer... I've gotten to work with artists I adored as a reader; I've gotten to write characters that changed my life as a kid.

First, hugely popular and talented romance/dark fantasy author Meljean Brook gives a really deep, wonderful story. She's clearly spent so much time thinking about the world of Sonja and her story in particular, it could easily have been a novel of its own.

My favorite characters are always the unpredictable ones, and with Domino, you literally never know which way the dice are going to roll.

When I write a team book, it's all about how they relate to each other and what they bring to the team and the book. Whether it's Black Canary and Huntress or Bane and Scandal, I look for a relationship that people can believe in, that they want to follow and learn more about.

It's time for a trans hero in a mainstream comic.

Leaving a book is hard - 'Secret Six' was a book that people cared about. Even years later, the digital sales are great; the trades and single issues are expensive and highly sought after. It was meaningful to a lot of readers, which is endlessly gratifying.

I admire writers who can remain objective and distanced, but that doesn't seem to be in my toolbox somehow. I have to care, I have to have skin in the game.

I looked out into the audience, saw dozens of faces I knew well - LGBTQ folks, mostly - all avid comics readers and superhero fans and DC supporters, and it just hit me: Why was this so impossible? Why in the world can we not do a better job of representation of not just humanity, but also our own loyal audience?

I don't need every book to have female creators, I don't care if there are books that appeal mostly to guy readers. I don't care if some books have cheesecake. I am fine with all of that. It's the not allowing anything else that makes me furious.

When I started in comics, people were always trying to classify me as either/or. Either a writer who appealed to women or a writer who appealed to guys. This need to categorize was just exhausting.

I always say, if a guy writes the same lead female character type over and over, we are not seeing their writing chops so much as their dating website wishlist.

A lot of action heroes, we're told they are heroic primarily because they commit violence upon the bad guy. It can be cathartic; it can be thrilling. But at some point, I think you want more from your heroes than just the ability and willingness to pummel someone.

Part of the joy of my career, for me, has been giving these iconic females a bit of shading of that unapologetic female vibe. I think it's an interesting approach.

I've always said my whole career that I wanted to write by the improv credo, 'don't negate,' which means, even if you didn't care for something, you try to make it work. You don't say, 'Oh, that particular story didn't happen.'

Secret Six has always had a special place in the DCU, just because they're the misfits. The content is a little bit different than the rest of the mainstream titles. It has a completely different tone than any of the other books out there.

Nothing really prevented me from showing Catman as bi, but it's how I thought of him.

Greg Rucka always writes lovely, believable female characters in books like 'Whiteout,' 'Queen and Country,' and 'Lazarus.' I am a fan of Kelly Sue DeConnick, who does a wonderful female lead in 'Captain Marvel.' And DC's 'Batwoman' is currently the only book at the Big Two with a lesbian solo lead character, and it's always outstanding.

I do a lot of book signings and conventions every year, and I meet a great many readers who are struggling... they're working through illness, injury, addiction, depression, grief, or some other trauma. It seems to me that there's a lot of heroism in fighting those things as well, as best you can.

'Batgirl' and 'Harley Quinn' are the first DC hit books in a while that aren't starring Batman personally, really. But some of the attempts to reach the female audience have been really depressing to me.

A lot of readers and a lot of editors had a story problem with Oracle, in that she made for such an easy, convenient story accelerator, that we missed the sense of having characters have to struggle to discover, to solve mysteries. Famously, it helped make Batman less of a detective and more of a monster hunter.

I have worked with a lot of great artists, including some of my heroes like Michael Golden, George Perez, and Jose Garcia Lopez, just to name a couple. I have been spoiled.

I'm excited for Christy Marx taking over 'Birds of Prey'. I adore 'Rachel Rising' by the great Terry Moore. I'm also a stone cold Scott Snyder fan; the guy is a joy to read and a pleasure to work with.