This weekend, over 100,000 people attended New York Comic Con, mostly to get free stuff. But some of those people attended panels where free stuff wasn’t the draw and of those panels, I was privileged and honored to participate on two.
XX: Women of Queer Comics took place on Friday night. Sponsored by Prism Comics, the moderator was author, artist and singer (and Yuri Monogatari contributor) JD Glass. The panel consisted of:
Joan Hilty – Former DC editor and creator of Bitter Girl
Kris Dresden – Creator of these things matter, hush and other comics
Jennifer Camper – Creator of Rude Girls and Dangerous Women and editor of the Juicy Mother anthologies.
Paige Braddock – Creator of Jane’s World
Abby Denson – Creator of Dolltopia and Tough Love: High School Confidential
Rica Takashima – Creator of Tokyo Love ~ Rica ‘tte Kanji!? and Aozora Art
and, erm, me. (I love the picture above, because I was leaning back as I listened, so I’m not visible. ^_^;; I’m behind Abby.)
To say that I was feeling a bit like a pretender is an understatement. I was *the* only non-artist on the panel.
Anyway, the room was full, the panel was funny, the crowd was great and we had a teriffic time. I loved hearing the other panelists’ stories about how they got started doing comics and what motivated them now.
JD’s questions covered how everyone got started (short version: no one else was doing it and it seemed the right or only thing to do,) what keeps them going (short version: same as last answer and it’s who we are) and what positive changes we’ve seen (short version: more queer characters in all levels of comics, creators, editorial, staff, characters, etc.) This last led to the best line of the panel, IMHO.
I began talking about how, when I started, Yuri was just porn for creepy guys and Camper leans forward and says, “And now it’s porn for creepy dykes.” I’m still laughing at that.
Everyone was witty and grounded and real and I do not believe I have ever been so honored in my life as I was to sit up there with such amazing women.
The grand takeaway from this panel was: What are you waiting for? Do it – draw/write/publish – do it already and do it yourself.
Thanks JD for the chance to be on that panel – and thanks to everyone who came and asked such great questions!
PS – I gave out prizes to people who asked questions, so they got free stuff anyway. ^_^
That panel definitely sounded like something I would gone to if I had attended NYCC.
By the way, I was wondering if you have heard how GeekGirlCon in Seattle went (8-9 Oct)? I attended it with my younger sister. I don’t think I’m qualified to give a full run down of the con beyond that my sister and I had a lot of fun and from the initial reports everything went great with a complete sellout of passes. The vast majority of the attendees were female with guys making up at most 30% of the people there. (Maybe they will post the actual ratio on their website after the post con survey is finished.) Its definitely something we are looking forward to next year.
More pictures!
Sounds like it was a great panel! It would be great to have things like this in other countries, like Australia… I would have gone to NYCC and this panel, if I lived in the US… :(
I wish I could’ve been there! Sounds like you had a lot of fun.
@Felix – All the reports are that GeekGirlCon was a rousing success. I know they are planning another for next year.
@Ashrie – The moral of the story was “do it yourself.” Start the event you ant to see, run the panel. Don’t wait for someone to do it for you.
@Anonymous – I didn’t take any pictures, I was on the panel. You’ll have to search for a report from the audience for pics.
@apricot sushi – It was fun.