Dear Board:

As comics professionals, we are concerned about the ongoing issues of inclusion and diversity in the nomination process of both Eisner judges and works for consideration. There have been notable problems with the entire system, from the continuing lack of diversity in judging panels to the issues reported by The Beat in 2020 regarding outdated and difficult to navigate voting glitches.

This troubling disparity between who is judging the work to be nominated and the makeup of the industry itself has created an environment of systemic inequality. There is a distinct need for more diverse and inclusive backgrounds in the people responsible for these nominations, every year. We need the active participation of creators of color, LGBTQIA+ creators, artists, writers, letterers, colorists, cover artists, editors, and those with more direct and every day experience with the medium itself. Right now the panel appears to be made up mostly of journalists, librarians, and academics which, intentionally or not, skews the point of view of the nominations.

Although it may seem obvious to those familiar with it, the process to get a work considered is also much less clear than it could be, and the process for judge selection is almost entirely opaque. Similarly, the form for becoming a voter is not promoted enough so many or most who are qualified to be voters have no idea that they are or how to become one.

While we are sure there are reasons for all of this, bias still exists. The only way to address it is to acknowledge it and take active steps to ensure as diverse a panel as possible.

What we are asking for:

-Transparency about how judges are selected. Comic-Con International needs to share exactly how this process works from start to finish.

-Transparency on how works are submitted and what the criteria for eligibility are beyond “published within the last year”.

What needs to change:

- A form for people in the industry to fill out and submit to be considered as nominating judges.

- Clear and public criteria for being considered as a judge.

-The comics community should then have the opportunity to vet a list of candidates.

-More than one person needs to be a point of contact for this process to mitigate bias.

-The panel of judges must reflect the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of the industry.

-The panel of judges must reflect the fields of expertise within the industry and includes creators — writers, artists, colorists, cover artists, letterers and editors as well as academics, critics, and retailers.

Without transparency it’s impossible to trust this process, especially when a panel in 2023 is made up of mostly male, all white American jurors. This does not represent the incredible breadth of comics creators and works for what is ostensibly an international award.

An example of why diversity in the panel of judges is essential:

The major concern this year, 2023, is the nomination of Francis Rothbart! The Tale of a Fastidious Feral by Thomas Woodruff, the former chair of Illustration/Cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Former and current students of this department are outlining a history of Woodruff’s extremely abusive behavior, including racism, sexism, and a complete contempt for the medium in which his work is now being considered for four awards. While we do not expect the judges to always be aware of the history of a given creator, there is also the issue of the content of this book, which appears to be fetishizing people of color and sexualizing a child. There is already a petition asking for the nominations to be rescinded.

We are all very well aware of what it’s like to create challenging art. Controversy is not the issue; abuse and exploitation are.

This book is only one example of ongoing concerns about the awards and why a representative, diverse panel is essential.

We are asking the Eisner Awards to address these issues so that this long-standing award can continue to nominate and award incredible voices, from every background. We believe that changes such as we’ve outlined above are necessary for the Eisners to remain relevant and representative of the comics medium and industry.

Signed,

Mariah McCourt Editor/Writer
Jennifer de Guzman Editor/Writer/Journalist

If you would like to sign this letter, follow this link to the google doc. It may take a few days for names to show up below.

Nicole Goux

Nicky Rodriguez

Nidhi Chanani

daniel tuucaan starflower

Steve Horton

Vikram Madan

Peggy Burns

Sharon Levin

G.V.

Jocelyn Gajeway

Nick Hanover

Daisy Finch McGuire

Elizabeth Kramer

Tyler Crook

Lea Hernandez Seidman

Sandy Jarrell

Jess Nevins

Russ Burlingame

Kristen McHugh

Debbie Perry

TRiPPY

blinkfraid

Barbara Perez Marquez

Mark Martinez

Joamette Gil

Dylan Meconis

Lainey Williams

Manuel Navarrete

Janelle Asselin

Nathan Kempf

Roger A. Freedman

Bruce Simon

Devon Ashby

Nick Marino

Julia Pohl-Miranda

Juanele Tamal

Hilus Anendorf

Mark Tweedale

Ken Knudtsen

Tom Speelman

Elizabeth Edwards

Chris Hutton

Kane Anderson

Jonathan La Mantia

Adam Green

Martha Thomases

C.J. McWillis

Justin S. Harrison

Chloe Dalquist

Eugenia Beh

Shannon Hale

Rachel Gluckstern

sen holiday

Aces in Comics

Evan Dorkin

Annaliese Long

Koy Boi

Ian McGinty

Megan Tan

Tom Devlin

Lisa R. Jonté

Christine Pasalo Norland

Eugenia Beh

Kristen Simon

Sharon Levin

G.V.

Lainey Williams

Joamette Gil

Tea Fougner

Cliff Chiang

During the course of this odd day I was talking with a friend about how much I don’t like interpersonal drama in my day to day life. I enjoy writing drama, and watching made up drama, but I don’t enjoy it actually happening to, at, or around me. It feels…bad. There’s no way to actually avoid drama because life is full of it, but it’s not something I seek out or like having to deal with. I’d much rather bake or watch a movie or sew something.

My friend and I discovered this is one of many things we have in common, an aversion to drama. And both of us had discovered this at pretty young ages, too.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but it couldn’t have been much later than 2nd or 3rd grade the first time I recall getting really crabby with peers over drama. I couldn’t tell you what specifically was going on, some kind of little kid gossip and standard “so and so likes so and so, no they don’t, yes they do, blah blah”. Nothing out of the ordinary for kids.

And yet I distinctly remember lecturing a bunch of classmates about being immature and mean, that it wasn’t right to gossip and be silly about people “liking” each other, and to please grow up and stop that already.

In the 2nd or 3rd grade.

I like to think that I am self-aware enough to acknowledge my flaws and the fact that, like everyone, I am deeply imperfect. I’ve gone overboard with that in the past, being self-deprecating to the point of pathos, and veering way past self-aware into self-loathing. There’s acknowledging your humanity and working on your mistakes, and there’s making yourself sick with cyclical, obsessive, destructive, fixation on them.

Now that I’m 38 I look at the above childhood memory and laugh at what must have been a hilariously self-righteous lecture from basically a baby to other babies about maturity. The gall is pretty stunning. But it’s also very much a part of who I am, still, today. And I find that while it’s a bit embarrassing, it’s also kind of liberating. To really know who you are. To accept yourself as flawed and see both the strengths and flaws in the things that make you, you.

I’ve always been a judgmental person. I listen and consider and I don’t make quick judgments without cause, but when I do make a judgment about something, especially something I think is a matter of right or wrong, I’m pretty stubborn about it. I’m highly opinionated and not very shy about giving that opinion, too. Thoroughly, using a lot of words.

I don’t think this is good or bad, I think it’s both. I think it’s good to be strong in your convictions and to stand up for yourself and others. But having strong opinions and judgments that aren’t flexible can also be unnecessarily confrontational and, you know, no one is right all the time. I’m not great at being wrong. That’s one of those things I’m always working on.

I still see in myself that little kid who got cranky with her classmates for being “immature” at the ripe old ages of 8 or 9. I still get easily fed up with people being obtuse, unreasonable, or acting in ways I think are unethical or shitty. I know life is not always an easy matter of right or wrong, black or white, of course. Gray is where most of us live, in one shade or another. Or shifting in and out of them, like an overcast day. I’m not exempt from that. I’m human.

But I still hate drama and I’ll still tell you if I think you’re being an immature jerk.

My face is a collection of slipping, sliding, wrong. This part too big, this feature too small. This part is drooping, this part is lying.

Everything lies.

A scar becomes a hole, a gaping, festering, void, between my face and my mind.

Skittering.

Howling.

Something always wants in while I want out.

There’s no whole anymore. Was there ever?

Did I ever have myself? A self?

Was there ever an I?

Well.

Skin.

Eventually it all fades and.

Turns. to. dust.

Like millions of girls (now women) in my generation, a Spooky Sisterhood of people who have admired you since before we could shop for black dresses by ourselves, you represented everything our angsty little hearts desired. From your depressing prose to your snarky wit to your needle sharp bangs, you spoke for all the strange and unusuals out there.

You were goth before goth was a mainstream mall aesthetic, and let’s face it, you did it better than anyone except Wednesday and you balanced your morbid sense of humor with kindness and heart. You hair may have attained incredible heights, but it was your bravery and strength of character that really made us love you. And your ability to wear a veil while eating Chinese food without getting any on it, obviously.

Who else, when confronted with life after death, could be so nonchalant? Who else could talk to actual dead people like they were as boring as their outfits? Who else could dismiss her stepmother’s possible pill addiction, her father’s investment obsessions, and Otho’s incompetence without any repercussions?

The amount of times I’ve said, “My whole life is a dark room. One. Big. Dark. Room.” are…a lot. And not all as a teenager, either. You wowed us with your mastery of the fluttering eyeroll and managed wisdom beyond your years. Your skeptical look at Barbara claiming you look like a “normal girl” is one of the most perfect moments in a pretty perfect film.

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve often wondered: where is your mom? Did she die? Is that why you’re so sad and morbid? Is that why you want to cross over into the ghost world so badly? To find her? Is that why Barbara and Adam are so appealing? They may be squares but they actually -see- you. Your actual parents clearly don’t.

In the end, one reason I love you, is that even after the whole almost-married-to-a-creepy-old-dead-man and hey-wtf-is-that-ghost-sandworm-thing? you still stay yourself. Sure, you’re more social in school and seem more cheerful. But you’ve made that uniform your own with a black petticoat and boots, your bangs are still on point, and you haven’t given up the pallor or the liner. Not even when you’re floating with spirit football players to Calypso music as a reward for an A. It’s goofy and weird, just like you.

So, dearest, Lydia. Thank you for being strange unusual until the end. I hope you always stayed that way.

As I was looking at pictures of cute cuts on Pinterest for my stylist, I kept thinking, “I just don’t want Mom Hair.”

And then I started thinking about how insulting that is. I mean, I AM a mom. I’m proud of that. I love my daughter and I love being her mom. Becoming a mother had a profound impact on me that I am grateful for and humbled by, daily. It has influenced absolutely everything about who I am and how I view myself. It informs my work, my life, my way of thinking.

So why am I afraid of looking like one?

When you think about the things with the modifier “mom” to them, most of them are not flattering. Mom Hair. Mom Jeans. Mom Hips. Mom Shoes. Mom Car. They all conjure up images of painfully unstylish, unattractive, embarrassing, uncool, blahness. Not exactly offensive, but definitely on the border between ugly and boring. The implication is that mom’s morph into blobs of momness that suck out all style, personality, and individuality, in favor of shapeless hair, faces, bodies, and clothes. Even MILF, which is a term I loathe for a variety of reasons, is meant to show how weird it is for a mom to be attractive to anyone. After all, if there are MILF’s then there are non-MILF’s. And MILF is only really true of mom’s who don’t look like the “typical” mom (or like mom’s at all, given our beauty ideals), which is, again, insulting.

In general I don’t really worry about my fuckability. I’m cute, not sexy, and that’s something I’ve been ok with for a long time. I’m a lot more concerned with whether I come across as thoughtful or considerate than sexy. That’s not because I’m super enlightened or anything, and I find plenty of other people sexy. I just don’t put a lot of stock in for myself. It’s not one of my qualities.

However, I have a personal sense of style and way I like to present myself, I like makeup and clothing and playing with a variety of both. I absolutely care about how I look and pay attention to it, especially skincare. Vintage style dresses, cardigans, peter pan collars…or sometimes just clean lined black shirts and pants, are my fashion staples. I work from home so most of my wardrobe is comfortable and, because I am a mom, easy to wash. I truly wish the dinosaur and space dresses I find for my daughter came in adult sizes because I definitely have a somewhat kitschy, tacky, side, too. Life is short, I don’t see any reason to dress in any other way than what I like and enjoy.

That hasn’t really changed since becoming a mom. My size has, I’m much curvier and plumper post child. I have conflicting feelings about that, but my body is the way it is now because I grew a person.

The reality is: I have mom hips. My hips widened quite a lot for childbirth, at least 3–4 inches. That’s a permanent change in my bones from motherhood. I have mom hair because I’m a mom. It’s way easier (and cheaper) for me to have this pixie cut and wash and go than it would be trying to tame it with a million products when it’s longer. I don’t wear jeans but I have plenty of mom leggings. Comfortable shoes make a lot more sense while I chase a toddler and have dance parties in my living room than heels (which I have never been able to manage anyway).

I don’t think any of these things means that I have suddenly become some kind of non-person with no style or identity beyond Mom. Mom’s aren’t amorphous blobs and we have a variety of styles and personalities and lives. I’d like “Mom Hair” to mean “hair that is on a mom’s head”, which could be short or long, pink or gray or brown.

It would be kind of great if we could make Mom — Whatevers into something a lot more celebratory, instead of sounding like a sartorial death knell and a shorthand for bland and banal.

It would be great if we remembered that mom’s are people, not a derogatory aesthetic choice to avoid.

For a couple of days now I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve taken the reveal about Joss Whedon’s professional and personal conduct so hard. I don’t know him. I don’t know anyone who knows him personally. I was never privy to the rumors surrounding his behavior for apparently his entire career.

I came to Buffy and Angel later, after both had been well off the air. When they were on I wasn’t interested in them, being something of a snob when it came to TV. My love for long form narratives was reserved for comics and books for the most part.

And then enough people recommended it to me that I gave it a shot. I started with Buffy and, to my surprise, found that what I had assumed was a silly, superficial, supernatural, teen soap with a goofy name…was more than that. I mean, it was also a silly teen soap with a goofy name, but it wasn’t superficial. It was subverting tropes and exploring character in ways that I didn’t often see. It took risks and dealt with issues more mainstream and “serious” material didn’t even touch. And it had a main female character who was flawed, self-centered, girly, and complicated…and still a hero. Sure she could kick ass and stake multiple vampires and do all the stuff we mere mortals can’t. But she also struggled with identify and, when she didn’t have those abilities or was confronted by demons both literal and metaphoric that were stronger than she was…she didn’t give up. She was strong because at core she was a hero, regardless of how hard she could punch.

After that I watched Angel, which was a darker show right from the start. And it’s first season dealt with the idea that, the “good fight” is never over. You can’t just win against evil, the fight is never done. “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.” It was an unusual take for something set in a supernatural world where most of the time the good guys win against an enemy of some sort. They save the world, sometimes multiple times. To start off your world with the concept that the good guys are never going to really win, they are always going to have to fight, and keep fighting, because the world is the way it is…was something different and unexpected for me.

The somewhat existential idea that it’s not the winning that’s important was significant. Both in the show and applied to real life, it was a fairly simple articulation of what I think a lot of us feel. And a reminder that the fight for what is right has meaning whether you “win” or not, and whether or not that “win” is forever. Which it probably isn’t.

I could tell you about the different episodes of Buffy and Angel that have personal meaning to me. The Body. A Hole in the World. Conversations With Dead People. Once More With Feeling. The way the show dealt with grief and the complexities of being human, was something I kept going back to, re-watching more than nearly any other media besides some beloved movies and Farscape. The storytelling and narrative decisions were interesting even when I disagreed with them, and I enjoyed critiquing episodes that fell flat or were just plain bad. And I also found the critiques of the more serious issues, like the whiteness of Sunnydfale and how characters of color were treated, to be important to acknowledge and keep in mind. And, for all that I do still believe the show was more feminist that not, there are episodes and character choices that failed that as well.

And then I became the editor of the Angel comics for IDW and, eventually, took over as a co-writer. For over a year of my life I was creatively dedicated to that world. I had to put aside my personal feelings about it and make sure we were telling stories that “felt” like the show as much as I could. I had to spend a lot of time examining and interpreting what I thought the stories and characters were doing and what the intentions of the show had been. I wrote up a massive story bible with character arcs per season, timelines so we would know where Angel and others were from basically the time of his siring to the present. I made detailed rundowns of the episodes and what they had accomplished or established. And I spent a lot of time trying to make whatever we did “feel” as much as like what Whedon had done and would do, as possible.

I also engaged with fans in a way I hadn’t on previous projects because I knew how much the stories mattered to them and, at the time, a lot were feeling pretty frustrated with the comics both by IDW and by Dark Horse. I got emails begging me to resurrect characters because of how strongly the loss had impacted someone. I weathered criticism about how those working on the books weren’t “real” fans or didn’t care what they thought. I spent a lot of time building up trust again, where I could. Because I knew it mattered.

When the license went back to Dark Horse I wasn’t surprised, given the actual relationship with Whedon they had. The Angel books I worked on existed (and exist) in a kind of “gray canon” area for me. We did our best to match up what we could, to stay true to what was established, and make changes that makes sense from that and not arbitrarily. We made sure the timeline matched up to the Dark Horse Buffy comics as much as possible so fans could have some kind of transition, while still giving the ones reading our take closure.

I honestly haven’t followed any of the comics since I stopped working on them. For me, that had been such an intense time, that I needed a break. It was a few years before I could watch Buffy or Angel again with any kind of distance and enjoy them just as stories again.

I learned a lot from working on the series, about fan engagement, about storytelling, about the responsibilities of a creator who makes something that matters to others. We all want our work to connect, I think, and there’s no denying that these works do that with the people who love them. Stories matter.

That a person’s work is flawed, that a creator is flawed, is not new or even the issue here. I don’t think anyone who has watched any of his shows could argue the work doesn’t have problems. Some of them were obviously dated opinions or privilege based. But they didn’t seem to be coming from a lack of trying or a lack of caring. They didn’t seem to be malicious and might be something any of us could mess up. They seemed to be coming from someone who was, like everyone, struggling to figure out what it means to be human and tell entertaining stories along with the deeper ones. Sometimes with vampires. Sometimes in space.

But there were cracks. It’s one thing for a show in the 90’s with rigid casting requirements to be as white and conventional looking as Buffy. It’s another thing for a show set in space and using Chinese slang and culture with no Asians anywhere, to never explain that choice. It’s one thing for a show about teenagers and vampires to mess up relationships, another thing entirely for a show like Dollhouse to do…pretty much everything it did.

If what was revealed about Whedon hadn’t come with the fact that he’s presented himself a very particular way for years, as someone who cares about and advocates for women in media and elsewhere…if he hadn’t been abusing his position to gain the most gross kind of access to young women…if he hadn’t prevented his partner from having agency over her own life for 15 years…this wouldn’t sting so much. If this was just a flaw, like a one time mistake or a problematic opinion or statement, it wouldn’t feel so much like it was wrong to ever find meaning in the work. To have spent actual years of my life immersed in it, caring about it, and trying to connect with others via it, because it was my job and something I took seriously.

I don’t think you can treat your partner in life with so much disrespect, for 15 years, and still say you’re an advocate for women. I don’t think you can be someone who is as powerful as he is, use that to have affairs you know you are hiding from your partner and which he had to have known had inherent power balance issues, and call yourself a feminist or even a feminist ally. That is a fundamental disconnect and disrespect for another person’s agency. He clearly only considered their life together as HIS life, to do with as he chose, without extending that same basic right to her. That is grotesque. And suggests that, regardless of what he says, he did not view her as a full person.

People want everyone to be neutral about this and give him the benefit of the doubt. But I’ve seen this exact scenario play out with people I actually know and it’s too likely for me to do that. And there are his own words quoted that are more damning than anything she said. And I think that she had every right to talk about her own experiences and pain. That narrative doesn’t belong to him.

I hope that at some point I can come back to the stories and not have them tainted completely by this. I’m not that great at separating art from artist sometimes. I can’t watch Woody Allen or Roman Polanski films. Writers like Lovecraft have their issues all over their works. I know that, as someone who also makes things, that they reflect some of who I am. That’s inevitable.

What I keep coming back to is that stories matter. They matter to you whether the people who make them are good or bad, and these stories weren’t made by one person. And they don’t just belong to them, either. Once a story is out in the world, it becomes more than that. It becomes something to you, the person who loves it. And something else to someone else who loves it. It’s different for each person who loves it and for whom it means something.

In the end, that’s what matters. Because all that matters is what we do.

and talks to me in her sleep

when she rubs her heels against my knees

soothing herself

I remember

how that felt against my lungs and

palms

as I rubbed my belly

phantom kicks, from the inside, now

as she plays and makes

her own world on

the outside of me

Still

she turns to me in her sleep

places her hands on my face

her little hands

that were wide and free from

the moment she was born

i remember

i will always remember

It’s strange to work in an industry for nearly 20 years and realize that you’ve never been sure if you really belong in it. I’ve always felt on the margins of comics, whether editing or writing, regardless of company or being full time vs. freelance.

There are a lot of things I really love about the medium, especially the collaborative process and the capacity to tell any kind of story in an engaging, interesting, visual story. That you can only do in a comic, not TV or film.

But I also downright hate a lot of aspects of the industry and the way publishers, professionals, and the pull of nostalgia create an often toxically insular, gatekeeping, hostile, environment to the art form and making real progress with one step forward, several thousand back.

Is comics unique in these issues? No, of course not. But problems don’t have to be unique to be important. To be discouraging and exhausting because they aren’t unique, new, or even unexpected.

I’ve been the only woman in editorial. And I’ve been one of several women. I’ve worked for large companies and small. There were differences and similarities in all of them. The most frustrating and consistent issues I’ve run into, no matter how long I’ve done this and no matter what my resume says, is that someone will question whether I actually know what I’m doing. And that someone has always been a man.

Sometimes it’s asking “Oh, so, do you read comics?” by a fellow editor. As if, after 15+ years I could somehow avoid reading comics when I’m both editing and writing them and had just been introduced as a professional.

Sometimes it’s getting Twitter @’s from peers and/or trolls who try to explain some aspect of the industry that I must not “really” get like the Direct Market or how covers promote a book. Even though I’ve been commissioning the latter for nearly 2 decades and have to know how the former operates to be doing this for so long.

Sometimes it’s being groped at a professional gathering. Or getting intensively gross emails from a writer. Sometimes it’s being pitched projects that include rape as a punishment for overly “bossy” female characters and the creator doesn’t get the problem when they’re given notes. Or it’s being told at the beginning of a project that the rape scenes are going to be removed only to have them put back in and your request to have your name taken off the project as a result ignored.

Sometimes it’s having absolutely every decision questioned to the point where you wonder if anyone trusts your editorial instincts at all…and then months later see yourself proven right, over and over, and not have that acknowledged at all. As if you never pointed out exactly that issue or championed that creator or story.

Sometimes it’s being told by someone you really respect and even like as a person that, because you discussed some of the above instances as part of your experience, that you are making the industry “look bad”. Simply by relating what you’ve personally been through.

The message is always clear. You don’t matter. You don’t really belong here. You aren’t really, truly, seen or heard.

I’m not alone in this. And it’s much worse for many people in this industry, this shove to the margins. I’m a white, straight, lady, so what I experience isn’t even a fraction of the unbelievable crap women of color, LGBTQ, and others experience. You can see nearly every week (sometimes daily) from the way publishers blame sales on some kind of “diversity” bugaboo, to creators using marginalized characters as story fodder, exploiting the suffering of real people for “shock” they’ll call “dialog”. Only they’ll refuse to listen and shout down anyone who doesn’t applaud their bravery.

We’re supposed to be so excited for scraps that we’ll stop criticizing or advocating for basic humanity like livable pay and not abusing fans or creators. After all, it’s comics. We’re just so “lucky” to be here at all.

This is where I get, more than angry, but really enraged. Because no, we are not “lucky” to be here. Comics is lucky to have us here. It’s lucky so many amazing creators put up with this treatment, whether it’s terrible pay or shady publishing tactics that strip creator rights, or a bizarre expectation of 24/7 access and dedication of our lives to it. It’s even more lucky when we -don’t- put up with it and say something, because we know it can and should be better than this.

After nearly 20 years, I’m sick of it and often look for ways out. And yet I always come back, or never really leave to begin with. I slide away a bit, shuffle my exhausted, discouraged, self over to slightly out…and yet it never lasts. And sometimes I can’t tell if that’s because I love it that much and it’s worth it…or because I don’t know what else I could be and afraid to really just take the leap.

Not that long ago a creator from prose books had a book nominated for an Eisner, basically the comics version of an Oscar. They’re presented at SDCC, which starts in about 2 days. She wondered why her publisher, a major one, hadn’t told her any details, like how to attend as a professional or get a room or anything pertinent to the ceremony.

There was some back and forth on social media, mostly with other comics folks, about things to do. And she pointed out that it was pretty bizarre that our industry expects people nominated for prestigious awards to just know all of these things and take care of it all themselves, especially when they’re working with one of the most well publishers in the business. We do tell the stories, after all. She got a lot of pushback and noted that a lot of us seem to be more than a bit brainwashed into thinking we don’t really deserve more consideration.

At first, I was a bit miffed. I’m not brainwashed, I thought. I know publishers are busy and understaffed. I know SDCC is expensive. Our industry isn’t like prose, we don’t have the budgets, it was just a mistake, etc. etc.

These are all true things. And yet, the thing is? I think she might have been right about being brainwashed. And maybe more than that, that many of us have a kind of institutionalized Stockholm Syndrome. I was perfectly happy to make every excuse there is, to argue, “It’s just how it is, why should she expect better?” …before realizing that none of that makes it right. Just because there are reasons for it all, doesn’t make any of that ok. It doesn’t make it not deeply dysfunctional on every level.

You hear things in this industry, if you’re good at listening and pay attention and aren’t particularly known. You hear about the deliberate undermining of creator rights at many companies. You hear about the harassment at multiple places, by creators, by editors, by anyone with even a smidge of power over someone else. You hear about the horrible pay rates at companies that can definitely offer more but don’t want to. You hear about pay delays (or experience them yourself). You witness the erosion of ethics and find yourself endlessly frustrated by the excuses that pile up.

People say, “It won’t cost you work to speak up.” But it does. You just won’t ever be told that directly. Then people will tell you you’re paranoid. You watch your friends, good, dedicated, talented, people, leave the industry because eventually the things you’re asked to compromise on or put up with undermine your humanity. People think you’re dramatic. You aren’t.

My first SDCC I was groped by a major comics creator, award-winning. I was cornered by two other men that same night, not long after, who thought it was perfectly ok to touch me and my clothes because I was wearing stripes and they were drunk. I can’t attend conventions without remembering that.

I’m not going to SDCC this year for the 3rd year in a row. Originally I was going to be there for a panel, something I do enjoy, but the logistics fell apart. And I’m relieved and frustrated, feeling far less stressed about the realities of the con but disappointed because of what I’ll miss. There was a lot of pressure for me to make it work, in a ways I just couldn’t, and that frankly no panel is worth. And then I keep wondering if this is the first (or last) domino that leads me out of here, into irrelevance.

It becomes increasingly difficult to justify the stress, time, compromises and expectations after awhile. How to get back what you put in, in some kind of meaningful way, that doesn’t make you feel like crap all the time. That you’re lettering everyone down. When you never feel like you’re doing “enough” because you never have time to enjoy anything you’ve accomplished.

I know amazing people in this industry. And I have been lucky in so many ways. But what I find myself thinking about more and more is that comics is lucky to still have me plugging away, in spite of an awful lot of disrespect and what often seems like a concerted effort to drive out anyone decent. And I just don’t know how much longer that luck is going to last.

Or be enough for me to justify staying.

I did try. First by buying what seemed like the “right” clothes. They chafed my skin and made me feel strange in my own body. Like I was wearing a costume. Everything was too stiff and scratchy and unnatural.

Later on I starved myself. This was probably the most effective, it’s amazing how much nicer people will be to you if your body takes up less space. This one took the longest to stop, even after many people had made it clear I wouldn’t fit no matter how thin I got.

I was quiet and “good”, but it didn’t stop them from spitting on me or calling me horrific things. I kept quiet in class even when I knew the answer. I didn’t have opinions or abilities. They didn’t know I could write and draw. They didn’t know how voraciously I read. I hid myself to blend in. And somehow it still didn’t work.

It was 8th grade and the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make me feel disgusting and worthless had just finished one of (several) daily attacks. He’d told me I was fat and stupid and should probably kill myself. Then he went back to playing soccer, laughing in this carefree, lighthearted way, that showed just how little he cared about what he was doing. How little he considered the consequences of anything he said or did that year that he abused me, any day I was in school.

I stood there in my Caldor jeans and my bland sweatshirt, berry colored Converse on my feet (back then they were not a cool shoe). They were my little defiance, I just could not bring myself to wear either preppy boat shoes or expensive running shoes. The way the kids at school commented on them, you would have thought I strapped dead animals to my feet.

Wind was whipping around the back field of the school. We were at the top of a steep hill that rolled down in dense green. It was spring and cool and I could feel the wind through my discount clothes. I looked out a the treetops. And I knew.

I was done trying to blend in. It didn’t ever work, I didn’t feel like myself, and I was sick of wasting effort on a lost cause. Not myself, some little spark would just never give up on me no matter how depressed or worthless I felt. That little sparked saved me from actually starving to death, it saved me from other forms of self harm, and eventually that spark got me help many years after the fact.

That spark is fierce and defiant and opinionated and very well aware of who she is. Who we are. She has no interest in fitting in. She’s protective of her people and of herself, and she just refuses to go out until she’s ready.

I’m grateful to that little part of me, every day.

Besides, fitting in is overrated. I’d rather spark.

a new person will emerge

bright and beautiful

I peel my skin my chrysalis

bleeding

hoping that

the deeper i cut

slough

starve

the closer to myself

i’ll be

and you say

i can’t watch

and i say

well

you don’t see anyway

so i just find the edge

the crack in this shell

and peel