Quote For The Week: Erika Moen


Erika Moen, in a marvelously revealing interview over at Comics Bulletin:
I've had many, many people tell me that my comics helped them come to terms with their sexuality or gender identity or made them feel less alone. That gives me goosebumps just writing it out! It is surprising to me how many queer people there are out there who have gone through almost the exact same experiences as me and received the same backlash and rejection from the "queer community," so while my comics help them feel less alone, their letters back to me make me feel less alone too! 
And, oh god, there has been a hilarious amount of ridiculous and painful criticism of my work. That it is bi-phobic, trans-phobic, privileged, sexist, racist, anti-feminist, advocates rape (yes, really), that I'm not allowed to call myself queer, that I'm trying to force queers to get married to oppositely-sexed partners like I did... Oh my god, the list could go on and on, only increasing in absurdity. It's fine though. People are allowed to project their interpretations onto my work; we're all entitled to do that! Doesn't mean that's the message I ever had in mind when I was making my comics, though. 
When I get hate mail or people confronting me at conventions, I process the experience in the same way that I do when a drunk, crazy, homeless man comes up and yells at me on the street: they're experiencing their own reality and expressing it outwardly, but that has absolutely no bearing on my life or who I am. If anything, I hope my supposedly offensive comics help inspire people to create the kind of comics they do want to read and that do"correctly" portray their views! People can write me angry emails that I'm not going to finish reading before I delete, but wouldn't they feel so much more empowered if they took that same time it would take to yell at me and funneled their anger into something productive, like creating their own comics.
I'm a big fan of not wasting energy on futility (such as screaming into the abyss of the internet) and instead making the content you want to exist, whether it's in the form of a comic, a story, or whatever medium you prefer. 
But then again, some people just like to scream, and that's enough for them.

A New Defender: Jamie McKelvie

iFanboy has the second best news involving Matt Fraction that I've read all day:
Today at C2E2 in Chicago, Marvel announced at the Next Big Thing panel that fan favorite artist Jamie McKelvie would be joining Fraction with The Defenders #8 as the regular artist.
 They also have a page:

Isn't that pretty? As sad as I am to see Terry and Rachel Dodson go, I think its awesome that McKelvie gets a monthly gig, and on one of the the most exciting books that Marvel is publishing right now, as opposed to some backwater, like New Mutants or something. The only downside, as near as I can tell, is that it won't be nearly as easy to talk to him at conventions anymore; he and Gillen are regularly my favorite artist's alley conversations and, two years in a row now, I've walked right up to him without having to wait in line, had a quick chat, and bought something from his table. It's hard to be too upset about that loss, though: if you love a comic book artist, you should set them free, right?

Good on Marvel for this one; good for McKelvie, too.

This Is Exciting.

David Aja's covers for his new Hawkeye series, with Matt Fraction.

Even if the strides, in terms of quality, that Marvel has made in the last six months go to shit after Avengers vs. X-Men, at least there's this come August.