Top 30 Kelly Sue DeConnick Quotes

I used to write reviews for ‘Artbomb.’ Our policy was to only cover books we loved and recommended.

Gray space is fertile ground for fiction. When I can see both sides of an argument and feel strongly in both directions, then there’s a story there, then I can write real characters that I care about and believe in and champion on both sides.

I used to be good at clothes shopping and whatnot – at least ,I think I was! – but at some point after two kids and a career that worked out better than I ever could have imagined, I looked up from my desk and realized that I wore the same three t-shirts and 15-year-old jeans every day.

Years ago – I used to be an actor – I was in a production of Vaclav Havel’s ‘Temptation,’ and when we started rehearsals, he was in prison. When we closed the show, he was running for president. And it felt incredibly timely and important and also this lucky thing.

In a weird way, I think I’m much better at oneshots than longform. So I try to focus on five or six-issue arcs. I have a real fondness for the one-shots because that’s where I do my best storytelling.

Girls have always read comics. There’s nothing intrinsically masculine about telling stories with pictures.

I am a nerd among nerds.

‘Female Convict 701: Scorpion’ is based on a manga as is ‘Lady Snowblood.’ I saw ‘Lady Snowblood’ in the theater between writing issue three and issue four of the first arc of ‘Pretty Deadly,’ and I was really surprised how much I was influenced by it.

My son is such a lover, such a caretaker and so funny. He’s seven, and he genuinely cracks me up. And my daughter is a fearless powerhouse. They fill me with wonder and admiration.

With ‘Pretty Deadly,’ I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a three-act structure in it. I don’t know – someone probably can.

The first gift my husband ever gave me was a pack of index cards. I’m pretty sure the second was a ‘Powers’ scriptbook. This was well before either of us worked for Marvel.

Anybody who’s read ‘Pretty Deadly’ knows that I tend to savor an immersive, ‘You’ll figure it out as you go!’ style. ‘Pretty Deadly’ really does not hold your hand.

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry sort of sucks, but it doesn’t suck any more than being a woman in the world. My advice? Be terrifying.

I tend to choose collaborators who are more courageous than I am. I think it’s good for me.

The notion that somehow women are wildly different infuriates me.

For hard resets, conventions and conferences can be inspiring.

I think women are vital to the future of the superhero comics and the entire industry – as creators, as editors, as consumers, as retailers.

Romantic relationships are the least interesting thing for me to write about. I’m 45, and that’s not the most interesting thing in my life anymore.

Going into the second arc, I’m making a conscious effort to do something I say I never do, which is to change my style because of feedback. I’m trying to make ‘Pretty Deadly’ more accessible by being more clear in the writing.

You don’t usually have to wait a month for a new episode of a TV show. We ask comic readers to wait a month for a new issue, and honestly, given the time that it takes to put them together, a month is really too fast.

I like my heroes to be imperfect; I like them to be striving. I identify with that kind of aspiration to do better.

I’m really just trying… to write what feels true to me. I don’t think about a lofty responsibility. I think I’d be paralyzed by that. Like any of my male colleagues, I’m writing the stories that interest me in a way that feels true to me.

In popular culture, when women compete, it’s usually over a man, and it’s usually very nasty. And that is just frankly not my experience. That’s just some kind of popular mythology, it feels like. I find it insulting.

I think ‘The Avengers’ is a Black Widow movie. She saves the day. And if you take her out, the plot does not function.

I think women have every right to feel like they’re the protagonists in their own stories.

If you want to, if you are a crazy person, you could go from idea to the stands in about four months. It does not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a comic the way it does to make a television show or a movie.

I don’t think working in superheroes is slumming it. I’m proud of this form. I like this. There’s nothing inherently masculine about power fantasies. There’s nothing inherently masculine about superhero comics. There’s nothing inherently masculine about mythology. About science fiction.

Part of a writer’s job is just spacing out, looking into the air and imagining things.

I kind of resent the suggestion that there would be something inherent about superheroes that wouldn’t be of interest to women. That makes me nuts. I’m a 5-foot tall woman with a quick temper who always looks like a child, so power fantasies are not strange to me.

One of the things about comics is people can linger on images and words as long as they want.