WONDER OF WONDER: IT’S A WOMAN

“She’s just the best kind of person,” said Simone. “She was a princess who didn’t need someone to rescue her. I grew up in an era—and a family—where women’s rights were very important, and the guys didn’t tend to stick around too long. She was an amazing role model.”

From early on, Simone said, she was an avid reader, her habit aided by unreliable television reception. The shows that made it through were “boring, or golf,” she said. The first comic books she remembers came from opposite ends of the spectrum: wholesome Archie and the creepy House of Mystery.

“I was able to skip a lot of English classes by challenging the courses” and showing that she had already mastered the material, Simone said. One of her favourite classes was conducted during a teacher’s free period. “He would assign me reading material like ‘The Hobbit’ and ask me to a write a story using that style and my own,” she said. Simone graduated from high school when she was 16.

At the University of Oregon, which she attended for two years in the early 1980s, her majors were creative writing and theatre. She credits the theater studies with improving her craft. In 1999, during what she described as “a rough patch,” she was advised to try something creative. She went down a list: “I can’t draw. I can’t really sew. Well, I used to write.” This led her to create “Women in Refrigerators,” an online chronicle of the suffering experienced by female comic-book characters. The site (unheardtaunts.com/wir) garnered attention, which led to a modestly paid humour column on comicbookresources.com, a Web site that was read by many industry professionals. Still, she didn’t give up her day job.

“I was broke and starving and basically needed to figure out a way to make a living,” she said. “Hairdressing was still a creative type of career.” Growing up poor taught her to have a backup for artistic pursuits that would not earn her enough money.

In relatively short order she began writing The Simpsons for Bongo Comics, which led to the humor book Killer Princesses for Oni Press. That begat Marvel’s Deadpool, about a wiseacre mutant mercenary, and Birds of Prey, an all-female team for DC Comics, which naturally led to an encounter with Wonder Woman. Simone said she enjoyed writing that character more than almost any other. Still, it was a challenge.

Unlike Simone’s relatively straightforward rise to the top, Wonder Woman’s recent history has had some bumps. Her comic book was restarted last year by Allan Heinberg, a television writer best known at the time for The OC on Fox but who works on Grey’s Anatomy on ABC. But the comic’s five-part story line, which began in June 2006, was plagued by delays and only recently concluded in September as a special issue.

Simone’s first story line will involve a previously unmentioned attempt on Wonder Woman’s life on the day of her birth, and is planned for four issues. It will be illustrated by the husband-and-wife team of Terry and Rachel Dodson and will be followed by a two-part story illustrated by another artist to allow the Dodsons to keep pace with the book’s monthly publication cycle.
-George Gene Gustines(NYT)