Kelly Sue Deconnick Quotes

#1. I want young women to see my name on 'Avengers Assembled' and to know that there are women who write mainstream superhero comics, and if it is something that interests them, it can be done.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#2. The notion that somehow women are wildly different infuriates me.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#3. 'Pretty Deadly' is the story of these immortal and mortal characters, and the mortals' story follows Sarah's family, a black family, through the ages. I never made the choice of, 'Oh, this is gonna be the story of an African American family!'

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#5. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#6. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#7. You can't write something actively trying to please everyone - you're going to end up with watery soup that way. You just have to write stories you would want to read and hope that people like them.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#8. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#9. I wish I could say confidently that pacing remains my weak point, if you could talk about your own stuff without sounding like you're self-obsessed. But I think you kind of have to be.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#11. Because of the nature of monthly comics and deadline, I pretty much have to work on whatever's on fire, I'm afraid.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#12. For hard resets, conventions and conferences can be inspiring.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#13. If you can remove a female character from your plot and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story still works, you're a hack.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#14. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#15. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#16. There's nothing less funny than trying to force funny.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#17. If you're not interested in your work, you're not doing it right.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#18. If you have a smartphone - and you have a smartphone - then you have a comic book store in your pocket. So you don't have to get over any social anxiety you have about entering that space.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#21. You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#22. I will make it if I have to crawl.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#23. I feel like I have a kind of mirror blindness where it's hard for me to characterize or analyze my own work. I suspect I'm not unique in this regard.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#24. Seriously, just buy the [expletive deleted] book. I promise you'll like it. Unless you're [expletive deleted].

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#25. I am willing to make people uncomfortable so that my daughter doesn't have to!

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#26. My husband makes fun of me, because I know I can use strong prose to jazz-hand my way through plot that isn't as interesting as I'd like it to be.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#27. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#28. I used to write reviews for 'Artbomb.' Our policy was to only cover books we loved and recommended.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#29. I need to go where I'm not comfortable. I think that's the artist's job.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#30. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#31. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#32. Marvel is run by some very smart people, and they seem to pride themselves on the fact that they don't just find talent, they groom talent.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#33. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#34. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#36. When they play MARRY/FUCK/KILL, you'll never be KILL again!

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#37. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#38. Having my brain doing different work is helping me a lot in terms of retro-feeding from the other experiences. It makes me feel inspired, looking forward to the projects and wanting to work harder.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#39. I don't think we're supposed to say [expletive deleted] anymore.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#40. '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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#41. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#42. There's a difference between feeling like I don't need to explain and deliberately confusing you. If the impression is that I'm deliberately confusing you, that is not what I am trying to do at all.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#43. The reader is not the customer. The retailer is the customer. So I try to have as much interaction with the retailers as possible because those are my customers.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#44. Yes, the Bechdel Test. It's named for Allison Bechdel, who is a comic book creator. The test is, are there two named women in the film? Do they talk to each other? And is it about something other than a man? I actually think the Bechdel Test is a little advanced for us sometimes.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#45. My creator owned books sell better than my mainstream books. And that makes no sense.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#46. We are all shaped by what we do.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#47. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#49. Nothing is compulsory. Free will is paramount. But free will comes with the burden of consequences.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#50. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#51. Complicated feelings are fertile soil for creative ideas.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#53. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#54. 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.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#55. I hate when I get asked, 'What's it like to be a woman in comics?'

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#56. I am a nerd among nerds.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

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

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#58. I guess I am conscious of my weaknesses, and I think pacing is probably my biggest. I don't know if I think the clarity thing is actually a weakness. It was a stylistic choice.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#59. I think I'm very strong at dialogue, I think I'm very strong in characterization. I think sometimes I use dialogue and character work to cover weaknesses in my plotting.

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#60. It's the dying that makes the living matter.

Kelly Sue DeConnick