Yes, that’s right. Margaret Atwood, who allegedly doesn’t write science fiction, is writing a superhero comic for Dark Horse. Welcome to the world, Angel Catbird.
Well, quite a few high profile people have taken that leap recently. China Miéville did Dial H for Hero ages ago. William Gibson is doing Archangel. Ta-Nehisi Coates is doing Black Panther. It won’t be long now before some keen young journalist does a piece on how the famous novelist, Neil Gaiman, has started writing comics.
However, I am not here to talk about novelists writing comics, I want to talk about the creative team. I don’t know how much choice Atwood had on who she worked with, but if they are her choices she’s done a damn fine job.
The artist is Johnnie Christmas. He’s Canadian, naturally. He’s also black. I’m not familiar with his work, but I really like what I have seen of the interiors of Angel Catbird. His best known work to date is Sheltered.
Tamra Bonvillain, on the other hand, I am very familiar with. She’s a key part of the creative team for Rat Queens, though sadly she didn’t join the book in time to get in on a Hugo nomination last year. She’s also trans.
Thank you, Ms. Atwood. I shall be buying your book.
Good thing I wasn’t trying to drink my tea while reading this otherwise the Neil line would have endangered my computer’s life…
Sound interesting. Exciting, even.
Actually, Mieville’s comic book series was just called “Dial H.” It took a semi-tongue-in-cheek attitude to the superhero crowd while it dove head-first into weirdness. Sadly, regular superhero readers didn’t get the joke and the series died.