G3 talks to Gail Simone about Leaving Megalopolis, the writer-reader relationship, and the character – or characters – she’d like to be.
No one can say that Gail Simone isn’t available to her fans. She has long maintained an open dialogue with readers on her Tumblr and Twitter, and she’ll take on the tough and controversial subjects that are bound to come up in the highly opinionated world of comics. In Part II of our interview, Gail shares her thoughts on the writer-reader relationship, talks about reuniting with artist Jim Calafiore for Leaving Megalopolis, and answers a burning question we saved for the end. Continue reading “G3 Interview: Gail Simone, Part II”
My pull list was full of Bat-related comics this week, but there were also some sparkling shenanigans from the Welcome to Tranquility crew, plus an adorable Tiny Titans-Little Archies meetup. In no particular order: Continue reading “Comic Judgment: Bat-a-Palooza!”
Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was common to see comic-book advertisements that showed superheroes doing goofy things, like laughing uproariously while enjoying a fruit pie with a 25-year shelf life. Can you imagine being the poor schmuck in marketing who had to come up with a Batman plot that pimped sponge cake?
Today, Girls Gone Geek is participating in a comic blog crossover event to tell readers about good books that are a little under the radar. E.’s pick is Gail Simone’s Welcome to Tranquility.
Gail Simone has been a regular on my pull list, thanks to her consistently top-notch work on comics like The Atom, Birds of Prey, Secret Six and, yes, Wonder Woman. But when my LCS owner asked me if I’d been reading Welcome to Tranquility, I stammered.
“If you’re a fan of hers, you should be reading this comic,” he said. “It’s her baby.”
Anyone who’s familiar with Simone’s writing knows that she does funny and macabre very well, often within a single panel. Those talents are on full display in Welcome to Tranquility, a Wildstorm comic about a town inhabited by retired superheroes and villains. And what a cast. There’s Minxy Minerva, a daffy millionaire and former child pilot prodigy who crashes frequently. Emoticon is a young troublemaker who wears a mask displaying text symbols that reveal his mood: smiley faces, for instance. Mayor Alex Fury, the former leader of a Justice Society-type group, presides over the town of Tranquility and lives with his wife and fellow former hero/pinup Pink Bunny.
In the middle of it all is beloved Sheriff Thomasina “Tommy” Lindo, who eschews profanity and instead blurts out words like “bull doody.” Personally, I’m stoked to see a black female comics character in a leading role. Sheriff Lindo is the glue and conscience of Tranquility, perhaps the most ironically named town ever. This place is anything but peaceful, roiling with secrets, intrigue, juicy backstories and crazy developments, which result in good read.
The Liberty Snots
You could easily start with the first three issues of the latest storyline, “One Foot in the Grave,” but I’d suggest going all the way back to Vol. 1, which launched in 2006. This is where the characters and their motivations are fleshed out, and where the arrival of two journalists sets off the town’s alarm bells. (And thanks, Gail, for not making journalists look evil. We appreciate it.)
There’s also a nifty subplot involving the Liberty Snots (formerly the Tranquili-teens), a band of young heroes that has shed its clean-cut, TV show image and gone Goth. And punk. Simone has a lot of fun with old-school comic book tropes, like random product-placement ads, one-page gags and “Scooby Doo”-like stories featuring the Tranquili-teens in their G-rated heyday.
Though Wildstorm is soon to be no more, Simone told Newsarama that the current series has been completed, and that the remaining issues will be published as planned. So go ahead and dive in.
Want more suggestions? Check out the lesser-known titles reviewed on these blogs and Read Them, Too:
