Interview by Briana Forbes
The Black Comic Lords caught up with our DC family members, Stephanie Williams and Alitha E. Martinez to talk about their experience contributing their story, “The Queen, The Bee & The Symphony” to the “DC Power: A Celebration” Anthology. In stores now!
BCL:
I was privileged enough to get an early review copy of this anthology and I’m just blown away! What has it been like for you bringing new life and perspective to Nubia’s character?
Stephanie:
Do you want to go Alitha?
Alitha:
Oh you throw me under the bus, and I was just waiting to hear your juicy answers. So she’s so young and fresh and new in this and I am an old salted dog. But I got to work up it’s true, it’s true. I just have her hair– looks fabulous, I know, but that’s about it. With Nubia, this was an opportunity for us to finally show our faces, our true beauty, our power. Because long, long have I been in these trenches of comics, and they have smart women of color, and they have sassy women of color, but they didn’t have that beautiful powerful woman of color–and no, I don’t count Storm. I shouldn’t even call the name of the enemy conversation, but somehow you didn’t feel like she reflected us. She didn’t have our hair, she didn’t have–now yes, she had the original blue eyes from Africa, but not the majority, when most of us don’t have that. So as we read comics, and we grow up with comics, it’s always like we could not see ourselves in it and we didn’t know if we were really invited to this party. Well, with our Nubia, I don’t know about you Stephanie, but I see that we have certainly passed out the invitations to this party. I am just wondering when they will nominate our book for an Eisner.
BCL:
Get into it…
Stephanie:
I mean just going up with what Alitha just said, it felt great to reintroduce a character in a capacity that people would be able to relate to her, regardless of her being an Amazon. We’ve all had job changes before. That’s relatable. Waking up and making sure that you have your best face on, your armor on. That’s relatable. Showing this black woman in a capacity that doesn’t have to be perfect. She’s allowed to be vulnerable when she does not have to save you from monsters behind Doom’s Doorway. So it was nice to just kind of flesh out a character that was multi-dimensional, instead of just one thing. Which is the perfect Queen and that’s it. That’s not relatable . . . unless someone here is a queen somewhere. If so, please let me move to wherever you are.
BCL:
I definitely aspire to be a queen, but I I feel you on that on so many levels. The story was was light-hearted and fun and we got to see this creative side of her where she likes to play instruments and enjoy her music and her down time to relax and we also got to see, you know–like a sisterly camaraderie between her and Bumblebee. So you’ve portrayed her as this positive, pure, open, and honest representation of this character, and so it’s clearly important to you to make sure that she’s not presented as this harsh, or overly Regal figure. But she still has maintained her elegance and strength. What key guidelines would you say you keep in mind when building these stories to sort of maintain that level of evenness between her being Regal and Powerful, but also having the opportunity to be soft and have humor?
Stephanie:
How annoying it is to hear just as a woman of color as a black woman you are strong. Like sure . . . yeah . . . but sometimes a break . . . and that’s okay, right, for Nubia, because she already embodies strength. Physically, she is physically imposing, as well as very beautiful. It’s still important, it was always important, to me to make sure that the other pieces of her came through. So her hanging out with with Karen . . . that was just kind of important to me to show these two black women just out shopping together . . . before they go kick Mallah’s butt right? I thought that was important and there was something that was seeded in the series with Nubia practicing the harp while at Doom’s doorway. So that was something I remember I didn’t get a chance to really do in the Special. So I was like, oh yeah, it’s a perfect time, and Mal Duncan does the whole music thing now. So that would be a nice way to lead all of these characters together, and show them connecting off the battlefield in this way. Again, after getting Mallah together–who should have just asked for tickets.
BCL:
Right?! I feel like we could have sent an email before we just started kidnapping folks, but that was such a fun reason to have all this chaos going on and she addressed it in a regal way.
So as black women, in a predominantly white male creator space, what is your advice to other women like us entering or attempting to enter such a space?
Alitha:
Every comic book we do is like a new adventure. Literally a new race. We just start at the start line and then we keep running until it’s done. I see a lot of people coming, and I also teach at the School of Visual Arts here in New York, and I see a lot of people coming up and they want this comic thing, but they don’t necessarily believe they can attain this higher, one percent Club kind of thing, because it does feel very much like there’s Gatekeepers and then there’s doors. So they immediately go to, “well we can do our own” and “we can just do our own thing”, but then that’s immediately called Indie. It’s not here. It’s a separation. So they wonder what is this golden ticket? What is this thing you have to have? Well it’s the one thing that I find that people try very hard nowadays to take shortcuts. There are no shortcuts. It is literally draw every day.
Draw whether you’re sick, or well, and plan to draw on your deathbed. You literally take that attitude. Why do you draw every single day? That will build that stamina that you need. You draw whether you’re sick or well. That is the discipline. Believe me. I had my kid on Sunday morning 1:07. I was working again by Monday. So basically, the end of Monday, Alitha was back at work. You have to. You know. For those who have had the babies. Years later, this did come up. Some man had the nerve to say in public, “Well women, in the industry, will hold us all back, because they will become mothers and they’ll leave and stuff,” and went down that road. I could tell this story and he can’t say anything. So you see, it’s that wall that we early pioneers have to form, because we make this war. So that the ones behind us can farm. So they can create. So they can enter and not feel the way I feel, even sitting here right now. Like I have to go to battle. I constantly have to have the armor. You mentioned being vulnerable, Stephanie. I can’t even be sick, and I have been so sick with Covid so often, that right now, we’re getting over a bout that they didn’t even have on the East Coast, and I still had to work. I still have to do it. You can’t falter. Not yet. It’s not our turn, Stephanie. This is the hill we’ll die on.
Stephanie
It’s not our turn, and just kind of picking off of what Alitha said . . . be prepared to sacrifice.
The road that I took here took a lot of that. I decided to pursue this right after having a son. So while on maternity leave, I was like, “Yeah. I want more. I want to pursue my dreams.” So what better time to do this than now, that it’s already topsy-turvy for me. To Alitha’s point, you really can’t show that breaking, right? You can’t do that publicly. You can do it behind closed doors, but it’s work, work, work, and then more work. Then more work after that, and then even still with all of that work, there’s no guarantee. All you can do is put your best foot forward, and give it every single thing that you have. Whether it’s a two-page, eight page story, an anthology, a full series, or whatever–you should be bringing your “A” game. Somebody asked me at a panel last year, did I ever mail anything in that I didn’t love, and I said, “in what world would I–a black woman, be able to mail anything half @$$ in?” I have to work triple as hard just to get a fraction of what my white counterparts have. This is why it’s important to me for these black women who are superheroes that we write and we draw to show moments for them where they do get a moment of their own ability, or when they aren’t having to be the strength, or be the face of never backing down. They deserve that too, because again, we already know that they can handle things. That’s fine, but we also need to know that it’s okay for her to have a chill moment, or admitting to someone she’s close. “I’m struggling right now, but it’s alright, because I’m gonna show up like I need to.” It’s been an experience, even for me in this short period of time.
Alitha:
It’s almost like we’re writing and drawing the future that we would want. Isn’t this very much like what the men did when they entered this and made this whole thing up? So we’re writing to be able to relax and be seen as whole people and we draw people that live a life that right now we are not so much enjoying. I love how you bring this energy into the way that she’s conveyed on the page. It’s very clear that you exude that same strength and somehow you’re able to translate it.
BCL:
I know that you have a choice of deciding which characters that you want to work with, and I really appreciate that you intentionally chose these black women characters. To pair her with Bumblebee–what was that like, and why did you choose her?
Stephanie:
It was fun. Karen is someone that I’ve always loved as a character. When I was going back and reading the early Teen Titans. A lot of George Perez and everything Mark Wolfman. I remember her character being introduced as somebody who helped Mal get with the team and I’m like, “but she’s also brilliant, right?! Where is she at? What is she doing?” I think I wrote something about her being an unsung hero a few years ago. So to finally be able to kind of do that and show Karen out being herself–the laid-back superhero who is also very beautiful just like Nubia. It just seemed like a no-brainer. I’m very happy that Chris Rosa and Marquis said “Go ahead. You can add Bumblebee to it.” [It] also gave me a chance to play with Doom Patrol, which I was very happy to hear that Alitha enjoyed drawing Mallah because it felt very silly with the entire story. There’s a gorilla showing up. There’s a symphony. This is the Black History Anthology. I should probably be doing something a little bit deeper, but you know again, there’s some revolution in joy, and showing black affluence in this way too. It might be a little different, but I hope that it resonates with both. You know. Two women shopping and we’ve got some gorilla Shenanigans going on.
BCL:
Yes. Definitely Epic! So Alitha, I have to give you your flowers because I’m a very curly girl and for you to get the hair to perfection like that! That is usually one of my big hang-ups seeing us depicted in these stories, “but, oh did you see how they did my girl’s hair?” So if no one else gave it to you, I have to give you your flowers about the Perfection that is your depiction of black girl hair in all of its Splendor. So how do you go about making sure that it’s something that truly represents the different variations, or that you feel confident about?
Alitha:
No one was watching me [laughs]. This is my second. We actually did an arc of Nubia before for “Future State”. So that’s when I firstly did the very, very big hair, but it wasn’t the the natural hair just yet. Mark and I were trying to figure it out. I knew that I didn’t want to give her that short cropped little hairstyle. I don’t know how you got yours to lay down and behave like that. If you notice, this is texture. I just learned to let it go now and let it do what it wants. It brings the rain. It brought rain to Africa, girl. Rain to Africa. I’m not kidding you. I curled my hair and it rained in Africa. Yes but we know this struggle. So when we see it, that’s why I say it doesn’t ring authentic to us. My family is from Honduras, and I don’t have roots in this country. So I’m learning American culture trying to blend it with my own, but I know one thing we all have in common. The hair struggle. I watched them reel this thing out and they never straightened it, but I said, “You know . . . why won’t you?” They would cover it. They would rather wear a wig, than let it be seen. Now put this in a wig! That’s not funny. That’s horrible. Our hair doesn’t lay. It doesn’t obey. I’ll straighten my hair. 10 minutes later–back to where it wants to be. Our superpower is this hair that we keep trying to maintain. How about we show it? It shows little girls that you don’t have to do that to yourself, or to your hair. You are beautiful as you are, and we create that pattern of normalcy. At first, with the first Nubia–oh, the hate mail!
We could hear folks (asking), “but why did she have hair that big?” Now all the hair is beautiful! To see Nubia came one way, had a lot of push (but) now I redesigned her, she looks like this. Kept the big hair. I want everyone to draw the big hair. Make it normal for us because the Next Generation–that kid we don’t see (who) will pick this book up and go, “Oh I’m okay. I’ve got this beautiful goddess superhero who looks just like me.” That is what I needed for Nubia to stand with stylish, beautiful, powerful, vulnerable everything. Just show it to us. Give it to us.
BCL:
Yes! I love everything about that. I literally remember seeing the first like depiction of her with the variation of the armor and things like that and just being like, “I cannot wait until I see all of the Queens come through at the con, dressed up like Nubia.” Not “black Wonder Woman”. Nubia. Give it to us! This Anthology is super fun. It compiles so many black creators, and black characters. What has this been like coming together to all work on a project like this one?
Stephanie:
It’s nice to be in a book with other creators of color and just being in something that is showcasing and special like this.
Alitha:
Did you notice that when they were promoting it they actually called us like the industry’s best and brightest I’ve never been called [that].
BCL:
I’d love to hear, what are your elevator pitches? How do you describe it?
Alitha:
Stephanie will post a picture and then I will repost a picture, and I notice it makes its rounds very, very quickly. Yeah it’s like we’ve reached a sort of a point where we don’t have to quite pitch it as much. Show it they’re like, “oh yes, that should be a hint. Do more Nubia.” They need the more Nubia, but you’re going to slowly build. When we go to conventions we see it, but like right now, it’s still at that raw painful part where women will come up dressed as Nubia and just cry. We did a Nubia panel and this woman just cried. Somebody’s gonna cry. They’re these tears. These emotions just flow. We’re not normal yet. So we need to be seen more. How do we pitch? We show.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Exactly what Alitha said. I mean it’s kind of nice now to be able to just post a thing, not say too much about it, and people are like “oh my God!” That’s what happened when I saw Micah’s very gorgeous cover showing black women.
Alitha:
Amanda Waller looked amazing! Are you kidding me? She was amazing. I got to draw her recently. I’m like, “oh, I love her so much!” Somebody please write this queenpin in something for me, so I can enjoy her. Yes!
Stephanie:
For me, she’s always been that character that I pivoted to outside of Storm because I’m like, “oh, like she’s not babysitting anybody.” When she was running the Suicide Squad, she was like “Yo, you get messed up out there, that’s your business. Not mine.” The DC Power was just really nice to just post the title page and then people will just really go up for it. Because being black superheroes together, and women, I mean we don’t really get to see that a lot.
BCL:
Absolutely! I had to pre-order every single variant of this and I cannot wait! The excitement is real in The Black Comic Lords group! With the success of your recent Nubia limited runs can we look forward to more Nubia stories from either of you?
Stephanie:
Well I can’t answer that one. So unfortunately no more for me, that I know of. But if anyone is going to continue it, it just needs to be Alitha, because I can’t see that character not done by her.
Alitha:
We’re soldiers. We do as we’re told [laughs].
Stephanie:
I would love to see Nubia in an animated situation, because I just love animation. I just feel like so much to do that. So yeah, we need it. Just a short Nubia. I’ll take one of the movies, a limited series, or whatever.
Alitha
I’d come in a ball gown!
BCL:
Absolutely! With a little bit of armor though to like, set It off.
Part of being in Black Comic Lords is we showcase different characters and we’ll be doing a live coming up shortly that’s strictly all about Nubia! So that’s me with my shameless plug. We’d love to have you if you have free time in your schedules, or even if you just pop in and say what’s up. I just appreciate you guys taking the time to come and chat with me. I hope for some opportunity to chat with you guys again soon. Maybe come back and speak after the release and maybe we can have another bigger discussion about its impact, because I feel like it’s about to be epic.
“DC Power: A Celebration” is in stores now.
