Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘Dream come true’ for Benson sisters
Benson sisters, writers of DC’s ‘Batgirl and the Birds of Prey,’ among a growing number of women in the comic biz
Writers Julie and Shawna Benson are among a growing number of women in the comic book business.
It’s almost exactly a year since Julie and Shawna Benson celebrated their debut as comic-book writers with the publication by DC Comics of the first issue of the reboot of the Birds of Prey franchise, a series that features the crime-fighting women of Gotham, the superheroes Batgirl, Black Canary and the Huntress.
“Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth” landed the week before San Diego Comic-Con 2016, and a year later, as the Benson sisters prep for another trip to San Diego for the annual celebration of the popular arts, they’re still flying high on the fun and excitement they’ve experienced over the issues they’ve since written — No. 12 arrived Wednesday, July 12.
“It’s really been a dream come true for us,” Julie Benson says. “We grew up reading our dad’s comics — he collected a bunch of Silver Age books, mostly DC.
“For us to be on the other side of it is something we didn’t think was possible, especially since there aren’t that many women creating books,” she says.
That’s a true statement — men have long dominated the creation of comic books, as writers or artists — that at the same time feels like it’s changing with each passing day or week — or ‘Con.
When the Benson sisters arrive at Comic-Con this year they’ll be among an ever-growing number of women on doing signings of their work in the booths that pack the exhibition hall floor, filling panels for fans eager to hear the latest developments int the imaginary worlds they create, and in general celebrating all the joy that comics of every kind deliver.
When the Eisner Awards — the comics world’s equivalent of the Oscars — are held Friday at Comic-Con, a good number of women will be among the nominees. Writer Marjorie Liu, for instance, is nominated for best limited series for her work on “Han Solo” and best teen publication for “Monstress.” In the best new series category five of the nominees are primarily or entirely created by women: “Clean Room,” by writer Gail Simone — who also did a long run as writer on “Birds of Prey” in the 2000s — and artist Jon Davis-Hunt; “Faith,” by writer Jody Houser and artists Pere Pérez, and Marguerite Sauvage; and “Mockingbird,” by writer Chelsea Cain and artist Kate Niemczyk.
All of which is good news for the present, though the rolls of the Eisner Hall of Fame inductees are an ever-present reminder of the absence of women in the past. Of the 147 comics superstars in Hall since it was established in 1987 only seven women have been inducted: Dale Messick, the creator of “Brenda Starr,” inducted in 2001; Marie Severin, colorist for
all of EC Comics in the early ‘50s and an artist and colorist for Marvel and DC from the 1960s on (2001); Ramona Fradon, an artist for DC Comics starting in the ‘50s whose work on Aquaman is especially revered (2006); Trina Robbins, publisher of the first allwomen-created comic and founder of the Wimmin’s Comix Collective (2013); Marjorie “Marge” Henderson Buell, creator of “Little Lulu” (2015); Lynda Barry, creator of “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” among others (2016); and Tove Jansson, the Finnish creator of the Moomintroll
comics (2017).
Both Julie and Shawna Benson remember how wonderful it felt to read their parents’ comic books — in addition to their father’s DC collections of series such as Batman, Superman and Green Lantern, their mother had books with female protagonists such as Lois Lane and Patsy Walker.
“The first one I read was Green Lantern No. 23, which had Tattoo Man on the cover,” Julie Benson says. “He could press a tattoo of an anchor on his arm and all of a sudden there’d be a real anchor. When you’re a kid you’re just soaking that in like a sponge.”
Shawna Benson said she
was more into the adaptations of the TV shows and movies she loved, reading comic book series based on “Doctor Who,” “Quantum Leap” and “Back To The Future.”
“I wanted more of those characters,” she says.
At the time it didn’t occur to them to ponder whether they as girls could grow up to create those kinds of stories, Julie Benson says.
“When we were reading them as kids it’s the same thing as watching TV,” she says. “You don’t think about someone writing it, you think it’s some crazy, wonderful thing that you just love.”
They entered the comics industry from next door in the television business: Both Bensons have written and still write for the CW network’s post-apocalyptic series “The 100,” and heard talk around town about DC Comics’ Rebirth initiative — a relaunching of all its classic monthly superhero books — and saw an opportunity.
“They were starting up Rebirth early last year and we came in and pitched on ‘Birds of Prey,’” Julie Benson says. “It was a complete
surprise that they were going to bring it back. We had read the Gail Simone run, we had read the Chuck Dixon run. It’s an honor to get to pick up the mantle of those great writers and carry on the tradition of those great characters.”
Both joke about how calm and unruffled they were to take on such iconic characters as Batgirl and the other Birds of Prey, as well as such classic bad girls as Catwoman and Poison Ivy.
“It’s incredibly daunting and it takes both of us to fill the shoes of these other people,” Shawna Benson says. “But we also felt like that was a responsibility that we were proud to take on. These are characters that we did care about and we wanted to see back.”
Coming into the business now is easier than it would have been in generations past, they know.
“Women in comics now, there are so many more,” Julie Benson says. “Should there be more? Yes. Will there be more? Yes. As long as we continue to tell stories that are as good as the quote unquote boy stories. I
don’t see why a guy couldn’t take over ‘Birds of Prey’ or we could take over a series with a male character.”
Ideally, Shawna Benson says, “You take the names off a book and you shouldn’t be able to tell, ‘Oh, a woman wrote that,’ or, ‘I can tell a man wrote that.’
“To me it’s irrelevant,” she says. “Because there are men who write these beautiful romantic stories that you’d think might be in a woman’s realm, and there are women who write these amazing action stories.”
As for whether their own gender influences the stories they tell? Julie Benson says perhaps, but only in a subtle and nuanced way, and possibly not as much as the fact that they’re siblings.
“I think what we bring to it is that we are sisters,” she says. “And we do have an immediate point of view in that we treat them as family. They care about each other. They’re going to have different ways of doing things, but at the end of the day they’ll take a bullet for each other. … I don’t know if that’s a female thing or a family thing,” Julie Benson says.
The response to their run of “Batgirl and the Birds of Prey” has reinforced that feeling, and overcome a little of their own preconceptions about comics and the way the gender of characters and readers interact.
“I think we came in with the tiniest bit of bias,” Shawna Benson says. “‘Oh, this is quote-unquote the chick book.”
The idea there being that its female characters would like draw more of a female audience — which hasn’t turned out that way, she says.
“Now we’re realizing (male readers) are into it, this doesn’t matter,” Shawna Benson says. “They like these stories.”
Shawna Benson said the fact of being a woman writer in the comics industry never really fazed her, a second benefit, beyond their comic collections, of the way her parents raised her and her sister.
“I was kind of genderblind as a kid,” Shawna Benson says. “Our parents raised us that way. If we put in the work it’s like the quote from ‘Back To The Future’: ‘You can accomplish anything.’”