Gail Simone

My hope is that we can spread the word: Wonder Woman is not some unapproachable goddess. She's funny, dangerous, intimidating, brilliant, and compassionate. In many ways, I think she's the most human superheroine there is.

Wonder Woman is very much her own character. She thinks big.

The first Knightfall story is four issues, and it is extremely focused and intense. People who have read, say, the 'Cats In the Cradle' arc in 'Secret Six' will get some idea of the primal tone of this story. It doesn't let up at all, and it ends in a new place.

People resist and fight against things that are new that they haven't seen before, especially if they make them uncomfortable. But fiction is a safe place to tell these stories and to reach out to people and maybe affect them and make a difference in their lives.

I feel like Vertigo is a place to have an adult discussion for adult readers.

Secret Six has always had a special place in the DCU, just because they're the misfits. The content is a little bit different than the rest of the mainstream titles. It has a completely different tone than any of the other books out there.

If you have something to say, especially that's different and needed, then do it.

I think it's important to have diversity in comics for a thousand reasons. It's not just some airy conceptual thing: it's important to reflect the humanity of the readership.

I try to make every issue new-reader friendly. I remember being frustrated many times trying to pick up new series that were overladen with baggage. The trick is to make that backstory seem like something compelling that they will want to explore rather than an obstacle course they have to crawl through to get to the story.

Famously, DC has been pretty great showing gay women, with characters like Batwoman, but has shown fewer prominent men on the sexuality spectrum outside of hetero. It's something we need to address. I also think it's lovely how the readers respond to this.

Nothing really prevented me from showing Catman as bi, but it's how I thought of him.

When I started in comics, people were always trying to classify me as either/or. Either a writer who appealed to women or a writer who appealed to guys. This need to categorize was just exhausting.