Episide #31: Happy Birthday, Gail Simone!

Gail Simone's birthday was July 29th, and since it's not nice to ask a lady's age, we won't try to find out the year she was born. She is a lovely and talented lady who now writes comic books for DC Comics. Her original career was as a hairdresser.


Her first involvement with the comic book industry was the web site Women In Refrigerators (now at http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir). It catalogued many instances in comic book stories where female characters suffered violent attacks, either because of their gender or as a plot device for male characters. It got its name from a scene in a Kyle Rainer Green Lantern story, where his girlfriend is murdered and stuffed in the refrigerator. The site includes some views of the subject from many comic book professionals, and is worth checking out.


Gail Simone also had a weekly humor column You'll All Be Sorry at the web site comicbookresources.com. Subjects included satirical comic book summaries and fan fiction parodies. The archive of these columns can be found at: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=column&id=6.

She began writing comic book scripts for Bongo Comics, publisher of the comic books based on the Simpson animated characters. Titles she wrote for were Simpson Comics, Bart Simpson Comics, a Treehouse of Horror special, as well as the Sunday comic strip.

Gail Simone began a creator owned mini-series with artist Lea Hernandez called Killer Princesses for Oni Press.

From there she moved to Marvel, where she wrote for the Deadpool title, later cancelled and relaunched as Agent X during her run. She left the title because of editorial conflicts, but did write a concluding story arc to Agent X.

Gail Simone began working for DC Comics on the title Birds of Prey with issue #56, continuing the saga of Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk. She stayed on the title through issue #108.

She had a short run on Action Comics on issues #827-831 and #833-835, teaming with artist John Byrne on his return to the character he revised in the mid-1980's. Their stories were collected in the trade paperback Strange Attractors. This collection is still in print.

One of her most famous series was the Infinite Crisis crossover mini-series Villains Unlimited in 2005. In that title Gail Simone rejuvenated the villain Catman. She also wrote Teen Titans issues #27 and 28, a Hawk and Dove story. Gail also wrote a script for the animated series Justice League Unlimited episode #71, Double Date, which first aired on June 4, 2005. The episode featured the heroes Huntress, Question, Green Arrow and Black Canary.

During 2006 she wrote the Secret Six mini-series, as well as All New Atom issues #1-15, 17, 18 and 20. On Atom she reunited with John Byrne for the first three issues. For Wildstorm Gail Simone wrote Gen 13 vol. 4, issues 1-13 through 2007.

Gail Simone wrote another creator owned mini-series for Wildstorm in 2007 called Welcome To Tranquility. The story ran for seven issues. In August of 2007 she wrote the script for an episode of the web site Game Tops' Re/Visioned Tomb Raider Animated Series, about Lara Croft as a pre-teen.

Currently she is the writer for Wonder Woman. Gail began with issue #14 (vol. 3), the January 2008 issue, (published on November 14, 2007). She is scheduled to return to the Secret Six in a continuing series. She will be joined by her Birds of Prey penciller Nicola Scott and artist Doug Hazelwood. The first issue is scheduled to be published on Wednesday. September 3, 2008.

Gail Simone's stories in Action Comics: editor: Eddie Berganza, cover artist: John Byrne.

Issue #827: Strange Attractors. Except where noted, the creative team for this storyline was as follows: penciller: John Byrne, inker: Nelson DeCastro, letter: Pat Brosseau, colorist: Guy Major.

Issue #828: Positive Reinforcements, letterer: Rob Leigh.

Issue #829: End of Identity, letter: Nick J. Napolitano.

Issue #830: The Great Society, letterer: Larry Stucker.

Issue #831: Black & Blue. (A Villains United tie-in).

Issue #832 was written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and was an Omac tie-in.

Issue #833: Depths, inkers: Nelson DeCastro, NormRapmund and Larry Stucker.

Issue #834: Awake In The Dark, inkers: Nelson DeCastro, Marc Campos and Oclair Albert.

Issue #835: A Contagion of Madness, letter: Phil Balsman.

To learn more about Gail Simone explore the following resources:

Gail Simone's blog: http://www.happystains.blogspot.com.

Listen to her discuss her career on the DC Comics Podcast: Spotlight on Gail Simone, from a recent comic book convention panel.

To learn more about Gail Simone's comic book writing career, go to http://www.simoneindex.com.

Superman Fan Podcast can be found at http://www.supermanfanpodcast.mypodcast.com. Send e-mail about my podcast to supermanfanpodcast@gmail.com.

Also check out my spoiler free comic book review blog, My Pull List, at http://www.mypulllist.blogspot.com. Send e-mail about My Pull List to mypulllist@gmail.com.

Thanks for listening to Superman Fan Podcast, and as always thanks to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.