KRAKOA and Other Gay Islands
she left the party early, like a true diva
I know, waiting for the end of something is sad, but something about endings, like the actual end of something, makes me feel refreshed. I’m reborn for the summer, like jumping into a pool and breaching out again.
So it must be said - farewell to our beautiful Krakoa.
Everyone’s been saying beautiful things, and I even said a word over at AIPT.
I’m grateful Jordan got that space to talk about his time editing the work. If I could describe Jordan’s tenure as our beloved Krakoan Gardener in one word, I’d say he was patient. Patient with us, with our ideas. Patience with me as I wrote, as I’ve famously said before, three drafts of Excalibur #1 before I found the version that did what I needed it to do. Patient with me learning to write my first ongoing comic ever. Patient with the times I got it wrong, the times I was behind, or the times I wasn’t patient with him back.
The Krakoan Experiment was one of an exceedingly rare variety: a roomful of creatives brought together with a purpose, given the trust and time and space to make it happen. To be there was both a sincere honor on its own, and a gateway to some of the funniest, most genuine moments of my entire life. Instead of eulogizing, I wanted to use my Farewell Krakoa post to tell you all about a few of my favorite, funny moments from working in the room. (The ones I’m willing to share, that is.)
But before we go into those:
Q-CON!
Q-Con is Saturday only, but I’ll be there the whole time! If you’re in the Southern California area and you’re looking for a fun, FREE Pride month event, this is the one for you. The convention is at Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park in West Hollywood, which not only will be hosting us but also a few other great local groups celebrating Pride, like the Gay Men’s Choir of Los Angeles, and the Pride Poets festival.
I’ll be there, signing for free and selling cheap back issues since this is one of the few cons where I run my own table and all that. So if you’ve been looking to meet me, have some Pride Month fun, or just stock up on back issues, come out and say hi! It’s such a fun time with the community.
BATMAN 151
Reminder! I have written eight pages for the backup in this issue of BATMAN and tie-in to DC’s ABSOLUTE POWER event, and Harley has it totally under control!
Marianna Ignazzi on art and Giovanna Niro on colors. It looks so damn good.
IF YOU’RE HERE FOR CATWOMAN AND HARLEY QUINN UPDATES-
Big post coming Monday. Lots of information I’m very excited to talk about. But one thing at a time. For now, back to Krakoan Memories…
Every eulogy you’ve read full of love for Krakoa and the work behind it is 100% true. But in the interest of variety, I’ll instead share some of my favorite moments from the Krakoan-behind-the-scenes history, some of which are total non-sequiturs and some of which are quite poignant, I think. Please be advised - these are to the best of my recollection. If you were there and I’m wrong, by all means, fight me (love me) in the comments.
CODENAME: THE OMELET CHEF
At a comic convention where most of the X-Slack were present as guests, we were asked to stay an extra day or so to get some face time with one another and plan the next year or so of stories. (A good thing we did - the world shut down for a little bit after that.)
Without proximity to our usual conference room at Marvel HQ, we rented conference space at the hotel, which came with some perks. Early that morning, while I blearily put mascara on for like, the fourth or fifth day in a row (not my usual routine,) I got a message from Jordan, on the Slack. I believe we all did. To paraphrase, it said something like -
“If you haven’t eaten breakfast there is really nice breakfast down here. Please come eat this breakfast. I’m here alone with so much breakfast and none of you writers are here yet.”
Far be it from me to leave my homie tied up with too much breakfast.
I scrambled into my writing hoodie (this one, if you’re wondering) and scampered down the elevators to find two people in the conference room: Jordan, quietly sitting and working at his laptop, and a private omelet chef with his full cooking cart. He had the hat. The little white coat. He had ham, bacon, chopped veggies, cheeses. He had a whole fucking catering setup. I looked at Jordan and as I recall he said something semi-explanatory like “…I think breakfast comes with the conference room?”
First of all - comics travel is not really like rock-star travel where you arrive with a rider of requirements. Conventions and events where they feed you a cookie or buy you a drink are a huge perk. We don’t get paid a ton and travel is expensive - when the publisher wants to cover dinner, it’s a perk we sometimes turn up for. If you feed us when we’re captive, like at a retreat or a convention, we’re a lot happier. So this felt like an extremely fancy perk for a bunch of con-hungover nerds on a Monday morning.
Secondly, if you’ve never seen your extremely friendly and polite editor awkwardly wait for ten writers with a very patient private omelet chef, I assure you, it’s so goddamn funny. I ordered an omelet out of awkwardness. I don’t even like omelets.
I think the gentleman chef left around the third time one of us made a dumb fucking joke about “telling people our Krakoan state secrets, we’d have to kill him! Ha ha!” I hope he got hazard pay.
MARGARET THE G.O.A.T. OF GOATS
Superstar writer and actual genius Leah Williams hired a goat for our weekly meeting.
She could probably tell this story way better than I can, but here goes: we had weekly meetings in the X-Slack. Every Wednesday morning, we’d hop on and chat for a a few hours. We usually had a full discussion docket ready, due to the previous week’s chatter in the Slack. We’d address group business, structure things, and brainstorm. These meetings became really important to us, as they were one of the few social interactions we got with people outside of our homes during the pandemic.
I think the occasion was Jonathan’s birthday. Leah messaged Vita and I, as we did constantly and still do - to say she found a goat farm raising money for their operating costs during COVID by offering Zoom goat visits. “Book a goat for your meeting! Prank your friends with a goat!” Other than keeping the goat farm open, I’m not sure what the end goal was on the part of the farmers, but by god, Leah paid for that goat appointment and booked it.
She tried to keep it a complete surprise, but when the goat requested access to our Zoom meeting, Jordan, fearing the Omelet Chef was back for more secrets, presumably, declined the goat’s entry. After an explanation from Leah, we went back to our meeting, and I was documented expressing extreme sadness over the goat.
And then next week, as a reward for our patience…the goat returned. I don’t know why I ever, ever doubted Leah, I never ever should, because the goat came, and Jordan was prepared. We closed down our state secrets for a visit from a goat.
An e-visit from a goat is pretty much like one with your doctor - not unpleasant but a bit laggy, and you feel like it would be more effective if you were there in person, but it’s way, way better than nothing. Her name was Margaret, and she did a great job. And so did Leah. I don’t have any pictures, just this sticker I decorated in my meeting notes from that day:
THE IRL HELLFIRE GALA
photo by Mr. Cerebrocast Connor himself
At San Diego Comic Con 2023, Marvel Insider and D23 threw a Hellfire Gala, like, a real one. There were DJs, a dance floor, a Green Carpet to walk, and deliciously floral cocktails. The fans turned up in amazing outfits - both cosplay and their own designs. It was a whirlwind.
At some point during the night, those of us creator and editor folks who were there ended up in a booth together, sipping and catching up. As we looked around at the dance floor, drinks in hand, someone -maybe several of us at once (as so often happened amongst us) said “—we wrote this party into existence. We made this up. This exists because we made it,” and we laughed at the surreality of that.
Even more surreal, every once in a while a fan would come up to hang out, or ask to take a photo with us, and it felt incredibly cool to be that person, recognized only by those who had been with Krakoa from the beginning, being rock stars for one night.
We spent a lot of time in that booth. I think it’s funny that even at a party we made, we still find the nerd corner. I love those nerds very much. And all the nerds that supported us enough to let us do this for five years - love you too.
ENOUGH SENTIMENT, YOU HAVE WORK TO DO
I do indeed. We’ll be back Monday with some of my recent faves and big news from Gotham - and I hope to see you SoCal Locals at Q-Con in West Hollywood on Saturday!
BLACK CAT COMICS 20th ANNIVERSARY, SALT LAKE CITY, UT - 6.22.24
CATWOMAN #66 - 6.18.24
HARLEY QUINN #41 - 6.25.24
CATWOMAN #67 - 7.17.24
HARLEY QUINN #42 - 7.24.24
BATMAN #151 - ABSOLUTE POWER: HARLEY QUINN - 8.7.24
CATWOMAN #68 - 9.18.24
HARLEY QUINN #43 - 9.25.24
Stay weird, talk soon, Happy Pride-
-TH 6.14.24 14:57
I think the goat meeting was the first meeting I was at. I had no idea what was going on. I think "I had no idea what was going on" may be my Krakoan epitaph.
💖