As to the female characters in the story, I didn’t set out with an allegorical framework whereby any of the characters explicitly serve to personify a particular ideological or sociological point. I accept that this is how some of them may be interpreted -- but the whole allegorical aspect emerged, at least in my mind, as a side effect of the exaggerated cartoon style of the story. I let the journey unfold and the characters came forth just like people you meet on a journey -- and I accepted them on their own terms. To paraphrase the poet James Merrill, “we don’t know what we think until we write it.” The result may say something about my deeper psychological orientation, but not about my political and sociological view.
What I will admit to is a frustration with the current trend in our society to pander to the presumed tastes of women in ways that tend toward the sanitized and politically correct. Female writers such as the late Kathy Acker, Emily Carter, and Susie Bright share this frustration. The long and very favorable review on the CultureDose.net site was written by a woman. Some women readers have been incredibly enthusiastic -- some just the opposite. But the same is true of the male readers! In the end my goal was to entertain and disturb. The fact that the book can make some people laugh out loud and other people very angry makes me feel like I’ve done my job.
AC: Which women comic book writers did you have in mind? And what are some examples of the way that you see our culture pandering to the supposed tastes of women?
KS: To me, the hottest female comic book artist is Sandra Chang of "Sin Metal Sirens" fame. Her art is a turn-on and then there is a perverse/subversive sense of feminist fun. I enjoyed the DC Anima comics for the same reason. Sue Coe and Judith Brody have sharp political wits and are also terrific. I also love Dame Darcy’s and Jessica Abel’s stuff -- and if you haven’t already, you must check out Penny Van Horn’s "Recipe for Disaster." She’s sensational.
I see the issue of compromising to meet women’s tastes in a couple of different ways. Before signing with Random House for instance -- before I had my agent -- I got my manuscript read by a senior editor with another NY publishing house who advised me that I would be much more likely to sell my novel if I rewrote it with a female protagonist. In the movie(s) based on "The Lord of the Rings," one of the most loved and commercially successful works of fiction in history, the prominence of female characters was significantly enhanced.
I have on the floor of my office a pile of books released in the last two years by female authors. Let me quote from the blurbs of three right off the top: “Meet X, the fiercely independent spirited heroine…” “Y is a chick with attitude…” “An endearing story of warmth and the redemptive power of love…” The spectrum runs from feisty to flowery, but my point is that the female characters are presented not as artistic creations but as role models and social statements, because the presumption is that that’s what women want and will buy. Would the female equivalent of an essentially disagreeable character like the protagonist in Charles Chadwick’s current "It’s All Right Now" be tolerated?
The comic book and graphic novel artists I mentioned also have strong female characters, but there is a sense of playful self-awareness to their presentation. Complex, funny, erotically open and intellectually confident women writers (straight or lesbian) do what every writer of consequence does -- they surprise you.
