About Babs/Dinah and Gail Simone

[galateus.insanejournal.com]

Funny question: On a TV Tropes example page most relevant to our interests, someone wrote that Gail Simone 'encourages' femmeslash. What interview was that?

Relatedly, a moment from Birds of Prey 21. You know the one.

Comments

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

I don't know about interviews, but back at the old S_D she tended to egg us on about the Babs/Dinah stuff in the comments from time to time, and implied on at least one occasion that a bit of subtext was entirely intentional.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

See Bluefall's icon, where Dinah saves Babs solely through the power of HER LOVE FOR HER.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

I remember talking about a theoretical scene where Barbara runs in and interrupts Ollie and Dinah's wedding like the last scene in The Graduate, and Simone posted to wish such a thing were possible.

I believe it was part of that one large post concerning someone or another questioning whether she was actually Gail Simone or not.

[thosefew.insanejournal.com]

Barbara "runs" in?

[queenanthai.insanejournal.com]

WHY DID YOU LINK TO TV TROPES

I FORGOT TO TIE OFF A ROPE AND NOW I'M DROWNING

[sianmink.insanejournal.com]

THEY HAVE A TROPE FOR THAT

[yaseen101.insanejournal.com]

YOU TOO...?

[misterfedex.insanejournal.com]

I admit it. I clicked earlier today on my lunch break.

FORTY MINUTES LATER...I had to tear myself away from a Rent related page about "Bring Out Your Gays" and...wait, Crowning Music of Awesome (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrowningMusic/ProfessionalWrestling) and it links to the WWE...hang on...

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

No matter how many times I see this picture, it's still one of the sexiest things I've ever seen in comics.

And looking at it now I'm comparing it to the Tim/Dick posted not so long ago, by the Lazarus pit? And just looking at them together makes this even slashier.

[perletwo.insanejournal.com]

Said it before, sayin' it again: full-on, no-subtext boob and ass gropiage goin' on there. Totally.

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

Whoa, that train left subtext into text a long time ago, next stop superscript.

Ease up that grip, Dinah - the Oracleavage is tilted at a 15-degree angle! XD

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Seen it before, but yes. Still very, very hot. Who's the artist, again?

In Google I Trust

[galateus.insanejournal.com]

'Jackson Guice (pencils, inks) [...] Gloria Vasquez (colors); Digital Chameleon (color seperations)' (http://www.dcuguide.com/BoP/BoP_021.php)

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Butch Guice.

Which is why this is so fun. I don't love his run on Birds, but one thing you can absolutely say about him is he doesn't put women into weird or porny positions when it isn't appropriate. If this were still Land, you could wave it off, all "oh he just traced it from porn, it doesn't mean anything," but not with Guice.

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

I wonder how many people are responsible for some of those. I'm assuming all the ones at the bottom.

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

It always cracks me up that the most iconic slash image of Babs and Dinah came on Dixon's run.

[darkknightjrk.insanejournal.com]

...Please don't tell me he's a phobe. It would make me really sad. :(

[bluejaybirdie.insanejournal.com]

Heh. Look at Dinah cop a feel there. And Babs is about to!

Reportedly, the "hetero to the BONE" line was originally something like "80% hetero", but got changed by the editors :(

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Shit, I wish I still had the email, or we still had comments from the old site. IIRC Gail said it was "placeholder dialog," as in, that's what she put on the page, intending to later get clearance to change it (which she expected she'd be able to), but never got around to it.

It's not a real hard line to work with as is, though, you can easily go the "deep denial" route, since "I AM SO VERY HETERO THAT I AM HETERO RIGHT DOWN TO MY BONES" spins pretty well as "doth protest too much," and the whole running-off-to-Asia-when-Babs-gets-engaged and marry-Ollie-despite-not-having-a-single-real-reason-to shenanigans support the reading of "desperate to assert her heterosexuality."

I love this post, I get to give my favorite icon a workout.

[ladymirth.insanejournal.com]

What "hetero to the bone line"? What's that about?

[gailsimone.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. I often try out a lot of different dialogue, and most of my scripts go through several stages, but the crucial one is the one right after the art comes back with tentative lettering, because that's the final stage.

I am not sure where the 'hetero to the bone,' thing actually was coming from, as it's not how I think of Diana. I needed the line to be fierce, and while I thought her saying "and at least 70% hetero" was a much better line, it didn't have the appropriate dramatic punch I needed for that moment. In the end, I switched it to that anyway as I felt it made the point.

I still have the corrected script. When the actual issue came out and none of the fixes had been made, I was heartbroken. It not only didn't say what I wanted to say about Dinah, it sort of flew in the face of the interactive flexibility that I had wanted to build with the character. It should have been an important moment, because it states, for canon, a bisexual curiosity, at least.

But a couple important things...the editor of the book at that time was an openly lesbian woman and activist. She didn't take the comment out on purpose, it was simply a matter of the book running very late. A similar thing happened on my first Teen Titans issue, to much more devastatingly terrible effect, unfortunately.

And yeah, I'm still bummed about it. Even more irritating is that I had a chance to fix it in the TPBs and wasn't told about it in time.

Bleah.

Dinah's love for Babs is pretty obvious anyway, I think.

[retro_nouveau.insanejournal.com]

Well, I had to try "the most iconic slash image of Babs and Dinah" or the plot bunny pixel bunny was going to eat away at my brain.

[ladymirth.insanejournal.com]

I see no sub in this text.

Speaking as a completely straight female, this is one of the sexiest images in comics I've ever seen. Incidentally, my love for Dixon-Guice is only eclipsed by my love for Gail's run. I remember thinking during Dixon's run "there is no possible way this comic could get any awesomer" and then Simone took over and I had fits from awesome overload.

Best. DC Book. Ever.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

I KNOW RIGHT!

Birds of Prey was so cool. So cool.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

I see no sub in this text.

But Dinah's right there!

Best. DC Book. Ever.

I don't know, Blue Beetle gave it a run for its money.