Gun-Street Girl’s Lien-Cooper: Q&A

Posted: Monday, December 13, 2004
Posted By: Tim O'Shea

Barbara Lien-Cooper writes the webcomic Gun Street Girl at graphicsmash.com, was an original founder of Sequential Tart, is the managing editrix of the 2004 Eisner award-winning print magazine Comic Book Artist, and was named by Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimates, Wanted) as one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing. SBC recently caught up with Lien-Cooper to discuss Gun Street Girl (GSG). (In the interest of full disclosure, Lien-Cooper is the author [along with husband, Park] of the SBC column, The Park & Barb Show.)

Tim O’Shea: As a founding member of Sequential Tart (an entity "...working towards raising the awareness of women's influence in the comics industry and other realms"), did you fear any backlash or resistance to introducing your lead female making a living as a stripper? Or did that concern never enter your mind?

Barb Lien-Cooper: Of course it did. However, I don’t see the two things as being contradictions in terms.

I should mention that Liz only makes her living as a stripper in the first story and quits to become a hired gun for a magician named Eddie Caution. So, if the reader doesn’t like the idea of Liz being a stripper, it’s only in the first story. The other ones are totally different. The first issue isn’t very representative of the series itself, which was a risk, but one I felt willing to take because that’s how the story goes.

In the context of the story, the choice of profession makes sense. Liz, the lead character, is a teenage runaway and the sad reality of a runaway’s life is that there’s not a lot of opportunity to find a job that isn’t degrading or humiliating in some way. Also, how much Liz loathes her job helps the reader understand why she’d jump at the chance to work as a small-time magician’s hired gun. I mean, being a "gun", fighting monsters, is hardly a glamorous profession with a 401 K plan and opportunity to become upwardly mobile. And, it’s dangerous, to boot. The readers aren’t going to accept the premise of Liz enjoying her work as a hired gun if they don’t see the world she came from. For Liz, this dirty, gritty job killing monsters is actually a step up. GSG is a comic for a fairly mature audience and a mature audience needs characters with some real world motivations. Plus, once you see the world Liz left, you feel a certain sense of elation that she got out.

On another level, Gun Street Girl is firmly set in the world of British film noir, only with magic thrown into the mix. And, if you’ve ever seen British film noir like Get Carter, you understand it’s a very macho worldview with some pretty Neanderthal attitudes towards women. You rent Mona Lisa or The Long Good Friday and it feels like all the females are strippers, hookers, or mistresses. I wanted to break out of that stereotype by bringing a female into the mix as one of the "tough guys". But, in order to do that in a realistic manner, I had to show my lead character breaking out of that world, which meant putting her IN that world in the first place, complete with its attitudes towards women.

Also, the first issue of GSG represents my own liberation from the structure and stricture of a "by men, for men" action-adventure comic. It’s written almost as a parody of how a male writer would write this comic. So, it’s sort of me waving goodbye to things like the near-stripper-like costumes female action-adventure heroines are dressed in (the stripper outfit that Liz wears looks a LOT like the Golden Age Black Canary’s). The subsequent issues sort of represent me making my own idiosyncratic way through the action-adventure genre, turning left where other (male) writers would turn right.

Plus, you have to realize Sequential Tart was originally founded by a bunch of rabid Garth Ennis fans. We resented being put into a single demographic of "the female reader" with all the stereotypes that came with it. Women are a diverse group, with diverse tastes and opinions, so these preconceived notions of "the female reader" bothered us. And, as time went on, I got even more bothered by the preconceived notions of what a female WRITER in comics could/should write. I found the traditional "female comic book writer" genres such as humor, romance, slice of life, cute goth, and all-ages comics to be so limiting. There’s nothing wrong with those genres, but the notion that a female writer only wants to write in these genres is a vise-like stereotype, just as the preconceived notion of the typical female comic book reader is. I like tough, sinewy action-adventure comics, both in terms of reading them and writing them. My skills as a writer are sort of firmly based in the grittier types of stories.

In part, GSG is my attempt to expand the perception of what people think of when they think of a female comic book writer.

Besides, I don’t see myself as just a "female friendly" writer, per se --- instead, I’m a PEOPLE friendly writer. I write for intelligent readers of both genders. I don’t want the male reader to feel excluded from my work just because the industry was once fairly male exclusive and still has a fair amount of institutional sexism in it. I consider myself to be fairly androgynous in terms of my writing, with elements that seem to appeal to both genders. I like both genders equally. I just want female readers and creators to get more of an even break in comics.

Of course, the real question, the one that no one thinks to ask because it’s so pervasive that the readers hardly notice any more, is why heroines in action-adventure comics, in the main, DRESS like strippers…

O’Shea: Has it been more of a blessing or a burden for your career that Mark Millar once named you one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing?

Lien-Cooper: On a personal level, having Mark as a friend is one of my life’s greatest joys. He’s my proverbial big brother, a hell of a person, and I respect him and his writing a lot. He’s the first writer who looked beyond my gender and just saw me as a person --- and as a writer. Of course, other people have been kind and support of my writing, too. Grant Morrison has been very kind to me and so has Steve Bryant, the penciller on Athena Voltaire.

On a professional level, having Mark say nice things about me has been helpful, obviously. And, my God, it’s a hell of a complement to be singled-out that way with other talented writers. The downside is actually delivering comics that fulfill Mark’s belief in me. Mark once told me that I had to make my own way in comics because there’s nothing more crippling to being taken seriously as a writer than to have someone "get you in". So, before I started "breaking into comics" (sounds like a felony, doesn’t it?), I wanted to do a series that really showed who I am as an individual. I worked long and hard on GSG because you only have one chance to make a first impression, as the saying goes.

I probably should have been working on pitching mini-series ideas to print publishers instead of working on a web series, but GSG matters a lot to me and I had a psychological need to get it going before I could do anything else. Besides, I thought that the only way for people to see me as an individual, as opposed to Mark’s protégé, was to do something personal to me. Besides, having critical acceptance for my writing has been very helpful to me in terms of self-confidence. When you’re doing a comic like GSG, which is personal to you and not just some product you’ve written to make a name for yourself, you’re initially on very shaky ground in terms of self-confidence. Am I just kidding myself about this comic’s worth? It’s kind of different than other comics. Will people like it? Hearing that people liked the work and got what I was doing gave me real faith in myself.

O’Shea: Over the course of the story's development, how has Ryan Howe improved as a storyteller? And what ways has he helped you to grow into a more effective storyteller?

Lien-Cooper: The short answer: I try not to be so wordy nowadays because I don’t want to cover up his art.

The longer one: I am fond of saying that Ryan is my Steve Dillon. I needed an artist subtle enough to do facial expressions so the readers could really get to know the characters. Ryan is brilliant because he picks up on tone and other details just on instinct, even before I tell him what I was going for in a panel. So, now, when I write, I’m writing for my artist. Dialog and plotting are two things I do well, but since I’m not an artist, the visual end of things has been a challenge for me to learn. Ryan’s art has helped me to really think visually. Something I love to do is to give Ryan real challenges, things that are difficult to draw for whatever reason. He always rises to the occasion. His art is so integral to the story and so supports what I’m trying to do with the series. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

O’Shea: How were the dynamics different (and what strengths did the creator bring) when artist Sinclair Elliott did a guest run on the series?

Lien-Cooper: I like Sinclair Elliott’s art and I’d work with him again in a second. It’s a bit more traditional than Ryan’s, which is not a put down of either artist. I thought Sinclair did a super job on the fill-in story. Ryan and I have a schedule of three pages a week at Graphic Smash. That’s a tough deadline for an artist to do without losing quality. So, rather than slow down, we simply have to have the occasional guest artist. I’ve worked with quite a few of them, including my friend Matt Phillips and Tart’s own Wolfen Moondaughter. The dynamic doesn’t really change because all of the stories are pre-written, ready to be shipped off via e-mail. What’s nice about working with other artists is when THEY get excited about the stories, which really sort of touches my heart.

O’Shea: What are the benefits of telling your tale in the webcomic form, creatively?

Lien-Cooper: I worked as an instructional designer for a long while, which is sort of a web editor, but one that shapes the look/feel/amount of information on a web page. This experience affected how I wrote GSG for the web. With a web comic, you have one page to grab the reader or not. Not one issue, just the page that’s on display that day. So, all the pages have to count. The upside of all of this is that I had to follow the Will Eisner "compressed" style of writing in order to keep the reader’s interest. It’s my opinion that decompressed storytelling would sink like a lead zeppelin online. I mean, imagine trying to read a decompressed comic such as The Authority online using dial-up (not everyone has fast Internet connections, after all). You’d feel gypped just to get a picture of Paris or whatever for your day’s installment. A web reader is surfing the web. If you don’t deliver the goods in a fast paced, interesting burst of information, that person will surf elsewhere. I can’t afford an ounce of fat on my stories, therefore. I can barely allow myself to write a splash page, but I do one every once in a while because I like splash pages. Doing a web comic has made my comic writing style very fast paced and stripped down.

O’Shea: Economically, how close is the industry to making webcomics a fiscally breakeven infrastructure?

Lien-Cooper: I’m not an economist, so I don’t know. You’d have to ask a web comics publisher like Joey Manley of Modern Tales about that.

However, I equate web comics with the dawn of cable television. Cable channels were automatically judged inferior to network television and people said it would never work. But, people wanted more choices than three channels, so cable gained popularity. And, as it did, the quality of the programming got more professional and more critically acclaimed. Web comics are sort of like HBO or Showtime at the dawn of cable. People have a certain amount of disbelief that web comics could ever be as good as the Big Three of comics. However, I think the need for an expanded number of entertainment choices is changing the public’s perception of comics on the web. I know of several really good web comics; comics I’d put up against anything that is being printed today.

As a stray thought, I think web comics will continue to become more viable as a publishing alternative because of the cost of printing comics. I know at least two self-publishers that have lost a great deal of money publishing print comics, even though their comics were critics’ darlings and sold respectable amounts. One shouldn’t have to mortgage the homestead to self-publish, which may be why more creators are turning to the web. And, as the public turns away from flimsies in favor of graphic novels, the consumers’ own preferences have already forced publishers to look for alternatives such as CD roms, downloadable comics, and web comics. While these alternatives aren’t big sellers yet, they may be in the future. Only time will tell. I’m not a fortune teller, but I do see the web as just one of the many alternatives that print publishers (especially independent ones) will turn to in the future.

O’Shea: How much has editing a publication like Comic Book Artist helped nurture you into being a savvier storyteller?

Lien-Cooper: Not much, directly. Non-fiction and fiction are two mutually exclusive types of writing, just as editing and writing are two different, but related, skills. However, the more you know about a medium, the better writer one becomes, so I suppose it has helped me in some way. Mostly, my time at CBA gave me confidence. We won an Eisner, after all, so that gave me a real boost. Will Eisner is my hero. It’s incredibly humbling for me to know that a magazine I helped edit won that award.

O’Shea: How hard is it for the creative team to keep such a regular pace as a new page every other weekday?

Lien-Cooper: It’s tough. But, I’m not the person you should be asking. Ryan does the real work. The easy part, time-wise, is writing the stories. The artists are the ones with the tough jobs of making it work.

O’Shea: Am I correct in thinking that Eddie is one of your favorite characters to write?

Lien-Cooper: Eddie’s a blast to write. The "Falstaff" character in any work of fiction always is. I like writing male characters because it’s a challenge to me to bring to life viable characters that people wouldn’t expect me to be able to write well. I like him because he’s a mass of contradictions, as people can be in real life. He’s a cad, a bounder, a liar, a cheat, a gambler, a womanizer, and desperately irresponsible, but he’s also smart, fun to be with, an entertaining storyteller, and someone that, behind it all, is a decent and sympathetic person. He’s also the character who changes the most in the series, but the changes are fairly subtle, as one can see with his friendship with Liz. Over time, she goes from being this person that he probably just wanted to sleep with to this person that just does the dirty work for him to this person he feels a genuine affection for as one human being feels for another. I wanted to write Eddie as this character that you could see the bad points in (as Liz’s girlfriend Prana does) or the good points in (as Liz often does) and have both points of view be equally valid. I wanted to write him that way because no human being is universally loved. I mean, hard as it is to believe, even someone as giving as Mother Teresa of Calcutta had her critics.

Action-adventure comics really don’t spend a lot of time exploring male-female friendships, so I wanted to have a comic that did. In comics, if a hero and heroine work together, there almost has to be a romance, even if it’s just teasing hints to the reader concerning the topic. To me, that’s silly, especially those "teasing hint" comics where you know two people are interested in each other, but don’t have the guts to act on their desires. That’s not real life, in the main. For instance, I have had a lot of male friends and work colleagues and almost all of those relationships were not romantic (of course, I’m married now, so I’m off the market, but still). Most people we work with, even those of the opposite sex, become our friends, not our romantic destiny. Only in comics and movies does THAT happen.

To understand the friendship that develops between Liz and Eddie, you have to see both of them as human beings, with both good qualities and bad. They’re likable characters because they aren’t just monochromatic emotionally. You get to see their moments of weakness and sadness, of depression, of triumph, etc. I can’t identify with heroes that are too perfect or too imperfect (you know, the "total bastard" anti-hero). Outside of a few saints, most people are not perfect, so why are they in action-adventure comics? Why don’t the heroes ever lose? Why can’t the heroes have moments of doubt and depression? Why can’t they ever be anything but invulnerable emotionally? Why can’t they have social lives, go out for a night on the town, relax, have a few drinks, etc.? "Well, heroes ARE perfect" is probably the response. And that’s bull. Heroes are people with all the same flaws as everyone else, but they have the beautiful characteristic of wanting to help people, of putting themselves out there for the greater good. So why can’t comic book heroes be human? Would we admire them any less if they acted in a more realistic manner than most writers currently write them? I try to write my characters with sympathy (even for the villains a lot of the time), but I try never to idealize anyone.

I can’t write comics about perfect people. I don’t know any. I don’t think they exist. To me, what’s really heroic is how we imperfect creatures get up each morning in the face of a dangerous world full of happiness, but also full of fear and sadness, and we try to do the best we can every day. Whatever you can say about Liz and Eddie’s job as a gun and sorcery team, they struggle in a world filled with danger, real-life worries like getting paid, paying rent, old memories, and relationship problems, yet they still find reasons to keep on keeping on.

Just like the rest of us.

For more info, be sure to visit the following sites:
Wicker Man Studios

Here is GSG’s free sample story.


Here is GSG’s most recent webpage.

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