When I saw Thor, I couldn’t go to Bleeding Cool and say, “Oh, let’s talk about Loki’s issues with being adopted.” But Tumblr was totally there to talk to me about that. And you could share comics visually, which is one of the strengths of the design of Tumblr. Tumblr was a place where, for once, it was a predominantly female crowd.

So maybe you don’t go into a comics shop or a message board where it’s mostly comics chatter from male fans. Well, you don’t want to walk into a place where you feel like people are telling you don’t belong there. On the eve of her big Eisner win, we sat down with Noelle Stevenson at San Diego Comic-Con to talk cosplay, Hollywood, and how to make it to the top by breaking all the rules. She co-launched a wildly successful all-girl comic series, Lumberjanes HarperCollins published a trade edition of her web comic, Nimona, which hit the New York Times best-seller list Fox Animation and Twentieth Century Fox bought the film rights to Nimona and Lumberjanes, respectively and, to top it all off, Stevenson-along with her Lumberjanes team-walked away from this year’s prestigious Eisner Awards with a table full of hardware in a female-Ĭentric sweep that made some of the old comics guard shake in their boots. At 23 years old, Stevenson just had the kind of year that would make even the most seasoned comics writer turn Hulk green with envy. Since she left art school, Stevenson has been busier than ever. Soon artists all across the web were participating as Stevenson sent an early shot across the bow of the notoriously sexist comic-book world that predated and, in a way, predicted Gamergate and a thousand Black Widow think pieces. Stevenson posted her sketches online and, much to her surprise, the inside joke between friends blossomed into the massively successful Hawkeye Initiative. One night back in 2012 she and a friend starting sketching Marvel’s male superhero Hawkeye in the same ludicrously sexual poses that were usually reserved for his female counterparts. Before she even graduated from art school, Noelle Stevenson was already making waves in the comics community.

Lumberjanes by N.D. Stevenson