You know the day I knew I’d never be able to make it big in comics? The day I bumped into another writer in an airport and accidentally learned he was heading to DC’s Burbank offices for a Bat-family summit.
I was writing Batgirl at the time. I wasn’t invited.
I had just started the gig and I desperately wanted to believe it was timing. I begged my editors to let me come in, for free, and at least sit in on summits that dealt with my characters. I was literally working up the street at the time.
It didn’t matter.
There was at least one more summit I know about that I wasn’t invited to. I suspect more than one given how whole storylines of mine would be thrown out to accommodate a new event my characters were in without my knowledge, inclusion, or opinion.
It got so bad I literally couldn’t afford to work there any more because my pay was so low.
I quit.
I still blame myself for that. I thought I could be good enough to break through it, even if I knew it wasn’t about merit.
I’m not doing this to blow up anybody. I just want young women out there to remember that when someone tells you “I support women,” you look around and see if there are any fucking women near him that he’s actually supporting.
Because if there aren’t, he just supports himself.