Kelly Sue DeConnick is an American comic book writer and editor and English-language adapter of manga. She is best known for Captain Marvel, Avengers Assemble, PRETTY DEADLY, co-created with Emma Ríos, and BITCH PLANET, co-created with Valentine De Landro.
DeConnick was born in Ohio in 1970. Her father served in the United States Air Force, and most of her childhood was spent moving from base to base. DeConnick became a comic book fan through her mother, who gave her Wonder Woman comics in exchange for completing household chores. Wonder Woman and Vampirella were the first comic books that inspired her, and these comics, along with her mother, ignited an interest in feminism.
In 1993, DeConnick graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a Bachelors Degree in Drama. Deciding against a career in Drama, DeConnick started writing copy for the nude photo spreads in dirty magazines. She would also post her own stories on a message board for author Warren Ellis, of the Planetary series, this lead to Ellis inviting her to work on artbomb.net, where she wrote catalogue entries for comic-book issues. Following the recommendation of Editor Jamie S. Rich, DeConnick began working for Tokyopop, editing and adapting Demon Diary, Fruits Basket and Girl Got Game into English. She then moved on to translating manga series for Viz, including; Black Cat, Kare First Love, Sensual Phrase and Slam Dunk. She did this for seven years, writing more than 11,000 comic-book pages. This experience gave her invaluable practise writing dialogue, which, coupled with her drama training influenced her dialogue-heavy writing style.
In 2004, DeConnick had her first comic book story published in CSI: Crime Scene Investigations – Dominos#5 (Dec. 2004) She moved into writing for Western comics, like “30 Days of Night: Eben & Stella,” which she co-wrote with Steve Niles, and several of the short stories that appeared in “Comic Book Tattoo”, an anthology of stories based on the work of musician Tori Amos. In 2009, she submitted a blind pitch to Marvel for two one-off comic books which were accepted. She then wrote the “Sif” and “Rescue” one-shots, as well as a story in Girl Comics. In 2011, she wrote the Osborn miniseries, pencilled by Emma Rios, and the two have continued a relationship as collaborators.
In 2012, DeConnick began writing the new Captain Marvel title for Marvel. She brought in inspiration from female pilots in World War II and suggested a new costume befitting of Carol Danver’s military and feminist background. DeConnick turned Captain Marvel, who had previously been nothing more than sexy window dressing on The Avengers, into a hero in her own right whose courage and leadership came from her experience as an Air Force pilot. Although Carol Danvers was a minor character in the Marvel Universe, sales of the comic was solid and fans were loyal and supportive, pledging their allegiance to Captain Marvel with tattoos, t-shirts and tweeting photos of themselves reading the books under the hashtag #carolcorps. Carol Corps has become a movement, an intelligent community that stands for fairness, equality, kindness, and empathy. It is one of the biggest backers of Marvel’s recent push for diversity and solo books for female superheroes. DeConnick had continued her collaboration with Rios on issue #5 & 6 of the 2012 Captain Marvel series.
After this, she began writing Avengers Assemble and a Ghost miniseries for Dark Horse which was successful enough to warrant an ongoing series written by DeConnick. In 2014, DeConnick and Rios published Pretty Deadly, which was distributed through Image Comics. Pretty Deadly takes elements from western and horror comics, and draws on aspects from mythology and folklore. DeConnick was nominated for Best Writer at the Eisner Awards that year.
DeConnick and Rios then began their third collaboration, Bitch Planet. The comic series continues her work in disrupting stereotypical ideas of ‘women’s interests’ that began in Pretty Deadly and was written as a direct response to people complaining about the new direction DeConnick had taken Captain Marvel in. As an outspoken feminist, she believes that it is important to create characters that welcome women back to comics, providing them with heroes that are actually representational of women today. The comics are a feminist send-up of send-up of the exploitation film genre that DeConnick loves. It takes place in a dystopian reality where non-compliant women are sent to an off-planet prison. Many fans of the comic series have been inspired to get non compliant tattoos.
DeConnick and her husband, fellow comic book writer Matt Fraction have their own company, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds Inc. which allows them control over their creator-owned work. In 2015, her time with Captain Marvel comes to an end so that she can focus on television work – the company signed a development deal with Universal Television to adapt both their comics, and others. Women are coming back to comics, and DeConnick stated that “the influx of female readership and female creators — this is not a revolution, it’s a restoration,“ at Emerald City Comic Con 2014. Reaffirming the fact that, “Girls have always read comics.” and with series like hers, they are being given the opportunity to relate to them too. That same year, DeConnick launched ‘Bitches Get Shit Done’, a text service that sends a motivational message each day, creating a friendly, positive reminder that the best way to get shit done is to get shit done. It currently has around 2,000 subscribers.
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Kelly Sue DeConnick was suggested by @emeraldreverie