The Women of Marvel panel kicked off on Sunday at New York Comic-Con 2024. At attendance was panel moderator and Marvel editor Sarah Brunstad, along with special guests Erica Schultz, Stephanie Phillips, MacKenzie Cadenhead, and a surprise special guest appearance by Sana Amanat. 

The end of the Women of Marvel panel featured a Q&A where someone asked for advice for women trying to break into comics. Here’s each panelist’s response.

Women of Marvel Panelists 2024 NYCC
L to R: Sana Amanat, MacKenzie Cadenhead, Stephanie Phillips, and Erica Schultz

ERICA SCHULTZ: As a writer, you basically have to do your own stories. Not Marvel or DC characters (starting out) but your own stories. My suggestion would be to try for a lot of smaller publishers and do anthologies. Those are great because writing short stories with a beginning, middle, and end is a very good exercise.

Also, anthologies give you experience dealing with an editor, production schedule, and everything. Usually, around January and February, some of the smaller publishers will say they’re doing an anthology, and here’s the theme. So you can look online for that.

 

STEPHANIE PHILLIPS: Piggybacking on that, there are a couple places doing searches for new talent. Mad Cave along with Negative space, who does submissions for different types of writers, like you might see a horror submission for things, Top Cow.

One of the cool things is even if you are not picked from a publisher you are getting editorial and talking to people in the industry. Negative Space does a mentorship program to prepare incoming writers with mentors, people in the industry, editors, writers, and things like that. It’s sort of a personal class. So looking for those opportunities and talk to those people and have those conversations.

 

MCKENZIE CADENHEAD: Those are great really helpful answers. I come from a different perspective. I say talk to people and intern and put yourself out there. I worked in theatre, then i was an editor at Marvel, and then i wrote my own stuff not marvel related, and then came back to write children’s book for them and now ultimately, I’m doing this stuff.

For me it was super important to bring more women in. There was not a lot of us when I started and now there are so many. Sana (Amanat) had actually started as my editor and was an assistant editor at one point. Though she didn’t have an art direction background she just naturally took to it. So as her boss, I just wanted to make sure we foster that and work on that. And she surpassed me. She was just great. When we left the comic book company we had been at, we’d been good friends at that point, but she also had Marvel people she was still friends with. She’s the one who suggested why not work at Marvel at some point?

There’s a lot also in just paying attention to the fact we, as women, want more women in this industry, and so striving to put other women out there. Trying to make sure we’re constantly staying in touch and pushing you to do this. Asking what do you think I should be doing? And so on. This is how we function a lot as a community. Talking to each other and working through. I think that contributed to it professionally. Also, you just never know where your path is going to go, so just following it, and letting people advise you.

 

SANA AMANAT: Can I just say she’s being very humble? The reason I stayed in comics, and that I’m even in comics and had the career at Marvel I had, is it starts with this woman. She’s my mentor and one of my best friends now. She gave me the encouragement I needed to believe in myself.

There was a moment where I felt like i was not good at this. Moments where I felt like why, as a woman of color, nobody wants me in this industry. People have made me fell that way. And I had people like McKenzie and the extended Marvel fandom, Dan Buckley, C.B. Cebulski, Steve Blackwood, take me in and helped me champion my voice.

Obviously, you work on your talent but also find your people. There are people in this room right now who are your allies and are going to be changing the industry with you. Get to know one another and I think building that community will go a long way. Again starting here and look where we are so keep at it.

And that was the end. Some pretty great advice all around though if that wasn’t enough reader, here’s what other announcements went down at the Women of Marvel panel, all jotted in chronological order, with lots of images of what was shown.

 

Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider

Stephanie Phillips talked about Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider and what’s going on now that Gwen’s permanently in 616. Her new character arc features a longstanding love-and-hate feud with Black Tarantula, in an ongoing storyline of trying and discover just who’s beneath the mask. She also showcased a future cover by Mark Brooks seen above.

 

Phoenix

Phillips then talked about her run on Phoenix which explores Jean’s journey of self-discovery. There were hints of Eternity talking to Jean as she goes on this journey to understand just what the Phoenix force means to her. Phoenix is also promised to undergo a sort of psychic cocoon, seeing her transformation reborn as a new sort of cosmic hero that you can see below.

Jean Grey concept art by Alessandro Miracolo sees Jean in flames
The new Phoenix mode focused on making Jean a “Cosmic Queen.”

 

WOMEN OF MARVEL: SHE-DEVILS #1

 women of marvel she devils

Written by STEPHANIE PHILLIPS, ALISON SAMPSON & MORE

Art by ALISON SAMPSON & MORE

Cover by NINA VAKUEVA

On Sale 2/26

Finally, Phillips then spoke about her upcoming WOMEN OF MARVEL: SHE-DEVILS #1, a one-shot for release on February 26th and whose release is perfect timing is just one week before Daredevil Born Again comes out on D+. The comic is part of the yearly Women of Marvel anthology spotlighting Marvel’s street-level heroines as they break out of the shadows. Phillips is joined by Alison Sampson and a slew of up-and-coming artists. 

THE CLAWS ARE OUT! When Shanna the She-Devil uncovers a dark conspiracy, she’ll call on international allies to put their fists, sai, katanas, and gauntlets together and stop a bomb before it can explode. It’s a who’s who of Marvel’s most fearless fighters as Elektra, Echo, Wolverine, and more band together to save the day!

Venom War: Venomous
Black Widow as Venom in #3

 

Venomous and Daredevil Unleash Hell

Up next, was Erica Schultz who gave updates on Venom War: Venomous, and then later, talked about her upcoming runs with Laura Kinney Wolverine and Daredevil: Unleash Hell. The latter of which will feature a red band edition that will feature more eviscerations and decapitations. 

“We really wanted to go back to the dark parts of Electra.” said Shultz when talking about Daredevil: Unleash Hell. “She has a very dark past and will continue on that dark past seeing how is that influences her going forward,” 

 

Laura Kinney: Wolverine

Schultz also took some time to talk about her run on Wolverine and emphasized that a big approach to Laura Kinney is to emphasize that just as Elektra is not Matt as Daredevil, so too, is Laura not Logan. 

“Laura gets called little Logan but she’s not. Just like Gabby Kinney isn’t Laura, she’s not Logan. Logan is 340 years old. He actually had a childhood. Laura was born in a lab and then was an unhoused teen,” stressed Shultz regarding the difference between Laura and the others with Logan’s DNA. She continued, “Yes they have the claws the adaption but she experiences things very differently. Logan being as old as he is he’s had time to heal from his trauma. She (Laura) still has a lot to emotionally deal with. They are definitely not the same.”

 

Daredevil Born Again

 

Sana Amanat then stepped up and talked about what it’s like being a producer for the MCU TV shows now inspired by such great comics. She spoke about the Born Again show regarding mostly all the same talking points from the panel that took place the day before – which you can read about in our Daredevil Born Again panel recap. 

 

Dogpool and Doom Academy

 

Finally, MacKenzie Cadenhead talked about the popular Infinity Comics line, her run on Marvel Mutts, and then discussed her run on Dogpool including its many more furry friends such as a Catpool and Mousepool.

She admitted that the series will be a bit more graphic than most are expecting given that it’s a comic taking place in the world of Deadpool, stressing that it’s something exciting, fun, bright, and a bit naughty – plus might feature an appearance of the MCU’s Dogpool. Given the source material, she also stressed that the comic will be sometimes violent. Sometimes silly. And will sometimes, host the occasional fart jokes. 

She also talked about the new Petpools save Christmas, a storyline that’ll be out later this year. There were also talks about the Doom Academy run that Cadenhead will be doing later this year, though we covered it in our other Doom Academy announcement earlier.


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