Nicola Scott - Celebrating Wonder Woman and Making Historia

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Hello and welcome to Mythic.

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This episode of Mythic is a Wonder Woman Love Fest because my guest today

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is one of the greatest artists ever to draw Wonder Woman, Nicola Scott.

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This year saw the release of Wonder Woman Historia, the Amazons from DC Comics.

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It's a history of the Amazons, about their time before they arrived

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on Themyscira or Paradise Island.

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It was written by Kelly Sue Deconnick, and last week, the three issue series

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has been collected as a hard cover.

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It is unquestionably Nicola Scott's best work to date, and

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it's the best comic I've ever read.

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Hands down.

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In the last third of this episode, Nicola and I dissect scenes and

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explore mythic themes from the book.

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That part is loaded with spoilers, so heads up.

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But before we get to that point, Nicola shares her own origin story,

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which is amazing-- how she rose from a Wonder Woman and mythology fan

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who had never read a comic book to eventually teaming up with Greg Rucka

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to celebrate Wonder Woman's 75th Anniversary with Wonder Woman Rebirth.

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She also shares stories from the time that Wonder Woman was a real world

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honorary ambassador to the United Nations.

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I've written a little bit about that myself, and it's an interesting story.

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Nicola did the artwork for that campaign, and her frontline

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insights are really interesting.

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ready to dive in?

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Let's go.

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Nicola Scott, thank you so much for being on the Mythic podcast.

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I am delighted to have you.

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I am admittedly fanboying a little bit right now.

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you, You drew the third issue of Wonder Woman Historia, the Amazons that has come

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out, and it is absolutely breathtaking.

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I know you're seeing the reviews that are singing your praises, and

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it's, it really is a master work.

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It uses mythology in such beautiful and interesting ways, and I am, I'm so excited

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to discuss myth and comics with you today.

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Can we start with your origin story?

Nicola: 00:02:42

Oh gosh.

Nicola: 00:02:42

My origin story in general is very related to Wonder Woman.

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and not just comic specific, she's seeped into my d n a when I was young, right

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at that early becoming a person point.

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I think I was about four when the Lynda Carter TV series started

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playing out on television here.

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And it just hit me in a way that nothing previously had seeped into my psyche.

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She was my introduction to superheroes.

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She was my, introduction to the idea of mythology, even though the TV show

Nicola: 00:03:17

doesn't really go into it terribly much, it laid a little bit of groundwork for me.

Nicola: 00:03:23

So that, I did find myself along with my discovery of superheroes,

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found myself sort of also discovering, the ancient Greek tales.

Nicola: 00:03:32

And that opened up a new world for me and in my early teen years, I

Nicola: 00:03:39

think I was in year seven, when I did a school paper on witches.

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that evolved my sense of, mythology and magic and how all of these things related.

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And I think I understood that there were, there was a bit of a crossover.

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I don't know that I really fully played with the idea in my head,

Nicola: 00:03:59

but this idea of oracles and, and how they related to a woman with a

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crystal ball or someone looking into tea leaves or, all of those things,

Nicola: 00:04:10

they all felt a little similar to me.

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and as I learned more of this stuff, I started to realize how much of it related

Nicola: 00:04:19

to Wonder Woman in my own personal way.

Nicola: 00:04:22

I wasn't really a comic book reader as a kid.

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but there was this point where I think I was in my late teens and

Nicola: 00:04:29

I had a weekend job and one of the guys that I worked with, he was

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had hold up.

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You had a wiccan job.

Nicola: 00:04:37

Weekend,

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A weekend

Nicola: 00:04:39

weekend.

Nicola: 00:04:40

I wish it was a wiccan weekend

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Like I was like, I need more context.

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Got it Got it.

Nicola: 00:04:46

Oh my God.

Nicola: 00:04:47

No, I wish there was one of those jobs for me in my past.

Nicola: 00:04:51

he was a big comic book fan and he introduced me to what was

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happening in that mid to late eighties era, the post-crisis era.

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And I got to read George Perez's Wonder Woman run, and that solidified

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the connection of mythology and Wonder Woman together for me.

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That was me realizing that it wasn't just me connecting some dots, that it

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was built into the character and this was the first retelling that was really

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diving into that and celebrating it.

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and from somewhere in there, whenever I would draw Wonder Woman

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for myself, cuz I still didn't see myself as comic book artist.

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but I was always drawing Wonder Woman as I grew up and always drawing superheroes.

Nicola: 00:05:37

But from that point on, when I was drawing Wonder Woman, I draw a little

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circle around the star on her tiara.

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So it was like a pentagram.

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Oh, that is too cool.

Nicola: 00:05:45

Yeah.

Nicola: 00:05:45

I thought, because I knew pentagram was A protection spell, and I just

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thought, I'm just going to do that.

Nicola: 00:05:51

So for like up until I started at DC Comics, every time I drew Wonder Woman,

Nicola: 00:05:55

she had a circle around her star.

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And and I wasn't able to continue that once I started at the company.

Nicola: 00:06:02

And I did play with the idea of reintroducing it at some point.

Nicola: 00:06:06

But by the time I was actually getting the chance to do my version of Wonder

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Woman, we'd already started Greg Rucka and I had already started Black Magic

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and I didn't want to be that overt, with the same writer artist team.

Nicola: 00:06:22

I'd already made Rowan purposefully look quite a lot like Diana or

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really quite a lot like Lynda Carter

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I wondered about that.

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She does.

Nicola: 00:06:32

From the very beginning I, when I was designing Rowan, I was thinking, I wa

Nicola: 00:06:36

I have to draw this face all day, all day, every day for as long as the series runs.

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What do I want her to look like?

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And somewhere I was just like, I wish I could just draw her as Lynda Carter.

Nicola: 00:06:45

And I was like, I'm totally gonna draw as Lynda Carter, cuz Lynda's got

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those really beautiful, soulful eyes.

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And I was like, that'd be perfect.

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I just need to jazz her up a bit.

Boston: 00:06:56

Oh, it is so cool to hear that through line that the Chi the Chira and

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that Lynda Carter has been cast as Rowan in these, in the Black Magic comics.

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That's

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head.

Nicola: 00:07:04

Absolutely.

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makes perfect sense.

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It, and if I, so if we back up a moment,

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I am intrigued because first of all, astonished at how parallel

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our journey is with Wonder Woman.

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I was about the same age, similar experience with George Perez and

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seeing, oh, this is a mythological world that she inhabits.

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This is her religion, her spirituality, her roots.

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she's a product

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of the gods in this way.

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as you were really weaving these things together, like how, what was the

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importance of the connection between mythology and Wonder Woman for you?

Nicola: 00:07:40

I think it just it elevated her away from.

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the Superman su, Superman is in himself, the archetype of a superhero.

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And there's something really profound about his story.

Nicola: 00:07:58

The same goes with Batman, and I feel like they, they have had their

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stories, particularly their origin stories reexamined over and over again

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with people adding, not necessarily different story beats, but certainly

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flavor and perspective and context that have enriched those stories.

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And I always felt like Wonder Woman's story just never really got that

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kind of, constant reexamination.

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And so for me, understanding those, connections really cemented her as

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something very different to them, that she wasn't just a female Superman,

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and she wasn't just a DC Captain America, that she was this wholly,

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unique person and the fact of her, Amazon origin and the mythology behind.

Nicola: 00:08:58

The even back then the idea of the concept of how the DC Amazons were

Nicola: 00:09:02

created and the hints of Amazon's within, the Odyssey and the Iliad.

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those things really felt like it really expansive world building that she might

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be connected in some of these ways.

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And because they're magic related and because they're, historically related,

Nicola: 00:09:24

it really enriched my sense of her and coming from a family which is reasonably

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large and almost entirely female, added to my sense of relating to this character.

Nicola: 00:09:37

I'm the youngest of three girls and we grew up with our cousins

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who are also three girls.

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And, I, it's our mothers who are connected and really the only men in the family

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that I, we didn't spend time with like my father's, fa side of the family or

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my cousin's dad's side of the family.

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It was all this maternal mix of like loud, bossy, As I saw powerful women,

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being the youngest, they all seemed really powerful and impressive to me.

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And

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up in an Amazon nation.

Nicola: 00:10:16

100%.

Nicola: 00:10:17

And as Diana is the child of that nation, and I was by father, the youngest,

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like my five sisters and cousins, there's about four years in between

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the five of them, age bracket wise.

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And then there's six years bef until me, so I'm quite a

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bit younger than the others.

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And so I got to grow up being their toy essentially, their sidekick and

Nicola: 00:10:43

their toy I got to be that the baby in the world of all these women.

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And that helped me relate to Diana as well.

Nicola: 00:10:51

So there were all of these things that just solidified and, added

Nicola: 00:10:57

so much flavor to my understanding of who this character is.

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One way I work with mythology in my coaching practice

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is I operate under the assumption that we are all living out a myth.

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the reason these stories transcend generations and centuries and millennia

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is because we are living the same stories over and over again in a million

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different shapes, an infinite number of different shapes, and what you're

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describing like that something about your life, this resonance with Wonder

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Woman, and if you, whether you're, whether it's, I don't know, whether it's

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destiny or resonance or just something that draws you forward, you became

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one of the number of PE of people who have drawn Wonder Woman in the main

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title is what, probably under 50

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However.

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ever in 80 years.

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I dunno.

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The main, on the main title,

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really thought about it like that.

Nicola: 00:11:56

Yeah, maybe.

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maybe definitely under a hundred.

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And you have, so of all the people and all the jobs on the planet, you

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found this

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one of those people

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And that it's something.

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And your love of Diana is so clear in your work.

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And so what, so how did you get there?

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How did you thread that needle from I love Wonder Woman comics.

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Mythology's really cool and I wanna draw Wonder Woman.

Nicola: 00:12:24

Well, I pursued it, but it, there was a delay in my pursuit of it.

Nicola: 00:12:29

like I said, I didn't grow up with comic books, but I did grow up with superheroes

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because, in the seventies there were a lot of superhero, either reruns or

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cartoons or TV shows or movies happening.

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And a lot of them were DC related.

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So Lynda Carter was my first, but it opened the door to me discovering

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like the Batman reruns, the Superman fifties TV show reruns.

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There was a sixties Superman cartoon.

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There was the Super Friends, which was invaluable cuz it taught me that

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these characters knew each other.

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that two man Batman and Wonderful woman and Aquaman and Robin and all

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these characters that they related to each other in one way or another.

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And that was very interesting to me.

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But there are also things like the Shazam and Isis hour,

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Electra Woman and Dyna Girl,

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yeah.

Nicola: 00:13:14

all of these things that just really solidified my love of superheroes.

Nicola: 00:13:20

But I was also always deeply, all of the superheroines were the ones

Nicola: 00:13:25

that I absolutely, deeply related to.

Nicola: 00:13:27

Like Batman and Robin were great fun.

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But an episode with Catwoman in was so much better as soon as Batgirl started.

Nicola: 00:13:34

I know the show now as an adult it isn't quite as good.

Nicola: 00:13:37

It isn't quite as exciting.

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But her arrival for me as a kid was mind splitting.

Nicola: 00:13:44

That outfit was to die for.

Nicola: 00:13:47

Her little back girl closet with the spinning wall was like blowing my mind.

Nicola: 00:13:52

It was like, how do I get that in my life?

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I was making out of cardboard like, back girl secret closet

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style things with spinning walls out of cardboard for my dolls.

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just absolutely li living for it.

Nicola: 00:14:04

And so I drew superheroes a lot, but I didn't really connect with comic

Nicola: 00:14:11

books cuz even when I would see them on the newsstand, this is pre

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specialty stores when I was little, when I'd see them on the newsstand,

Nicola: 00:14:20

I would more likely see like a Marvel Hulk or Thor or something like that.

Nicola: 00:14:27

And it would be very Kirby esque art.

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And that all looked very foreign to me, very brutal, very

Nicola: 00:14:34

masculine, very unappealing, to my young and uneducated eyes.

Nicola: 00:14:39

but on the very rare occasion I would see, like Superman or Wonder Woman on

Nicola: 00:14:44

the cover or I remember seeing a Justice League comic and thinking Justice

Nicola: 00:14:50

League that's like the Super Friends weren't, they call the Super Friends.

Nicola: 00:14:52

What, who were the Justice League and flipping through and seeing Green

Nicola: 00:14:56

Arrow and Black Canarian thinking, who the fuck are these people?

Nicola: 00:14:59

I dunno who these people are.

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And so I just, it didn't feel like it was for me.

Nicola: 00:15:04

And even when I would see Wonder Woman in there, and I remember once seeing

Nicola: 00:15:09

a Wonder Woman comic and flipping through it and there was some Amazon

Nicola: 00:15:12

stuff in there, which was the most interesting to me but because it didn't

Nicola: 00:15:17

feel like the TV show and it didn't look like the TV show and the costume

Nicola: 00:15:21

wasn't as precious about the details as I was about the TV show details.

Nicola: 00:15:26

I didn't understand that the comics were the source material.

Nicola: 00:15:30

it was just another medium in which this character that I had this

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affinity for was taking place.

Nicola: 00:15:37

And so it just wasn't for me.

Nicola: 00:15:39

And it wasn't until those late eighties comics that I got to read

Nicola: 00:15:42

through that I felt like, oh this George Perez story, this is for me.

Nicola: 00:15:48

And I did read all of that.

Nicola: 00:15:50

And then when he left, I read a little bit of when Jill

Nicola: 00:15:53

Thompson took over on the art.

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And I think I read a little bit beyond that.

Nicola: 00:15:58

But then I just opted out.

Nicola: 00:16:00

I was just oh, it's, it's feeling very superhero.

Nicola: 00:16:02

We now, it's blending into the world that's full of all these

Nicola: 00:16:05

characters that I don't know.

Nicola: 00:16:07

I'm less interested than I had been, and so I just stopped reading

Boston: 00:16:12

you're speaking to that I think is really interesting because

Boston: 00:16:15

Wonder Woman, I don't know if this is true of all superheroes, but Wonder

Boston: 00:16:19

Woman seems to work best when she is not part of the greater DCU in my

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humble but accurate opinion.

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the, that era that George Perez era, and I'm gonna, summarize here for some

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people who may not be reading comics.

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George Perez reinvented Wonder Woman after, after she was killed in The

Boston: 00:16:43

Crisis on Infinite Earths, this, DC wide reboot that happened in the mid eighties.

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And when.

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George Perez, who we, who sadly passed away last year, retooled Wonder Woman.

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He really rooted her in classical mythology.

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The original stories from the 1940s, Aphrodite and Athena

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were the Amazon religion.

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But now you had Zeus and Hera and Aphrodite and the whole Pantheon

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and Wonder woman was steeped in this Greek mythological world.

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And the DC and the other, the super friends were nowhere to be seen.

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She had her own supporting cast.

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She was part of a family system in the United States, and she had

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her sister, Amazon's back home.

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And it was a really unique time.

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So now with that context, so something in that story spoke to you and I,

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this is another place that I relate.

Boston: 00:17:37

I remember seeing the DC the Wonder Woman number one on the spindle rack.

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in my, the first time I had been to a proper comic shop.

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And I, and I wonder woman number one, what's happening?

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How can it be starting over?

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And I remember there was no magic lasso in the first issue,

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and I was ridiculously upset.

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There was, I was like, whatever, 10, there needs to be a magic lasso.

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And I was worried they weren't going to introduce it.

Boston: 00:18:06

But I remember I, that was holy scripture for me.

Boston: 00:18:09

I read those comics with this intensity, and I'm wondering what

Boston: 00:18:15

it was that captured you to dive in and then to leave when it went.

Boston: 00:18:22

Superhero E.

Nicola: 00:18:24

The first issue of that run that I saw, because I just was, I

Nicola: 00:18:29

think I was just having lunch with this guy and a few other people, but

Nicola: 00:18:33

he was pulling out his comics that he'd just picked up that morning.

Nicola: 00:18:36

And the first issue that I saw of that run, I think it was issue seven, it was.

Nicola: 00:18:42

The aftermath of her defeating Ares.

Nicola: 00:18:48

And it started with her in a very damaged situation.

Nicola: 00:18:53

And the healing waters of, Themyscira are doing their magic on her.

Nicola: 00:18:59

And the cover of that issue is Diana in her Wonder Woman suit in this mythical

Nicola: 00:19:08

bubble of water, all of this water surrounded by the full pan of the gods

Nicola: 00:19:14

on this very Escher like, Olympus.

Nicola: 00:19:18

And just seeing all of these characters with Wonder Woman in the middle was just

Nicola: 00:19:22

like, what the fuck is happening here?

Nicola: 00:19:25

It was so much, It was so beyond any version of Wonder

Nicola: 00:19:29

Woman that I had seen before.

Nicola: 00:19:31

But because it was surrounded by all of these characters that I also knew,

Nicola: 00:19:35

I just hadn't put together that all of these characters were relevant

Nicola: 00:19:39

some way or another could be relevant.

Nicola: 00:19:42

And there they all were.

Nicola: 00:19:44

And I was like, how, what is happening?

Nicola: 00:19:47

How is this happening?

Nicola: 00:19:48

And he was like, oh, this is the aftermath of the first story.

Nicola: 00:19:51

And I'm like, I need to track down that first story.

Nicola: 00:19:53

And so I did slowly but surely, find the back issues.

Nicola: 00:19:58

of course I didn't know how to find back issues, but, it, it took me a

Nicola: 00:20:01

little bit, but I found the issues and then I started buying it monthly.

Nicola: 00:20:06

and it was that mythology.

Nicola: 00:20:07

It was that really non superhero storytelling.

Nicola: 00:20:11

her life in America was very non superhero.

Nicola: 00:20:13

the idea of Steve and Etta being in the story was really fascinating to me.

Nicola: 00:20:17

Cause I remembered Etta from the first season of the TV show and just how I,

Nicola: 00:20:23

I did feel that there was a difference whenever Wonder Woman was introduced

Nicola: 00:20:27

to other superheroes that like, there was a particular issue where she's

Nicola: 00:20:30

meeting everybody and it's that didn't feel right that she should be the new

Nicola: 00:20:34

girl in town when there's all of these characters because she feels too deeply

Nicola: 00:20:39

unique and original, that she should have been around long before all of these

Nicola: 00:20:45

other people who were inspired by her.

Nicola: 00:20:48

And from that moment, I knew intrinsically this is an immortal character.

Nicola: 00:20:55

Why hasn't her story started so much earlier?

Nicola: 00:20:58

she could have been Wonder Woman at the Trojan War.

Nicola: 00:21:02

I came up with this origin story in my head that maybe the reason why the Amazons

Nicola: 00:21:08

had left the mainland and gone to the island was how gross and brutal the Trojan

Nicola: 00:21:17

War was and how that had affected them.

Nicola: 00:21:21

And that was that Diana competing in the contest to represent the Amazons

Nicola: 00:21:29

as, part of her traditional origin story was her representing the Amazons to

Nicola: 00:21:34

com to participate in the Trojan War.

Nicola: 00:21:38

and that it was the violence and brutality of that just made the Amazons go, oh, fuck

Nicola: 00:21:45

all you guys, we need to get out of here.

Nicola: 00:21:47

Sorry, I keep swearing a lot.

Nicola: 00:21:48

I'm Australian.

Nicola: 00:21:49

Am I allowed to swear on

Boston: 00:21:50

bring it.

Boston: 00:21:50

Oh, absolutely.

Boston: 00:21:51

I'm oddly not so far, but.

Boston: 00:21:54

It's

Boston: 00:21:54

normal for the podcast.

Nicola: 00:21:55

pH.

Nicola: 00:21:56

Alright.

Nicola: 00:21:57

and so that, that to me felt like a really plausible origin.

Nicola: 00:22:02

I liked the idea that she was probably thousands of years old.

Nicola: 00:22:05

I liked the idea that she might have come out for World War ii, like her

Nicola: 00:22:09

original origin, that might have been her first venture back into,

Nicola: 00:22:14

the outside world and participated in the war, helped win the war.

Nicola: 00:22:20

And then once again, when it went nuclear, right at the end of the war

Nicola: 00:22:26

was like, Oh God, you people are awful.

Boston: 00:22:29

Yeah.

Boston: 00:22:30

I'm outta

Nicola: 00:22:30

I helped this and now I need to get outta here again cuz I

Nicola: 00:22:33

just dunno how to deal with this.

Boston: 00:22:36

there's something interesting because Wonder Woman is

Boston: 00:22:38

this, I mean, she's 80 years old.

Boston: 00:22:40

She's been,

Boston: 00:22:41

she has been around since World War II, and there was this emergence,

Boston: 00:22:47

she pop, she pops into the scene at this moment in world history, but in

Boston: 00:22:51

American history where there's all of this agitation and there's this moment

Boston: 00:22:55

where the role of women needs to change for global and national interest.

Boston: 00:23:01

And I maintained that Wonder Woman who only worked because, or was

Boston: 00:23:05

only able to grow as famous as she was, she outsold Superman because.

Boston: 00:23:11

America needed her.

Boston: 00:23:13

Like they needed her juice

Boston: 00:23:14

so that

Nicola: 00:23:15

100%.

Boston: 00:23:16

had a model.

Boston: 00:23:17

We can leave our island home to go into the workforce and we can go

Boston: 00:23:21

like, this is our role in the war.

Boston: 00:23:24

And then the men come back, they go back to their jobs.

Boston: 00:23:27

Most women also go back into the home and we get that creepy

Boston: 00:23:32

1950s Stepford Wives thing.

Boston: 00:23:35

but then you fast forward about 40 years and we get to the 1970s, and

Boston: 00:23:39

once again, women are exploding.

Boston: 00:23:42

Another generation of women is exploding in their quest for liberation and

Boston: 00:23:47

freedom.

Boston: 00:23:48

Wonder Woman is there and immediately jumps to the front of the pack

Boston: 00:23:52

with Lynda Carter, and again, she's this icon for a movement

Nicola: 00:23:56

Even pre that with Gloria Steinems, putting Wonder Woman

Nicola: 00:24:00

on the cover of issue one of Ms.

Nicola: 00:24:01

Magazine at a time when Wonder Woman had been completely de

Nicola: 00:24:05

powered, wasn't in costume.

Nicola: 00:24:07

she was like a generic ninja lady,

Boston: 00:24:10

Who owned a boutique?

Boston: 00:24:11

It was weird.

Nicola: 00:24:13

oh God, save us all.

Nicola: 00:24:14

You know?

Nicola: 00:24:14

I'm sure it was a lot of fun, but it didn't at all speak to the character.

Nicola: 00:24:19

It was just somebody else.

Nicola: 00:24:21

And it was under the pressure from Gloria Steinem wanting to put Wonder Woman back

Nicola: 00:24:25

on the cover, that the comics repowered her and put her back in the outfit.

Nicola: 00:24:31

And on the power of that, that the Lynda Carter series was green lit.

Boston: 00:24:35

Yeah, and then Wonder Woman enjoys three years of massive popularity.

Boston: 00:24:40

Again, the eighties happened, massive consumerism.

Boston: 00:24:45

Wonder Woman, once again, along with superheroes in general like that,

Boston: 00:24:49

the interest goes away and you fast forward again.

Boston: 00:24:51

And so when I started doing my more intense Wonder Woman work in 2011, nobody

Boston: 00:24:58

knew or cared anything about Wonder Woman.

Boston: 00:25:01

It was nothing.

Nicola: 00:25:03

did a, I did a panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2016.

Nicola: 00:25:11

And it was the 75th anniversary of the character.

Nicola: 00:25:15

it was a 75th anniversary panel and I had been asked to do it like two days earlier.

Nicola: 00:25:22

because at the time I was working on the Wonder Woman

Nicola: 00:25:25

Year one series with Greg Rucka.

Nicola: 00:25:27

And as a female creator working on the character in that anniversary

Nicola: 00:25:32

year, it felt really appropriate.

Nicola: 00:25:34

And then I was told like the day before, so you're gonna be doing the

Nicola: 00:25:37

panel with Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot.

Nicola: 00:25:40

And I'm like, what blow my mind?

Nicola: 00:25:44

And one of the things that Patty and I discussed on the panel, I

Nicola: 00:25:48

brought it up as a feeling that I had been having that Patty was like,

Nicola: 00:25:52

yes, I'm recognizing that as well.

Nicola: 00:25:54

Is that only a couple of years earlier, Wonder Woman had felt like this

Nicola: 00:25:59

incredibly old fashioned, irrelevant character that I still loved, but

Nicola: 00:26:07

the world just had moved on from, that she just wasn't there anymore.

Nicola: 00:26:12

But I think part of that building momentum of the re commercialization

Nicola: 00:26:18

of superheroes, and this concept that Wonder Woman was coming to the

Nicola: 00:26:23

cinema was starting to remind people that Wonder Woman's the origin point.

Nicola: 00:26:28

She's like the epicenter of you know, of superheroines.

Nicola: 00:26:32

But also that she is this character that, apart from the original, suffragette

Nicola: 00:26:39

movement, she has been one of the primary representatives of every wave of feminism

Nicola: 00:26:46

since, that World War II wave of feminism, that second wave, seventies feminism, and

Nicola: 00:26:53

here we were on our third wave of feminism that had really already kicked into gear.

Nicola: 00:26:58

Slowly but surely with the internet and social media galvanizing women's speech

Nicola: 00:27:04

and women's groups and women's voices.

Nicola: 00:27:07

and absolutely Wonder Woman should be re representing us because she

Nicola: 00:27:11

stands for all of those things.

Nicola: 00:27:13

And so I brought this up in the panel and Patty was like, absolutely.

Nicola: 00:27:17

And we felt like we were riding this wave of our favorite

Nicola: 00:27:21

character rising to the top again.

Nicola: 00:27:24

And I feel the release of that first Wonder Woman movie was where

Nicola: 00:27:28

Crescendoed, she was suddenly, the whole world was like, oh my God.

Nicola: 00:27:33

That's right.

Nicola: 00:27:33

That character is amazing and this is why.

Boston: 00:27:36

Yes.

Boston: 00:27:37

And that moment, that g that galvanizing moment, so in, in the United States,

Boston: 00:27:43

Voldemort is elected president, we were ready for the year of women.

Boston: 00:27:48

We all thought Hillary Clinton was gonna be president.

Boston: 00:27:50

There was this movement of enthusiasm around this rise in power of women.

Boston: 00:27:54

And then we get this, everything just goes batshit crazy

Boston: 00:27:59

and people are traumatized and confused.

Boston: 00:28:02

And I remember when Wonder Woman came out was their opening night, of course.

Boston: 00:28:07

And Yeah.

Boston: 00:28:08

where else would

Nicola: 00:28:09

you there at the premier?

Nicola: 00:28:10

I was

Boston: 00:28:10

Oh God.

Boston: 00:28:10

No.

Boston: 00:28:11

No.

Boston: 00:28:11

Oh I was not at the premier.

Boston: 00:28:12

no.

Boston: 00:28:12

I don't

Nicola: 00:28:13

went to opening night as well, but because I was in the States for the

Nicola: 00:28:16

premier, so I got to go to opening because I wanted to see it again straight away.

Nicola: 00:28:20

the, yeah, you go

Boston: 00:28:22

Oh, just the, just

Boston: 00:28:23

when, no, the no, man's land scene happens.

Boston: 00:28:27

The audience loses their

Boston: 00:28:29

minds.

Boston: 00:28:30

I'm sobbing like a child.

Boston: 00:28:32

I look around a little embarrassed.

Boston: 00:28:34

Everyone else is too.

Boston: 00:28:35

something happened and it became this catharsis.

Boston: 00:28:38

I watched that movie a dozen times in the theater.

Boston: 00:28:41

And so Wonder Woman, this time is not just the wave of women, but the resistance.

Boston: 00:28:47

This is when hashtag Me Too comes in.

Boston: 00:28:49

This is, oh, and I wanna make a side trip here because you did artwork for

Boston: 00:28:53

one of the most amazing things that never happened, which is Wonder Woman as the

Boston: 00:28:59

honorary ambassador to the United Nations.

Nicola: 00:29:03

Yeah.

Boston: 00:29:03

And that art was so beautiful

Nicola: 00:29:06

Thank you.

Boston: 00:29:07

and I was it made such sense.

Boston: 00:29:10

What a perfect representative.

Boston: 00:29:11

Representative for the empowerment of women and girls around the world.

Boston: 00:29:15

And then it went sideways because self-proclaimed, self-described feminists

Boston: 00:29:26

inside the UN didn't like her costume.

Boston: 00:29:30

Is that what happened?

Nicola: 00:29:32

From what I understood and from the perspective that I

Nicola: 00:29:35

have now, it feels like it was a propaganda against the idea of having

Nicola: 00:29:42

a representative for women and girls.

Boston: 00:29:45

Oh,

Nicola: 00:29:46

it was a bit broader than that because that shut the whole program down.

Nicola: 00:29:50

It wasn't as though they replaced Wonder Woman with somebody else.

Nicola: 00:29:53

The whole program disappeared, which was a deep shame, which was a deep shame.

Nicola: 00:29:59

But the argument that they were using was, wonder Woman

Nicola: 00:30:03

is an old-fashioned, irrelevant character who's deeply sexualized.

Nicola: 00:30:07

And the reason, their reasoning for how she was a sexualized character was using

Nicola: 00:30:13

Lynda Carter's seventies, outfit not her, in 19 42, 43 version of the outfit.

Nicola: 00:30:20

But her seventies character, outfit, which was higher cut in the pants and

Nicola: 00:30:23

a little lower cut in the, breastplate.

Nicola: 00:30:26

And obviously it's the seventies and the seventies, even though

Nicola: 00:30:30

it was a wave of feminism, this was the post bra burning moment.

Nicola: 00:30:34

And feminism was incredibly glamorous.

Nicola: 00:30:36

we had the bionic woman and Charlie's Angels as our heroes.

Nicola: 00:30:40

They were all beautiful and glamorous.

Nicola: 00:30:42

That was just what, that was part of the ingredients of feminine power.

Boston: 00:30:48

Was owning an AW wielding beauty and sexuality?

Nicola: 00:30:51

100% that was part of the power.

Nicola: 00:30:53

And the argument was just that she shouldn't be representing women.

Nicola: 00:31:00

And I was like, oh, okay.

Nicola: 00:31:02

So if, I reckon if the initiative had happened six months later when the

Nicola: 00:31:06

movie had come out, everybody would've been behind it because the girls, I

Nicola: 00:31:12

didn't get to go to the event at the UN because I was deep in a project.

Nicola: 00:31:16

I was invited to go and I couldn't go cuz I had deadlines

Nicola: 00:31:20

cuz comic books are unrelenting.

Nicola: 00:31:22

Which is so disappointing cuz I knew Gal Gadot was gonna be there.

Nicola: 00:31:26

I knew Patty Jenkins was gonna be there, both of who I had

Nicola: 00:31:29

just met at San Diego ComicCon.

Nicola: 00:31:31

but I also knew Lynda Cartera was gonna be there and I'd never met Lynda before.

Nicola: 00:31:36

And so I, I watched the whole thing on the live stream and just seeing like

Nicola: 00:31:43

these hundreds of girls, like school girls that had been invited to attend

Nicola: 00:31:49

this event, all wearing these beautiful cardboard tiaras, Wonder Woman tiaras.

Nicola: 00:31:54

Now it's just this is so special and moving cuz this is what it's for.

Nicola: 00:31:59

And y we had addressed, when I was first approached to do this piece of key art,

Nicola: 00:32:06

DC had asked me about it at that San Diego Comic-Con, they'd said, we wanna have a

Nicola: 00:32:11

meeting with you about a special project.

Nicola: 00:32:14

And they gave me the idea of the pitch and I just started talking

Nicola: 00:32:18

back to them immediately in terms of why and how this is such a

Nicola: 00:32:23

perfect union, and fully understood.

Nicola: 00:32:26

And I said, look, straight off the bat, I understand that we're going to have to

Nicola: 00:32:29

de Americanize her outfit quite a lot.

Nicola: 00:32:32

it's been happening in the comic books a little bit anyway,

Nicola: 00:32:35

but we need to step that up.

Nicola: 00:32:38

also, I understand that we probably need to cover her up a little bit

Nicola: 00:32:41

more if she's going to be there for women and girls everywhere.

Nicola: 00:32:46

she can't be so skin exposed.

Nicola: 00:32:48

I was talking about putting her in a cape and a big swath across her decolletage

Nicola: 00:32:52

making her skirt quite a bit longer.

Nicola: 00:32:54

Like just subtle, making sure she still represented herself, but that

Nicola: 00:32:59

she was more universally accessible.

Nicola: 00:33:03

And the first piece of art that I produced is almost exactly

Nicola: 00:33:10

the piece of art that was used.

Nicola: 00:33:12

But I gave her a really big smile, a really big toothy smile cuz I thought,

Nicola: 00:33:17

that is her warmth and her openness and what I hadn't considered, but

Nicola: 00:33:23

that this is a UN note, not a DC note.

Nicola: 00:33:26

You need to close her mouth with her smile because a big, broad

Nicola: 00:33:30

open smile is very American.

Nicola: 00:33:33

And I was like, oh my gosh, I hadn't thought about it.

Nicola: 00:33:36

That there's that it's a bit too in your face.

Nicola: 00:33:40

Yeah.

Nicola: 00:33:41

That it's a little bit too Hollywood.

Nicola: 00:33:43

And I was like, oh gosh.

Nicola: 00:33:44

Okay.

Nicola: 00:33:45

I hadn't even considered that a little more subtlety.

Nicola: 00:33:49

So I needed to keep the smile in the eyes and keep the smile on the

Nicola: 00:33:51

lips, but just close the mouth.

Nicola: 00:33:54

And I just thought that was a really interesting note and a really interesting

Nicola: 00:33:58

perspective that I deeply respected.

Nicola: 00:34:01

So I was like, yep, absolutely.

Nicola: 00:34:02

I fully understand now that it's been explained to me.

Boston: 00:34:05

So if we follow that thread into your work on Wonder Woman Year One with

Boston: 00:34:11

Greg Rucka and up and prior to year one, I can barely remember what was going on,

Boston: 00:34:17

but Wonder Woman had become this kind of dower character, like a lot of sadness,

Boston: 00:34:22

a lot of grief, she didn't smile much.

Boston: 00:34:25

And one of the things that I remember noting when Rebirth and Year One

Boston: 00:34:32

came out was that the colors were so bright and there was a lot of smiles,

Boston: 00:34:39

and it was this breath of fresh air.

Boston: 00:34:40

I, a bunch of comics, friends super geeked out on this feeling like

Boston: 00:34:46

we saw our friend happy again.

Boston: 00:34:48

Like

Boston: 00:34:49

this character that we love, who's very real to us.

Boston: 00:34:52

Wonder Woman fans are a little strange about Wonder Woman.

Boston: 00:34:54

She is like a friend.

Boston: 00:34:56

We have, we're protective of her

Nicola: 00:34:58

Yeah.

Nicola: 00:34:59

Very

Boston: 00:35:00

and rebirth.

Boston: 00:35:02

What.

Boston: 00:35:04

What was the conversation like as you were creating Wonder Woman, as you're

Boston: 00:35:08

reintroducing, and as you said, this was one of the first times her origin had been

Boston: 00:35:13

retooled in a very long time, decades.

Boston: 00:35:17

What did you bring to it?

Boston: 00:35:18

What was important about it?

Boston: 00:35:19

How did you craft this?

Nicola: 00:35:21

Luckily Greg and I, Greg Rucker and I had been great mates for about 10

Nicola: 00:35:26

years by this point, and our friendship had happened because of Wonder Woman.

Nicola: 00:35:33

he had been working on Wonder Woman in the early two thousands, and I was

Nicola: 00:35:39

in the process of hustling into the industry and Wonder Woman being like my

Nicola: 00:35:44

goalpost of where I was aiming myself.

Nicola: 00:35:47

I had redrawn, a few pages of one of his scripts, to put in my portfolio.

Nicola: 00:35:54

And under encouragement from a mate of mine, I had put them online

Nicola: 00:35:59

on a particular website had, I had been told was where a lot

Nicola: 00:36:05

of industry professionals look.

Nicola: 00:36:09

And I with an introduction of saying that, I'm a semiprofessional working

Nicola: 00:36:12

in this industry already, I understand there are some Wonder Woman fans here.

Nicola: 00:36:15

I posted these Wonder Woman pages and within hours I had, Gail Simone, Greg

Nicola: 00:36:24

Rucka, mark Andreyko and oh look, a couple of other people, saying, oh,

Nicola: 00:36:30

what, who are you, where are you?

Nicola: 00:36:32

What, what's happening?

Nicola: 00:36:34

And almost immediately Greg was like, I want you on this book with me.

Nicola: 00:36:41

Because you seem to understand the character.

Nicola: 00:36:44

And so he started hassling with DC and his editors.

Nicola: 00:36:49

and it didn't happen, but it started that conversation, with Greg and I,

Nicola: 00:36:54

and at one point Greg and I were going to do, a new arc of Queen and Country.

Nicola: 00:36:59

He was like, this is how we'll get you into dc, come into an arc of this with me.

Nicola: 00:37:02

And we were just in the process of gearing that up when I did get my job

Nicola: 00:37:05

at DC during Birds of Prey with Gail.

Nicola: 00:37:08

but it initiated our friendship and it initiated this conversation about Diana

Nicola: 00:37:13

that continued for a decade leading up to us actually getting this gig.

Nicola: 00:37:19

And the gig itself came out of nowhere because, up until Greg leaving the company

Nicola: 00:37:26

full-time, in the late two thousands, early teens, early 2010s, he was leaving

Nicola: 00:37:33

the company because they reneged and burnt him on a bunch of Wonder Woman

Nicola: 00:37:36

projects, all of which I knew about, all of which I might have been one

Nicola: 00:37:40

of the artists in consideration for.

Nicola: 00:37:43

But, he was meant to do Wonder Woman All Stars.

Nicola: 00:37:45

And then he was meant to do Wonder Woman, Earth One.

Nicola: 00:37:48

And, he was in the conversation for a lot of these Wonder Woman projects that

Nicola: 00:37:51

ended up going to other people and.

Nicola: 00:37:55

So he left the company, burning all of his bridges happily on his way out

Nicola: 00:37:59

the door, because of Wonder Woman.

Nicola: 00:38:02

Yeah, exactly.

Nicola: 00:38:03

He's very quirky person.

Nicola: 00:38:04

and, he would be burning all these bridges and that was it.

Nicola: 00:38:07

He was done.

Nicola: 00:38:08

But as the 75th anniversary was approaching and this Rebirth, rejig,

Nicola: 00:38:16

to not fix, but just bounce back after the new 52, which had been

Nicola: 00:38:20

its own very particular agenda, they needed to reset back to not square

Nicola: 00:38:28

one for everybody, but they needed to reset back to what everybody

Nicola: 00:38:32

actually wanted from their characters.

Nicola: 00:38:35

Not this really Elseworlds kind of take on these characters, which in

Nicola: 00:38:39

some cases was very fun and in some cases was incredibly frustrating.

Nicola: 00:38:44

so this Rebirth idea is already on the table.

Nicola: 00:38:47

They're seeing that it's wonderful and 75th anniversary, they can

Nicola: 00:38:49

see that the movie is going to come out in a year's time.

Nicola: 00:38:53

And it is this opportunity to do something with the character.

Nicola: 00:38:58

they understand how important she is, but they don't necessarily

Nicola: 00:39:02

understand what to do with her and how to elevate her, to give her the

Nicola: 00:39:08

respect that they know she deserves.

Nicola: 00:39:11

And they they kind of came knocking on Greg's door saying, hi, we know

Nicola: 00:39:18

that you know what you are doing with this character, and this is

Nicola: 00:39:22

one of those opportunities where we really can't afford to fuck it up.

Nicola: 00:39:26

We can't afford to go in an interesting direction because we don't know what

Nicola: 00:39:30

else to do, which is essentially what had happened with all of these other projects.

Nicola: 00:39:34

It was like they would reject Greg's solid idea for a more interesting idea that

Nicola: 00:39:42

took the character in another direction.

Nicola: 00:39:45

And this was their opportunity to say, okay, we can't afford another direction.

Nicola: 00:39:50

We need a solid take.

Nicola: 00:39:53

And by this stage, I had also left DC and Greg and I were working on Black Magic.

Nicola: 00:39:57

We'd finished our first arc and we were working into our second

Nicola: 00:40:00

arc, and they approached him and said, we, we can't fuck this up.

Nicola: 00:40:05

We need you to do this, please, to which Greg set all these boundaries

Nicola: 00:40:10

and rules for which they 100% agreed.

Nicola: 00:40:14

And then when they felt like they were reasonably confident about his

Nicola: 00:40:17

position, they were like, and do you think you can bring Nicola with you?

Nicola: 00:40:19

And he was like, I'm sure I can.

Nicola: 00:40:21

And so he called me immediately afterwards to say, Hey, guess what, kid?

Nicola: 00:40:27

we might be doing a Wonder Woman origin story at dc to which I was like, I'm

Nicola: 00:40:34

in the middle of a page of Black Magic.

Nicola: 00:40:37

What are you talking about?

Nicola: 00:40:38

And he was like, do you wanna do this?

Nicola: 00:40:40

I'm like, of course I fucking wanna do this.

Nicola: 00:40:42

Because my whole goal, even though Wonder Woman had guest starred in

Nicola: 00:40:46

pretty much every book I had done to that point, because every writer

Nicola: 00:40:49

that I worked with knew how much I loved the character and knew how

Nicola: 00:40:52

much I was bringing to the character.

Nicola: 00:40:55

So I had drawn her a lot.

Nicola: 00:40:57

But you know that, that question that everybody else, what's your dream project?

Nicola: 00:41:01

My dream project from the very beginning had been to draw Wonder Woman.

Nicola: 00:41:06

but the further my career got and the more opportunities I got to draw Wonder

Nicola: 00:41:09

Woman, that answer got refined to, in a perfect world, I wish I could do an origin

Nicola: 00:41:15

story of Wonder Woman with Greg Rucka, and suddenly there it was on the table.

Nicola: 00:41:20

And so what we were then faced with, because I think we were offered

Nicola: 00:41:26

this in It was happening like around Easter, so let's say April.

Nicola: 00:41:31

They were going to announce it in two weeks and our first issue

Nicola: 00:41:35

was gonna be coming out in a few months and it was like, holy shit.

Nicola: 00:41:38

Which is a lot, which is a lot to suddenly have to jump ship from what

Nicola: 00:41:44

you are doing and turn something around.

Nicola: 00:41:46

So suddenly Greg and I are in this position where we had a decade's

Nicola: 00:41:51

worth of understanding between us.

Nicola: 00:41:54

We knew that we were on the same page regarding her character and

Nicola: 00:41:59

who she is and what she means and all of the broad a amoebous things.

Nicola: 00:42:04

But suddenly it was like, okay, it was the maths.

Nicola: 00:42:07

It was like, okay, what we're gonna do is an origin story for six issues.

Nicola: 00:42:11

We only get 20 pages an issue.

Nicola: 00:42:13

It's not 22 pages anymore.

Nicola: 00:42:15

So this means we have 120 pages to tell this story.

Nicola: 00:42:19

How do we wanna do this?

Nicola: 00:42:21

What is our breakdown?

Nicola: 00:42:23

What are the things that are important to us?

Nicola: 00:42:25

What do we need?

Nicola: 00:42:26

All of these things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Boston: 00:42:29

And what were some of those things?

Boston: 00:42:30

What was it you wanted to squeeze into those 120 pages?

Boston: 00:42:33

this is Wonder Woman, we want you to get who she is,

Boston: 00:42:37

what's important.

Nicola: 00:42:39

We needed to bring, like you said before, we needed to bring the light back.

Nicola: 00:42:42

She's meant to be an incredibly optimistic, warm,

Nicola: 00:42:46

and approachable character.

Nicola: 00:42:48

So that was deeply important to us, that she was accessible, which

Nicola: 00:42:54

influenced what my art would be.

Nicola: 00:42:56

Cuz I had gone from doing Earth two, which was very gritty and

Nicola: 00:43:00

testosterone and lots of shadows and lots of textural, line work.

Nicola: 00:43:06

And for this, I wanted to be cleaner and brighter and a lot less shadow and a

Nicola: 00:43:12

lot just as open and bright as possible.

Nicola: 00:43:16

we also knew that we didn't want her to be stuck in this virginal loop

Nicola: 00:43:20

because one of what I consider, one of the mistakes of the Perez era was

Nicola: 00:43:28

removing Steve Trevor as a love interest.

Nicola: 00:43:30

I understand the reason for it because we didn't wanna bog her

Nicola: 00:43:34

down in a love interest story,

Boston: 00:43:36

Mm-hmm.

Nicola: 00:43:37

but it did leave her without a suitable suitor because no one else

Nicola: 00:43:41

was going to fill those, even though plenty of writers tried, there was

Nicola: 00:43:46

just never anyone who was appropriate hated the idea of it's Steve.

Nicola: 00:43:50

Trevor hated the idea of it.

Nicola: 00:43:52

It has to be.

Nicola: 00:43:53

It has to be.

Nicola: 00:43:54

In the more recent versions of Steve Trevor, like the animated Wonder Woman

Nicola: 00:43:59

movie, Steve Trevor was a bit of a ladies man, a bit of a dick, and.

Nicola: 00:44:04

I enjoyed that take.

Nicola: 00:44:06

I had also had the idea that he should be, a bit of a superficially, a bit of

Nicola: 00:44:11

a dick that doesn't quite know how to engage with his emotions, but suddenly

Nicola: 00:44:15

he's around this woman who's like all exposed and understood emotions and

Nicola: 00:44:20

he just can't help but be a better person around her, but in, in talking

Nicola: 00:44:25

with Greg, it was like, no, this is someone that has to be worthy of her.

Nicola: 00:44:28

She has to not, he can't be a fixer upper for her because, and she

Nicola: 00:44:34

can't be a virgin when he arrives.

Nicola: 00:44:35

So we needed to establish that this is a community of women that have

Nicola: 00:44:40

been around for thousands of years, and no one is chaste necessarily.

Nicola: 00:44:48

people might choose it for themselves.

Nicola: 00:44:49

Some of the race might choose it for themselves, but there has to be love.

Nicola: 00:44:54

There has to be affection, there has to be the foundations of human need.

Nicola: 00:45:00

And so therefore, 100% she's had girlfriends before.

Boston: 00:45:03

I loved something that Greg wrote into that first issue was,

Boston: 00:45:07

Diana's seems to be going through a slutty face like she was with

Nicola: 00:45:11

a little bit.

Boston: 00:45:12

and then another.

Boston: 00:45:12

So she is not chaste,

Nicola: 00:45:14

Well, we don't even know if it was a slutty phase, because it might

Nicola: 00:45:17

have been like all of these ladies that she's had relationships with over

Boston: 00:45:21

centuries,

Nicola: 00:45:22

Yes.

Boston: 00:45:22

She's had more experience, not just a girlfriend, but she is

Boston: 00:45:25

a sexual being, a romantic being,

Boston: 00:45:29

and then there's the first man she meets.

Boston: 00:45:32

It's not like he turns on her sexuality just

Nicola: 00:45:35

Exactly.

Nicola: 00:45:36

And it, it couldn't be a turn on of sexuality and it couldn't be

Nicola: 00:45:39

that she was just smitten with the first dick that arrived.

Nicola: 00:45:43

It couldn't be that basic.

Nicola: 00:45:45

So that informed who he had to be.

Nicola: 00:45:47

He had to be worthy of her.

Nicola: 00:45:50

And so we had to make him this really good guy.

Nicola: 00:45:56

that, and I loved that it was reflected in the Patty Jenkins

Nicola: 00:46:00

version as well, that we wanted Steve to be backing her up all the time.

Nicola: 00:46:05

That any time she went into action, he was there.

Nicola: 00:46:09

And you see that play out in the 2017 movie as well, that every time she

Nicola: 00:46:13

goes into action, she turns around and he's right there behind her.

Nicola: 00:46:17

Like just not being shielded by her, but backing her up.

Nicola: 00:46:21

And so that was nice to know that we had moved in parallel there, that,

Nicola: 00:46:26

because our book was coming out a year before the movie came out, we didn't

Nicola: 00:46:29

know what they were doing in the movie.

Boston: 00:46:30

That is such synchronicity that you all are so aligned with

Boston: 00:46:33

these stories that are moving into the culture simultaneously.

Boston: 00:46:37

I remember reading something that, I don't remember where, but you had been

Boston: 00:46:41

interviewed, but that you didn't know what was happening with the movie.

Boston: 00:46:45

It seemed to me that there was coordination, there was so much

Boston: 00:46:49

similarity, but not at all.

Nicola: 00:46:53

No, we didn't know.

Nicola: 00:46:54

It wasn't until, it wasn't until we saw the movie that I remember turning to

Nicola: 00:46:58

my mate who I went to the premier with.

Nicola: 00:47:01

Like, this is just like the book.

Nicola: 00:47:04

like Patty was seeing the book as it was coming out, but she

Nicola: 00:47:07

was already in the editing suite.

Nicola: 00:47:10

So they had made the movie and it was this really interesting thing

Nicola: 00:47:17

of h how are we on the same page?

Nicola: 00:47:19

Because we're not sharing notes.

Nicola: 00:47:21

We're not sharing notes.

Nicola: 00:47:23

But this is because Patty's understanding of the character is like Greg's and

Nicola: 00:47:26

my understanding of the character.

Nicola: 00:47:27

Cuz she's the same age as we are.

Nicola: 00:47:29

And therefore her early influence was Lynda Carter and Lynda understood

Nicola: 00:47:36

the character in a way that I don't think a lot of women would

Nicola: 00:47:39

as really soft, she's a pacifist.

Nicola: 00:47:42

She's constantly trying to stop action from happening.

Nicola: 00:47:46

and when she does, she's not beating the shit out of somebody.

Nicola: 00:47:49

She's just throwing them around to just Take them out a

Boston: 00:47:52

like getting the kids to stop fighting.

Boston: 00:47:54

She just throws them into their corners.

Nicola: 00:47:56

Yeah, exactly.

Nicola: 00:47:58

So that was key to us.

Nicola: 00:48:01

I knew that I wanted the competition, in the book.

Nicola: 00:48:04

That's part of the history that means something to me.

Nicola: 00:48:07

But we also understood that if she is during the competition, she's cheating.

Nicola: 00:48:13

And we didn't want her to cheat.

Nicola: 00:48:14

She had to earn her spot as an equal, a as a possible equal, she had to win.

Nicola: 00:48:22

So that was why we didn't give her powers until she was already in Man's Land.

Boston: 00:48:26

I loved that.

Boston: 00:48:28

That's always been a problem with the history of the origin is if you go back

Boston: 00:48:32

to the Marston comics, all of the Amazons are capable of what Diana is capable of.

Boston: 00:48:38

but then you get to Wonder Woman with a sleeping beauty origin where she has these

Boston: 00:48:43

get her powers are gifts from the gods.

Boston: 00:48:45

Now the tournament comes around and she's cheating.

Boston: 00:48:48

So you manage to get the best of both worlds She's still the

Boston: 00:48:53

most skilled of her island.

Boston: 00:48:55

But if she's gonna fight at superhero level, she needs a power up.

Boston: 00:49:00

And gods show up and give her gifts.

Nicola: 00:49:03

Give her the gifts.

Nicola: 00:49:04

Yeah.

Nicola: 00:49:05

And I thought it was really lovely that Greg's, representation of that was that

Nicola: 00:49:10

at the end of the competition, there are three Amazon standing, that there are

Nicola: 00:49:14

three who have managed to really be the top of the food chain in terms of skill.

Nicola: 00:49:21

And really it was the bullets and bracelets that cemented Diana

Nicola: 00:49:26

as the one to represent them.

Nicola: 00:49:29

And that the gun was a gun that Steve had brought with him that, was, it was

Nicola: 00:49:35

like, here is a weapon from his people.

Boston: 00:49:38

Whoever's

Nicola: 00:49:39

going out there needs to face whatever this is.

Nicola: 00:49:42

So let's go.

Nicola: 00:49:43

and Diana is the last one standing.

Nicola: 00:49:45

And I love that about her a and about how Greg faced that conundrum.

Nicola: 00:49:51

And I had said early on, like before we started, and even though we only had a

Nicola: 00:49:55

very short turnaround, I had, because he always says, what do you want?

Nicola: 00:49:59

What do what do you wanna get in there?

Nicola: 00:50:01

And I was like, look, I know you think this is the most stupid idea

Nicola: 00:50:04

ever, but I love the Invisible Jet.

Nicola: 00:50:06

I just need it in there.

Nicola: 00:50:07

And he was like, oh, I thought it doesn't make any sense.

Nicola: 00:50:10

It's so stupid.

Nicola: 00:50:11

And I was like, no, I'm gonna sell you on it.

Nicola: 00:50:13

This is what, it's Steve trevor arrives there in a plane.

Nicola: 00:50:18

It's the same plane.

Nicola: 00:50:20

They just put it back together.

Nicola: 00:50:21

But they don't necessarily understand the mechanics.

Nicola: 00:50:24

Cuz even though there is incredible science and technology on this island,

Nicola: 00:50:30

they're not a male driven, rocket driven, phallic representation driven society.

Nicola: 00:50:39

They're more of a nature-based science.

Nicola: 00:50:43

And there's a little bit of magic.

Nicola: 00:50:46

This island is invisible to the outside eye.

Nicola: 00:50:50

So somewhere in there, there is either science or magic or

Nicola: 00:50:57

somewhere in the middle that has made that island invisible.

Nicola: 00:51:01

Why don't they have access to that?

Nicola: 00:51:03

And they just put that plane back together.

Nicola: 00:51:06

They make it invisible by patching it together.

Nicola: 00:51:09

And they don't need to know how to fly it.

Nicola: 00:51:11

They're magic.

Nicola: 00:51:11

They just send the plane back to where it

Boston: 00:51:13

They just send it home.

Boston: 00:51:15

They just tell it to go home.

Nicola: 00:51:17

Essentially.

Nicola: 00:51:18

and I just, he just thought that was so silly and so beautiful.

Nicola: 00:51:22

so in keeping with the story that we were telling, if we were telling a

Nicola: 00:51:25

more realistic, wonder Woman story.

Nicola: 00:51:28

We might not have done something so delightful, but I felt like

Nicola: 00:51:32

that was really important.

Nicola: 00:51:33

I also, when Steve crashes, he doesn't crash alone.

Nicola: 00:51:36

He crashes with a number of other people and they don't make it, and he

Nicola: 00:51:40

barely makes it, but they heal him.

Nicola: 00:51:42

And I was like, I know we can't do something crazy science, like the purple

Nicola: 00:51:48

healing ray, but we can do something that's like the purple healing ray

Nicola: 00:51:52

in that, maybe there's a particular kind of crystal, like a, a rock on

Nicola: 00:51:57

the island, a particularly kind of crystal they've polished the crap out

Nicola: 00:52:00

of so that it can r refract the sun's light into a bath full of, plasma.

Nicola: 00:52:10

if I, if it's like a stem cell kind of, whatever science they've found important

Nicola: 00:52:17

to keep themselves well and healthy for thousands of years.

Nicola: 00:52:21

They're not aging, but they can still ale.

Nicola: 00:52:23

that they've created a mud bath or whatever the fuck, and just shining

Nicola: 00:52:29

the light through this lens is what will heal him one way or another.

Nicola: 00:52:35

And so you, we only get one panel of that.

Nicola: 00:52:37

We don't get to describe it, but there's one panel where

Nicola: 00:52:40

you can see that happening.

Nicola: 00:52:41

And Steve is a wreck before he goes in and he is clean as a baby when he comes out.

Nicola: 00:52:46

yeah.

Boston: 00:52:47

I wanna talk about the the, um, what's the female gaze, which is

Boston: 00:52:51

very much like the gay gaze

Boston: 00:52:53

on, on Steve Trevor and some other characters you've drawn, you

Boston: 00:52:57

have highlighted, Dick Grayson, Nightwing's assets most impressively.

Boston: 00:53:02

What we're talking about earlier.

Boston: 00:53:03

There's a criticism of Wonder Woman being sexualized.

Boston: 00:53:06

and if you look at the nineties Deodato butt floss era, it's

Boston: 00:53:10

just, I embarrassing to look at

Nicola: 00:53:12

It's a lot.

Boston: 00:53:13

but your view of Steve Trevor, he doesn't wear a lot of clothes a lot of

Boston: 00:53:16

the time.

Nicola: 00:53:17

That was definitely on purpose, in that opening issue cuz most of our

Nicola: 00:53:22

Year one takes place in the first issue.

Nicola: 00:53:25

Like.

Nicola: 00:53:26

issue one is maybe 11 and a half months

Boston: 00:53:30

Oh,

Nicola: 00:53:30

The rest of the story takes place in a couple of weeks, if that.

Nicola: 00:53:34

So what Greg had said to really solidify the importance of their

Nicola: 00:53:42

meeting is that Year One story is the two of them over a period of time.

Nicola: 00:53:48

So we're seeing his story and we're seeing her story and it's not until

Nicola: 00:53:51

the end of that first issue when he crashes onto the island that they meet.

Nicola: 00:53:56

And in doing that it was like, so we're going to show Steve in his

Nicola: 00:54:00

life, show Diana and hers, how they reflect, how they mirror each other.

Nicola: 00:54:04

And at one point in just like a montage of, doing things.

Nicola: 00:54:09

Greg had said something about the SEAL training, water sports kind

Nicola: 00:54:14

of thing so that we can show Diana swimming with the other Amazons.

Nicola: 00:54:18

And nothing about what Greg had written was meant to be sexualized in any nature,

Nicola: 00:54:24

but I was just like, these are two young, beautiful hot people who are going to meet

Nicola: 00:54:28

each other and immediately fall in love.

Nicola: 00:54:30

We need to love them too.

Nicola: 00:54:32

And we had already had that discussion of Diana isn't a

Nicola: 00:54:36

virgin, she needs to be sexualized.

Nicola: 00:54:37

And isn't that in that panel that, the other girls around her are talking about.

Nicola: 00:54:42

You know who Diana might be looking up with these days.

Nicola: 00:54:45

And there she's in the distance, she's naked, she's in the water.

Nicola: 00:54:49

And I was like, I'm putting Steve Trevor right up front in his short short because

Nicola: 00:54:54

when I did the Google search for what are these guys wear when they're doing their

Nicola: 00:54:57

swim stuff and saw their shorts are tiny.

Nicola: 00:55:00

And I was like, oh my God, that's hilarious.

Nicola: 00:55:02

I'm leaning into that.

Nicola: 00:55:04

And put Steve Trevor front and center so that I'm constantly going

Nicola: 00:55:08

backwards and forwards between them.

Nicola: 00:55:09

if Steve is in the f foreground, then Diana's in the background and vice versa.

Nicola: 00:55:13

Because you wanna have that visual dynamic of constantly doing

Nicola: 00:55:16

this between the two characters.

Nicola: 00:55:19

And because I knew I wanted Diana naked, I needed to put her in the background,

Nicola: 00:55:23

but Steve's wearing shorts, he's not quite naked so I can put him in the foreground.

Nicola: 00:55:27

And then after that I said to Greg, I think it was in the second issue

Nicola: 00:55:32

where he has been healed and he's in like a recovery balcony, you know,

Nicola: 00:55:39

it's very, it's very glamorous.

Nicola: 00:55:40

but he's the only one there.

Nicola: 00:55:42

And it was like, there is no way he would have clothes on cuz

Nicola: 00:55:45

there would be absolutely no need.

Nicola: 00:55:48

and Diana goes to visit him there and is completely comfortable with his nakedness

Nicola: 00:55:53

even though he doesn't expose himself.

Nicola: 00:55:55

But.

Nicola: 00:55:56

He feels naked and she's oblivious.

Nicola: 00:55:59

She couldn't give a shit.

Nicola: 00:56:00

That felt like really important storytelling.

Nicola: 00:56:03

and it was in that moment that I was like, this is the second issue that I'm

Nicola: 00:56:06

getting Steve pretty close to naked.

Nicola: 00:56:09

And I said to Greg, I'm gonna make Steve naked in every issue.

Nicola: 00:56:12

How are we gonna do this?

Nicola: 00:56:14

And he laughed and laughed because it was Like, Wonder Woman is always

Nicola: 00:56:17

being accused of showing too much skin.

Nicola: 00:56:19

Cause she's in a bikini and it's we just equal it out.

Nicola: 00:56:22

We just, Steve is gonna be showing as much skin as she is and it's

Nicola: 00:56:25

just going to be incidental.

Nicola: 00:56:26

Cuz that's how it always happened.

Nicola: 00:56:28

It was incidental cuz he's in a recovery hospital room.

Nicola: 00:56:31

In the next issue, he's getting his checkups at the doctor because

Nicola: 00:56:35

this is, he's arrived back fully healed with all of his, dead mates.

Nicola: 00:56:41

And he has to explain all of this to, his military superiors

Boston: 00:56:45

And how his appendix had grown back.

Nicola: 00:56:48

yeah.

Nicola: 00:56:49

How he's in one piece.

Nicola: 00:56:51

And I said, I'm gonna fold his uniform neatly as it would

Nicola: 00:56:55

be by a salter next to him.

Nicola: 00:56:56

And he's just naked on the seat.

Nicola: 00:56:57

We're not seeing anything, but we can see that he's naked and ag.

Nicola: 00:57:01

And again, it was like in the next issue, Greg was like, and Steve takes

Nicola: 00:57:04

his shirt off so that he can use it as a bandage to help some, it's just

Nicola: 00:57:08

all organic, absolutely by design.

Boston: 00:57:12

We haven't even touched on your most recent work, and as you

Boston: 00:57:18

have done so much magnificent art.

Boston: 00:57:20

Your Wonder Woman is so filled with love, but Historia is next level.

Boston: 00:57:26

this is capital A art that you have created.

Nicola: 00:57:30

Thank you.

Boston: 00:57:30

How did this happen?

Boston: 00:57:32

how did you do this?

Nicola: 00:57:35

And some of them, I wonder how I did it too.

Nicola: 00:57:38

it came about because, I remember when these Black Label books were

Nicola: 00:57:43

being announced and one of the early announcements was Kelly Sue

Nicola: 00:57:47

Deconnick, and Phil Jimenez working on Historia and how it was this

Nicola: 00:57:52

history of the Amazons and such.

Nicola: 00:57:53

And that just looked extraordinary and interesting and I was really

Nicola: 00:57:59

interested to see Kelly Sue's take.

Nicola: 00:58:02

Phil coming back to the character cuz like me, he's one of those

Nicola: 00:58:05

artists that is deeply invested in the character and has spent quite

Nicola: 00:58:11

a lot of time with her as well.

Nicola: 00:58:14

So that felt incredibly organic and very exciting cuz this would be Phil

Nicola: 00:58:19

returning after quite a long time.

Nicola: 00:58:22

And the format of this Black Label prestige line, is not only practically

Nicola: 00:58:30

different because the format of the release book is different, but the

Nicola: 00:58:33

pages are twice the size so you can put in so much more detail because

Nicola: 00:58:38

it's gonna get shrunk down still.

Nicola: 00:58:40

And that felt very exciting.

Nicola: 00:58:42

And a long time after that was announced, I got an email from DC saying, okay,

Nicola: 00:58:50

so this is gonna be three volumes, possibly si six or nine in the long run.

Nicola: 00:58:56

But certainly we're committed to three volumes.

Nicola: 00:58:58

but Phil is not going to be doing every issue cuz it's too much.

Boston: 00:59:05

because his hand would falls off and his eyes would bleed.

Boston: 00:59:07

Yeah.

Nicola: 00:59:08

your brain would explode.

Nicola: 00:59:09

It is so much, there's so many characters.

Nicola: 00:59:13

it's not like a Batman Black Label where it's still the same group of characters.

Nicola: 00:59:16

You just have more space to be more detailed and, you hope

Nicola: 00:59:21

for a sophisticated story.

Nicola: 00:59:22

This is all of the Amazons and all of the gods and all of the everything.

Nicola: 00:59:26

And even though I didn't know the story and I hadn't yet seen much of

Nicola: 00:59:32

Phil's art, I'd seen little bits and pieces that he had shared in the early

Nicola: 00:59:35

days, which were super nons spoilery.

Nicola: 00:59:38

it, it seemed like a very interesting idea that a long form version of the

Nicola: 00:59:45

Amazon's origin was gonna be told because it hadn't been done before.

Nicola: 00:59:49

Every origin of the Amazons had been a shorthand to get to Diana or to get to

Nicola: 00:59:54

Wonder Woman as quickly as possible.

Nicola: 00:59:56

But this was gonna be a long form story.

Nicola: 00:59:58

And I knew from the very beginning that Diana wouldn't even be born

Nicola: 01:00:02

until the end of issue three.

Nicola: 01:00:04

So it was like, oh, okay, so you're really investing in this?

Nicola: 01:00:07

And they were like, yes.

Nicola: 01:00:08

So would you be interested in doing volume two?

Nicola: 01:00:11

And I was like, actually, as tempting as that is, and as terrified as I

Nicola: 01:00:16

would be to follow Phil, I actually can't do it at the moment because I

Nicola: 01:00:21

can't remember what I was doing at the time, but I couldn't take it on.

Nicola: 01:00:23

I think I was working on Black, Black Magic.

Nicola: 01:00:25

I think I'd finally got back to Black Magic, Greg and I's schedule had aligned.

Nicola: 01:00:30

And so I said no.

Nicola: 01:00:31

And six months later, editorial came back to me and they said, okay, we've

Nicola: 01:00:36

got someone working on volume two.

Nicola: 01:00:38

Is there any possibility that you would be able to do volume three?

Nicola: 01:00:42

And I was like, now doing something else.

Nicola: 01:00:45

again, super tempted.

Nicola: 01:00:46

I wish I could, but I can't, schedule doesn't permit.

Nicola: 01:00:50

And so they're like, okay, fine.

Nicola: 01:00:52

And another, like six months later and the editor contacts me again and says,

Nicola: 01:00:57

look, I know you're gonna say no, I know, but just on the off chance, do you

Nicola: 01:01:01

think you could fit us into our schedule?

Nicola: 01:01:03

And I was like, it depends on your schedule, because it

Nicola: 01:01:05

was like February last year.

Nicola: 01:01:07

I was like, I'm, deep in this at the moment, but I can see that come August,

Nicola: 01:01:12

I'm gonna have some opening time.

Nicola: 01:01:14

If you can wait until August, then I can do it.

Nicola: 01:01:16

But if you need me to start now, I can't.

Nicola: 01:01:19

And they were like, August is perfect timing.

Nicola: 01:01:21

And I'm like, okay, I'm in.

Nicola: 01:01:22

And that was how the, me being involved in the project came about.

Nicola: 01:01:27

I eventually got to have a really long, chat with Kelly Sue as we broke it down.

Nicola: 01:01:32

She told me what was happening in Phil's.

Nicola: 01:01:34

Phil's hadn't yet come out, but I had a digital copy of it.

Nicola: 01:01:39

Gene had been working on volume two for a while, and I think it was about 75% done.

Nicola: 01:01:46

So I got to see how Gene was approaching the story and I could see how each volume

Nicola: 01:01:51

of the story was very different to each other, which was in itself a little

Nicola: 01:01:56

bit reassuring because Phil's style and Gene's style is so different, but also

Nicola: 01:02:00

the story in each volume is so different.

Nicola: 01:02:03

Phil's is very god space and epic and broad, like it's all double page spreads

Nicola: 01:02:10

until suddenly you meet Hippolyta in the last third to a quarter of the book.

Nicola: 01:02:16

Suddenly we become earthbound and we are introduced to this character, and her

Nicola: 01:02:23

journey is set in motion Then, Gene Ha's volume is almost entirely earthbound

Nicola: 01:02:32

and it is very human following a human character as she has a very human

Nicola: 01:02:39

experience of pursuing these god created Amazons and by chance, ephemerally,

Nicola: 01:02:47

encountering a goddess, and how all of that plays out and the the turn

Nicola: 01:02:52

of the story being sort really human moment that changes and exposes them.

Nicola: 01:03:00

And that made it clear that mine was gonna be somewhere in the

Nicola: 01:03:04

middle, that it needed to fill both.

Nicola: 01:03:06

it needed to go very big and very small constantly, because we were

Nicola: 01:03:12

bringing all of those elements together.

Boston: 01:03:14

There's an image near in the middle of the book, where everything

Boston: 01:03:18

turns, and it's the, the part, the Wonder Woman lore has always included the

Boston: 01:03:23

battle between Hippolyta and Heracles.

Boston: 01:03:26

that's canon, quote, unquote.

Boston: 01:03:29

And, I love how feminism, this wave of feminism, the thing that I think

Boston: 01:03:34

is important about the philosophy of feminism is that it is about what the

Boston: 01:03:40

group can do when they come together.

Boston: 01:03:42

It's not ego versus ego.

Boston: 01:03:45

You have this giant Harleys who is going to, you see the size difference.

Boston: 01:03:51

This is a demigod.

Boston: 01:03:52

This is not big dude.

Boston: 01:03:54

This is a demigod.

Boston: 01:03:55

The Amazons are fucked.

Boston: 01:03:58

none of them can do it alone.

Boston: 01:04:00

And so with all of their differences, all of their, their complex

Boston: 01:04:05

structure, the queens come together.

Boston: 01:04:07

and the way you drew this, like this beautiful metaphor of the

Boston: 01:04:11

ants taking down the praying mantis

Boston: 01:04:14

and the Amazon's.

Boston: 01:04:17

It's so brutal.

Boston: 01:04:19

It is so brutal.

Boston: 01:04:22

I had noticed the first three times I read it that there are

Boston: 01:04:26

pieces of Heracles lying around

Boston: 01:04:29

After this battle, that he's being castrated

Boston: 01:04:33

in the center of that panel.

Boston: 01:04:35

And then the what's happening in the art, while Hyppolyta is saying,

Boston: 01:04:41

we are rendering him back unto Zeus so that he can be buried.

Boston: 01:04:45

This is a show of respect.

Boston: 01:04:47

We would not do this for the slavers.

Boston: 01:04:50

We do this out of respect for the son of Zeus.

Boston: 01:04:53

They're loading pieces of Heracles onto a cart.

Nicola: 01:04:58

Yeah, he's in four bags.

Boston: 01:05:00

in four bags.

Boston: 01:05:01

It is wicked

Boston: 01:05:04

and brilliant and sad.

Boston: 01:05:07

But you turn the page and the next thing is a thunderstorm screaming.

Boston: 01:05:13

She's

Nicola: 01:05:14

Yeah,

Boston: 01:05:14

story that you told visually her dot, her narration does one thing.

Boston: 01:05:20

You are doing something in parallel, and both of them are elevating

Boston: 01:05:24

each other during those pages.

Boston: 01:05:28

What is the impact on you?

Boston: 01:05:30

Like as you bring these thi these images through you onto the

Boston: 01:05:35

paper, what happens inside you?

Boston: 01:05:37

How does it affect you?

Nicola: 01:05:40

there are certain moments in any story that are the key moments.

Nicola: 01:05:50

they're doing a lot of the work.

Nicola: 01:05:52

there, there's lots of connective tissue that holds that all together.

Nicola: 01:05:56

That's what makes it a proper narrative.

Nicola: 01:05:58

But there are certain moments that are the impact moments.

Nicola: 01:06:02

And to me, they're not always the action moments.

Nicola: 01:06:06

Sometimes they're the really quiet moments.

Nicola: 01:06:08

And you can see it in a scene.

Nicola: 01:06:10

You can see it in an issue that there are always these key moments.

Nicola: 01:06:14

And it's often, whatever the biggest panel is.

Nicola: 01:06:16

Certainly when I'm drawing, I'm always looking for what is the moment here.

Nicola: 01:06:20

And I don't always wanna make it the action scene, cuz sometimes I

Nicola: 01:06:24

feel like the action is incidental to what the scene is about.

Nicola: 01:06:28

What is happening here isn't about the kicking and the punching,

Nicola: 01:06:32

it's about the something else.

Nicola: 01:06:34

and so recognizing those moments and elevating them, one of the

Nicola: 01:06:39

ways that you elevate them is to give them more real estate.

Nicola: 01:06:42

and for that scene in particular, I knew that this was a moment, this was a

Nicola: 01:06:47

turning point because this is the first time that they're being confronted for

Nicola: 01:06:52

existing and that the gods are saying, absolutely not, we're sending our best

Nicola: 01:06:57

and brightest, goodbye kind of thing.

Nicola: 01:07:00

And this is their moment inspired by Hippolyta.

Nicola: 01:07:06

All of them work as a unit because at up until that moment, there have

Nicola: 01:07:10

been these six goddess created tribes off doing their own thing that will

Nicola: 01:07:15

sometimes mingle to do bits and pieces.

Nicola: 01:07:18

And then there's this seventh tribe of Hippolyta's.

Nicola: 01:07:21

She's trailing behind all of these goddess created Amazons who keep saving

Nicola: 01:07:24

all these slave women, but then riding off into the sunset without them.

Nicola: 01:07:29

And apologies like, you can't just abandon us once you save us cause we're

Nicola: 01:07:34

gonna be fucked again any second now.

Nicola: 01:07:36

The only way we're going to be safe is together.

Nicola: 01:07:39

And so I'm going to start collecting all of these people that you saved

Nicola: 01:07:46

and giving them a safe space where our numbers is what will keep us together.

Nicola: 01:07:53

And if you guys can just, lower yourselves to train us, you won't

Nicola: 01:07:57

have to keep saving us, essentially.

Nicola: 01:08:00

And in that moment of Heracles arriving and Antiope not necessarily being

Nicola: 01:08:07

the senior Amazon, but certainly the ballsiest, stepping out of

Nicola: 01:08:12

the shadows and going, yep, okay, let's go, Heracles, let's do this.

Nicola: 01:08:17

And.

Nicola: 01:08:18

Hippolyta, just recognizing, oh, we need to do this together,

Boston: 01:08:21

he'll slaughter us one at a time, but together.

Nicola: 01:08:24

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:08:24

Antiope is in all of this armor that she was born in.

Nicola: 01:08:28

She's born fully formed and fully armored.

Nicola: 01:08:30

She's got bracelets, she's got, her lasso, she's got horns, she's got

Nicola: 01:08:35

all of the things, and Hippolyta is like in rags and she's just picked up

Nicola: 01:08:41

an ax and she's like, let's do this.

Nicola: 01:08:43

And that inspires the queens to come out and go, yep, okay.

Nicola: 01:08:47

We're all here, we're all doing this.

Nicola: 01:08:49

And then all the queens are backed up by all of their tribes.

Nicola: 01:08:53

And the slaughter of Heracles was a double page spread.

Nicola: 01:09:00

And it read in the script that it's three panels.

Nicola: 01:09:02

It's like a panel of the, of all of the Amazons coming out, all of

Nicola: 01:09:07

the goddess created Amazons, but also a lot of the seventh tribe of

Nicola: 01:09:10

Hippolyta's tribe surrounding Heracles

Nicola: 01:09:14

. Then the slaughter of Heracles,

Nicola: 01:09:19

destroying the praying mantis.

Nicola: 01:09:21

And in advance, as soon as I read that in the script, I'm like,

Nicola: 01:09:24

okay, that's a really big moment.

Nicola: 01:09:27

How do I give it its due?

Nicola: 01:09:29

And really mulling over the idea as I'm working towards it.

Nicola: 01:09:33

cuz I'm doing other pages as I build myself up, a lot of regular paneled,

Nicola: 01:09:37

comic book panel storytelling precedes it.

Nicola: 01:09:40

But how do I build to this moment?

Nicola: 01:09:42

And then how do I sell this moment?

Nicola: 01:09:45

How do I make best use of these three panels?

Nicola: 01:09:49

as it says in the script, I need to do something a bit more

Nicola: 01:09:51

interesting than three panels, because do I do them vertically?

Nicola: 01:09:54

Do I do them?

Nicola: 01:09:56

And it came to me in the middle of the night.

Nicola: 01:09:58

I should do it in circles because they're surrounding him and I

Nicola: 01:10:02

don't want to do just a line cuz that's a front line rather than, a

Nicola: 01:10:07

surrounding, how do I surround him?

Nicola: 01:10:10

And that's where it came into idea that they are surrounding him in a circle.

Nicola: 01:10:15

The slaughter is happening in the circle where we zoom right

Nicola: 01:10:18

into him just absolutely getting massacred in, seconds by all of

Nicola: 01:10:23

these incredibly skilled warriors.

Nicola: 01:10:25

And then the metaphor in the center, which can cover the fact that he's

Nicola: 01:10:29

getting castrated, even though I'm clearly indicating that he's getting castrated.

Nicola: 01:10:33

And, and then in the practical sense of doing it, it's okay, how do I.

Nicola: 01:10:40

How do I now execute this idea?

Nicola: 01:10:43

And I started with the middle panel and mapping out Heracles across the

Nicola: 01:10:51

spread because he's so much bigger.

Nicola: 01:10:54

I knew that one of the tricks would be getting the scale of him right, and

Nicola: 01:10:58

then all of the characters around him.

Nicola: 01:11:00

And how packed do I make this, are people gonna be able to swing their

Nicola: 01:11:05

thoughts and axes and arrows and stuff if I pack it too much, but I

Nicola: 01:11:11

feel like I really need to pack it.

Nicola: 01:11:12

Like everyone is just getting right in there and it is their skill that

Nicola: 01:11:16

prevents them hurting each other.

Nicola: 01:11:18

and so I started with him.

Nicola: 01:11:20

I think I added Antiope and Hippolyta because I knew I needed

Nicola: 01:11:26

them at the top of the panel or I wanted them at the top of panel.

Nicola: 01:11:32

And then once I got a map of where they were, I then started drawing

Nicola: 01:11:35

all the characters on the outside and filling them in, making sure that the

Nicola: 01:11:40

front line of these circles was the goddess-created Amazons, and then beyond

Nicola: 01:11:46

them, whatever goddess created Amazons were left and lots of seventh tribes.

Nicola: 01:11:51

So that there was like a real crowd of people, lining up to take their piece.

Nicola: 01:11:57

And then once it came to filling that circle of the slaughter, just getting

Nicola: 01:12:03

more and more characters in there and finding ways to u use the height.

Nicola: 01:12:07

Like Heracles is no longer standing.

Nicola: 01:12:09

He's kind of on a lean as he's being taken off his feet.

Nicola: 01:12:13

So towards his head, you know, he's higher up.

Nicola: 01:12:16

The Amazons by his feet, he's lower down.

Nicola: 01:12:19

and you know what I, what is everybody doing?

Nicola: 01:12:21

what weapons do they have?

Nicola: 01:12:23

who has a big sword?

Nicola: 01:12:25

You know, I saw that, um, I've forgotten what her name is.

Nicola: 01:12:28

She's a character that's got this sort of big, horned helmet on, like

Nicola: 01:12:32

horns going all over the place.

Nicola: 01:12:33

It says in the description that she's the biggest of the Amazons and I'm just like,

Nicola: 01:12:37

she's just gonna ram him with her helmet.

Nicola: 01:12:40

So she's going right into the chest.

Nicola: 01:12:42

Who else is around?

Nicola: 01:12:43

How do I get in representations from all of the tribes, just show

Nicola: 01:12:48

them all, getting their piece.

Nicola: 01:12:50

and that was essentially how that came about.

Nicola: 01:12:52

But it took me over a week and I did feel a bit like a zombie at the end

Nicola: 01:12:58

of it because drawing all of those tiny characters around the side

Nicola: 01:13:01

in that sharp perspective, took, quite a few days in and of itself.

Nicola: 01:13:07

And then drawing the interior of the slaughter took quite a while.

Nicola: 01:13:12

And then once I'd drawn it all, I then needed to paint it

Boston: 01:13:14

Oh

Nicola: 01:13:15

because I was painting the book.

Nicola: 01:13:17

But it's the painting where the depth and the texture and the real

Nicola: 01:13:20

life comes into the line work, cuz I was doing very simple line work.

Nicola: 01:13:24

but that was the fun.

Boston: 01:13:24

Wow.

Boston: 01:13:25

Just

Nicola: 01:13:26

me, but it was fun.

Boston: 01:13:27

There's something about, every woman doing, like using what

Boston: 01:13:31

she has to face, this obstacle that they're all facing together

Boston: 01:13:36

that threatens all of them.

Boston: 01:13:38

Whatever you've got.

Boston: 01:13:39

Ama an accent that it's the way you described it, I wasn't thinking

Boston: 01:13:44

about the power dynamics of the God created Amazons, and then the

Boston: 01:13:47

mortal, Amazons the seventh tribe.

Boston: 01:13:50

Those are the echoes of Diana who leaves paradise not to save

Boston: 01:13:56

women, but to empower them,

Nicola: 01:13:58

Yeah.

Boston: 01:13:59

so that they can save themselves, come down from your high horse,

Boston: 01:14:04

and then you won't have to train us and you won't have, you

Boston: 01:14:07

won't have to save us anymore.

Boston: 01:14:09

And that's such the, a lesson of Wonder Woman not here to rest.

Boston: 01:14:13

I'm not here to res well, I'm here to rescue you.

Boston: 01:14:14

You're in trouble.

Boston: 01:14:15

I'll rescue you, but long term, I'm here to tell you, make yourself stronger,

Boston: 01:14:21

work together, take responsibility.

Boston: 01:14:23

She's

Nicola: 01:14:24

100%.

Nicola: 01:14:25

Like after that slaughter, there are two battles, that take place afterwards.

Nicola: 01:14:31

And you may notice that the seventh tribe, they have weapons, but they

Nicola: 01:14:39

don't have armor in the first one.

Nicola: 01:14:41

they've accumulated some extra weapons from all the slaves that they've

Nicola: 01:14:46

defeated, but they don't have armor.

Nicola: 01:14:48

So they're going into battle with, just their togas and their sandals

Nicola: 01:14:53

and, maybe a bit of armor that they've picked up along the way.

Nicola: 01:14:57

But for the most part, they've just got like a sword or an ax but they're

Nicola: 01:15:00

charging in with all of these goddess created, semi super beings that are

Nicola: 01:15:06

fully armed up, fully weaponed up and, ready for battle at any moment.

Nicola: 01:15:12

And all of these human Amazons, or, all they've got are their slavers' bracelets,

Nicola: 01:15:18

that is what distinguishes them.

Nicola: 01:15:20

And in the second battle, What they're wearing is the armor of

Nicola: 01:15:27

the first battle that, of the first army that they defeated.

Boston: 01:15:30

I didn't notice that.

Boston: 01:15:32

Ooh.

Nicola: 01:15:32

in the second battle where they finally lose because they're up

Nicola: 01:15:36

against more than just a army of men, they've taken the helmets, from the

Nicola: 01:15:42

soldiers that they defeated in the first one, and they've cut ridges into

Nicola: 01:15:46

the, the plume on top so that, through, through a dusty battlefield, you'll

Nicola: 01:15:51

be able to distinguish them in terms of their silhouette from a distance.

Nicola: 01:15:57

But they're wearing, some of them have taken some shoulder bits, some of

Nicola: 01:16:00

them have taken some shin gauntlets.

Nicola: 01:16:03

Some of them have taken like a full, torso armor.

Nicola: 01:16:07

But most of them have taken a helmet and stuck it on their head, as

Nicola: 01:16:11

they go into their second battle.

Boston: 01:16:13

You are blowing my mind with the level of detail and thought and

Boston: 01:16:17

consideration that went into that.

Boston: 01:16:18

I didn't notice, and now I, I can't wait to read this again.

Boston: 01:16:22

What else have I missed in there?

Boston: 01:16:24

Um, oh, I, I so hope we get another three and that you draw

Boston: 01:16:29

at at least, at least one more.

Boston: 01:16:32

I, I, I don't really read comics to be honest, very often anymore.

Boston: 01:16:36

I don't subscribe to Wonder Woman anymore.

Boston: 01:16:38

it's boring to me at the moment.

Boston: 01:16:40

Historia is the only comic I have read, really in ages.

Boston: 01:16:45

I've now read the first two issues a number of times, and the third one

Boston: 01:16:50

twice that I am reread a, a comic is, and, and being affected by it.

Boston: 01:16:56

Each time just hasn't happened in a while.

Boston: 01:17:00

And now I'm starting to hear.

Boston: 01:17:02

o other levels, there's a heartbreak in this.

Boston: 01:17:05

And the courage of the unarmed Amazons, I just wasn't tuning in

Boston: 01:17:09

to the vulnerability that they were coming in with.

Nicola: 01:17:12

The scene in the morning between battles.

Nicola: 01:17:14

So they've had their, funerial service of, sending their, fallen, to the well

Nicola: 01:17:23

of the gods, to the well of souls.

Nicola: 01:17:25

and the next morning when the male army is charging towards them is

Nicola: 01:17:30

marching their way towards them, the Amazons are sitting around and having

Nicola: 01:17:36

breakfast and laughing at some theater.

Nicola: 01:17:38

because they understand that they need to feel their humanity again.

Nicola: 01:17:45

And those two, people performing the play, they're trans

Nicola: 01:17:50

actors they're trans Amazons.

Nicola: 01:17:52

yeah.

Nicola: 01:17:52

because women, again, it's only an, an insinuation in the script.

Nicola: 01:17:56

it's there in the script.

Nicola: 01:17:57

But if, you know, women weren't allowed to perform theater, let alone

Nicola: 01:18:01

see theater, so this is their first opportunity to see an art like a play.

Nicola: 01:18:09

so they're being deeply entertained.

Nicola: 01:18:12

and the two actors performing it are the reason why they know these

Nicola: 01:18:16

plays, the reason why they've been able to perform these plays.

Nicola: 01:18:19

The reason why Kareti, who's the one, taken the lead, it's because she got

Nicola: 01:18:26

to grow up in the theater before she,

Boston: 01:18:28

man.

Nicola: 01:18:29

and essentially yes, it was like, how do I represent a trans woman without

Nicola: 01:18:35

the opportunity for, hormones or surgery?

Nicola: 01:18:39

How would a trans woman survive?

Nicola: 01:18:42

And theater is probably a safe space, for the most part.

Nicola: 01:18:46

And, and this is how she will be, this is how she can explore her femininity.

Nicola: 01:18:53

And of course, at some point because actors are worth nothing.

Nicola: 01:18:56

and here is a trans actor and she's been saved from slavers

Nicola: 01:19:01

because of course she, find herself being at the mercy of, assholes.

Nicola: 01:19:07

And that of course, she's completely welcomed into the society of the Amazons

Nicola: 01:19:14

and Hippolyta is even saying to her, you have something to live for because

Nicola: 01:19:18

if we make it through this, you can teach all of us what theater is about.

Nicola: 01:19:23

We will build you a theater and you can continue with your passion and your

Nicola: 01:19:29

life, but in the space that we create for you, rather than, you and your little

Nicola: 01:19:35

box of tricks, it's just it's really potent and meaningful that these moments

Nicola: 01:19:41

along the way speak to how big and broad this society of women really is.

Boston: 01:19:48

That adds so much texture to the appearance of Dionysus in there as well.

Boston: 01:19:54

as he's the non-binary God and a protector of women in some stories.

Boston: 01:20:01

But he was the place for his tribe was the place for people

Boston: 01:20:05

who didn't fit, who didn't

Boston: 01:20:07

fit under the, Zeus style, uh, leadership.

Boston: 01:20:12

And so then if you, now if you have this trans actor there,

Boston: 01:20:16

that connection between them,

Nicola: 01:20:19

That's why Hera can go to him and say, you're responsible

Nicola: 01:20:23

for this one.

Nicola: 01:20:24

Look after her, with her gone, which is absolutely gonna happen

Nicola: 01:20:29

without your interference.

Nicola: 01:20:32

With her gone, that's a whole stream of worshipers, absolutely annihilated.

Nicola: 01:20:38

But with her supported and flourishing, you will be, at

Nicola: 01:20:44

their, worship indefinitely.

Boston: 01:20:48

And that, that foreshadow is what I hope is going to come in a future book,

Boston: 01:20:52

is the culture that the Amazons create.

Boston: 01:20:54

And it hasn't come up in this conversation, but I happen to

Boston: 01:20:58

know that you were an actor.

Boston: 01:21:00

I am an actor or was an actor.

Boston: 01:21:02

And theater in my mind is the pinnacle of culture.

Boston: 01:21:07

It's, it is absolutely my favorite art.

Boston: 01:21:10

And it's a place where humanity gets to be expressed in its

Boston: 01:21:15

fullness, in theater and in dance.

Boston: 01:21:19

And so if Theymscira is established, Paradise Island is established.

Boston: 01:21:25

One of the things that makes it paradise what she will create.

Boston: 01:21:29

What, what is the character's name ca

Nicola: 01:21:31

Kallikrates.

Boston: 01:21:32

Kallikrates.

Boston: 01:21:33

what she will create is something so magnificent

Boston: 01:21:37

and that's a, an expression of Paradise Island and a the, and

Boston: 01:21:40

theater on Paradise Island.

Boston: 01:21:41

Cuz that's what Hera can see.

Nicola: 01:21:44

Yeah.

Boston: 01:21:44

if this path goes that culture can be transformed and transformative.

Nicola: 01:21:50

the culture that she's setting up for this island, like part of the

Nicola: 01:21:55

judgment, one of the things that we had to sell was the idea that the island was not

Nicola: 01:22:01

a gift from the gods, but a punishment.

Nicola: 01:22:03

It's a gilded cage.

Nicola: 01:22:05

And in order to sell this, I think it was Kelly Sue and Phil that came

Nicola: 01:22:09

up with the idea that essentially Apollo would be the warden.

Nicola: 01:22:13

That it would never be nighttime.

Nicola: 01:22:15

So that, that the island will be in full daylight all the time.

Nicola: 01:22:21

And it is, Artemis saying, I want one night a month.

Nicola: 01:22:25

Give me one night a month.

Nicola: 01:22:27

And.

Nicola: 01:22:28

What that will do to the culture, like the culture of being under

Nicola: 01:22:33

the eye of the sun at all times.

Nicola: 01:22:36

and how they deal with that.

Nicola: 01:22:38

But also, what does that one night mean?

Nicola: 01:22:41

What do

Boston: 01:22:41

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:22:41

in that one night?

Nicola: 01:22:43

That one night is gonna be really significant.

Nicola: 01:22:46

I can't wait to see stuff like that.

Boston: 01:22:48

Yes.

Boston: 01:22:50

This feels like the beginning of a conversation as much as at

Boston: 01:22:53

the end of one the book and this conversation between you and me.

Boston: 01:22:57

one thing I like to do with my guests, I have these five questions I'd like

Boston: 01:23:01

to pose and, yeah, are you game?

Nicola: 01:23:05

Yeah, sure.

Nicola: 01:23:06

Bring it on.

Boston: 01:23:07

cool.

Boston: 01:23:07

The first one is when you were growing up, what were your favorite stories,

Boston: 01:23:14

your favorite nursery, rhymes, cartoons, children's books, comics, anything?

Nicola: 01:23:18

obviously Wonder Woman, anything with a costume superhero

Nicola: 01:23:21

woman, was deeply interesting to me.

Nicola: 01:23:24

but I also love Josie and the Pussycats.

Nicola: 01:23:26

It started my girl band love.

Nicola: 01:23:28

Never been into boy bands, couldn't give a shit, but God

Nicola: 01:23:31

bless me with a girl band anytime.

Nicola: 01:23:33

I was really into Greek mythology and I.

Nicola: 01:23:38

Read and reread different tellings of, the Iliad in particular

Nicola: 01:23:44

because it fascinates me.

Nicola: 01:23:46

I, one of my favorite new versions, newer versions, is by a writer called Madeline

Nicola: 01:23:53

Miller, who wrote the Song of Achilles, which is just the most beautiful story.

Nicola: 01:23:59

And then of course, Circe that came out a couple years later, a couple years ago

Boston: 01:24:04

Those

Nicola: 01:24:04

because, it's deeply witchy.

Boston: 01:24:06

20 years.

Boston: 01:24:06

Yeah.

Boston: 01:24:07

Ugh.

Nicola: 01:24:08

they are.

Nicola: 01:24:09

Yeah, cuz I love the Retellings.

Nicola: 01:24:11

There was a great, version, I think it was called The Song of Troy by Colin

Nicola: 01:24:14

McCullum, which is, quite a decent size volume and each chapter is told in

Nicola: 01:24:21

first person by a different character.

Nicola: 01:24:23

So you get all of these different perspectives and one of the most

Nicola: 01:24:28

hilarious perspectives is Helen, when you finally get Helen's perspective,

Nicola: 01:24:33

she's such an asshole, it's so funny.

Nicola: 01:24:36

But just everyone's motivations are properly fleshed out and everyone's

Nicola: 01:24:40

perspective on everyone else's motivations reveal themselves as well.

Nicola: 01:24:45

It's a really brilliant read, I think that came out in the

Nicola: 01:24:47

nineties, but I've read it a few

Boston: 01:24:49

That sounds like something I would really enjoy.

Nicola: 01:24:52

It's great.

Nicola: 01:24:52

It's great.

Boston: 01:24:53

The Story of Troy and The Iliad, which is just one

Boston: 01:24:56

part of the story of Troy.

Boston: 01:24:58

That story, it is just such, it is such a cluster fuck.

Boston: 01:25:03

Like the stakes of that story are so high, and I think it gets missed by modern eyes

Nicola: 01:25:09

Yeah.

Boston: 01:25:09

because civilization is at risk anyway, and everyone

Boston: 01:25:12

is behaving in horrific ways.

Boston: 01:25:15

But they

Boston: 01:25:15

all have a point of view and

Boston: 01:25:18

the actor in me is what's going on there?

Boston: 01:25:20

Why?

Nicola: 01:25:20

100%.

Nicola: 01:25:22

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:25:22

I like, when the movie came out, I was just like, oh, it looks beautiful,

Nicola: 01:25:26

but it feels really one dimensional and certainly deeply abbreviated.

Nicola: 01:25:33

this is a war that it's meant to go for 10 years, and it looks

Nicola: 01:25:36

like it happened in 10 days.

Nicola: 01:25:37

So yeah, it's a really, book that I highly recommend.

Nicola: 01:25:40

But I, I feel like the the poetic language of Madeline Miller's

Nicola: 01:25:44

retellings are just transportative.

Nicola: 01:25:48

If you've only read them, like in traditional book form, I would also

Nicola: 01:25:53

suggest getting the Audible version of them, because the performers are

Nicola: 01:25:59

who read each book are perfectly cast to just send you over the moon.

Nicola: 01:26:08

They've just got beautiful voices.

Boston: 01:26:09

I fully agree.

Boston: 01:26:11

I, I did both.

Boston: 01:26:12

I read the

Nicola: 01:26:12

Oh, you did,

Boston: 01:26:13

and the audio because I, I wanted to hear it while I was in the car--

Boston: 01:26:17

and this, and this, and this, It just, it re, it breaks my heart every time.

Boston: 01:26:23

And those performances, usually I feel like I'm settling for an Audiobook.

Boston: 01:26:28

I think in these cases it improves it.

Nicola: 01:26:30

Yeah, same.

Nicola: 01:26:31

Absolutely.

Nicola: 01:26:32

I agree.

Boston: 01:26:33

next question.

Boston: 01:26:34

What is something that you believe to be true that you cannot prove or that

Nicola: 01:26:41

Oh gosh.

Nicola: 01:26:42

Yep.

Nicola: 01:26:43

I believe in, something beyond, I'm not a religious person.

Nicola: 01:26:49

I don't come from a religious background, so I don't have any religious

Nicola: 01:26:52

discipline, in place in my life.

Nicola: 01:26:55

But, I feel a little bit pagan, you know, I kind of like that idea of

Nicola: 01:27:00

giving a spiritual, name and respect to pretty much everything in nature,

Nicola: 01:27:05

because I feel like it is all related.

Nicola: 01:27:07

And I, when I'm talking about magic and how I talked about magic with Greg Rucka

Nicola: 01:27:12

when we were developing Black Magic is this sense of energy and just, you

Nicola: 01:27:17

know, it's that skill of being able to manipulate it and, and that magic is

Nicola: 01:27:20

just science that we haven't discovered yet because we're so fixated on a

Nicola: 01:27:25

particular point of view with science.

Nicola: 01:27:28

I believe in a, in a beyond.

Nicola: 01:27:30

and I have a slightly ephemeral, but reasonably sure idea of

Nicola: 01:27:38

the shape of it kind of thing.

Boston: 01:27:40

Could you give me a piece of that shape?

Boston: 01:27:42

I realized that describing your entire cosmology might be a tall

Boston: 01:27:46

order, but is there something that's.

Nicola: 01:27:48

I subscribe to that thing of we are celestial beings

Nicola: 01:27:51

having a human experience, that we are all, that everything in

Nicola: 01:27:56

the universe is of the universe.

Nicola: 01:27:57

And so we are all connected.

Nicola: 01:28:00

So I don't, I, it, it informs my politics obviously, because I feel like

Nicola: 01:28:04

we're all very symbiotic and of a one.

Nicola: 01:28:08

you see it play out, now that we have social media that's teaching us

Nicola: 01:28:11

about the, the emotional complexity of animals and this, that and the

Nicola: 01:28:14

other, it's like, yeah, of course.

Nicola: 01:28:15

and we are all related.

Nicola: 01:28:17

And I feel like if there is you know, intelligent life on other planets,

Nicola: 01:28:21

which I feel is kind of inevitable, you know, I'm not a big science space

Nicola: 01:28:24

junkie, but I feel like it's inevitable that those same instincts that make us

Nicola: 01:28:31

human are universal because you see it in animals, you see it in everything.

Nicola: 01:28:39

there, there are instincts that are protect us, but there are

Nicola: 01:28:42

also instincts that bind us.

Nicola: 01:28:44

and they are the things that, we're all made of.

Nicola: 01:28:47

So I feel very strongly about that.

Nicola: 01:28:48

So yes, my spiritual side takes the form of a witchiness.

Nicola: 01:28:53

But, again, I'm not feeling dogmatic about, a pagan slash

Nicola: 01:29:00

Wiccan slash whatever practice.

Nicola: 01:29:02

I feel it's very organic, I can feel as spiritual being in a church which

Nicola: 01:29:06

is constructed for a spiritual feeling as I can standing in my garden.

Boston: 01:29:10

Beautifully said.

Boston: 01:29:11

Yeah.

Boston: 01:29:12

That there's something more.

Boston: 01:29:13

What that looks like is not, I don't know.

Boston: 01:29:15

It's there, there are a lot of ways it can, there doesn't

Boston: 01:29:17

need to be a dogma attached

Nicola: 01:29:19

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:29:19

You just have to in.

Nicola: 01:29:22

You just gotta feel it, I feel like it's that thing of, what your instincts

Nicola: 01:29:26

are, being able to trust your instincts.

Nicola: 01:29:28

It's all the same thing.

Nicola: 01:29:29

It's just being able to, feel like you can understand the ebb and flow of

Nicola: 01:29:34

energy and, here are some good years.

Nicola: 01:29:35

Here are some bad years that everything is cyclical, that, I never feel worried

Nicola: 01:29:40

when things are shit cuz it's okay, so I'm going through a shit phase, if

Nicola: 01:29:43

everything's really great, I'm like, this is great, let's enjoy it because it won't

Nicola: 01:29:47

necessarily be this great in a year.

Nicola: 01:29:50

it doesn't mean it'll be shit in a year, but, you know, everything

Nicola: 01:29:53

is, it's waves of whatever,

Boston: 01:29:56

Thank you.

Boston: 01:29:57

And this next question builds on that.

Boston: 01:29:58

Have you ever encountered a phenomenon that you just cannot explain?

Boston: 01:30:03

And whether you have or haven't, how has that affected your worldview?

Nicola: 01:30:11

Look, without getting The Secret about things, because I find that kind of

Nicola: 01:30:16

commercialization of a theory a bit gross.

Boston: 01:30:19

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:30:20

I do feel like, you know, you, you are really capable of manifesting.

Nicola: 01:30:24

And I believe that because I have done it myself, I have manifested, in my own

Nicola: 01:30:29

life the things that are important to me.

Nicola: 01:30:32

And, I obviously, reality and context and circumstances that are beyond your

Nicola: 01:30:42

control do limit, your sense of inability to do a thing and they can 100% restrict

Nicola: 01:30:52

you from the practical side of being able to do a thing, but given enough time and

Nicola: 01:30:59

enough concentration on a thing, I've managed to manifest pretty much what I

Nicola: 01:31:05

hoped my life would be and sometimes it's just spinning enough plates that you're

Nicola: 01:31:11

already got some sense of momentum and some sense of direction so that when

Nicola: 01:31:16

opportunity arrives, when a a door is open or a piece of luck happens your

Nicola: 01:31:21

way, you're ready for it because you're already actively working towards a thing.

Nicola: 01:31:26

And I feel like that is where we're best serving ourselves and best serving each

Nicola: 01:31:32

other is when we have a clear idea of where we wanna go and who we wanna be

Nicola: 01:31:40

and then doing what we can to manifest it.

Nicola: 01:31:43

Cuz I do think we're all capable of manifesting something big.

Nicola: 01:31:49

requires a lot of you.

Boston: 01:31:50

I com I completely agree with that assessment.

Boston: 01:31:53

And I, I just wanna, highlight what you said at the beginning because I

Boston: 01:31:56

think The Secret and that whole Law of Attraction, capitalist version

Boston: 01:32:01

of this has created some really good reasons to turn away from that.

Boston: 01:32:06

without saying it, you started, you acknowledged, privilege and things

Boston: 01:32:10

that make it easier or harder.

Nicola: 01:32:12

100%.

Boston: 01:32:13

but all of that doesn't actually make it less true.

Boston: 01:32:16

and there's another important piece.

Boston: 01:32:18

You're not sitting there just journaling about it.

Boston: 01:32:21

You're actually, you are moving with all of yourself in that direction.

Boston: 01:32:26

It takes, it's not just words, it's everything.

Boston: 01:32:29

And then the Cosmos has the opportunity to meet you halfway, so you notice

Nicola: 01:32:34

100%.

Nicola: 01:32:35

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:32:36

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:32:36

I feel quite strongly about that, and I understand that, sometimes the

Nicola: 01:32:39

barriers that people have are just mental health, un understanding how

Nicola: 01:32:46

sophisticated and complex and the full spectrum of fucking everything,

Nicola: 01:32:51

everything is a goddamn spectrum.

Nicola: 01:32:52

and I believe that, that I know that for me, I've been very lucky to have

Nicola: 01:32:57

fallen into the, eternally optimistic, reasonably self-assured headspace.

Nicola: 01:33:05

So that has given me a certain advantage in being able to feel

Nicola: 01:33:09

like I can manifest a thing.

Nicola: 01:33:11

But it wasn't really until I was in my late twenties and early thirties

Nicola: 01:33:14

that I felt confident that I could.

Nicola: 01:33:18

up until then, I just felt suspicious that I might be able to,

Boston: 01:33:21

last question.

Boston: 01:33:23

When in your life have you experienced ecstasy?

Nicola: 01:33:27

Oh gosh.

Nicola: 01:33:31

Being on ectasy in the nineties a couple of

Boston: 01:33:34

I love when people give that answer.

Boston: 01:33:36

Yeah.

Boston: 01:33:36

Good memories.

Nicola: 01:33:37

Couple of times, yeah.

Nicola: 01:33:39

Felt like an angel.

Nicola: 01:33:40

It was great.

Nicola: 01:33:41

but beyond that, I feel it in my bones when I'm with my family.

Nicola: 01:33:47

my family's a very complex organism, and I know not everyone

Nicola: 01:33:50

in my family feels the same way.

Nicola: 01:33:52

Relationships are complicated.

Nicola: 01:33:55

but as the youngest, I feel very grounded and present around my family.

Nicola: 01:34:05

being on stage, there's something a little bit, you're performing magic

Nicola: 01:34:10

because you are creating a magic space, and you are, you are making

Nicola: 01:34:18

your audience participate and believe in the space that you're creating.

Nicola: 01:34:25

that to me feels like a real, not a magic trick, but actually conjuring magic.

Nicola: 01:34:33

There's an energy.

Nicola: 01:34:34

You change the energy, and you sweep an audience along with you who, just

Nicola: 01:34:39

five minutes ago were, looking at their watch or doing something outside, but

Nicola: 01:34:43

suddenly they're in this magic space.

Boston: 01:34:45

It's

Boston: 01:34:45

a ritual.

Boston: 01:34:46

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:34:47

Yeah.

Nicola: 01:34:47

that's somewhere where I felt ecstasy.

Nicola: 01:34:50

and I think I, I'm someone who in really quiet little moments, like just lying in

Nicola: 01:34:56

bed in the morning with my husband and my cat, And just that bliss of just calm and

Nicola: 01:35:03

comfort, if there's something in that, that there's no stakes at play, that is an

Nicola: 01:35:10

ecstasy that I feel really conscious of.

Nicola: 01:35:13

And pretty much anytime I see a full note, moon, I can be going about my

Nicola: 01:35:17

night and it's oh my God, there's a full moon, and it really does overwhelm me.

Nicola: 01:35:22

It's, it feels deeply magical to catch it in that moment because I don't super

Nicola: 01:35:28

pay attention to the, I'm just noticing that I actually have a moonshot behind me.

Nicola: 01:35:32

But, I like it because of the aesthetic and because every now and then I do wanna

Nicola: 01:35:35

know, but for the most part, I don't actually pay that much attention to it.

Nicola: 01:35:40

I just like to feel the vibe of it.

Nicola: 01:35:42

but every now and then you just catch in.

Nicola: 01:35:43

It's oh my God, there you are.

Nicola: 01:35:45

And it's that, that to me is a little bit, a little bit special.

Boston: 01:35:57

That's today's episode.

Boston: 01:35:59

Thank you again to Nicola Scott for calling in all the way from Australia.

Boston: 01:36:04

and a huge thank you to our listeners.

Boston: 01:36:07

If you enjoyed the podcast, we hope you'll share it with your friends and leave us

Boston: 01:36:11

a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Boston: 01:36:13

For show notes, more information and mythic resources, visit us

Boston: 01:36:16

on the web at mythicpodcast.com.