Kate Leth

Professions :

Artist

I have friends who practice witchcraft, and I study tarot myself. I guess, to be specific, I don't want to believe in a world without magic.

myself friends believe world

Honestly, before I started working at the comic shop, I was not a huge comic reader. I grew up reading 'Archie' and have an incredible love/hate relationship with Archie Comics. I got back into it when I started living with some roommates who were really comics fanatics.

roommates back reading relationship

I loved Tristan in Nancy Collins' run. I love Vampirella having a werewolf paramour; it's too fun. Coleridge had to come with them, of course, to set up her spooky new manor up in the hills of Los Angeles, and also because he's just a delight.

loved new fun love

Most of my favorite fictional couples are distinctly different. Light and dark, good and evil, boring and wild... whatever! They're more fun to experience and definitely more fun to write. You have all these levels, and you know they're not going to react to situations the same way.

good you experience light

The Valkyries were an idea that my boss and I came up with when, at the comic shop one day, I mentioned how great it would be if there were a girl gang for women working in comic shops.

day boss women girl

I have fond memories of all things Henson. I grew up on the stuff. My mom's a massive fan and made sure it was a part of my upbringing.

things up mom memories

When I was 14, 15, 16, I was wearing 'Edward Scissorhands' and 'Nightmare before Christmas' stuff. I saw 'Sleepy Hollow' a dozen times.

wearing before sleepy christmas

I am definitely a Tim Burton fan. I had seen 'Edward Scissorhands' enough times to know it by heart. That's exciting: to work on something you feel like you really get.

i-am you work heart

I'm a huge 'Nightmare before Christmas' fan, but that was also Henry Selick. I'm a really big fan of 'Sleepy Hollow.' I love 'Big Fish,' too, which is a bit different. There's a really cool era of early-Burton stuff like 'Ed Wood' that I'm a big fan of.

fish cool christmas love

I think a lot of 'Edward Scissorhands' was about the suburban world that Burton grew up in feeling like an outcast. I feel like there's no way it's not at least a little autobiographical from that standpoint. I always liked that.

feel feeling think world

The primary goal for me in doing a superhero series is to make it new-reader-friendly, so it might not be front-loaded with all this history, but you can be sure it will show up!

doing me you history

I love artists whose work feels animated! Matt Cummings, Ian McGinty, Jake Myler, Arielle Jovellanos, Drew Rausch, Zachary Sterling, Troy Little - I feel like most of the artists I've worked with have a lot of movement and life in their work.

feel work love life

I worked in a comic shop for five years, and the amount of titles I could excitedly recommend to teenage girls was pretty abysmal for awhile.

pretty comic five years

I hope 'Hellcat' is picked up again in years to come by people who realize just how queer it is: not just in its characters but its sensibility.

realize how hope people

I would not be in comics if it weren't for independent creators like Kate Beaton, Jess Fink, and Emily Carroll. That's where I found my start and inspiration, through women who did it themselves and built a career on their own terms.

career own start women

Nobody's made an impact like Raina Telgemeier or Kate Beaton. I think that indie creators, people making webcomics and graphic novels, are the ones to watch.

nobody think impact people

I knew I wanted to do comics, but I wasn't sure what they were about or what I wanted them to be about.

knew them sure about

I still tell a lot of jokes and do a lot of funny comics, but the stuff I like best is the personal stuff. I will still occasionally talk about my job and retail, but it evolved.

will best job funny

There are things that I don't like to talk about directly. There are relationships that I am in and have been in that I've written about in a slightly more abstract way, talking about how it affected me but not so much dealing with the other people involved.

i-am me people way

I like all of the books I work on to be ones you can pick up without knowing the entire history of the character, because then, not only can you enjoy it as is, but it encourages you to look into the history of that character and their world.

you work character history

Burton Silverman

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Conner

Brom

Britney Spears

Brigid Berlin

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