VODKA O’CLOCK 1527 “WOMEN CREATING AWESOME”
PANEL RECORDED AT FLAMECON
AMBER LOVE 22-JUNE-2015 This was a discussion panel recorded at the first FlameCon in New York. I was thrilled to be asked to speak on the panel with JENNIE WOOD and moderated by JILL PANTOZZI. If you can support this effort, you can financially back or share the link to Patreon.com/AmberUnmasked.
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Jill Pantozzi is The Mary Sue’s Editor-in-Chief. Jennie Wood is a comic writer, novelist, and musician. If you’re here, you probably know who I am. I’m Amber and I cosplay, figure model, write fiction and nonfiction, and podcast. We discussed crowdfunding and our personal experiences doing that for charity and to support our creative works.
“I have a really hard time asking for help.” ~Jennie Wood
Within the crowdfunding discussion and later we talked about anthologies and what kinds of experiences you can expect from them. When crowdfunding, it’s usually beneficial for anthologies because every person involved should be promoting it to their own networks.
For some reason, probably the heat exhaustion and my slurring, it sounds like I said my RISE: COMICS AGAINST BULLYING collaborator was “Karen” but it’s CAROLYN BELEFSKI.
Jennie talked about how she found 215ink who publishes her graphic novel FLUTTER and also her novel A BOY LIKE ME. Jennie has been a guest on the Vodka O’Clock in the past so you can go back through the archives for more. (VOC 1301, VOC 1431, Review of A BOY LIKE ME)
CRITICISM
Jill had a great question asking how we deal with criticism. I approached it from a writing and cosplay perspective.
“I go into full brooding writer mode and think that I suck and that I should never write another thing ever again, but then the story comes out better.” ~Amber Love
CREATIVE INSPIRATION
Where do we get our inspiration? It’s a big question, but I was so happy to be asked this because I never got the opportunity to talk about my stories before. I interview other people and talk about their stories. Jennie has been on Vodka O’Clock a few times and does a lot of other appearances on panels, so she was well-rehearsed in how to answer this question.
For the story Carolyn and I did together in RISE, I was inspired by real news stories where girls and boys were seriously affected by sexting scandals. Having this opportunity to point out why I made the central figure of the story’s scandal an African-American girl was so important to me.
COSPLAY
We got to talk about the collaborations of making costumes and issues like cosplay elitism. I explained about how I started doing charity work with Comic Fusion because of how I started in cosplay and comics. Other examples in collaborations include when Jill and I work on her cosplay together.
Shout outs to the 501st!
MUSIC
Jennie talked about one her old bands, Heathers’ Damage, and how grassroots efforts in music prepared her for making comics. She has written a set of songs to accompany A BOY LIKE ME and they’re available on her site.
DIVERSITY
I got to speak my mind about Wonder Woman! I didn’t think anyone necessarily wanted to hear it, but was surprised by the support and enthusiasm of the audience.
Diversity is such a huge issue. I tried to give a little bit of time to some of the key areas that I get invested in like feminism, women in Hollywood, gay stories, body diversity not only in color and gender but also in size.
Shout outs to Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner for confirming Ivy and Harley’s non-monogamous relationship!
We got into the topic of characters being cast when race isn’t significant to their backstory and the cases where characters are whitewashed.
LINKS
SLIDES
The panel was supposed to have slides and for some reason they never got shown. So here’s what I had put together. I don’t have Jennie’s slides.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.