I have some news. DC Comics news.
DC Comics announced its Pride lineup for this June, and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a heaping helping of yours truly! Galaxy: The Prettiest Star is the headliner here, still coming out May 17th (preorder, if you haven’t already). Here’s the blurb:
In the book market and available everywhere books are sold, Galaxy: The Prettiest Star from writer Jadzia Axelrod and artist Jess Taylor will publish on May 17 to introduce entirely new characters to DC’s pantheon of heroes. DC can’t wait for you to meet Taylor, the Galaxy Crowned! It takes strength to live as your true self, and one alien princess disguised as a human boy is about to test her power!
Just in case it wasn’t clear, Taylor, the girl who will become the superhero Galaxy, is trans. We get all sci-fi and metaphorical with it, which I think confuses the marketing people, but the short version is Taylor is trans. She grew up as a boy, with a boy’s body, but her true identity is a girl. She’s also queer, and her romance with Kat, the cool girl from Metropolis is the lion’s share of the book.
I still can’t believe this is coming out from the Superman people. What a time to be alive.
In addition to all that, on May 7, you can pick up an excerpt of Galaxy for FREE! That’s right, on Free Comic Book Day, a little slice of Galaxy will be available completely gratis! DC is only doing three FCBD comics, so the fact that one of them is Jess Taylor and my gay little baby is still hard to believe.
Speaking of Jess, how beautiful is this interior art for Galaxy?
The whole book is like this! Jess just killing it on every page.
But that’s not the only Pride-based news I have to share! DC is doing another Pride anthology of LGBTQIA+ creators telling short stories of LGBTQIA+ characters, and I got asked to write a new story with Batgirl and her best friend Alysia Yeoh!
Alysia Yeoh is a queer trans woman created by Gail Simone and Ardian Syaf back in 2011. This bit from Batgirl #10 sums her up pretty well:
She’s an activist and a rabblerouser and I love her. And to be able to write actual Batgirl dialogue felt like something I’ve been training for my entire life.
Illustrating my first foray into the Bat-mythos (but hopefully not the last) is the incomparable Lynne Yoshii. It kills me that I can’t show you the JAW-DROPPING art Lynne is doing. In addition to drawing what is now the archetypal Batgirl in my eyes, she gave Alysia a PERFECT gay haircut, which, as you all know, is very important to me. She also put in a Schumacher reference I asked for, because she’s an angel.
This is all to say, I am continuing on my mission to make comics gayer.
Good luck with the dragon.