A fan-favorite comic book hero and writer are soaring to comic book success.
At Emerald City Comicon we talked with rising star Jody Houser following huge news:
Just before the Seattle event Valiant Entertainment announced Faith, her four-part limited series was becoming an ongoing title then Houser was announced as writer of a new book in a DC Comics imprint.
It’s the superstar rise of Valiant’s Faith that’s earning Houser huge attention from fans and the industry.
Faith Herbert is the breakout character from the pages of Harbinger who launched into solo stardom this past January. The sold-out Faith #1 is going to be reprinted for a fifth time and the limited series becomes an ongoing book in July. The plus size superhero continues to win new readers and mainstream attention making her a pop culture phenomenon.
The double shot of exciting career news comes as fans packed panels at the Seattle event to hear the writer talk about Faith, body diversity in books and her “first year in comics” as one panel was dubbed. I asked her about the old saying, how many years does it take to become an overnight sensation?
Houser: “People keep asking when I got into comics. There really isn’t a straight answer for that. I started doing web comics over ten years ago. I did my first anthology work about five years ago. I had my first paying job around three and a half years ago. I had my first full issue last year. So it’s not so much as a breaking in …now you’re in comics…it’s very much a process to get to where you want to be.”
Houser contributed to Womanthology, the massive anthology of stories all by women powered by Kickstarter. Houser’s rise included a S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary One-Shot for Marvel starring The Cavalary aka Agent Melinda May and a comic based on the cult television series Orphan Black.
Faith Herbert aka Zephry is a member of the teen heroes from the Harbinger book who can relate to her readers. Faith runs to the comic book shop, quotes cult sci-fi television series and is trying to make a living in Los Angeles all while using her “psiot” powers to be a superhero. And Faith is a plus-size young woman.
I asked Houser why she took on this character and what’s behind the massive success of the book.
Houser: “I wanted to write Faith because of the character she is and the representation aspect was important to me but at the end of the day you have a have a character who is strong enough and rich enough to back that up, because you’ll bring in readers for the first issue but if there just isn’t enough there to hold their interest they’re not going to buy a second one. So for me, I think I lot of people were super excited to see a character like Faith and then they read the book and they saw what a great character she is, I mean I had so much to work with from Joshua Dysart’s run on Harbinger. You know he built her up to who she was so I’m really just taking a character who’s already great and taking them in a new direction and seeing how they handle things and just the fact that so many people connected with that story it’s just been really gratifying.”
As the fan-favorite heroine went solo starting a new life, Houser wanted to give Faith closure with her past, including her teen romance with fellow Harbinger teammate Torque.
Houser: “I wanted to make the book approachable to new readers but at the same time you didn’t want to lose the fact that she’s part of a larger universe and has this history to her. So I think seeing the results of the loss of her boyfriend that she walked out on because they were going in different directions and just seeing where they end up. In the end they both sort of got what they wanted. Torque got his reality show. And Faith has her superhero life. But again, getting what you want isn’t necessarily a good thing as we’re seeing in Torque’s case specifically.” House explained, “They’re in the same city. It’s not like they’re never gonna see each other even as big as L.A. is. It’s gonna happen so you just don’t want to ignore that but you don’t want to hinge the story on her past. You just want it to be part of what makes her a richer character.”
Faith defies what most of the world sees as a female comic book superhero. One of the only plus-size characters leading her own book gained mainstream media attention and debate. What do you call Faith? Plus-size? Body positive? Is the success of Faith leading to an era where the description of her appearance eventually won’t matter?
Houser: “For me at the end of the day, the fact that she has the body she has is an aspect of her. It’s not the whole of her. And as a writer working with the artist you want to make sure the artist are contributing as much as they can to the story…so really that aspect of the story is being told with the art a lot more than the writing. And Frances Portela and Marguerite Sauvage have been doing an amazing job. They don’t hide her size at all. She is who she is in every single panel in the art. So I don’t really need to address it that much in the writing because that’s part of the story that the artists tell. Francis sadly can’t be on the ongoing but we’re getting Pere Perez who I’m excited to see what he brings to the character.”
It feels like the success of characters like Faith, Squirrel Girl and Kamala Khan signal a new chapter in female comic book superheroes. How does Houser want to be part of the creative shift and why does she think it’s happening.
Houser: “I think we’re in an interesting time in comics because a lot of the people who grew up reading manga are making their way into the industry. I started with superhero comics when I was a kid and I started reading manga a few years later so superhero comics have always been my jam but I feel like manga definitely influenced me. And everyone and their mother watched Sailor Moon in the 90’s so I think everyone that’s where some of this is coming from. I think people are responding to that because they also come from that world. So I think I don’t think it’s that they’re trying to push different takes, it’s just the influences making their way into the industry. And I definitely think that the industry is becoming more aware of female readers who’ve always been there. I’ve always been reading comics since 1993. When I was growing up the only people I thought reading comics were girls. I didn’t know guys who read comics. So I think that the industry is finally recognizing that this group of readers is a large segment of the population who wants to get into comics. Comics is such a niche industry. You definitely want to make sure that anyone who has an interest in comics that there’s a book for them.”
Now that Faith is becoming a monthly series, Houser revealed what she has planned for the hero.
Houser: “I definitely want to build up more of her life in L.A., her supporting cast but I also want to throw a lot of fun “challenges” at her because again she wants to be a superhero. I’m gonna give you what you wish for a see how you do it.”
In the store shelves packed with dark, tortured brooding lead characters, part of what makes Faith so appealing is that she’s a fangirl who truly wants to be an inspiring hero.
Houser: “And I love the fact that because she reads superhero comics that is where she comes from. She’s like, I want to be like Superman, Spider-Man and Wonder Woman. I’m sure every week she’s going to a comic shop not so secretly mentioned in the first issue and she’s picking up comics when they comes out. She is the one who is reading these books then modeling who she wants to be and her moral core. She’s looking at superheroes and everything they can be and trying to instill the most positive qualities out of that. I think that’s what really makes her a fun character.”
Valiant is developing Harbinger and Bloodshot as part of a potential feature film franchise. I asked Houser the one thing filmmakers must get right as Faith soars from comic books to cinema.
Houser: “Treat her as a serious character. Don’t make her a punch line. Don’t make her a joke. Give her the respect she deserves as a member of the team.”
With a devoted, ever-growing fan base and creators like Houser guiding her course, Faith is breaking records, breaking stereotypes, shaping the industry and may one day help breaking box-office records.
Faith #1 – the fifth printing and Faith #4 – the final issue of the limited series arrive April 27th. Readers can relive the first adventure in the Faith: Hollywood and Vine trade collection in July then get ready for the Faith ongoing series to begin July 20th.
Houser will write Mother Panic, a mature readers book set in Gotham City that’s part of DC Young Animal, a just announced imprint under the leadership of Gerard Way. Mother Panic arrives this Fall but for now it’s the summer of Faith, as the Valiant Universe heroine flies higher.
By Editor