Off Panel #26: Comics, Kindness and Katniss with Shannon Watters

Shannon Watters – Editor at BOOM! Studios, heads of KaBOOM! and BOOM! Box, and co-writer/co-creator of Lumberjanes – joins the show to talk about her varying roles and what she looks for in comics. The conversation’s a sprawling one, and leads to discussion about all kinds of subjects, including the importance in casting on her books, how much she reads for her job (and in life), the power of characters, the tone and sensibilities of the books she works on, the importance of aspirational characters, the truth behind Katniss Everdeen, positive representation in comics, how they make Lumberjanes work, why she loves making comics for people of all ages, and much, much more. It’s a great and random conversation, and one that is very interesting for comic fans of all varieties.

You can find Shannon on Twitter and her work in Lumberjanes and plenty of other BOOM! Studios titles.

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Header art from Watters, Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis and Brooke Allen’s Lumberjanes. Intro music is Yo La Tengo’s “Periodically Double or Triple”, used with their permission (if they remember…I swear it’s true YLT!).