The readers come to the comic with a pre-set notion of how the characters sound. This requires letter-perfect dialogue from the writer and plotting that doesn't seem out of character to the audience. Gail succeeded admirably well with both these aspects, while still remaining consistently funny. Stand-outs from Gail's tenure at Bongo include: "Maximum Bart!" from Bart Simpson #2, "Battle of the Boy Bands" from Bart Simpson #3, and "Tales From The Kwik-E-Mart" from Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror #8 (which will make you think twice about your beloved breakfast cereal mascot. *shudder*)
Her next project was a three-issue mini-series for Oni Comics called Killer Princesses. Coupled with the phenomenal writer/artist Lea Hernandez, it was a perfect match. The synergy between these two creators is obvious on every page of this comic. To this day, there has yet to be an artist that Gail has worked with that has complimented her writing style as well as Ms Hernandez. Killer Princesses is a wild action movie on paper that oozes with black humor. If you think of the Charlie's Angels movies (if they had a creative production team), then smack yourself upside the head with a gold brick wrapped in a slice of X-Men, you've about got it.
One of Gail's fans from her YABS days happened to be Joe Quesada, who obviously knows talent when he sees it. As Marvel Comics editor in chief, he extended her the offer of taking over their floundering Deadpool title. Gail jumped in with both feet, bringing Deadpool a relevant hipness and a return to black humor not seen since his Joe Kelley days. Five issues into her run, Deadpool was cancelled out from under her and she was asked to re-imagine the book from scratch. The result was Agent X, which was fun, but it wasn't the same Deadpool goodness. Gail left the series after seven issues over "creative differences" with the editor of the series.
I'm sure there's some juicy dish there somewhere, but Gail has been nothing but gracious about it in public. Though she would return a year later for three issues to wrap up the series which died in her absence, Gail would eventually sign an exclusive contract with DC, and to date she has yet to do anything more for Marvel.
Article comments
1 - spiralsheep
"the color purple (that's the color, not the Spielberg movie)"
You mean "The Color Purple" the world famous work of literature by Alice Walker? The world famous work of literature by Alice Walker which had a film adaption which was directed by Mr Spielberg. I'm assuming you've heard of the world famous author Alice Walker and your ascribing of her work to a man was merely an ironic slip-up on an article about a woman writer. Right?
2 - Dan Traeger
One comment and I get this bullshit. Fuckin' great! Okay look, nowhere in this article did I mention Alice Walker's amazing and yes, "world famous work of literature," The Color Purple. I was writing about the marvelous comics writer, "unfortunately not yet world famous," Gail Simone. I happened to reference as a humorous aside, the equally "world famous" movie adaptation of Ms. Walker's fine novel, and its "world famous" director, the "world famous" Steven fucking Spielberg. Never, ever put words in my mouth. I did not and never will ascribe Alice Walker's work to anyone other than herself, because I never mentioned her work at all. If I had written an article about Alice Walker, and had attributed the novel, The Color Purple, to Steven Spielberg, that would be an ironic slip-up (and stupid.) As it sits, I wrote an article about a damn fine writer, who happens to write comics, and happens to be female. Next time catch the spirit of the thing, enjoy it, and leave the nit-picking to people who actually pay attention.
3 - gnat
Calm the fuck down, Dan.
4 - Courtney Fifer
Grrrrrrr... must... not... bite... readers...