The second story arc in Mia Goodwin’s acclaimed Tomboy from Action Lab Entertainment launches today, and while there’s blood and gore aplenty, it’s an opportunity for new readers to get their bearings and dive in.
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Ever since Goodwin handed me a copy of the series’ first issue at Comic Con International: San Diego last summer — months before the comic itself hit the stands outside of the convention walls — I’ve thought it was one of the best new series I’d read in years. The success of the first arc and the recently released Tomboy: Divine Intervention has put a spotlight on the title, a horror series with traces of superhero story, revenge thriller, and mystery built into its DNA.
Goodwin joined ComicBook.com for a short interview about the series and what audiences can expect from the next few issues.
What’s your pitch for those who haven’t yet read the series?
I like to think of it as Sailor Moon, if Sailor Moon was directed by Satoshi Kon and Usagi was played by the Punisher.
In all seriousness though, Tomboy is the story of a sixteen year old girl named Addison Brody who becomes a murdering vigilante after the death of a friend and may or may not be losing touch with reality–in more ways than one. At it’s core, Tomboy is a horror story with a slow build to what will hopefully be a truly disturbing finale.
What made you want to give away #1 for pay-what-you-want earlier this year?
Around the time issue 2 or 3 came out, we started finding Tomboy was being put up online on those free comic sites. I asked Action Lab Entertainment about it, but there’s not a whole lot you can do to get your content removed from those sort of sites due to the way they’re set up and all that. It’s unfortunately becoming part and parcel with the business right now. If it’s going to be out there as a free-to-read, however, I’d rather be the one giving it away myself as the creator, so I approached Action Lab and asked if we could give Issue #1 away and they were cool with it.
I’m over the moon when people are interested in the series and want to have access to it, and I have had several really sweet e-mails from people that were reading it on those other sites and came back to say they’d bought the trade just because they liked it that much–and I think that is really awesome, I can’t say thank you to those people enough. I won’t be the person that shames someone for using one of those sites, but I do think there’s this misconception that comic creators make a lot of money and that free-to-read is harmless.
To date, I haven’t received any money yet for Tomboy and, while I’m fortunate enough to have a day job that allows me to live and work, it’s a double edged sword as I can’t afford to devote all of my working time to the book as I can’t support myself on it.
Each issue is done in roughly 4-7 days time, not because I don’t want to spend more on it–I’d do nothing by draw comics all day if it was an option–but paying work and my day job have to take precedence. If I do another creator owned series again after Tomboy, it’ll probably be much shorter than twelve issues due to the amount of time it takes to put all of it together against the cost of living. While comics are definitely a labor of love for me: I like being able to afford to eat breakfast.
There was a really great article about this very issue recently that was going around, and it’s worth reading if you’ve never considered the issue before.
The first story arc is out in trade paperback now. For those who have read it, what can you tease about the next batch of issues?
If you’re looking for a happy ending, I wouldn’t recommend continuing on with issue 5.
Issue 6 is one of my favorites, though I expect not everyone will like where it goes. You might be surprised at what happens in issue 7 if you keep reading, though! We’ll also find out just what happened to Detective Vivaldi’s wife, Rose, and Detective Autry finally makes her debut.
You spend a fair amount of time focusing on the bad guys, while Addison kind of does her own thing in the background. What was into that decision?
Tomboy has a large cast of characters and everything comes circling back to Addison and who she is, even if she’s not on the page. Addison spends most of her time off screen murdering people, but that’s not what the story is about, so that’s not where I place the focus.
One of the major themes of the book has always been the question “What does it mean to be good?” and as such, there’s a lot of grey area in the majority of the cast. It’s something I really love about Raymond Chandler’s books–there’s no real black and white line to the characters. I want to make people feel uncomfortable rooting totally one way or another by the end.
Do you think, given her grandfather’s vigilante past, there’s a path to this becoming a more “traditional” superhero-style book?
I know there’s been some miscommunication that this is somehow a superhero book, but…it’s not. Tomboy is a horror book and I truly hope readers find the ending unsettling when we get there.
