Steenz Quotes

When I first got the gig, Bianca Xunise was the only person to ever ask me what it’s like writing a main character that's white. And I was like, I don't know. The assumption is that it will be easier for me to write someone who was Black, because I'm Black. I definitely had that thought, of “What am I doing here?” If I'm going to be the one to create these characters, and figure out the landscape of this universe, I want to make sure that what I'm doing isn't unrealistic.

Sean Galloway, Chris Sanders, Dustin Nguyen, and Brittany Williams!

when someone’s like, “Design a black character,” well, what does that mean? That could mean literally anything.

I started reading regularly in 2008. I had grown up with the DC Animated Shows like Batman The Animated series, Justice League, and Superman, but didn’t get into reading comics till out of high school.

I would love to see more of us (women of color and other marginalized voices) in mainstream comics. When it comes to webcomics, we’re KILLING the game. Mildred Louis, Wendy Xu, Ariel Ries, Gisele Jaboteh, Shannon Wright, Bianca Xunise, I mean we’re knocking it out of the park. But when it comes to mainstream print, it’s different. I think in order for that to change we need more WOC writing and illustrating more than just other POC characters. Put one of us on Iron Man. Have a WOC creative team for Justice League. Let me see more of us writing for ALL characters and from that is where the growth begins.

It's all about visibility for me. It took me visually seeing another Black female doing the work for me to have my entire life changed. I always say yes to panels, yes to interviews, because I want to make sure that whoever is looking at the interview sees me. Then maybe kids will end up in a cartooning class saying, “I want to be like Steenz.”

I do like the idea that not only white people have to have adventures. So when you’re designing characters, who they are, what their ethnicity is like part of them, but it’s not everything.

one of my things that I like to do is – when I work in editorial – is find people who may not have had an opportunity to tell their stories before.

I definitely am very deliberate and strict when it comes to my schedule. So, while I was working on Archival Quality, the big bulk of it anyway, I was working at the library. And so that was still full-time work. So I would do eight hours at the library, come home, take a nap, wake up, get some dinner with my husband, and then work for four hours or four pages, whichever came first. And that’s how I worked for the majority of the time. And just making sure to stick to that schedule is a lot mentally, just because there are days where I’m like, “I never wanna draw ever again.” But it’s definitely worth it. And, once you get into that habit, it’s really easy to keep the train going.

you don’t want your stories to all be people who just have their shit together all the time. They need to be flawed because humanity is flawed. Everyone’s got problems, y’know? And I’m just really happy that we’re able to get that across sensitively to people. ’Cause we also didn’t want it to go too far to the other end where it’s like, oh, ’cause she has a mental illness she’s crazy. That’s not what we wanted to do.

As long as it’s on a calendar, it will get done.

I feel great about having won the Dwayne McDuffie for diversity because… me being black and her dealing with her mental health, like we’re writing stories from our own perspective. And, the more that you have people, marginalized folks, writing from their own perspective, you get more stories that have not really been done before. So, it’s exciting to see this version of mental health. It’s exciting to see this version of people of color, where they’re not really dealing with like microaggressions at the moment because like the building is haunted.

Pretty much everything in my life culminates into these characters. Brent, one of my favorite characters, is that annoying, weird kid who really is into anime. There's always that super weedy Black kid in every class, wearing one of those flame polyester button-downs, and all he wants to do is talk about who can beat Goku. This archetype exists everywhere, everyone has met this person, and yet I don't see it anywhere in media. I could not name a single character that acts like that. So I was like, I'm bringing that in.

anxiety and depression can also change how you see what people are doing and what they’re saying and what [they’re] actually meaning.

at the moment I’m completely obsessed with Kamala Khan.