"I am so bored. Bored with all this "what-a-female-character-has-to-be" stuff. Can't have an evil thought or a skimpy costume or a selfish motive or big breasts. Can't be submissive (that's sexist), and can't fight back (that's reverse sexism). Can't have any kind of fault or personal failing that might serve to make her interesting, because she has to serve as a role model. Can't have, in other words, a personality.
Let's face it... even in "real life," there are some women who'll piously turn the other cheek, some who'll slug you back, and others who'll enjoy that slap just a little too much (Am I in trouble now?). And, women characters come in as many sizes, colors, and varieties as the men do. Besides, comic-book characters are supposed to be extreme. They're not just sweet or manipulative or violent. They're achingly sweet, or MACHIAVELLIAN, or psychotically violent. I'm a pretty decent and fair-minded female, and not too bad a role model, but who'd wanna read about what goes on in my day-to-day life? "Elaine got up. She drove her son to school and rode the exercycle for half an hour. She did the changes on VAMPS #3 and faxed them to Stuart. She ate soup for lunch." Boring.
Everybody knows that bad girls make the most interesting characters. Even my sweet old granny knew that. My granny read her Bible every night. She liked to read me stories from the Bible, and her very favorite stories were the ones about Jezebel, and Delilah, and Salome (pronounced Suh-LOW-mee in Southernese)... those ancient Biblical bad girls. Though she'd never confess to it, I think she saw, as I did, a kind of strength in those women. I remember, as a child, nabbing my granny's silk scarves, and spinning about her house in a pint-sized version of the Dance of the Seven Veils. "They'll bring me heads on silver platters," I dreamed, "I'll grow large breasts and have the power to cloud men's minds!"
I never did grow those breasts, but I can own some for the length of time it takes me to read an issue of CATWOMAN. And, every morning I sit down to work on the latest VAMPS script, I cry, "BRING ME HEADS!" and damned if they don't!
Every nasty thought, evil impulse, or catty remark I ever choked down in my thirty-plus years has put on flesh, hopped on a Harley, and come alive in the pages of VAMPS. Sure, it's violent (It's about vampires. They eat folks, remember?), but I'm hoping that it's also sexy, exciting, horrific and heartwrenching! And, I'm hoping that you think so, 'cause I sure have had fun writing it! More fun than power-flirting, or watching Bette Davis and Joan Crawford cloud men's minds on the silver screen. More fun than dancing in Granny's scarves!
Does this mean I'm advocating vampirism as a lifestyle? Heck no! I'm a mommie, after all. I just want you to imagine it... slip it on and roll around in it a while... just for the time it takes to read that issue.
And, if you want a role model... read WONDER WOMAN. I do."
--- Elaine Lee. Originally published in the Vertigo column "On the Ledge" as featured in VAMPS #1, August 1994
