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BISEXUAL WRITER ROXANE GAY TALKS TO JANE CZYZSELSKA ABOUT BEING THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN TO WRITE A COMIC BOOK SERIES FOR MARVEL

Described by Time magazine as “the gift that keeps on giving”, writer and academic Roxane Gay’s star has been on the rise since the publication of her novel, An Untamed State, in 2014. Bad Feminist, an insightful collection of essays published the same year, won praise for the way it tackled issues of race, gender and sexuality, and her eagerly anticipated new novel Hunger is released later this year. Busy? Yes. But somehow, Gay has found time to cowrite the new Black Panther comic series, describing it as “the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done”. DIVA caught up with her to find out more about being the first black woman to write a comic book series for Marvel, and what to expect from World Of Wakanda.

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DIVA: We were so excited to hear that Marvel had asked you to write World Of Wakanda, a spin-off of the Black Panther series. According to a study in Digital Spy, female characters make up just over 30% of the Marvel Universe and 31% of the DC Universe. They also tend to be good or neutral rather than evil, and male villains outnumber all female characters put together. How are you going to buck (and queer) this sorry trend?