Nicola Scott - Celebrating Wonder Woman and Making Historia - Mythic

Episode Transcript
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Boston (00:18):
Hello and welcome to Mythic.
This episode of Mythic is a WonderWoman Love Fest because my guest today
is one of the greatest artists everto draw Wonder Woman, Nicola Scott.
This year saw the release of Wonder WomanHistoria, the Amazons from DC Comics.

(00:41):
It's a history of the Amazons,about their time before they arrived
on Themyscira or Paradise Island.
It was written by Kelly Sue Deconnick,and last week, the three issue series
has been collected as a hard cover.
It is unquestionably NicolaScott's best work to date, and

(01:02):
it's the best comic I've ever read.
Hands down.
In the last third of this episode,Nicola and I dissect scenes and
explore mythic themes from the book.
That part is loaded withspoilers, so heads up.
But before we get to that point,Nicola shares her own origin story,
which is amazing-- how she rose froma Wonder Woman and mythology fan

(01:23):
who had never read a comic book toeventually teaming up with Greg Rucka
to celebrate Wonder Woman's 75thAnniversary with Wonder Woman Rebirth.
She also shares stories from the timethat Wonder Woman was a real world
honorary ambassador to the United Nations.
I've written a little bit about thatmyself, and it's an interesting story.

(01:43):
Nicola did the artwork for thatcampaign, and her frontline
insights are really interesting.
ready to dive in?
Let's go.
Nicola Scott, thank you so muchfor being on the Mythic podcast.

(02:04):
I am delighted to have you.
I am admittedly fanboyinga little bit right now.
you, You drew the third issue of WonderWoman Historia, the Amazons that has come
out, and it is absolutely breathtaking.
I know you're seeing the reviewsthat are singing your praises, and
it's, it really is a master work.

(02:28):
It uses mythology in such beautiful andinteresting ways, and I am, I'm so excited
to discuss myth and comics with you today.
Can we start with your origin story?

Nicola (02:42):
Oh gosh.
My origin story in general isvery related to Wonder Woman.
and not just comic specific, she's seepedinto my d n a when I was young, right
at that early becoming a person point.
I think I was about four when theLynda Carter TV series started
playing out on television here.

(03:02):
And it just hit me in a way that nothingpreviously had seeped into my psyche.
She was my introduction to superheroes.
She was my, introduction to the ideaof mythology, even though the TV show
doesn't really go into it terribly much,it laid a little bit of groundwork for me.

(03:23):
So that, I did find myself alongwith my discovery of superheroes,
found myself sort of alsodiscovering, the ancient Greek tales.
And that opened up a new world forme and in my early teen years, I
think I was in year seven, whenI did a school paper on witches.

(03:44):
that evolved my sense of, mythology andmagic and how all of these things related.
And I think I understood that therewere, there was a bit of a crossover.
I don't know that I really fullyplayed with the idea in my head,
but this idea of oracles and, andhow they related to a woman with a

(04:06):
crystal ball or someone looking intotea leaves or, all of those things,
they all felt a little similar to me.
and as I learned more of this stuff, Istarted to realize how much of it related
to Wonder Woman in my own personal way.
I wasn't really a comicbook reader as a kid.
but there was this point where Ithink I was in my late teens and

(04:29):
I had a weekend job and one of theguys that I worked with, he was

Boston (04:34):
had hold up.
You had a wiccan job.

Nicola (04:37):
Weekend,

Boston (04:38):
A weekend

Nicola (04:39):
weekend.
I wish it was a wiccan weekend

Boston (04:42):
Like I was like, I need more context.
Got it Got it.

Nicola (04:46):
Oh my God.
No, I wish there was one ofthose jobs for me in my past.
he was a big comic book fan andhe introduced me to what was
happening in that mid to lateeighties era, the post-crisis era.
And I got to read George Perez'sWonder Woman run, and that solidified

(05:09):
the connection of mythology andWonder Woman together for me.
That was me realizing that it wasn'tjust me connecting some dots, that it
was built into the character and thiswas the first retelling that was really
diving into that and celebrating it.
and from somewhere in there,whenever I would draw Wonder Woman

(05:30):
for myself, cuz I still didn'tsee myself as comic book artist.
but I was always drawing Wonder Woman asI grew up and always drawing superheroes.
But from that point on, when I wasdrawing Wonder Woman, I draw a little
circle around the star on her tiara.
So it was like a pentagram.

Boston (05:43):
Oh, that is too cool.

Nicola (05:45):
Yeah.
I thought, because I knew pentagramwas A protection spell, and I just
thought, I'm just going to do that.
So for like up until I started at DCComics, every time I drew Wonder Woman,
she had a circle around her star.
And and I wasn't able to continuethat once I started at the company.
And I did play with the idea ofreintroducing it at some point.

(06:06):
But by the time I was actually gettingthe chance to do my version of Wonder
Woman, we'd already started Greg Ruckaand I had already started Black Magic
and I didn't want to be that overt,with the same writer artist team.
I'd already made Rowan purposefullylook quite a lot like Diana or

(06:27):
really quite a lot like Lynda Carter

Boston (06:29):
I wondered about that.
She does.

Nicola (06:32):
From the very beginning I, when I was designing Rowan, I was thinking, I wa
I have to draw this face all day, all day,every day for as long as the series runs.
What do I want her to look like?
And somewhere I was just like, I wishI could just draw her as Lynda Carter.
And I was like, I'm totally gonnadraw as Lynda Carter, cuz Lynda's got
those really beautiful, soulful eyes.
And I was like, that'd be perfect.
I just need to jazz her up a bit.

Boston (06:56):
Oh, it is so cool to hear that through line that the Chi the Chira and
that Lynda Carter has been cast as Rowanin these, in the Black Magic comics.
That's

Nicola (07:04):
head.
Absolutely.

Boston (07:05):
makes perfect sense.
It, and if I, so if we back up a moment,
I am intrigued because first ofall, astonished at how parallel
our journey is with Wonder Woman.
I was about the same age, similarexperience with George Perez and
seeing, oh, this is a mythologicalworld that she inhabits.
This is her religion, herspirituality, her roots.

(07:28):
she's a product
of the gods in this way.
as you were really weaving thesethings together, like how, what was the
importance of the connection betweenmythology and Wonder Woman for you?

Nicola (07:40):
I think it just it elevated her away from.
the Superman su, Superman is inhimself, the archetype of a superhero.
And there's something reallyprofound about his story.
The same goes with Batman, and Ifeel like they, they have had their

(08:03):
stories, particularly their originstories reexamined over and over again
with people adding, not necessarilydifferent story beats, but certainly
flavor and perspective and contextthat have enriched those stories.
And I always felt like Wonder Woman'sstory just never really got that

(08:23):
kind of, constant reexamination.
And so for me, understanding those,connections really cemented her as
something very different to them, thatshe wasn't just a female Superman,
and she wasn't just a DC CaptainAmerica, that she was this wholly,

(08:47):
unique person and the fact of her,Amazon origin and the mythology behind.
The even back then the idea of theconcept of how the DC Amazons were
created and the hints of Amazon'swithin, the Odyssey and the Iliad.

(09:09):
those things really felt like it reallyexpansive world building that she might
be connected in some of these ways.
And because they're magic related andbecause they're, historically related,
it really enriched my sense of her andcoming from a family which is reasonably

(09:31):
large and almost entirely female, addedto my sense of relating to this character.
I'm the youngest of three girlsand we grew up with our cousins
who are also three girls.
And, I, it's our mothers who are connectedand really the only men in the family

(09:53):
that I, we didn't spend time with likemy father's, fa side of the family or
my cousin's dad's side of the family.
It was all this maternal mix of likeloud, bossy, As I saw powerful women,
being the youngest, they all seemedreally powerful and impressive to me.

(10:13):
And

Boston (10:14):
up in an Amazon nation.

Nicola (10:16):
100%.
And as Diana is the child of that nation,and I was by father, the youngest,
like my five sisters and cousins,there's about four years in between
the five of them, age bracket wise.
And then there's six yearsbef until me, so I'm quite a
bit younger than the others.

(10:36):
And so I got to grow up being theirtoy essentially, their sidekick and
their toy I got to be that the babyin the world of all these women.
And that helped merelate to Diana as well.
So there were all of these thingsthat just solidified and, added

(10:57):
so much flavor to my understandingof who this character is.

Boston (11:02):
One way I work with mythology in my coaching practice
is I operate under the assumptionthat we are all living out a myth.
the reason these stories transcendgenerations and centuries and millennia
is because we are living the samestories over and over again in a million
different shapes, an infinite numberof different shapes, and what you're
describing like that something aboutyour life, this resonance with Wonder

(11:26):
Woman, and if you, whether you're,whether it's, I don't know, whether it's
destiny or resonance or just somethingthat draws you forward, you became
one of the number of PE of people whohave drawn Wonder Woman in the main
title is what, probably under 50

Nicola (11:49):
However.

Boston (11:51):
ever in 80 years.
I dunno.
The main, on the main title,

Nicola (11:53):
really thought about it like that.
Yeah, maybe.

Boston (11:57):
maybe definitely under a hundred.
And you have, so of all the peopleand all the jobs on the planet, you
found this

Nicola (12:06):
one of those people

Boston (12:08):
And that it's something.
And your love of Dianais so clear in your work.
And so what, so how did you get there?
How did you thread that needlefrom I love Wonder Woman comics.
Mythology's really cool andI wanna draw Wonder Woman.

Nicola (12:24):
Well, I pursued it, but it, there was a delay in my pursuit of it.
like I said, I didn't grow up with comicbooks, but I did grow up with superheroes
because, in the seventies there werea lot of superhero, either reruns or
cartoons or TV shows or movies happening.
And a lot of them were DC related.
So Lynda Carter was my first, butit opened the door to me discovering

(12:46):
like the Batman reruns, theSuperman fifties TV show reruns.
There was a sixties Superman cartoon.
There was the Super Friends, whichwas invaluable cuz it taught me that
these characters knew each other.
that two man Batman and Wonderfulwoman and Aquaman and Robin and all
these characters that they relatedto each other in one way or another.

(13:08):
And that was very interesting to me.
But there are also thingslike the Shazam and Isis hour,
Electra Woman and Dyna Girl,

Boston (13:14):
yeah.

Nicola (13:14):
all of these things that just really solidified my love of superheroes.
But I was also always deeply, allof the superheroines were the ones
that I absolutely, deeply related to.
Like Batman and Robin were great fun.
But an episode with Catwoman in was somuch better as soon as Batgirl started.
I know the show now as anadult it isn't quite as good.

(13:37):
It isn't quite as exciting.
But her arrival for me asa kid was mind splitting.
That outfit was to die for.
Her little back girl closet with thespinning wall was like blowing my mind.
It was like, how do I get that in my life?
I was making out of cardboardlike, back girl secret closet

(13:58):
style things with spinning wallsout of cardboard for my dolls.
just absolutely li living for it.
And so I drew superheroes a lot, butI didn't really connect with comic
books cuz even when I would seethem on the newsstand, this is pre
specialty stores when I was little,when I'd see them on the newsstand,

(14:20):
I would more likely see like a MarvelHulk or Thor or something like that.
And it would be very Kirby esque art.
And that all looked veryforeign to me, very brutal, very
masculine, very unappealing, tomy young and uneducated eyes.
but on the very rare occasion I wouldsee, like Superman or Wonder Woman on

(14:44):
the cover or I remember seeing a JusticeLeague comic and thinking Justice
League that's like the Super Friendsweren't, they call the Super Friends.
What, who were the Justice Leagueand flipping through and seeing Green
Arrow and Black Canarian thinking,who the fuck are these people?
I dunno who these people are.
And so I just, it didn'tfeel like it was for me.
And even when I would see Wonder Womanin there, and I remember once seeing

(15:09):
a Wonder Woman comic and flippingthrough it and there was some Amazon
stuff in there, which was the mostinteresting to me but because it didn't
feel like the TV show and it didn'tlook like the TV show and the costume
wasn't as precious about the detailsas I was about the TV show details.
I didn't understand that thecomics were the source material.

(15:30):
it was just another medium in whichthis character that I had this
affinity for was taking place.
And so it just wasn't for me.
And it wasn't until those lateeighties comics that I got to read
through that I felt like, oh thisGeorge Perez story, this is for me.
And I did read all of that.

(15:50):
And then when he left, I reada little bit of when Jill
Thompson took over on the art.
And I think I read alittle bit beyond that.
But then I just opted out.
I was just oh, it's, it'sfeeling very superhero.
We now, it's blending into theworld that's full of all these
characters that I don't know.
I'm less interested than I hadbeen, and so I just stopped reading

Boston (16:12):
you're speaking to that I think is really interesting because
Wonder Woman, I don't know if this istrue of all superheroes, but Wonder
Woman seems to work best when sheis not part of the greater DCU in my
humble but accurate opinion.
the, that era that George Perez era,and I'm gonna, summarize here for some

(16:35):
people who may not be reading comics.
George Perez reinvented Wonder Womanafter, after she was killed in The
Crisis on Infinite Earths, this, DC widereboot that happened in the mid eighties.
And when.
George Perez, who we, who sadly passedaway last year, retooled Wonder Woman.

(16:55):
He really rooted herin classical mythology.
The original stories from the1940s, Aphrodite and Athena
were the Amazon religion.
But now you had Zeus and Hera andAphrodite and the whole Pantheon
and Wonder woman was steeped inthis Greek mythological world.

(17:17):
And the DC and the other, the superfriends were nowhere to be seen.
She had her own supporting cast.
She was part of a family systemin the United States, and she had
her sister, Amazon's back home.
And it was a really unique time.
So now with that context, so somethingin that story spoke to you and I,
this is another place that I relate.

(17:37):
I remember seeing the DC the WonderWoman number one on the spindle rack.
in my, the first time I hadbeen to a proper comic shop.
And I, and I wonder womannumber one, what's happening?
How can it be starting over?
And I remember there was nomagic lasso in the first issue,
and I was ridiculously upset.

(17:58):
There was, I was like, whatever,10, there needs to be a magic lasso.
And I was worried theyweren't going to introduce it.
But I remember I, thatwas holy scripture for me.
I read those comics with thisintensity, and I'm wondering what
it was that captured you to divein and then to leave when it went.

(18:22):
Superhero E.

Nicola (18:24):
The first issue of that run that I saw, because I just was, I
think I was just having lunch withthis guy and a few other people, but
he was pulling out his comics thathe'd just picked up that morning.
And the first issue that I saw of thatrun, I think it was issue seven, it was.
The aftermath of her defeating Ares.

(18:48):
And it started with her ina very damaged situation.
And the healing waters of, Themysciraare doing their magic on her.
And the cover of that issue is Diana inher Wonder Woman suit in this mythical

(19:08):
bubble of water, all of this watersurrounded by the full pan of the gods
on this very Escher like, Olympus.
And just seeing all of these characterswith Wonder Woman in the middle was just
like, what the fuck is happening here?
It was so much, It was sobeyond any version of Wonder

(19:29):
Woman that I had seen before.
But because it was surrounded by allof these characters that I also knew,
I just hadn't put together that allof these characters were relevant
some way or another could be relevant.
And there they all were.
And I was like, how, what is happening?
How is this happening?
And he was like, oh, this is theaftermath of the first story.

(19:51):
And I'm like, I need totrack down that first story.
And so I did slowly butsurely, find the back issues.
of course I didn't know how to findback issues, but, it, it took me a
little bit, but I found the issuesand then I started buying it monthly.
and it was that mythology.
It was that really nonsuperhero storytelling.
her life in Americawas very non superhero.

(20:13):
the idea of Steve and Etta being inthe story was really fascinating to me.
Cause I remembered Etta from the firstseason of the TV show and just how I,
I did feel that there was a differencewhenever Wonder Woman was introduced
to other superheroes that like, therewas a particular issue where she's
meeting everybody and it's that didn'tfeel right that she should be the new

(20:34):
girl in town when there's all of thesecharacters because she feels too deeply
unique and original, that she shouldhave been around long before all of these
other people who were inspired by her.
And from that moment, I knew intrinsicallythis is an immortal character.

(20:55):
Why hasn't her storystarted so much earlier?
she could have been WonderWoman at the Trojan War.
I came up with this origin story in myhead that maybe the reason why the Amazons
had left the mainland and gone to theisland was how gross and brutal the Trojan

(21:17):
War was and how that had affected them.
And that was that Diana competing inthe contest to represent the Amazons
as, part of her traditional origin storywas her representing the Amazons to
com to participate in the Trojan War.

(21:38):
and that it was the violence and brutalityof that just made the Amazons go, oh, fuck
all you guys, we need to get out of here.
Sorry, I keep swearing a lot.
I'm Australian.
Am I allowed to swear on

Boston (21:50):
bring it.
Oh, absolutely.
I'm oddly not so far, but.
It's
normal for the podcast.

Nicola (21:55):
pH.
Alright.
and so that, that to me feltlike a really plausible origin.
I liked the idea that she wasprobably thousands of years old.
I liked the idea that she might havecome out for World War ii, like her
original origin, that might havebeen her first venture back into,
the outside world and participatedin the war, helped win the war.

(22:20):
And then once again, when it wentnuclear, right at the end of the war
was like, Oh God, you people are awful.

Boston (22:29):
Yeah.
I'm outta

Nicola (22:30):
I helped this and now I need to get outta here again cuz I
just dunno how to deal with this.

Boston (22:36):
there's something interesting because Wonder Woman is
this, I mean, she's 80 years old.
She's been,
she has been around since World WarII, and there was this emergence,
she pop, she pops into the scene atthis moment in world history, but in
American history where there's all ofthis agitation and there's this moment
where the role of women needs to changefor global and national interest.

(23:01):
And I maintained that Wonder Womanwho only worked because, or was
only able to grow as famous as shewas, she outsold Superman because.
America needed her.
Like they needed her juice
so that

Nicola (23:15):
100%.

Boston (23:16):
had a model.
We can leave our island home to gointo the workforce and we can go
like, this is our role in the war.
And then the men come back,they go back to their jobs.
Most women also go back intothe home and we get that creepy
1950s Stepford Wives thing.
but then you fast forward about 40years and we get to the 1970s, and

(23:39):
once again, women are exploding.
Another generation of women is explodingin their quest for liberation and
freedom.
Wonder Woman is there and immediatelyjumps to the front of the pack
with Lynda Carter, and again,she's this icon for a movement

Nicola (23:56):
Even pre that with Gloria Steinems, putting Wonder Woman
on the cover of issue one of Ms.
Magazine at a time when WonderWoman had been completely de
powered, wasn't in costume.
she was like a generic ninja lady,

Boston (24:10):
Who owned a boutique?
It was weird.

Nicola (24:13):
oh God, save us all.
You know?
I'm sure it was a lot of fun, but itdidn't at all speak to the character.
It was just somebody else.
And it was under the pressure from GloriaSteinem wanting to put Wonder Woman back
on the cover, that the comics repoweredher and put her back in the outfit.
And on the power of that, that theLynda Carter series was green lit.

Boston (24:35):
Yeah, and then Wonder Woman enjoys three years of massive popularity.
Again, the eighties happened,massive consumerism.
Wonder Woman, once again, along withsuperheroes in general like that,
the interest goes away andyou fast forward again.
And so when I started doing my moreintense Wonder Woman work in 2011, nobody

(24:58):
knew or cared anything about Wonder Woman.
It was nothing.

Nicola (25:03):
did a, I did a panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2016.
And it was the 75thanniversary of the character.
it was a 75th anniversary panel and I hadbeen asked to do it like two days earlier.
because at the time I wasworking on the Wonder Woman

(25:25):
Year one series with Greg Rucka.
And as a female creator working onthe character in that anniversary
year, it felt really appropriate.
And then I was told like the daybefore, so you're gonna be doing the
panel with Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot.
And I'm like, what blow my mind?
And one of the things that Pattyand I discussed on the panel, I

(25:48):
brought it up as a feeling that Ihad been having that Patty was like,
yes, I'm recognizing that as well.
Is that only a couple of years earlier,Wonder Woman had felt like this
incredibly old fashioned, irrelevantcharacter that I still loved, but
the world just had moved on from,that she just wasn't there anymore.

(26:12):
But I think part of that buildingmomentum of the re commercialization
of superheroes, and this conceptthat Wonder Woman was coming to the
cinema was starting to remind peoplethat Wonder Woman's the origin point.
She's like the epicenter ofyou know, of superheroines.
But also that she is this character that,apart from the original, suffragette

(26:39):
movement, she has been one of the primaryrepresentatives of every wave of feminism
since, that World War II wave of feminism,that second wave, seventies feminism, and
here we were on our third wave of feminismthat had really already kicked into gear.
Slowly but surely with the internet andsocial media galvanizing women's speech

(27:04):
and women's groups and women's voices.
and absolutely Wonder Woman shouldbe re representing us because she
stands for all of those things.
And so I brought this up in thepanel and Patty was like, absolutely.
And we felt like we were ridingthis wave of our favorite
character rising to the top again.
And I feel the release of thatfirst Wonder Woman movie was where

(27:28):
Crescendoed, she was suddenly, thewhole world was like, oh my God.
That's right.
That character is amazing and this is why.

Boston (27:36):
Yes.
And that moment, that g that galvanizingmoment, so in, in the United States,
Voldemort is elected president, wewere ready for the year of women.
We all thought Hillary Clintonwas gonna be president.
There was this movement of enthusiasmaround this rise in power of women.
And then we get this, everythingjust goes batshit crazy

(27:59):
and people are traumatized and confused.
And I remember when Wonder Woman cameout was their opening night, of course.
And Yeah.
where else would

Nicola (28:09):
you there at the premier?
I was

Boston (28:10):
Oh God.
No.
No.
Oh I was not at the premier.
no.
I don't

Nicola (28:13):
went to opening night as well, but because I was in the States for the
premier, so I got to go to opening becauseI wanted to see it again straight away.
the, yeah, you go

Boston (28:22):
Oh, just the, just
when, no, the no, man'sland scene happens.
The audience loses their
minds.
I'm sobbing like a child.
I look around a little embarrassed.
Everyone else is too.
something happened andit became this catharsis.
I watched that movie adozen times in the theater.
And so Wonder Woman, this time is not justthe wave of women, but the resistance.

(28:47):
This is when hashtag Me Too comes in.
This is, oh, and I wanna make a sidetrip here because you did artwork for
one of the most amazing things that neverhappened, which is Wonder Woman as the
honorary ambassador to the United Nations.

Nicola (29:03):
Yeah.

Boston (29:03):
And that art was so beautiful

Nicola (29:06):
Thank you.

Boston (29:07):
and I was it made such sense.
What a perfect representative.
Representative for the empowermentof women and girls around the world.
And then it went sideways becauseself-proclaimed, self-described feminists
inside the UN didn't like her costume.

(29:30):
Is that what happened?

Nicola (29:32):
From what I understood and from the perspective that I
have now, it feels like it was apropaganda against the idea of having
a representative for women and girls.

Boston (29:45):
Oh,

Nicola (29:46):
it was a bit broader than that because that shut the whole program down.
It wasn't as though they replacedWonder Woman with somebody else.
The whole program disappeared, which wasa deep shame, which was a deep shame.
But the argument that theywere using was, wonder Woman
is an old-fashioned, irrelevantcharacter who's deeply sexualized.

(30:07):
And the reason, their reasoning for howshe was a sexualized character was using
Lynda Carter's seventies, outfit nother, in 19 42, 43 version of the outfit.
But her seventies character, outfit,which was higher cut in the pants and
a little lower cut in the, breastplate.
And obviously it's the seventiesand the seventies, even though

(30:30):
it was a wave of feminism, thiswas the post bra burning moment.
And feminism was incredibly glamorous.
we had the bionic woman andCharlie's Angels as our heroes.
They were all beautiful and glamorous.
That was just what, that was part ofthe ingredients of feminine power.

Boston (30:48):
Was owning an AW wielding beauty and sexuality?

Nicola (30:51):
100% that was part of the power.
And the argument was just that sheshouldn't be representing women.
And I was like, oh, okay.
So if, I reckon if the initiative hadhappened six months later when the
movie had come out, everybody would'vebeen behind it because the girls, I

(31:12):
didn't get to go to the event at theUN because I was deep in a project.
I was invited to go and Icouldn't go cuz I had deadlines
cuz comic books are unrelenting.
Which is so disappointing cuz Iknew Gal Gadot was gonna be there.
I knew Patty Jenkins was gonnabe there, both of who I had
just met at San Diego ComicCon.
but I also knew Lynda Cartera was gonnabe there and I'd never met Lynda before.

(31:36):
And so I, I watched the whole thing onthe live stream and just seeing like
these hundreds of girls, like schoolgirls that had been invited to attend
this event, all wearing these beautifulcardboard tiaras, Wonder Woman tiaras.
Now it's just this is so special andmoving cuz this is what it's for.

(31:59):
And y we had addressed, when I was firstapproached to do this piece of key art,
DC had asked me about it at that San DiegoComic-Con, they'd said, we wanna have a
meeting with you about a special project.
And they gave me the idea of thepitch and I just started talking
back to them immediately in termsof why and how this is such a

(32:23):
perfect union, and fully understood.
And I said, look, straight off the bat,I understand that we're going to have to
de Americanize her outfit quite a lot.
it's been happening in thecomic books a little bit anyway,
but we need to step that up.
also, I understand that we probablyneed to cover her up a little bit
more if she's going to be therefor women and girls everywhere.

(32:46):
she can't be so skin exposed.
I was talking about putting her in a capeand a big swath across her decolletage
making her skirt quite a bit longer.
Like just subtle, making sure shestill represented herself, but that
she was more universally accessible.
And the first piece of art thatI produced is almost exactly

(33:10):
the piece of art that was used.
But I gave her a really big smile, areally big toothy smile cuz I thought,
that is her warmth and her opennessand what I hadn't considered, but
that this is a UN note, not a DC note.
You need to close her mouth withher smile because a big, broad

(33:30):
open smile is very American.
And I was like, oh my gosh,I hadn't thought about it.
That there's that it'sa bit too in your face.
Yeah.
That it's a little bit too Hollywood.
And I was like, oh gosh.
Okay.
I hadn't even consideredthat a little more subtlety.
So I needed to keep the smile inthe eyes and keep the smile on the

(33:51):
lips, but just close the mouth.
And I just thought that was a reallyinteresting note and a really interesting
perspective that I deeply respected.
So I was like, yep, absolutely.
I fully understand now thatit's been explained to me.

Boston (34:05):
So if we follow that thread into your work on Wonder Woman Year One with
Greg Rucka and up and prior to year one,I can barely remember what was going on,
but Wonder Woman had become this kind ofdower character, like a lot of sadness,
a lot of grief, she didn't smile much.
And one of the things that I remembernoting when Rebirth and Year One

(34:32):
came out was that the colors were sobright and there was a lot of smiles,
and it was this breath of fresh air.
I, a bunch of comics, friends supergeeked out on this feeling like
we saw our friend happy again.
Like
this character that welove, who's very real to us.

(34:52):
Wonder Woman fans are a littlestrange about Wonder Woman.
She is like a friend.
We have, we're protective of her

Nicola (34:58):
Yeah.
Very

Boston (35:00):
and rebirth.
What.
What was the conversation like as youwere creating Wonder Woman, as you're
reintroducing, and as you said, this wasone of the first times her origin had been
retooled in a very long time, decades.
What did you bring to it?
What was important about it?
How did you craft this?

Nicola (35:21):
Luckily Greg and I, Greg Rucker and I had been great mates for about 10
years by this point, and our friendshiphad happened because of Wonder Woman.
he had been working on Wonder Womanin the early two thousands, and I was
in the process of hustling into theindustry and Wonder Woman being like my

(35:44):
goalpost of where I was aiming myself.
I had redrawn, a few pages of one ofhis scripts, to put in my portfolio.
And under encouragement from amate of mine, I had put them online
on a particular website had, Ihad been told was where a lot

(36:05):
of industry professionals look.
And I with an introduction of sayingthat, I'm a semiprofessional working
in this industry already, I understandthere are some Wonder Woman fans here.
I posted these Wonder Woman pages andwithin hours I had, Gail Simone, Greg
Rucka, mark Andreyko and oh look, acouple of other people, saying, oh,

(36:30):
what, who are you, where are you?
What, what's happening?
And almost immediately Greg was like,I want you on this book with me.
Because you seem tounderstand the character.
And so he started hasslingwith DC and his editors.
and it didn't happen, but it startedthat conversation, with Greg and I,

(36:54):
and at one point Greg and I were goingto do, a new arc of Queen and Country.
He was like, this is how we'll get youinto dc, come into an arc of this with me.
And we were just in the process ofgearing that up when I did get my job
at DC during Birds of Prey with Gail.
but it initiated our friendship and itinitiated this conversation about Diana
that continued for a decade leadingup to us actually getting this gig.

(37:19):
And the gig itself came out of nowherebecause, up until Greg leaving the company
full-time, in the late two thousands,early teens, early 2010s, he was leaving
the company because they reneged andburnt him on a bunch of Wonder Woman
projects, all of which I knew about,all of which I might have been one

(37:40):
of the artists in consideration for.
But, he was meant to doWonder Woman All Stars.
And then he was meant todo Wonder Woman, Earth One.
And, he was in the conversation for alot of these Wonder Woman projects that
ended up going to other people and.
So he left the company, burning allof his bridges happily on his way out
the door, because of Wonder Woman.

(38:02):
Yeah, exactly.
He's very quirky person.
and, he would be burning allthese bridges and that was it.
He was done.
But as the 75th anniversary wasapproaching and this Rebirth, rejig,
to not fix, but just bounce backafter the new 52, which had been
its own very particular agenda, theyneeded to reset back to not square

(38:28):
one for everybody, but they neededto reset back to what everybody
actually wanted from their characters.
Not this really Elseworlds kind oftake on these characters, which in
some cases was very fun and in somecases was incredibly frustrating.
so this Rebirth idea isalready on the table.
They're seeing that it's wonderfuland 75th anniversary, they can

(38:49):
see that the movie is goingto come out in a year's time.
And it is this opportunity todo something with the character.
they understand how important sheis, but they don't necessarily
understand what to do with her andhow to elevate her, to give her the
respect that they know she deserves.

(39:11):
And they they kind of came knockingon Greg's door saying, hi, we know
that you know what you are doingwith this character, and this is
one of those opportunities where wereally can't afford to fuck it up.
We can't afford to go in an interestingdirection because we don't know what
else to do, which is essentially what hadhappened with all of these other projects.

(39:34):
It was like they would reject Greg's solididea for a more interesting idea that
took the character in another direction.
And this was their opportunity to say,okay, we can't afford another direction.
We need a solid take.
And by this stage, I had also left DC andGreg and I were working on Black Magic.

(39:57):
We'd finished our first arc andwe were working into our second
arc, and they approached him andsaid, we, we can't fuck this up.
We need you to do this, please, towhich Greg set all these boundaries
and rules for which they 100% agreed.
And then when they felt like theywere reasonably confident about his
position, they were like, and do youthink you can bring Nicola with you?

(40:19):
And he was like, I'm sure I can.
And so he called me immediatelyafterwards to say, Hey, guess what, kid?
we might be doing a Wonder Woman originstory at dc to which I was like, I'm
in the middle of a page of Black Magic.
What are you talking about?
And he was like, do you wanna do this?

(40:40):
I'm like, of course Ifucking wanna do this.
Because my whole goal, even thoughWonder Woman had guest starred in
pretty much every book I had doneto that point, because every writer
that I worked with knew how muchI loved the character and knew how
much I was bringing to the character.
So I had drawn her a lot.
But you know that, that question thateverybody else, what's your dream project?

(41:01):
My dream project from the verybeginning had been to draw Wonder Woman.
but the further my career got and themore opportunities I got to draw Wonder
Woman, that answer got refined to, in aperfect world, I wish I could do an origin
story of Wonder Woman with Greg Rucka,and suddenly there it was on the table.
And so what we were then faced with,because I think we were offered

(41:26):
this in It was happening likearound Easter, so let's say April.
They were going to announce itin two weeks and our first issue
was gonna be coming out in a fewmonths and it was like, holy shit.
Which is a lot, which is a lot tosuddenly have to jump ship from what
you are doing and turn something around.

(41:46):
So suddenly Greg and I are in thisposition where we had a decade's
worth of understanding between us.
We knew that we were on the samepage regarding her character and
who she is and what she means andall of the broad a amoebous things.
But suddenly it was like,okay, it was the maths.

(42:07):
It was like, okay, what we're gonnado is an origin story for six issues.
We only get 20 pages an issue.
It's not 22 pages anymore.
So this means we have 120pages to tell this story.
How do we wanna do this?
What is our breakdown?
What are the things thatare important to us?
What do we need?
All of these things, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.

Boston (42:29):
And what were some of those things?
What was it you wanted tosqueeze into those 120 pages?
this is Wonder Woman, wewant you to get who she is,
what's important.

Nicola (42:39):
We needed to bring, like you said before, we needed to bring the light back.
She's meant to be anincredibly optimistic, warm,
and approachable character.
So that was deeply important tous, that she was accessible, which
influenced what my art would be.
Cuz I had gone from doing Earthtwo, which was very gritty and

(43:00):
testosterone and lots of shadowsand lots of textural, line work.
And for this, I wanted to be cleanerand brighter and a lot less shadow and a
lot just as open and bright as possible.
we also knew that we didn't want herto be stuck in this virginal loop

(43:20):
because one of what I consider, oneof the mistakes of the Perez era was
removing Steve Trevor as a love interest.
I understand the reason for itbecause we didn't wanna bog her
down in a love interest story,

Boston (43:36):
Mm-hmm.

Nicola (43:37):
but it did leave her without a suitable suitor because no one else
was going to fill those, even thoughplenty of writers tried, there was
just never anyone who was appropriatehated the idea of it's Steve.
Trevor hated the idea of it.
It has to be.
It has to be.
In the more recent versions of SteveTrevor, like the animated Wonder Woman

(43:59):
movie, Steve Trevor was a bit of aladies man, a bit of a dick, and.
I enjoyed that take.
I had also had the idea that he shouldbe, a bit of a superficially, a bit of
a dick that doesn't quite know how toengage with his emotions, but suddenly
he's around this woman who's like allexposed and understood emotions and

(44:20):
he just can't help but be a betterperson around her, but in, in talking
with Greg, it was like, no, this issomeone that has to be worthy of her.
She has to not, he can't be a fixerupper for her because, and she
can't be a virgin when he arrives.
So we needed to establish that thisis a community of women that have

(44:40):
been around for thousands of years,and no one is chaste necessarily.
people might choose it for themselves.
Some of the race might choose it forthemselves, but there has to be love.
There has to be affection, there hasto be the foundations of human need.
And so therefore, 100% she'shad girlfriends before.

Boston (45:03):
I loved something that Greg wrote into that first issue was,
Diana's seems to be going througha slutty face like she was with

Nicola (45:11):
a little bit.

Boston (45:12):
and then another.
So she is not chaste,

Nicola (45:14):
Well, we don't even know if it was a slutty phase, because it might
have been like all of these ladiesthat she's had relationships with over

Boston (45:21):
centuries,

Nicola (45:22):
Yes.

Boston (45:22):
She's had more experience, not just a girlfriend, but she is
a sexual being, a romantic being,
and then there's the first man she meets.
It's not like he turnson her sexuality just

Nicola (45:35):
Exactly.
And it, it couldn't be a turn onof sexuality and it couldn't be
that she was just smitten withthe first dick that arrived.
It couldn't be that basic.
So that informed who he had to be.
He had to be worthy of her.
And so we had to makehim this really good guy.

(45:56):
that, and I loved that it wasreflected in the Patty Jenkins
version as well, that we wanted Steveto be backing her up all the time.
That any time she wentinto action, he was there.
And you see that play out in the 2017movie as well, that every time she
goes into action, she turns aroundand he's right there behind her.

(46:17):
Like just not being shieldedby her, but backing her up.
And so that was nice to know that wehad moved in parallel there, that,
because our book was coming out a yearbefore the movie came out, we didn't
know what they were doing in the movie.

Boston (46:30):
That is such synchronicity that you all are so aligned with
these stories that are movinginto the culture simultaneously.
I remember reading something that, Idon't remember where, but you had been
interviewed, but that you didn't knowwhat was happening with the movie.
It seemed to me that there wascoordination, there was so much
similarity, but not at all.

Nicola (46:53):
No, we didn't know.
It wasn't until, it wasn't until we sawthe movie that I remember turning to
my mate who I went to the premier with.
Like, this is just like the book.
like Patty was seeing the bookas it was coming out, but she
was already in the editing suite.
So they had made the movie and itwas this really interesting thing

(47:17):
of h how are we on the same page?
Because we're not sharing notes.
We're not sharing notes.
But this is because Patty's understandingof the character is like Greg's and
my understanding of the character.
Cuz she's the same age as we are.
And therefore her early influencewas Lynda Carter and Lynda understood
the character in a way that Idon't think a lot of women would

(47:39):
as really soft, she's a pacifist.
She's constantly trying tostop action from happening.
and when she does, she's notbeating the shit out of somebody.
She's just throwing themaround to just Take them out a

Boston (47:52):
like getting the kids to stop fighting.
She just throws them into their corners.

Nicola (47:56):
Yeah, exactly.
So that was key to us.
I knew that I wanted thecompetition, in the book.
That's part of the historythat means something to me.
But we also understood that if she isduring the competition, she's cheating.
And we didn't want her to cheat.
She had to earn her spot as an equal,a as a possible equal, she had to win.

(48:22):
So that was why we didn't give her powersuntil she was already in Man's Land.

Boston (48:26):
I loved that.
That's always been a problem with thehistory of the origin is if you go back
to the Marston comics, all of the Amazonsare capable of what Diana is capable of.
but then you get to Wonder Woman with asleeping beauty origin where she has these
get her powers are gifts from the gods.
Now the tournament comesaround and she's cheating.

(48:48):
So you manage to get the bestof both worlds She's still the
most skilled of her island.
But if she's gonna fight at superherolevel, she needs a power up.
And gods show up and give her gifts.

Nicola (49:03):
Give her the gifts.
Yeah.
And I thought it was really lovely thatGreg's, representation of that was that
at the end of the competition, there arethree Amazon standing, that there are
three who have managed to really be thetop of the food chain in terms of skill.
And really it was the bulletsand bracelets that cemented Diana

(49:26):
as the one to represent them.
And that the gun was a gun that Stevehad brought with him that, was, it was
like, here is a weapon from his people.

Boston (49:38):
Whoever's

Nicola (49:39):
going out there needs to face whatever this is.
So let's go.
and Diana is the last one standing.
And I love that about her a andabout how Greg faced that conundrum.
And I had said early on, like before westarted, and even though we only had a
very short turnaround, I had, becausehe always says, what do you want?

(49:59):
What do what do you wanna get in there?
And I was like, look, I know youthink this is the most stupid idea
ever, but I love the Invisible Jet.
I just need it in there.
And he was like, oh, I thoughtit doesn't make any sense.
It's so stupid.
And I was like, no, I'mgonna sell you on it.
This is what, it's Steve trevorarrives there in a plane.
It's the same plane.

(50:20):
They just put it back together.
But they don't necessarilyunderstand the mechanics.
Cuz even though there is incrediblescience and technology on this island,
they're not a male driven, rocket driven,phallic representation driven society.
They're more of a nature-based science.

(50:43):
And there's a little bit of magic.
This island is invisibleto the outside eye.
So somewhere in there, thereis either science or magic or
somewhere in the middle thathas made that island invisible.
Why don't they have access to that?
And they just put thatplane back together.

(51:06):
They make it invisibleby patching it together.
And they don't need to know how to fly it.
They're magic.
They just send the plane back to where it

Boston (51:13):
They just send it home.
They just tell it to go home.

Nicola (51:17):
Essentially.
and I just, he just thought thatwas so silly and so beautiful.
so in keeping with the story that wewere telling, if we were telling a
more realistic, wonder Woman story.
We might not have done somethingso delightful, but I felt like
that was really important.
I also, when Steve crashes,he doesn't crash alone.
He crashes with a number of otherpeople and they don't make it, and he

(51:40):
barely makes it, but they heal him.
And I was like, I know we can't dosomething crazy science, like the purple
healing ray, but we can do somethingthat's like the purple healing ray
in that, maybe there's a particularkind of crystal, like a, a rock on
the island, a particularly kind ofcrystal they've polished the crap out

(52:00):
of so that it can r refract the sun'slight into a bath full of, plasma.
if I, if it's like a stem cell kind of,whatever science they've found important
to keep themselves well andhealthy for thousands of years.

(52:21):
They're not aging, but they can still ale.
that they've created a mud bath orwhatever the fuck, and just shining
the light through this lens is whatwill heal him one way or another.
And so you, we only get one panel of that.
We don't get to describe it,but there's one panel where
you can see that happening.

(52:41):
And Steve is a wreck before he goes in andhe is clean as a baby when he comes out.
yeah.

Boston (52:47):
I wanna talk about the the, um, what's the female gaze, which is
very much like the gay gaze
on, on Steve Trevor and someother characters you've drawn, you
have highlighted, Dick Grayson,Nightwing's assets most impressively.
What we're talking about earlier.
There's a criticism of WonderWoman being sexualized.
and if you look at the ninetiesDeodato butt floss era, it's

(53:10):
just, I embarrassing to look at

Nicola (53:12):
It's a lot.

Boston (53:13):
but your view of Steve Trevor, he doesn't wear a lot of clothes a lot of
the time.

Nicola (53:17):
That was definitely on purpose, in that opening issue cuz most of our
Year one takes place in the first issue.
Like.
issue one is maybe 11 and a half months

Boston (53:30):
Oh,

Nicola (53:30):
The rest of the story takes place in a couple of weeks, if that.
So what Greg had said to reallysolidify the importance of their
meeting is that Year One story is thetwo of them over a period of time.
So we're seeing his story and we'reseeing her story and it's not until

(53:51):
the end of that first issue when hecrashes onto the island that they meet.
And in doing that it was like, sowe're going to show Steve in his
life, show Diana and hers, how theyreflect, how they mirror each other.
And at one point in just likea montage of, doing things.
Greg had said something about theSEAL training, water sports kind

(54:14):
of thing so that we can show Dianaswimming with the other Amazons.
And nothing about what Greg had writtenwas meant to be sexualized in any nature,
but I was just like, these are two young,beautiful hot people who are going to meet
each other and immediately fall in love.
We need to love them too.
And we had already had thatdiscussion of Diana isn't a

(54:36):
virgin, she needs to be sexualized.
And isn't that in that panel that, theother girls around her are talking about.
You know who Diana might belooking up with these days.
And there she's in the distance,she's naked, she's in the water.
And I was like, I'm putting Steve Trevorright up front in his short short because
when I did the Google search for what arethese guys wear when they're doing their

(54:57):
swim stuff and saw their shorts are tiny.
And I was like, oh myGod, that's hilarious.
I'm leaning into that.
And put Steve Trevor front andcenter so that I'm constantly going
backwards and forwards between them.
if Steve is in the f foreground, thenDiana's in the background and vice versa.
Because you wanna have thatvisual dynamic of constantly doing
this between the two characters.

(55:19):
And because I knew I wanted Diana naked,I needed to put her in the background,
but Steve's wearing shorts, he's not quitenaked so I can put him in the foreground.
And then after that I said to Greg,I think it was in the second issue
where he has been healed and he's inlike a recovery balcony, you know,
it's very, it's very glamorous.

(55:40):
but he's the only one there.
And it was like, there is noway he would have clothes on cuz
there would be absolutely no need.
and Diana goes to visit him there and iscompletely comfortable with his nakedness
even though he doesn't expose himself.
But.
He feels naked and she's oblivious.
She couldn't give a shit.
That felt like reallyimportant storytelling.

(56:03):
and it was in that moment that I waslike, this is the second issue that I'm
getting Steve pretty close to naked.
And I said to Greg, I'm gonnamake Steve naked in every issue.
How are we gonna do this?
And he laughed and laughed becauseit was Like, Wonder Woman is always
being accused of showing too much skin.
Cause she's in a bikini andit's we just equal it out.
We just, Steve is gonna be showingas much skin as she is and it's

(56:25):
just going to be incidental.
Cuz that's how it always happened.
It was incidental cuz he'sin a recovery hospital room.
In the next issue, he's gettinghis checkups at the doctor because
this is, he's arrived back fullyhealed with all of his, dead mates.
And he has to explain all ofthis to, his military superiors

Boston (56:45):
And how his appendix had grown back.

Nicola (56:48):
yeah.
How he's in one piece.
And I said, I'm gonna foldhis uniform neatly as it would
be by a salter next to him.
And he's just naked on the seat.
We're not seeing anything, but wecan see that he's naked and ag.
And again, it was like in the nextissue, Greg was like, and Steve takes
his shirt off so that he can use itas a bandage to help some, it's just
all organic, absolutely by design.

Boston (57:12):
We haven't even touched on your most recent work, and as you
have done so much magnificent art.
Your Wonder Woman is so filled withlove, but Historia is next level.
this is capital A artthat you have created.

Nicola (57:30):
Thank you.

Boston (57:30):
How did this happen?
how did you do this?

Nicola (57:35):
And some of them, I wonder how I did it too.
it came about because, I rememberwhen these Black Label books were
being announced and one of theearly announcements was Kelly Sue
Deconnick, and Phil Jimenez workingon Historia and how it was this
history of the Amazons and such.
And that just looked extraordinaryand interesting and I was really

(57:59):
interested to see Kelly Sue's take.
Phil coming back to the charactercuz like me, he's one of those
artists that is deeply invested inthe character and has spent quite
a lot of time with her as well.
So that felt incredibly organic andvery exciting cuz this would be Phil

(58:19):
returning after quite a long time.
And the format of this Black Labelprestige line, is not only practically
different because the format of therelease book is different, but the
pages are twice the size so you canput in so much more detail because
it's gonna get shrunk down still.

(58:40):
And that felt very exciting.
And a long time after that was announced,I got an email from DC saying, okay,
so this is gonna be three volumes,possibly si six or nine in the long run.
But certainly we'recommitted to three volumes.
but Phil is not going to be doingevery issue cuz it's too much.

Boston (59:05):
because his hand would falls off and his eyes would bleed.
Yeah.

Nicola (59:08):
your brain would explode.
It is so much, there's so many characters.
it's not like a Batman Black Label whereit's still the same group of characters.
You just have more space tobe more detailed and, you hope
for a sophisticated story.
This is all of the Amazons and all ofthe gods and all of the everything.
And even though I didn't know thestory and I hadn't yet seen much of

(59:32):
Phil's art, I'd seen little bits andpieces that he had shared in the early
days, which were super nons spoilery.
it, it seemed like a very interestingidea that a long form version of the
Amazon's origin was gonna be toldbecause it hadn't been done before.
Every origin of the Amazons had been ashorthand to get to Diana or to get to

(59:54):
Wonder Woman as quickly as possible.
But this was gonna be a long form story.
And I knew from the very beginningthat Diana wouldn't even be born
until the end of issue three.
So it was like, oh, okay, soyou're really investing in this?
And they were like, yes.
So would you be interestedin doing volume two?
And I was like, actually, as temptingas that is, and as terrified as I

(01:00:16):
would be to follow Phil, I actuallycan't do it at the moment because I
can't remember what I was doing atthe time, but I couldn't take it on.
I think I was workingon Black, Black Magic.
I think I'd finally got back to BlackMagic, Greg and I's schedule had aligned.
And so I said no.
And six months later, editorial cameback to me and they said, okay, we've

(01:00:36):
got someone working on volume two.
Is there any possibility that youwould be able to do volume three?
And I was like, now doing something else.
again, super tempted.
I wish I could, but I can't,schedule doesn't permit.
And so they're like, okay, fine.
And another, like six months later andthe editor contacts me again and says,

(01:00:57):
look, I know you're gonna say no, Iknow, but just on the off chance, do you
think you could fit us into our schedule?
And I was like, it dependson your schedule, because it
was like February last year.
I was like, I'm, deep in this at themoment, but I can see that come August,
I'm gonna have some opening time.
If you can wait untilAugust, then I can do it.
But if you need me to start now, I can't.

(01:01:19):
And they were like,August is perfect timing.
And I'm like, okay, I'm in.
And that was how the, me beinginvolved in the project came about.
I eventually got to have a really long,chat with Kelly Sue as we broke it down.
She told me what was happening in Phil's.
Phil's hadn't yet come out,but I had a digital copy of it.

(01:01:39):
Gene had been working on volume two for awhile, and I think it was about 75% done.
So I got to see how Gene was approachingthe story and I could see how each volume
of the story was very different to eachother, which was in itself a little
bit reassuring because Phil's style andGene's style is so different, but also

(01:02:00):
the story in each volume is so different.
Phil's is very god space and epic andbroad, like it's all double page spreads
until suddenly you meet Hippolyta inthe last third to a quarter of the book.
Suddenly we become earthbound and we areintroduced to this character, and her

(01:02:23):
journey is set in motion Then, Gene Ha'svolume is almost entirely earthbound
and it is very human following a humancharacter as she has a very human
experience of pursuing these god createdAmazons and by chance, ephemerally,

(01:02:47):
encountering a goddess, and how allof that plays out and the the turn
of the story being sort really humanmoment that changes and exposes them.
And that made it clear that minewas gonna be somewhere in the
middle, that it needed to fill both.
it needed to go very big and verysmall constantly, because we were

(01:03:12):
bringing all of those elements together.

Boston (01:03:14):
There's an image near in the middle of the book, where everything
turns, and it's the, the part, theWonder Woman lore has always included the
battle between Hippolyta and Heracles.
that's canon, quote, unquote.
And, I love how feminism, this waveof feminism, the thing that I think
is important about the philosophy offeminism is that it is about what the

(01:03:40):
group can do when they come together.
It's not ego versus ego.
You have this giant Harleys who isgoing to, you see the size difference.
This is a demigod.
This is not big dude.
This is a demigod.
The Amazons are fucked.
none of them can do it alone.

(01:04:00):
And so with all of their differences,all of their, their complex
structure, the queens come together.
and the way you drew this, likethis beautiful metaphor of the
ants taking down the praying mantis
and the Amazon's.
It's so brutal.
It is so brutal.

(01:04:22):
I had noticed the first threetimes I read it that there are
pieces of Heracles lying around
After this battle, thathe's being castrated
in the center of that panel.
And then the what's happening inthe art, while Hyppolyta is saying,
we are rendering him back untoZeus so that he can be buried.

(01:04:45):
This is a show of respect.
We would not do this for the slavers.
We do this out of respectfor the son of Zeus.
They're loading piecesof Heracles onto a cart.

Nicola (01:04:58):
Yeah, he's in four bags.

Boston (01:05:00):
in four bags.
It is wicked
and brilliant and sad.
But you turn the page and the nextthing is a thunderstorm screaming.
She's

Nicola (01:05:14):
Yeah,

Boston (01:05:14):
story that you told visually her dot, her narration does one thing.
You are doing something in parallel,and both of them are elevating
each other during those pages.
What is the impact on you?
Like as you bring these thithese images through you onto the

(01:05:35):
paper, what happens inside you?
How does it affect you?

Nicola (01:05:40):
there are certain moments in any story that are the key moments.
they're doing a lot of the work.
there, there's lots of connectivetissue that holds that all together.
That's what makes it a proper narrative.
But there are certain momentsthat are the impact moments.

(01:06:02):
And to me, they're notalways the action moments.
Sometimes they're thereally quiet moments.
And you can see it in a scene.
You can see it in an issue thatthere are always these key moments.
And it's often, whateverthe biggest panel is.
Certainly when I'm drawing, I'm alwayslooking for what is the moment here.
And I don't always wanna make itthe action scene, cuz sometimes I

(01:06:24):
feel like the action is incidentalto what the scene is about.
What is happening here isn't aboutthe kicking and the punching,
it's about the something else.
and so recognizing those momentsand elevating them, one of the
ways that you elevate them isto give them more real estate.
and for that scene in particular, Iknew that this was a moment, this was a

(01:06:47):
turning point because this is the firsttime that they're being confronted for
existing and that the gods are saying,absolutely not, we're sending our best
and brightest, goodbye kind of thing.
And this is their momentinspired by Hippolyta.
All of them work as a unit becauseat up until that moment, there have

(01:07:10):
been these six goddess created tribesoff doing their own thing that will
sometimes mingle to do bits and pieces.
And then there's thisseventh tribe of Hippolyta's.
She's trailing behind all of thesegoddess created Amazons who keep saving
all these slave women, but then ridingoff into the sunset without them.
And apologies like, you can't justabandon us once you save us cause we're

(01:07:34):
gonna be fucked again any second now.
The only way we're goingto be safe is together.
And so I'm going to start collectingall of these people that you saved
and giving them a safe space where ournumbers is what will keep us together.
And if you guys can just, loweryourselves to train us, you won't

(01:07:57):
have to keep saving us, essentially.
And in that moment of Heracles arrivingand Antiope not necessarily being
the senior Amazon, but certainlythe ballsiest, stepping out of
the shadows and going, yep, okay,let's go, Heracles, let's do this.
And.

(01:08:18):
Hippolyta, just recognizing,oh, we need to do this together,

Boston (01:08:21):
he'll slaughter us one at a time, but together.

Nicola (01:08:24):
Yeah.
Antiope is in all of thisarmor that she was born in.
She's born fully formed and fully armored.
She's got bracelets, she's got, herlasso, she's got horns, she's got
all of the things, and Hippolyta islike in rags and she's just picked up
an ax and she's like, let's do this.
And that inspires the queensto come out and go, yep, okay.

(01:08:47):
We're all here, we're all doing this.
And then all the queens arebacked up by all of their tribes.
And the slaughter of Heracleswas a double page spread.
And it read in the scriptthat it's three panels.
It's like a panel of the, of allof the Amazons coming out, all of
the goddess created Amazons, butalso a lot of the seventh tribe of

(01:09:10):
Hippolyta's tribe surrounding Heracles
.Then the slaughter of Heracles, and then the metaphor of the ants
destroying the praying mantis.
And in advance, as soon as I readthat in the script, I'm like,
okay, that's a really big moment.
How do I give it its due?
And really mulling over theidea as I'm working towards it.

(01:09:33):
cuz I'm doing other pages as I buildmyself up, a lot of regular paneled,
comic book panel storytelling precedes it.
But how do I build to this moment?
And then how do I sell this moment?
How do I make best useof these three panels?
as it says in the script, Ineed to do something a bit more
interesting than three panels,because do I do them vertically?

(01:09:54):
Do I do them?
And it came to me inthe middle of the night.
I should do it in circles becausethey're surrounding him and I
don't want to do just a line cuzthat's a front line rather than, a
surrounding, how do I surround him?
And that's where it came into idea thatthey are surrounding him in a circle.

(01:10:15):
The slaughter is happening inthe circle where we zoom right
into him just absolutely gettingmassacred in, seconds by all of
these incredibly skilled warriors.
And then the metaphor in the center,which can cover the fact that he's
getting castrated, even though I'm clearlyindicating that he's getting castrated.
And, and then in the practical senseof doing it, it's okay, how do I.

(01:10:40):
How do I now execute this idea?
And I started with the middle paneland mapping out Heracles across the
spread because he's so much bigger.
I knew that one of the tricks wouldbe getting the scale of him right, and
then all of the characters around him.

(01:11:00):
And how packed do I make this, arepeople gonna be able to swing their
thoughts and axes and arrows andstuff if I pack it too much, but I
feel like I really need to pack it.
Like everyone is just getting rightin there and it is their skill that
prevents them hurting each other.
and so I started with him.

(01:11:20):
I think I added Antiope andHippolyta because I knew I needed
them at the top of the panel or Iwanted them at the top of panel.
And then once I got a map of wherethey were, I then started drawing
all the characters on the outside andfilling them in, making sure that the
front line of these circles was thegoddess-created Amazons, and then beyond

(01:11:46):
them, whatever goddess created Amazonswere left and lots of seventh tribes.
So that there was like a real crowd ofpeople, lining up to take their piece.
And then once it came to filling thatcircle of the slaughter, just getting
more and more characters in thereand finding ways to u use the height.

(01:12:07):
Like Heracles is no longer standing.
He's kind of on a lean ashe's being taken off his feet.
So towards his head, youknow, he's higher up.
The Amazons by his feet, he's lower down.
and you know what I,what is everybody doing?
what weapons do they have?
who has a big sword?
You know, I saw that, um, I'veforgotten what her name is.

(01:12:28):
She's a character that's got thissort of big, horned helmet on, like
horns going all over the place.
It says in the description that she's thebiggest of the Amazons and I'm just like,
she's just gonna ram him with her helmet.
So she's going right into the chest.
Who else is around?
How do I get in representationsfrom all of the tribes, just show

(01:12:48):
them all, getting their piece.
and that was essentiallyhow that came about.
But it took me over a week and I didfeel a bit like a zombie at the end
of it because drawing all of thosetiny characters around the side
in that sharp perspective, took,quite a few days in and of itself.
And then drawing the interior ofthe slaughter took quite a while.

(01:13:12):
And then once I'd drawn itall, I then needed to paint it

Boston (01:13:14):
Oh

Nicola (01:13:15):
because I was painting the book.
But it's the painting where thedepth and the texture and the real
life comes into the line work, cuzI was doing very simple line work.
but that was the fun.

Boston (01:13:24):
Wow.
Just

Nicola (01:13:26):
me, but it was fun.

Boston (01:13:27):
There's something about, every woman doing, like using what
she has to face, this obstaclethat they're all facing together
that threatens all of them.
Whatever you've got.
Ama an accent that it's the wayyou described it, I wasn't thinking
about the power dynamics of theGod created Amazons, and then the
mortal, Amazons the seventh tribe.

(01:13:50):
Those are the echoes of Dianawho leaves paradise not to save
women, but to empower them,

Nicola (01:13:58):
Yeah.

Boston (01:13:59):
so that they can save themselves, come down from your high horse,
and then you won't have totrain us and you won't have, you
won't have to save us anymore.
And that's such the, a lesson ofWonder Woman not here to rest.
I'm not here to res well,I'm here to rescue you.
You're in trouble.
I'll rescue you, but long term, I'm hereto tell you, make yourself stronger,

(01:14:21):
work together, take responsibility.
She's

Nicola (01:14:24):
100%.
Like after that slaughter, there aretwo battles, that take place afterwards.
And you may notice that the seventhtribe, they have weapons, but they
don't have armor in the first one.
they've accumulated some extra weaponsfrom all the slaves that they've

(01:14:46):
defeated, but they don't have armor.
So they're going into battle with,just their togas and their sandals
and, maybe a bit of armor thatthey've picked up along the way.
But for the most part, they've justgot like a sword or an ax but they're
charging in with all of these goddesscreated, semi super beings that are

(01:15:06):
fully armed up, fully weaponed upand, ready for battle at any moment.
And all of these human Amazons, or, allthey've got are their slavers' bracelets,
that is what distinguishes them.
And in the second battle, Whatthey're wearing is the armor of

(01:15:27):
the first battle that, of thefirst army that they defeated.

Boston (01:15:30):
I didn't notice that.
Ooh.

Nicola (01:15:32):
in the second battle where they finally lose because they're up
against more than just a army of men,they've taken the helmets, from the
soldiers that they defeated in thefirst one, and they've cut ridges into
the, the plume on top so that, through,through a dusty battlefield, you'll
be able to distinguish them in termsof their silhouette from a distance.

(01:15:57):
But they're wearing, some of themhave taken some shoulder bits, some of
them have taken some shin gauntlets.
Some of them have takenlike a full, torso armor.
But most of them have taken a helmetand stuck it on their head, as
they go into their second battle.

Boston (01:16:13):
You are blowing my mind with the level of detail and thought and
consideration that went into that.
I didn't notice, and now I, Ican't wait to read this again.
What else have I missed in there?
Um, oh, I, I so hope we getanother three and that you draw
at at least, at least one more.
I, I, I don't really read comicsto be honest, very often anymore.

(01:16:36):
I don't subscribe to Wonder Woman anymore.
it's boring to me at the moment.
Historia is the only comicI have read, really in ages.
I've now read the first two issuesa number of times, and the third one
twice that I am reread a, a comicis, and, and being affected by it.

(01:16:56):
Each time just hasn't happened in a while.
And now I'm starting to hear.
o other levels, there'sa heartbreak in this.
And the courage of the unarmedAmazons, I just wasn't tuning in
to the vulnerability thatthey were coming in with.

Nicola (01:17:12):
The scene in the morning between battles.
So they've had their, funerial serviceof, sending their, fallen, to the well
of the gods, to the well of souls.
and the next morning when the malearmy is charging towards them is
marching their way towards them, theAmazons are sitting around and having

(01:17:36):
breakfast and laughing at some theater.
because they understand that theyneed to feel their humanity again.
And those two, people performingthe play, they're trans
actors they're trans Amazons.
yeah.
because women, again, it's onlyan, an insinuation in the script.

(01:17:56):
it's there in the script.
But if, you know, women weren'tallowed to perform theater, let alone
see theater, so this is their firstopportunity to see an art like a play.
so they're being deeply entertained.
and the two actors performing itare the reason why they know these
plays, the reason why they'vebeen able to perform these plays.

(01:18:19):
The reason why Kareti, who's the one,taken the lead, it's because she got
to grow up in the theater before she,

Boston (01:18:28):
man.

Nicola (01:18:29):
and essentially yes, it was like, how do I represent a trans woman without
the opportunity for, hormones or surgery?
How would a trans woman survive?
And theater is probably asafe space, for the most part.
And, and this is how she will be, thisis how she can explore her femininity.

(01:18:53):
And of course, at some pointbecause actors are worth nothing.
and here is a trans actor andshe's been saved from slavers
because of course she, find herselfbeing at the mercy of, assholes.
And that of course, she's completelywelcomed into the society of the Amazons

(01:19:14):
and Hippolyta is even saying to her,you have something to live for because
if we make it through this, you canteach all of us what theater is about.
We will build you a theater and youcan continue with your passion and your
life, but in the space that we createfor you, rather than, you and your little

(01:19:35):
box of tricks, it's just it's reallypotent and meaningful that these moments
along the way speak to how big andbroad this society of women really is.

Boston (01:19:48):
That adds so much texture to the appearance of Dionysus in there as well.
as he's the non-binary God and aprotector of women in some stories.
But he was the place for histribe was the place for people
who didn't fit, who didn't
fit under the, Zeus style, uh, leadership.

(01:20:12):
And so then if you, now if youhave this trans actor there,
that connection between them,

Nicola (01:20:19):
That's why Hera can go to him and say, you're responsible
for this one.
Look after her, with her gone,which is absolutely gonna happen
without your interference.
With her gone, that's a whole streamof worshipers, absolutely annihilated.
But with her supported andflourishing, you will be, at

(01:20:44):
their, worship indefinitely.

Boston (01:20:48):
And that, that foreshadow is what I hope is going to come in a future book,
is the culture that the Amazons create.
And it hasn't come up in thisconversation, but I happen to
know that you were an actor.
I am an actor or was an actor.
And theater in my mind isthe pinnacle of culture.
It's, it is absolutely my favorite art.

(01:21:10):
And it's a place where humanitygets to be expressed in its
fullness, in theater and in dance.
And so if Theymscira is established,Paradise Island is established.
One of the things that makes itparadise what she will create.
What, what is the character's name ca

Nicola (01:21:31):
Kallikrates.

Boston (01:21:32):
Kallikrates.
what she will create issomething so magnificent
and that's a, an expression ofParadise Island and a the, and
theater on Paradise Island.
Cuz that's what Hera can see.

Nicola (01:21:44):
Yeah.

Boston (01:21:44):
if this path goes that culture can be transformed and transformative.

Nicola (01:21:50):
the culture that she's setting up for this island, like part of the
judgment, one of the things that we had tosell was the idea that the island was not
a gift from the gods, but a punishment.
It's a gilded cage.
And in order to sell this, I thinkit was Kelly Sue and Phil that came
up with the idea that essentiallyApollo would be the warden.

(01:22:13):
That it would never be nighttime.
So that, that the island will bein full daylight all the time.
And it is, Artemis saying,I want one night a month.
Give me one night a month.
And.
What that will do to the culture,like the culture of being under
the eye of the sun at all times.

(01:22:36):
and how they deal with that.
But also, what does that one night mean?
What do

Boston (01:22:41):
Yeah.

Nicola (01:22:41):
in that one night?
That one night is gonnabe really significant.
I can't wait to see stuff like that.

Boston (01:22:48):
Yes.
This feels like the beginningof a conversation as much as at
the end of one the book and thisconversation between you and me.
one thing I like to do with my guests,I have these five questions I'd like
to pose and, yeah, are you game?

Nicola (01:23:05):
Yeah, sure.
Bring it on.

Boston (01:23:07):
cool.
The first one is when you were growingup, what were your favorite stories,
your favorite nursery, rhymes, cartoons,children's books, comics, anything?

Nicola (01:23:18):
obviously Wonder Woman, anything with a costume superhero
woman, was deeply interesting to me.
but I also love Josie and the Pussycats.
It started my girl band love.
Never been into boy bands,couldn't give a shit, but God
bless me with a girl band anytime.
I was really into Greek mythology and I.
Read and reread different tellingsof, the Iliad in particular

(01:23:44):
because it fascinates me.
I, one of my favorite new versions, newerversions, is by a writer called Madeline
Miller, who wrote the Song of Achilles,which is just the most beautiful story.
And then of course, Circe that came outa couple years later, a couple years ago

Boston (01:24:04):
Those

Nicola (01:24:04):
because, it's deeply witchy.

Boston (01:24:06):
20 years.
Yeah.
Ugh.

Nicola (01:24:08):
they are.
Yeah, cuz I love the Retellings.
There was a great, version, I think itwas called The Song of Troy by Colin
McCullum, which is, quite a decentsize volume and each chapter is told in
first person by a different character.
So you get all of these differentperspectives and one of the most
hilarious perspectives is Helen, whenyou finally get Helen's perspective,

(01:24:33):
she's such an asshole, it's so funny.
But just everyone's motivations areproperly fleshed out and everyone's
perspective on everyone else'smotivations reveal themselves as well.
It's a really brilliant read,I think that came out in the
nineties, but I've read it a few

Boston (01:24:49):
That sounds like something I would really enjoy.

Nicola (01:24:52):
It's great.
It's great.

Boston (01:24:53):
The Story of Troy and The Iliad, which is just one
part of the story of Troy.
That story, it is just such,it is such a cluster fuck.
Like the stakes of that story are so high,and I think it gets missed by modern eyes

Nicola (01:25:09):
Yeah.

Boston (01:25:09):
because civilization is at risk anyway, and everyone
is behaving in horrific ways.
But they
all have a point of view and
the actor in me is what's going on there?
Why?

Nicola (01:25:20):
100%.
Yeah.
I like, when the movie came out, Iwas just like, oh, it looks beautiful,
but it feels really one dimensionaland certainly deeply abbreviated.
this is a war that it's meantto go for 10 years, and it looks
like it happened in 10 days.
So yeah, it's a really, bookthat I highly recommend.
But I, I feel like the the poeticlanguage of Madeline Miller's

(01:25:44):
retellings are just transportative.
If you've only read them, like intraditional book form, I would also
suggest getting the Audible versionof them, because the performers are
who read each book are perfectlycast to just send you over the moon.

(01:26:08):
They've just got beautiful voices.

Boston (01:26:09):
I fully agree.
I, I did both.
I read the

Nicola (01:26:12):
Oh, you did,

Boston (01:26:13):
and the audio because I, I wanted to hear it while I was in the car--
and this, and this, and this, It just,it re, it breaks my heart every time.
And those performances, usually I feellike I'm settling for an Audiobook.
I think in these cases it improves it.

Nicola (01:26:30):
Yeah, same.
Absolutely.
I agree.

Boston (01:26:33):
next question.
What is something that you believe tobe true that you cannot prove or that

Nicola (01:26:41):
Oh gosh.
Yep.
I believe in, something beyond,I'm not a religious person.
I don't come from a religiousbackground, so I don't have any religious
discipline, in place in my life.
But, I feel a little bit pagan, youknow, I kind of like that idea of
giving a spiritual, name and respectto pretty much everything in nature,

(01:27:05):
because I feel like it is all related.
And I, when I'm talking about magic andhow I talked about magic with Greg Rucka
when we were developing Black Magicis this sense of energy and just, you
know, it's that skill of being able tomanipulate it and, and that magic is
just science that we haven't discoveredyet because we're so fixated on a
particular point of view with science.

(01:27:28):
I believe in a, in a beyond.
and I have a slightly ephemeral,but reasonably sure idea of
the shape of it kind of thing.

Boston (01:27:40):
Could you give me a piece of that shape?
I realized that describing yourentire cosmology might be a tall
order, but is there something that's.

Nicola (01:27:48):
I subscribe to that thing of we are celestial beings
having a human experience, thatwe are all, that everything in
the universe is of the universe.
And so we are all connected.
So I don't, I, it, it informs mypolitics obviously, because I feel like
we're all very symbiotic and of a one.
you see it play out, now that wehave social media that's teaching us

(01:28:11):
about the, the emotional complexityof animals and this, that and the
other, it's like, yeah, of course.
and we are all related.
And I feel like if there is you know,intelligent life on other planets,
which I feel is kind of inevitable,you know, I'm not a big science space
junkie, but I feel like it's inevitablethat those same instincts that make us

(01:28:31):
human are universal because you see itin animals, you see it in everything.
there, there are instincts thatare protect us, but there are
also instincts that bind us.
and they are the thingsthat, we're all made of.
So I feel very strongly about that.
So yes, my spiritual sidetakes the form of a witchiness.

(01:28:53):
But, again, I'm not feelingdogmatic about, a pagan slash
Wiccan slash whatever practice.
I feel it's very organic, I can feelas spiritual being in a church which
is constructed for a spiritual feelingas I can standing in my garden.

Boston (01:29:10):
Beautifully said.
Yeah.
That there's something more.
What that looks like is not, I don't know.
It's there, there are a lotof ways it can, there doesn't
need to be a dogma attached

Nicola (01:29:19):
Yeah.
You just have to in.
You just gotta feel it, I feel likeit's that thing of, what your instincts
are, being able to trust your instincts.
It's all the same thing.
It's just being able to, feel likeyou can understand the ebb and flow of
energy and, here are some good years.
Here are some bad years that everythingis cyclical, that, I never feel worried

(01:29:40):
when things are shit cuz it's okay,so I'm going through a shit phase, if
everything's really great, I'm like, thisis great, let's enjoy it because it won't
necessarily be this great in a year.
it doesn't mean it'll be shit ina year, but, you know, everything
is, it's waves of whatever,

Boston (01:29:56):
Thank you.
And this next question builds on that.
Have you ever encountered a phenomenonthat you just cannot explain?
And whether you have or haven't, howhas that affected your worldview?

Nicola (01:30:11):
Look, without getting The Secret about things, because I find that kind of
commercialization of a theory a bit gross.

Boston (01:30:19):
Yeah.

Nicola (01:30:20):
I do feel like, you know, you, you are really capable of manifesting.
And I believe that because I have doneit myself, I have manifested, in my own
life the things that are important to me.
And, I obviously, reality and contextand circumstances that are beyond your

(01:30:42):
control do limit, your sense of inabilityto do a thing and they can 100% restrict
you from the practical side of being ableto do a thing, but given enough time and
enough concentration on a thing, I'vemanaged to manifest pretty much what I

(01:31:05):
hoped my life would be and sometimes it'sjust spinning enough plates that you're
already got some sense of momentum andsome sense of direction so that when
opportunity arrives, when a a door isopen or a piece of luck happens your
way, you're ready for it because you'realready actively working towards a thing.

(01:31:26):
And I feel like that is where we're bestserving ourselves and best serving each
other is when we have a clear idea ofwhere we wanna go and who we wanna be
and then doing what we can to manifest it.
Cuz I do think we're all capableof manifesting something big.

(01:31:49):
requires a lot of you.

Boston (01:31:50):
I com I completely agree with that assessment.
And I, I just wanna, highlight whatyou said at the beginning because I
think The Secret and that whole Lawof Attraction, capitalist version
of this has created some reallygood reasons to turn away from that.
without saying it, you started, youacknowledged, privilege and things
that make it easier or harder.

Nicola (01:32:12):
100%.

Boston (01:32:13):
but all of that doesn't actually make it less true.
and there's another important piece.
You're not sitting therejust journaling about it.
You're actually, you are moving withall of yourself in that direction.
It takes, it's not justwords, it's everything.
And then the Cosmos has the opportunityto meet you halfway, so you notice

Nicola (01:32:34):
100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel quite strongly about that,and I understand that, sometimes the
barriers that people have are justmental health, un understanding how
sophisticated and complex and thefull spectrum of fucking everything,
everything is a goddamn spectrum.
and I believe that, that I know thatfor me, I've been very lucky to have

(01:32:57):
fallen into the, eternally optimistic,reasonably self-assured headspace.
So that has given me a certainadvantage in being able to feel
like I can manifest a thing.
But it wasn't really until I was inmy late twenties and early thirties
that I felt confident that I could.

(01:33:18):
up until then, I just feltsuspicious that I might be able to,

Boston (01:33:21):
last question.
When in your life haveyou experienced ecstasy?

Nicola (01:33:27):
Oh gosh.
Being on ectasy in thenineties a couple of

Boston (01:33:34):
I love when people give that answer.
Yeah.
Good memories.

Nicola (01:33:37):
Couple of times, yeah.
Felt like an angel.
It was great.
but beyond that, I feel it in mybones when I'm with my family.
my family's a very complexorganism, and I know not everyone
in my family feels the same way.
Relationships are complicated.
but as the youngest, I feel verygrounded and present around my family.

(01:34:05):
being on stage, there's something alittle bit, you're performing magic
because you are creating a magicspace, and you are, you are making
your audience participate and believein the space that you're creating.
that to me feels like a real, not a magictrick, but actually conjuring magic.

(01:34:33):
There's an energy.
You change the energy, and you sweepan audience along with you who, just
five minutes ago were, looking at theirwatch or doing something outside, but
suddenly they're in this magic space.

Boston (01:34:45):
It's
a ritual.
Yeah.

Nicola (01:34:47):
Yeah.
that's somewhere where I felt ecstasy.
and I think I, I'm someone who in reallyquiet little moments, like just lying in
bed in the morning with my husband and mycat, And just that bliss of just calm and
comfort, if there's something in that,that there's no stakes at play, that is an

(01:35:10):
ecstasy that I feel really conscious of.
And pretty much anytime I see a fullnote, moon, I can be going about my
night and it's oh my God, there's a fullmoon, and it really does overwhelm me.
It's, it feels deeply magical to catchit in that moment because I don't super
pay attention to the, I'm just noticingthat I actually have a moonshot behind me.

(01:35:32):
But, I like it because of the aestheticand because every now and then I do wanna
know, but for the most part, I don'tactually pay that much attention to it.
I just like to feel the vibe of it.
but every now and then you just catch in.
It's oh my God, there you are.
And it's that, that to me is alittle bit, a little bit special.

Boston (01:35:57):
That's today's episode.
Thank you again to Nicola Scott forcalling in all the way from Australia.
and a huge thank you to our listeners.
If you enjoyed the podcast, we hope you'llshare it with your friends and leave us
a review wherever you get your podcasts.
For show notes, more informationand mythic resources, visit us
on the web at mythicpodcast.com.

(01:36:20):
Until next time, journey on.

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