There isn’t a single woman that I know in geekdom that hasn’t experienced sexism, harassment and other such things. It’s an ongoing horror that so many of us are trying to get the community past. Obviously what goes on within geekdom isn’t exclusive to us but the battles we fight here hopefully spread outwards in whatever small ways possible.
There are several friends of mine that have been to a ton of conventions, like myself. We have our share of horror stories and it gets to be pretty depressing when you’re wracking your brain trying to think of legitimately good people within the industry. That’s not to say that they don’t exist, though.
Many creators that I’ve seen post things like “Come behind my table at a convention if you feel unsafe!” have later been outed as predators that have taken advantage of women or sexually harassed them in other ways. When you can’t trust the word of men claiming to be feminists, who can you trust? Your fellow ladies, that’s who. I’m starting this ongoing list of creators that I personal vouch for and that people I trust also personally vouch for.
If you ever have someone harassing you, making you uncomfortable or whatever and you need an immediate place to hide until a convention staff member can deal with the problem, these people who I feel fairly confident will help you:
- Brenden Fletcher (writer of Batgirl, Gotham Academy, Black Canary)
- Valentine De Landro (artist on Bitch Planet)
- Michael Walsh (artist on Secret Avengers)
- Gene Ha (creator of Mae)
- Yanick Paquette (artist)
- Matt Fraction (writer of Sex Criminals)
- Chip Zdarsky (writer of Howard the Duck)
- Kurtis Wiebe (writer of Rat Queens)
- Johnnie Christmas (artist of Sheltered and Pisces)
- Nimit Malavia (artist)
- Francesco Francavilla (artist)
- Cully Hamner (artist)
- Bryan JL Glass (writer of Mice Templar)
- Thomas Zahler (artist)
- Marc Laming (artist)
- Paul Storrie (writer)
- Ibrahim Moustafa (artist on High Crimes)
- Jeremy Holt (writer)
- Peter Krause (artist on Irredeemable, Insufferable)
- Francis Manapul (writer and artist)
- Rufus Dayglo (artist on Tank Girl)
- Ed Brisson (writer)
- Ryan Ferrier (writer of D4VE, Tiger Lawyer)
- Mike Rooth (artist)
- James Tynion IV (writer of Memetic)
- Mitch Gerads (artist on The Activity, Sheriff of Babylon)
- Riley Rossmo (artist)
- Brandon Seifert (writer)
- Jeff Stokely (artist)
- Declan Shalvey (artist on Moon Knight)
- Karl Kerschl (artist on Gotham Academy)
- Steve Niles (writer of Mystery Society)
- David Petersen (writer and artist of Mouse Guard)
- Anthony Hary (artist)
Not to say that people who AREN’T on this list are bad eggs, but these are people that I PERSONALLY vouch for. I also may have forgotten a few but again, if they’re on this list… they’re good people. Also, there are deliberately no women on this list since for the most part, I assume that all of them would help someone in need as we’ve all seen some sh*t. That being said, I’ll try to compile a list of ladies in another post.
If I’ve added you to this list and you don’t feel comfortable being on here, please send me a message, but otherwise, keep being great humans.
