How to Be a Superhero Author Lexie Dunne on Damsels, Empowerment, and the Delights of Alliteration (An NYCC Interview)

Did you grow up reading superhero comics?
I did not. I didn’t read comic books until after my book was published! I didn’t know where to start, I never had somebody say “Okay, here’s this comic, start with this”–they’re very confusing. But I had a friend that was telling me—she looked at what I liked and she was like “you’re gonna like Captain Marvel, here’s what you need to read. 
Captain Marvel or Ms. Marvel?
Both. Captain Marvel was my entry point, and yeah, anything Kelly Sue DeConnick writes, like, I’m there. I got to meet her at New York Comic Con two years ago and I nearly cried. She is so gracious and so badass.
Did you draw on particular superheroes for the series [Superheroes Anonymous]?
Well I watched superhero cartoons and I’m really into superhero movies—like, Black Widow showed up in Iron Man 2 and like, that scene where she’s kicking ass down the hallways is hands-down probably my favorite scene ever. That shot where she walks toward the camera and her eyes are like “I’m gonna kill you all”? Ugh, it’s so great.
And she pepper sprays the guy…
Like, without looking. Boom. Yeah, that scene was probably a really big turning point in my life. [laughs] But—and this is a horrible thing to say, but Mystery Men the movie…1999, they’re these terrible superpowers like The Shoveler and The Blue Rajah—that was a huge formative influence.
You sum up the SA series as “Lois Lane becomes Supergirl.”
It’s the easiest way to define it. Lois Lane was kind of my entry point for it. I used to live out in the Hamptons, and there’s two things in the Hamptons: really rich snobby people, and traffic. And I got stuck in traffic a lot, and when I was in traffic one day, I wondered “Why doesn’t Lois realize she’s at the center of every single kidnapping and every disaster that hits Metropolis?” Why doesn’t she put that together? And—like, not even “why does she not know it’s Clark Kent versus Superman,” but why doesn’t she realize how much of it revolves around her? And so I thought about that as a character, how somebody could not notice that. My character is Gail Godwin, and for four years she’s been kidnapped by every supervillain in Chicago. So the media doesn’t even remember her name, they just call her Hostage Girl. So…she’s really fun. She’s really kind of oblivious and I love her for it.
You wanted Gail to have an alliterative name. Was that because of Lois?
Yes, partially. Just superheroes in general, like all the superheroes that have alliterative names. All of them are escaping me right now. Peter Parker.
It’s interesting, because in the Silver Age, all of Superman’s girlfriends had LL names. There was Lois Lane, Lana Lang—he also fell in love with a mermaid named Lori Lemaris.
I’m not surprised by that. None of that surprises me. Like, mermaid? Yeah, I’ll go with it.

It was a weird time. He had a lion head…
I love the Silver Age.
How did you settle on what powers to give Gail?
Actually, I didn’t in the first book. Her powers evolve throughout the books—kind of a spoiler, but in the first book, I was like “I just want her to feel powerful for once.” Because she had been kidnapped for four years and she just kind of accepted it. But it was more like “I can’t do anything about it, these are all way more powerful than me, I can’t hit back without getting hurt,” so she kind of lost all hope. So I wanted a power where she was literally and figuratively powerful. So super-strength, and then super-endurance—it’s theoretically supposed to make her smarter…I’m not actually sure we’re seeing examples of that in the series, but…
In the second book we discover her powers aren’t what we thought they were, and I wasn’t sure I was going to do that until I wrote the scene. That was the scariest scene I’ve ever written for myelf. I’m like, “I have to commit if I do this.” So a little look into the process there.
So she doesn’t start off with powers exactly, and you’ve talked a little bit in previous material…
I wonder where that could be? [laughter]
You’ve talked about that sense of empowerment—was starting from the ground up, empowering the most ordinary person–was that kind of the feminist undertone that you wanted to bring to it or was that a bonus?
It was mostly a bonus, I think. Growing up—and I do talk about this in previous publications–I got really tired of the “damsel in distress” trope. I love the character Meg from Hercules—you know, “I’m a damsel, I’m distressed, I’ve got it, I can handle this.” I love that—I’m basically tired of these women that were basically held to be a bargaining chip against the heroes that would come in and be all manly and save the day. I hated the idea that “save the day” was only a manly thing. I used to play Ninja Turtles with my brother, and Superman even. And I always had to be April O’Neil, and April—I love her, I love her reporter, investigative journalist side, but she’s—
Nothing.
Yeah. She’s just—she’s always getting kidnapped and the Turtles always have to rescue her. And that always drove me nuts! So I love the hero that saves herself. There’s a lot of that–I don’t see a lot of that here, so I’m going to make my own. Dang it.
You said on your site—
You’ve done your research!
I did a little research! You said that one of your characters is pansexual but is not the only queer character in the series. But you were very vague about who else might be hiding in the wings.
It’s a thing that comes out in the third book, in How to Save the World, I do acknowledge that there are two women in relationship— can’t say [who] they are because it’s a great twist. But there are some LGBT characters in the book and that was very important to me. All my friends are queer—they all say queer.

Every one of your friends is…?
Every single one! There’s not a single straight one in the bunch. My one straight friend is like, “Hey!” [laughter]
Is How to Save the World the final book?
[looks around furtively] It’s the final book for now. There are maybe possibilities for a fourth one or even an ongoing series on the table. I’m kind of a weird publishing stepchild—the first two did really well so they were like “Let’s do a third one!” So if you want to see a fourth book you have to buy my books and tell all your friends about ‘em.
Have you considered doing a comic, any sort of graphic supplement?
Ohhhh, I would love one. One of my friends-slash-readers-slash-awesome guy Mike gave me these alternate covers for all of my books, and I’ve got ‘em in my bag. Gonna frame ‘em on the wall. I would love a graphic novel of Gail’s adventures because I think that would look so cool, but not quite there yet. So if anyone wants to draw me stuff…I mean, I won’t say no.
How to Save the World is out now for Nook, and available in print November 1.