Gail Simone is the author of some of my favorite comics. From Leaving Megalopolis, to Wonder Woman, to Birds of Prey, Batgirl, Red Sonja, Tomb Raider, and her short-lived run on Superman, she’s consistently entertaining.
She also has an off-kilter sense of humor, most evident in her work on Secret Six, a comic about a band of villain who with their own skewed code of ethics, and in her horror writing, such as the Vertigo comic Clean Room.
You could get a sense of her authorial voice by reading some of these comics (and you should read as many as you can), but you can also get a free sample by following her hilarious Twitter feed, where she trolls at will.
By “troll,” I don’t mean she’s evil or harasses other users. In fact, she often makes fun of the fact that she makes stuff up:
She deliberately takes ridiculous stances in the name of entertainment. Add to this a tendency to deflect insults with humor (a must for a woman with strong opinions on Twitter), and it adds up to one of the all-time great Twitter feeds—one I keep in a separate column on my Tweetdeck so as not to miss anything.
Here are my 5 favorite Simone Twitter Trolls:
1. Spider-Man Isn’t a Member of the Avengers.
When the Captain America: Civil War trailer featuring Spider-Man at the end was released, Simone immediately posted complaints that Spider-Man wasn’t a member of the Avengers. This, of course, isn’t true, as he’s been extensively featured in Avengers comics over the past decade. Cue two sets of responses: those in on the joke, and those who took her seriously. She retweeted numerous responses telling her how “wrong” she was.
2. King Shark is a Shark.
King Shark was one of the DC characters Simone used in Secret Six, and when she first received was asked whether King Shark was a man mutated into a shark or a shark mutated into a man, she simply said “King Shark is a shark.” She answered that way over and over until it became a meme, one that she even wrote into a story, complete with theme song.
Thus, when King Shark actually appeared on The Flash, her twitter feed erupted with cries of “King Shark is a shark!”
3. She’s an expert on Arrow and The Flash.
Because she’s written numerous DC Comics, and because Black Canary is one of her favorite characters, people often ask Simone questions about these shows on Twitter. She doesn’t watch them. At all. Perhaps she became bored with answering the questions honestly; whatever the reason, she instead decided to make up her own answers, signaling that she’s “totes expert” about the shows.
4. Cyclops is the worst X-Men Ever.
I’m not entirely sure if Simone truly hate Cyclops, if it’s just the shortest name to say on Twitter (where character count matters), or if she just like the sound of his name, but you can find numerous and increasingly humorous tweets about why the X-Man with the power eyes simply sucks. Again, half the fun is watching people take her assertion seriously.
5. Responses to Political Trolling.
Yes, Simone is liberal. She’ll accept the label of “social justice warrior.” Sometimes, vile insults are thrown her way. Her solution? Retweet the insult with a nonsense response.
If you’d like to peruse a longer sample, I’ve pulled tweets from a two-week period to create this Storify collection (watch for the one in which she denies she would ever stoop so low as to troll her Twitter followers). It doesn’t even include the time she tried to stir up Star Trek fandom by pretending ignorance, or her fondness for the word “bonerses,” so much so she lists “boner joke consultant” in her Twitter bio. Long live @GailSimone!
