Regine Sawyer has been in the comics game for over 12 years, and has worn about as many different hats. In the late 2000s she founded the company Lockett Down Productions, self-publishing her creator-owned comics which draw inspiration from some of her earliest teenage creations. Her involvement with fellow women comic creators and a bustling rolodex of names in the comics industry eventually led to her organization Women in Comics, aka WinC. The organization's next annual convention arrives in Brooklyn on June 30.

As both a creator and convention-runner, Sawyer allots equal care and attention to promoting her newest books as she does making sure that her colleagues’ contributions are being honored and supported. These two focuses are crucial in a compromised industry, where the acknowledgement and financial support shown to the work of women, women of color, and other marginalized creatives frequently fails to pass muster.

I sat with Regine during one of her routinely busy weeks to discuss her comic fandom origins, her hopes for this year's WinC convention, and the surprising ways her mother tried to help her comic creator dreams come true.

Leonardo Faierman: How did you first encounter comics when you were younger? Was it on spinner racks at the bodega? Watching TV?

Regine Sawyer: It came from several different origins. My father used to read the funnies to me every Sunday, cover-to-cover — it was our weekly ritual. As I got older, he started buying me "Archie" comics at the supermarket from the rack next to the register.

On the flip side was my brother. We’d watch the shows: "The Incredible Hulk," "The Greatest American Hero," "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends," we’d always watch those. I think the real breakthrough, though, came when we got the original "X-Men" video game for the original NES.

LF: The one with the tiny little character sprites?

I would draw characters every day, nonstop. All women.

Yes! The tiny characters. And where White Queen was supposedly the villain, but it was actually Mystique’s design! It was so weird, but I loved it, and my brother was like, "Yeah, the X-Men are really cool!" I was so taken with the characters, so I started buying the comics — "X-Men Classics" to be specific. My brother and I would go to the comic shop together, and it just became an obsession.

I soon started creating my own characters. As a little girl I loved to write and, originally, I would sketch the characters out, type up descriptions for them and all that stuff. I asked my mom to find out how I could sell my characters to Marvel, and she would just call the offices and ask to speak to John Romita Jr.

She’d be like, "My daughter has work and she’d like to talk to you guys." And he would actually speak to her! It was fun... not that anything came of it.

LF: So with the comics that you print at Lockett Down Productions, are any of those the characters you made when you were younger?

RS: Yes. I created "The Rippers" when I was about 16, 17 years old, I wrote them and sketched out drawings. And there are a few characters that are going to enter the "Regineverse" that I created even before that time. Some of them will appear in "Eating Vampires" and "Ice Witch" as well.

Like I said: I had a stack of sketchbooks that I would draw characters in every day, nonstop. All women.

LF: The comics that you make are firmly within accessible pop culture genres. What potential do you see in those types of genres for exploring the political?

RS: I like to be both subversive and organic. I don’t like just throwing a subject in there to be political. So in "The Rippers," if an injustice occurs, the push is for that situation to emerge organically. I’m discussing toxic masculinity, what it’s like to be an outcast, what it’s like to be accepted, and playing with those ideas in a topical fashion. So, like, not, "Here I am! I am oppressed!" I don’t go around saying that in real life, and I feel it and I do discuss it, and I think these topics are important, but I don’t think they should just be hitting people over the head either.

I like to be both subversive and organic.

My own approach in my books is that characters need to talk about these issues in ways that are tangible and accessible. For example, "Ice Witch"’s characters are predominantly black. There’s no question of, how did black folk get into outer space? They’re just there. And it’s OK to talk about these things more overtly or break them down but, in my books, I’m always just going to show rather than tell.

The response to "Eating Vampires" has been very strong, and women aren’t used to seeing other women in hijabs and burqas pulling out swords and defending themselves.

LF: WinC Con is coming up soon. What can you tell me about the first WinC Con?

RS: We got the first show together in just a month. It didn’t feel exactly rushed, but it started with Ray Felix of Bronx Heroes Comic Con. He came to me and was like, "I don’t feel like doing Bronx Heroes. Do you want to do a Women in Comics Con?" It was around the end of March, and I just said, "Sure, why not?"

Ray had a lot going on at the time. We did what we usually do for events: we told our WinC members, hey, this is what’s going on. Show up, sell your stuff. I did a panel, taught two workshops, and was really, really tired that year.

I relied on social media and WinC members to promote and provide outreach for the con, and we were able to retain a lot of the audience that usually goes to Bronx Heroes. So, even though it was a first-year con, we had some audience, some press, and some reach based on what had been built up to that point.

LF: So that was all done with last-minute planning. What about the follow-up?

RS: It was crazy. We had about 1,000 people show up, and did about three months of prep before the show. I reached out to artist Phil Jimenez, who’s a friend of mine, and he was very enthusiastic about coming. Then Bleeding Cool heard that Phil was coming, so they showed up, and WinC Con is now Old Man Geek’s favorite show of the year!

LF: This year should be the biggest one yet.

RS: Yes! We’re at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. The space is huge, but this is their first convention. The team there is very hyped about it, and they’ve been wonderful and cooperative, going above and beyond. We have three vending spaces this year, two workshop rooms, an auditorium, and a cafe. And there’s a radio show — Musical Pathways — who will be recording and broadcasting live throughout the event.

You can never overestimate or underestimate your reach.

Great workshops, panels, and guests are coming. I love having a variety of useful panels and information for our attendees. That’s my number one priority; it’s not about who’s most famous, it’s about whether you can provide our audience with quality information that they can bring back and utilize in their communities. That’s what I’m most passionate about. We’re not just going to throw somebody on a pedestal because they’re a famous artist and can bring 200,000 fans, but then start talking about "Make America Great Again." No. I don’t care. Absolutely not.

LF: Speaking about workshops, tell me about the workshops you did at The Met.

RS: Oh man, that was fun!

So, I will get emails all the time from people, and I’m always taken aback, like, how do you know about me, how do you know about WinC? I’m always shocked. Somehow, I just got a cold-call email from The Met’s program director. She told me that they were doing their yearly World Culture Festival and wanted to know if I could come down and host a day of workshops. I said, are you serious?

I went down to meet Maya Valladares and she was wonderful. She took me through the secret back rooms at The Met, gave me tons of art materials to take home, and showed me the space, which was positioned in the Japanese art exhibit among the scrolls there, which are considered some of the first examples of sequential storytelling. Alitha E. Martinez and I conducted the workshops, and we almost had 400 people attend, which was considered an impressive museum turnout.

What I took from the whole experience and say to others is this: You can never overestimate or underestimate your reach. People you would never expect to see you, end up seeing you. So go out on a limb and put yourself out there. You never know.

Leonardo Faierman is podcaster, editor, and freelance writer, with bylines at Screen Rant, Bandcamp, The Iranian, and Black Girl Nerds. He is 1/2 of the horror film podcast The Scream Squad and 1/5th of the comics podcast #BlackComicsChat.

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