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Comic book power couple Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction.

(Ed Peterson)

By Jennifer Willis/Special to The Oregonian

Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fritchman were married in Kansas City, Missouri, on September 29, 2002 — one year to the day after their first phone call.

Kelly Sue, 43, writes comic books for Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse, including Avengers Assemble, Pretty Deadly, Ghost, Supergirl and Captain Marvel. Matt, 38 — better known by his pen-name, Matt Fraction — writes comics for Marvel (Hawkeye, Uncanny X-Men and The Invincible Iron Man) and Image (ODY-C).

They have two children, two cats, and one dog.

The Oregonian caught up with the couple in their Portland home to learn their secret to a successful partnership of creative minds.

How did you meet?

Matt: We met on the message board of the comic book writer Warren Ellis.

Kelly Sue: I was in Brooklyn, and he was in Kansas City, Missouri. Our first phone call (was) on September 29, 2001. Our first visit was October. You proposed in December.

Matt: We told your mom's side of the family the rule was, if anybody made you cry, you and I were going to Vegas and nobody but us was getting a wedding.

Kelly Sue: And at one point my mom called about something and I started crying, and she was like, "No! No no no! No no no!" (laughs)

What do you remember most about your wedding day?

Kelly Sue: Sean in the bunny suit.

Matt: A friend of mine sai), "Listen, I'm going to come to your wedding, but I'm going to wear a bunny suit. You have to be OK with that."Sean was 6 feet, 6 inches -- a tall dude. You were getting ready, and things were a little stressy. And then somebody said, "Oh, my god. There's a giant rabbit." You went to the window and started to laugh, and all the stress just left.

Did you have a honeymoon?

Matt: We went to the cheapest all-inclusive resort in Mexico. It was a week after Hurricane Lili had gone through.

Kelly Sue: It was horrible. We don't drink, and one of the points of an all-inclusive resort is to have limitless alcohol.

Matt: There have never been so many virgin margaritas prepared. It was all 21-year-olds and 61-year-olds. And us.

Kelly Sue: And they had loudspeakers that covered the whole place.

Matt: Two CDs.

Kelly Sue: One was some generic oontz-oontz-oontz music, and the other was Foreigner's Greatest Hits. There was no ATM at our hotel, and they would not cash a traveler's check. There were some day trips, but we could only do the one that would take a credit card, which was a bullfight.

Matt: It was really more like watching three guys standing around killing a bull.

Kelly Sue: And I understand what a bullfight is. I didn't think the bull was going to win. But I thought we were going for a cultural experience. Everybody in the stands was American.

Matt: Lots of people walking around with giant plastic booze (containers). Just kind of a rambling, alcohol-soaked bull murder. But the marriage survived a terrible Mexican honeymoon. We got through that, we can get through anything.

What are the challenges of living with another working artist?

Matt: It's tricky in that it's not 9-to-5. A creative endeavor isn't the easiest thing in the world to leave. We have offices downstairs, and family life is upstairs. I wish I could be like Fred Flintstone. When the whistle blows, I'd slide down my dinosaur and get in my car and go home, and go out for ribs at a drive-in with the kids. But even when the kids go to bed, I go back to work for a few hours at night.

Has your professional success put pressure on your marriage?

Matt: It's been a learning experience. My instinct is to recede a little bit more, and hers is to project.

Kelly Sue: You're very good on a stage, but it costs you energy to interact with people. I am a full-on extrovert. When we do a convention, he is completely wiped out, and I am vibrating. Outside of a comic convention we're not celebrities, but we have higher profiles. That has been harder on you than it has been on me, but I wouldn't say it's been hard on the marriage.

Matt: No.

Kelly Sue: We do a very dorky thing. We get together every six months and have a formal meeting.

Matt: It works best when it's treated like a retreat. We have a state of the union meeting and we look at where we are personally and professionally.

Kelly Sue: We start with a project list for each of us. We go through all the projects and ideas we've had, no matter what state they're in. We set six-month, one-year, five-year, and 10-year goals, and check in on the list from the previous six months. We do this on the professional side, and then we repeat the process on the personal side. It makes sure we're talking about things. You don't want to find out accidentally somebody had a whole different vision of the future.

Matt: I'm quoting the bard here, but we got married in a fever, so there was a lot of still getting to know you when we were married. We hadn't even had our first fight. When we had our first post-marriage fight the same thought occurred to us: What are you going to do, call a lawyer? (laughs) We've got to make this work.

Kelly Sue: Everything has to be solution-oriented. If you're mean-spirited in your fighting, it's very hard to come back from that.

What do you enjoy doing together?

Matt: Not working.

Kelly Sue: We're not good at not working. And we don't really go on vacations! (laughs) We will add an extra day or two to a business trip. We just like each other's company.

Matt: Family days are great, even if all we do is run errands all day long. I want to protect my Saturdays as best I can. The whole reason I have this job is to not have to go to an office somewhere and lose your life to it. I like that I'm the one that picks the kids up. That's important to me.

Have you ever thought your marriage wouldn't last?

Matt: No. There have been (bad) days but never one where I didn't think we were going to get through it.

Kelly Sue: I don't want to have a life without you.

Matt: Yeah. I just don't want to have to sort all that stuff. (she laughs) So you have to make it work. It's kind of a continuum. There's ebbs and flows. It's a long game. As long as you acknowledge and get through the rough parts, it's deeper and richer.

What's your secret to a healthy partnership?

Kelly Sue: Nothing we say is not going to sound trite, but some combination of communication and sense of humor.

Matt: Being willing to lose. You and I will both dig in like ticks.

Kelly Sue: The older I get, the more willing I am to be wrong. When I am actually wrong, which is rarely.

What advice would you give other couples?

Kelly Sue: Meet on the internet.

Matt: Kelly Sue had a piece of advice from her only friend who didn't warn her off of me. [He] had a special needs child and lived in Manhattan. It's a tough gig. He said marriage was the one thing in his life that wasn't work. It made him happy and it brought him joy and it was easy.

Kelly Sue: It doesn't have to be hard.

-- Jennifer Willis