Throughout this spotlight, Andrea details the fun (and complexity!) brought about by the focus of this year’s Pride comic – “team ups” that provide interactions between characters that wouldn’t otherwise associate. Andrea’s insider knowledge on all things DC – and her authentic desire to create art that promotes true equality – makes this spotlight a must-read. Read on below.

How long have you been working at WBD, and what do you do here?

I hit my eight-year mark at WBD in June, which is wild to think about! I’m an editor at DC Comics (the comics, not the movies!), and if you’re wondering what a comic book editor does—have you ever seen that video of a photographer trying to line up a bunch of kittens for a picture, but every time he gets one of ‘em in place, four more stumble off in other directions? I’m the photographer in that situation, but also maybe one or two of the kittens. And at the end you get a comic book.

What is the DC Pride annual comic? What’s your role in bringing it to life?

The DC Pride annual comic is a 104-page anthology that spotlights our LGBTQIA+ characters in a series of short stories, as brought to life by an incredible roster of LGBTQIA+ writers, artists, colorists and letterers. And while we encourage that each creative team highlight queer themes in their work, it’s absolutely not a requirement—some of our most loved stories are the ones that let our queer characters just live their lives as people. We’ve also been fortunate enough to feature some truly gorgeous pin up illustrations and autobiographical features on LGBTQIA+ titans in our industry.

As for what I do! First and foremost, alongside my brilliant fellow editors Chris Conroy, Jess Chen, Arianna Turturro, Michael McCalister and Jillian Grant, I do the aforementioned kitten herding across a few stories and illustrations in every year’s edition of the DC Pride anthology. But the Pride initiative has, from its inception, extended far beyond the reaches of editorial, and even the month of June (and I’ll get to that part in a bit). In the first half of the year, I’m coordinating with multiple departments across the company—Publicity, Marketing, Business Affairs, Sales, Events, executive leadership and more—to ensure that our celebratory work is a labor of love heard ‘round the industry, and ideally the world.

If we’ve done our jobs right, we’re able to reach multifarious DC fans and make them feel seen, heard and represented by our labor of love. And it IS that—a LOT of work, year-round, powered by our enthusiasm for these amazing DC characters, their stories and the fans who love them the way we do.

How does the 2023 edition differ from past years?

In our first couple editions of the DC Pride anthology, the focus was a bit narrower—we delivered largely single-character short stories. Or stories where a character was interacting with someone fans already understood to be in their world, like the gorgeous and heartfelt “He’s the Light of My Life!” starring Green Lantern (Alan Scott) and his son Obsidian from our very first DC Pride anthology. But 2023 felt like the perfect year to start mixing things up!

Our north star for this year was “team ups”—ideally between characters who had rarely or never spent much time together. It allowed for some incredibly delightful and vibrant adventures (Harley, Ivy, and Crush—daughter of Lobo—stranded together on Dinosaur Island!), and a few that resonate with a fresh complexity because these new dynamics have inspired intra-community conversations between our characters and across their experiences as both DC Super Heroes and queer individuals. Plus, we got to spend some time introducing brand new characters to old favorites, like our first transmasculine hero Circuit Breaker getting booted into another dimension thanks to Flash of Earth-11’s meddling, or an unexpected flirtation between nonbinary magician Xanthe Zhou and Batwoman…in a graveyard, because of course.

This year we were also able to celebrate the incredible life and writing of groundbreaking DC writer, trans activist, and tarot expert Rachel Pollack. She’d been looking forward to writing an autobiographical short for this year’s anthology, similar to the Kevin Conroy story of DC Pride 2022, but unfortunately Rachel passed before work could begin in earnest. Still, it was an honor to include several testimonials from her friends and cohorts who loved and admired her, as well as some of the most beloved and famous moments from works she wrote for DC throughout the 90s.

DC has a long history of commitment to representing LGBTQ+ characters. What does it mean to you to work at a company that has such a high profile and yet doesn’t shy away from championing inclusion?

Our brilliant DC Librarian and Archivist Benjamin LeClear wrote an introduction to our DC Pride: Through the Years special (a secondary anthology that reprinted thirty years of DC’s queer storytelling history) that catalogued the history of queerness, and queer coding in comics. I found it particularly revelatory, especially the parts about how all comics, regardless of publisher, once had to adhere to the guidelines set out by the Comics Code Authority until DC chose to break away from their draconian influence in the 80s. I learned about Metropolis police officer Maggie Sawyer, adversary and eventually friend of Superman, who was queer with intention and care before we were ever allowed to use the word “lesbian” in a comic. I recently even learned that there was some fear of public reaction when that comic was published, but we are all better for that first shout of our existence, of the importance of our stories, and everything that’s come from it since.

I am so enormously proud of the DC Pride anthology. And we’re so grateful to have been supported every step of the way by our executive leadership team—DC Editor-in-Chief Marie Javins, Senior Vice President and General Manager Anne DePies, and President, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee. But we exist the way we do today at what I see as a midpoint of a road built by every courageous decision that’s preceded our place on it. And we stand on the shoulders of the publishers, editors, writers and artists who have made those decisions long before we ever came along, the late Rachel Pollack among them. It’s an honor to continue their work, now more than ever.

What does championing inclusion look like for you when it’s not Pride Month?

Once June is over, I spend a lot of my time outside my standard workload coordinating with other editors across the DCU to ensure characters and talent we feature in the anthology don’t get lost in our vast shared universe throughout the year. Sometimes that means encouraging or arranging subplots and backup stories in our biggest books, like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Just a month ago, actress, trans activist, and DC Pride writer Nicole Maines wrote an amazing Harley Quinn backup short where the clown princess of crime goes on a not-so-altruistic knight’s quest to rescue her true love, and it’s absolutely delightful. Other times, we could be talking about a whole DC Pride-launched comic book series focused on an LGBTQIA+ character—like the beloved and wildly successful Poison Ivy, the work of my fellow DC Pride editor Arianna Turturro. But I think my favorite is when we get to bring an up-and-coming queer talent whose work impressed the heck out of us into the DCU to make their series debut, which you’ve seen with Skylar Patridge’s rockstar line art across the Trial of the Amazons event last year, and you’re seeing right now with Jadzia Axelrod’s arresting writing on the upcoming Hawkgirl series.

On the whole, my goal is to make the spirit of DC Pride so ubiquitous throughout the rest of the year that the celebration every June doesn’t feel like water in a desert, but just another drop in an ocean of incredible queer stories, characters and talent we work with year-round.

What does Pride mean to you?

Courageous, community action even in the face of adversity. Especially in the face of adversity. And there’s a lot of adversity out there, but to borrow a phrase from DC Pride 2023—"heroes are better together.”