As a comic writer, Stephanie Phillips has written for Marvel, DC, BOOM! Studios, Image, and many other publishers. She is currently writing Phoenix, she wrote a popular Harley Quinn series, and created Grim at BOOM!, among many more titles.

In the first part of our interview, Phillips shared how she got into the industry and talked about some of her well known titles. In the second half of our conversation, she talked more about the process of writing comics, interacting with fans and potential comic creators, and provided details about titles she is currently working on.

Scoop: What are some of the challenges to writing comics that the average person might not realize?
SP: You have a very finite number of pages. If something was a novel, you’re not limited by having 20 storytelling pages in this issue of the comic. So being a comic book writer, there’s a lot more decision making and there are probably a lot of scenes in all of our heads that never make it to the page because you have to be so selective. You have to think this has to really get to the core of exactly what I need it to. So maybe I had 10 scenes in my mind that would be so amazing for this storyline, but given the page count I can only give you so much. We have to make the best decisions possible.

I’ve done some TV work as well and it’s in television too, but still not as much as comics. The size and format of comics are still more restrictive than any of the TV stuff I’ve done, because you start writing a scene that would take up five pages of your 20 pages in a comic, and it’s only two minutes of your 30-minute TV show. It’s like, “Oh, I have so much time” and people move so quickly, and I ended up with so much more space in these episodes I was writing than I thought.

Whereas with comics, it’s always was like, “Oh, if I just had two more pages.” That’s always the feeling. But it’s a really good writing lesson to know that you don’t have two more pages, you need to know that these are the 20 pages you have, and they have to count. These have to be the best 20 pages that you can present to the reader. So the choices you’re making are far more critical, than in other formats because the spacing is so limited and you still have to be able to present and tell the best story you can.

And honestly, I think the only other format I see that comes even close is professional wrestling, which is so weird to say. You have wrestlers that get to appear for one to two minutes of screen time to try to sell you on their character and their storyline. So they have to make every single moment count and really capitalize on that timing. We have to do the same. I have 20 pages to invest you in this story and I need to make every choice possible to ensure that I’m not wasting space and you are going to come back for the next issue.

Scoop: What advice do you give to people who want to work in comics?
SP: It’s a very unusual job. There is no one secret to making it in comics or getting into the industry. It really is just a matter of doing it. You can’t wait for somebody’s permission. You’re not going to get a random publisher knocking on your door if you’ve never written anything, saying come right for us. You really just have to do it.

A weird and difficult thing about that is, there is a privilege to being able to say, when I first started out, I paid the artist that I hired to draw five pages. At the time I was a student, and that was all I could afford was to pay him for five pages, but I did. I was like, “This is what I want to do, and I know I want do it, so I’m going to invest in this.” Even though I made no money from the very first book I published, and I guess technically would be in the negatives because I paid for some of the artwork, it ended up being something that opened the door. Just taking the chance on that. I didn’t really have the money to spend on those five pages, but in my mind, this is an investment.

I don’t think other people saw the vision either. I remember the time my parents were like, “Um, maybe that’s not the best thing to spend your money on.” I remember showing them and there was a little bit of concern about what I was doing because artwork is not cheap. I think some other people that I told I was doing that were kind of like, “Oh, that’s cute. Nice hobby, I guess.” I don’t think people saw the vision that I had for myself. But I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So I made an investment and I guess it paid off. I’m happy I did.

Scoop: You post videos on TikTok about your work and the process of making comics. Tell me more about your presence on that platform.
SP: I started using it because I get a lot of questions from new writers basically, asking for advice. I unfortunately just don’t have the time to answer everybody individually. A friend of mine who uses TikTok a lot was like, “You should try this.” She was pushing me for a long time, and I was very consistently – for like over a year – saying no, I don’t want to be on video. I don’t like this. I had a TikTok account just to watch funny cat videos. Then one day I tried it.

We were at a convention, and she helped film some of the content. I said I’ll put it up and I just remember it took me days to press upload because I thought, “This is terrifying. I feel so uncomfortable.” It’s a very vulnerable feeling. It ended up doing well and people were positive and asking questions. I was like, “Oh so people actually do want to know what it is that I do for work and why I do it and to talk about these stories.”

I also realized it was a really good away for me to be able to help those people that reach out to me, because I just do not have the time to read everybody’s scripts and things like that. So, I feel like it, it’s a really good, hopefully inclusive, way to show both bits of what I do as a writer and offer advice and knowledge to incoming writers that I never got when I was incoming. Hopefully it can kind of fill a bit of a gap where I just don’t think there’s a lot of easily accessible information about what this career looks like.

Scoop: Which characters have been the most fun to write?
SP: They’re all fun. It’s a bad answer, but my favorite character is always the one I’m currently writing. It’s whatever script is in front of me because I feel so excited about it and really into it. They just announced I did a She-Hulk story as part of the “Imperial” line, and when I tell you I fell in love with Jen [Walters]… She-Hulk is an incredible character, and I always had fun reading her. I specifically asked to write the She-Hulk one. I knew there was a She-Hulk portion to “Imperial” floating around and I asked for it. I said, “I would really like to write that.” But even though I specifically asked for it, I don’t think I realized how much I would just absolutely fall in love with her, in a new way, by writing her. So, you know, because it’s one of the most recent things I’ve written, I can say Jen.

When I was writing Harley, it would be Harley and my work on Harley means so much to me. I got a tattoo to commemorate it. I really enjoy the character, and her voice is going to be stuck inside of me probably forever. [laughs] Which is maybe good, maybe bad. I don’t know, but it’s fun. There’s a new character on my desk right now that might be one of the biggest characters I’ve ever gotten to write, so that one is… that’s also sticking out to me. Man, I would like to be able to talk about it.

Scoop: Can you tell readers what you are working on now?
SP: Yeah, there’s an All-New Spider-Gwen series out in a few months, I think. It’s the same art team that’s been on the Spider-Gwen ongoing series as well. As soon as we come off of issue 15, the very next month, the All-New Spider-Gwen. It’s going to have a new villain, kind of an all-new status quo for Gwen [Stacy]. We’re going to get back to some of her roots, like playing music, which I think is really important to Gwen as a character. I’m really excited about having just some cool rock’n’roll pages in the book, because the artwork looks fantastic. I’m working on two other brand new things that have not been announced yet, but I think we will be getting announcements later this month or next for at least some of it.

Scoop: What are some of your dream projects you’d like to work on?
SP: I’m working on it, and I can’t tell you! [laughs]. I am working on it. It’s a weird thing because it’s one of those projects that, for a while, I did answer the question with this character if I was ever asked. And it happened super organically back in February while I was at the Marvel offices. There was a pretty in-depth conversation I had with some people in editorial about things that were important to me as a writer and working with them. Something I really admire about Marvel is they really do listen a lot. Like characters, I’ve told them I like, something has always come up where they have found an opportunity, even if it’s just a miniseries or one-shot, they really remember and take that into consideration. This spun out of a discussion about something that I thought was really important to me as a writer. But at the time I didn’t just pitch a story, I pitched an entire team and I am now seeing that come to fruition and I think it’s kind of crazy that it’s all happening. [laughs] I’m very happy with that.