Originally a self-described “upper-middle-class American White girl with bland politics and polite beliefs,” she converted to Islam while in college, worked as a journalist in Mubarak’s Egypt, and now writes the hugely successful comic series Ms. Marvel. Featuring a Pakistani-American teenage girl from Jersey City named Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel became a surprise hit, winning a Hugo Award and becoming one of the few comics in Marvel’s history whose first issue reached a seventh printing. Kahn’s image was even used as a major protest icon following the 2016 election.
As the first Muslim superhero in the history of Marvel Comics to have her own series, Kahn is part of a demographic shift in comic books away from mainly White characters. Ms. Marvel’s success would have drawn any author into the debate about American identity. But Wilson—White, female, and Muslim—is a particularly unique and outspoken voice in the comic world, and has had to navigate both the praise for, and the anger against, the changing identity of the American superhero—and the changing identity of their creators.
Join us as we delve into American identity through the story of Ms. Marvel and its author. This event will cover topics including Islam and America’s relationship with it, Wilson’s experiences as a White woman converting to Islam after growing up in an atheist household, her life as a journalist in Egypt, and Ms. Marvel’s success and what it means for comic culture and American culture more broadly. The event will be moderated by KUOW’s Jamala Henderson.
In addition to Ms. Marvel, Wilson is the author of numerous other comic series and graphic novels, including Cairo, Air, and Mystic, the nonfiction book The Butterfly Mosque, and the novel Alif the Unseen. Wilson has also been a contributor to The Atlantic, the New York Times, and the National Post.
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In this captivating talk, author G Willow Wilson uses the challenges that face her award-winning new superhero, Ms Marvel, as a parallel for the challenges of a misunderstood generation – the millennials.
G. Willow Wilson is an award-winning book and graphic-novel author, best known as one of the women leading the renaissance in female comic superheroes. Her co-creation, Ms. Marvel, a coming of age story about a young Pakistani-American girl in Jersey City discovering and coping with her superpowers, has become a phenomenon. Willow converted to Islam in college and moved to Egypt to teach English. While there she wrote her graphic novel Cairo. She describes her exploration of Egypt and Islam in her memoir, The Butterfly Mosque. Her novel Alf the Unseen was a NYT Notable Book of 2012 and won the World Fantasy Award. She continues her part in revolutionizing comics as one of a four-person team behind A-Force, the first superhero team of Marvel’s Mightiest Women. Willow lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters where she enjoys British films, cooking, World of Warcraft and has a purple belt in Kajukenbo.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
