War Rocket Ajax #5: ComicsAlliance’s Podcast Talks Dr. McNinja, Strong Female Characters

This week on War Rocket Ajax, Chris Sims and Matt Wilson have a conversation with artist, colorist, and animator Carly Monardo to talk about her work on The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, The Venture Bros., and her latest creation with Kate Beaton and Meredith Gran, the Strong Female Characters! And you can listen to the whole thing right here at ComicsAlliance!War Rocket Ajax v.2, #5: Nice and No Poop On It with Carly Monardo

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

In this week's episode, Chris and Matt take a look at the turning point issues of this summer's big event books, Matt reveals details on his upcoming book, The Supervillain Handbook, and Chris holds a mirror up to depth of humanity with a special Big Ups to the comments on his Transformers: Dark of the Moon review!

In the interview, Carly tells us about the amazing origin of the Strong Female Characters:

Speaking purely for myself, I never thought anyone but the three of us would find it funny. Kate Beaton, Meredith Gran and I were at my apartment, we were celebrating Chris [Hastings]'s birthday, as a matter of fact. I don't remember how exactly it came up, I feel like someone said something about MMAs, and instead of thinking "oh, mixed martial artists," for some reason, Katie and I both for a split second thought "Jet fighter!"
So then I thought "oh no, it's not jet fighter, it's mixed martial arts, well, we should make characters that do both!" And we thought "yeah, we'll put 'em in that sexy pose you do all the time, Katie," so we just started drawing these really horrendous sketches, just kind of trying to top one another.

And about the tropes that led to their creation:

It's really sad. I get really cranky when you see people, like creators, kind of puff out their chest and they're like "look, see what I did? I gave you a wonderful, strong female protagonist!" And I'm just like "No, you didn't! You didn't at all! You gave me a fetish doll that I don't want."

We also talk about her work on Venture Bros., and her least-favorite prop she ever had to color:

There was this one episode where Phantom Limb comes back as Revenge, and he leaves a little poop in the shape of an R in the Guild of Calamitous Intent, where that big room where all of the screens were. So Revenge comes in and he poops on the floor and he leaves a big steaming R, and I had to put a shine on it and it was really gross. But I really did work on getting the color just so.

And when we turn it over to our Twitter questions, we learn a surprising fact:

"I bench a cool 226, Chris."

Show Notes:

For more on Carly Monardo, check out her tumblr, her art blog, and her online portfolio.

Fighter Pilots. Feminists. Friends. The Strong Female Characters.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja can be found here (which you most likely already knew). To see Carly's tenure as colorist, start here! Also, be sure to check out her unused cover images from Dr. McNinja v.4.

The Commissioner can be spotted in Tick: New Series #.

If you'd like to leave your own awful comment on Chris's Transformers review, have at it.

Adam Warrock's New Warriors EP, mistakenly referred to in the show as the X-Factor EP (sorry, Euge).

Chris's Rec: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth