Forgotten Women of Genre: Mindy Newell

March is Women's History Month. And while here on SYFY FANGRRLS we celebrate women's achievements throughout the year, we're going above and beyond for the coming month with a limited podcast series called Forgotten Women of Genre.

Fun fact: there is right now, at this moment in time, a more diverse creative pool in mainstream comics than there ever has been! This is probably why comics are also more awesome than ever before. Funny how that works out, isn't it? Yet, we need look back only a few years to recall a time when that was not the case.

Mindy Newell has the honor of being the first credited woman writer of Catwoman, Wonder Woman, AND Lois Lane. While this is a massive achievement in and of itself, the fact remains that all of those characters had been around for roughly 5 decades by the time Newell took on the job(s). Not great!

Still, if things are so different now, then why is Newell usually forgotten in comic book histories and left out of feminist discussions of the industry? Well, it's a heck of a story, and it's the kind of thing that gives us a fairly good context for what the climate was like for women creators that were deemed "difficult" in the mid-'80s. Today, we're telling you the story of Mindy Newell. 

Science fiction, fantasy, and all associated genres have finally evolved from a niche interest into a mainstream staple. But the women who have been instrumental in creating and shaping the nerdverse have largely gone unrecognized. Until today. Forgotten Women of Genre tells the stories of the women who helped some of the most famous fantasy worlds become a reality.

New episodes of this series will be released each day in the month of March, in addition to regularly scheduled episodes of STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS.

Subscribe to STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS and get these amazing stories in your feed all month.