Barbara Slate on Comics, Graphic Novels, Betty, Veronica and Archie

Barbara Slate is the author of more than 300 comic books and graphic novels. She created, wrote and drew Angel Love for DC Comics, and Yuppies from Hell and Sweet XVI for Marvel. Her first character , Ms Liz, has  appeared on millions of greeting cards, in magazines, and on the Today Show; in addition, she wrote the Disney comic classics Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas, plus more than 60 issues of Mattel’s Barbie (winner of the Parent’s Choice Award two years in a row), and more than 100 Betty and Veronica stories for Archie Comics.

She is the author of You Can  Do a Graphic Novel,  "a guide to creating graphic novels - presented in the form of a graphic novel - from a veteran in the field." Her new semi-autobiographical graphic novel, Getting Married and Other Mistakes (2012) has been called 'charming and empowering'. In it, a newly divorced narrator encounters many of the social challenges that modern women must face, while undertaking a complicated journey toward finding her inner voice.

I met with Slate at her home in the Hudson Valley recently to talk about all of this, and more.