Tag: Heather Antos

Special Live SquadCast: Women in Comics History – Part 2 – Letters to the Editors

Special Live SquadCast: Women in Comics History – Part 2 – Letters to the Editors

Part 2: Letters to the Editors

Welcome to the second of our series of Live Broadcasts celebrating Women’s History Month. We will be bringing you a different group of women creators and professionals each week to talk about their experiences, as well as their inspirations and hopes for the comics industry.

This week’s broadcast has a group of women who have curated some of the best comics of the last thirty years. They are best known for editing comics from Grendel to Fables to Bitter Root. There impact on the industry is massive and we are excited to have them on the show.

Our Guests

Continue reading “Special Live SquadCast: Women in Comics History – Part 2 – Letters to the Editors”

Pop Culture Squad Is Celebrating Women’s History Month

Pop Culture Squad Is Celebrating Women’s History Month

The calendar flipped to March, and here at Pop Culture Squad, that means Women’s History Month. We will be spending the next few weeks celebrating the contributions that women have made to pop culture industries, particularly comic books.

There will be a series of Live SquadCasts with an amazing array of creators and professionals in the comic industry. Tune in as the all women guest panels talk about their history in the business as well as those that came before and who is coming next.

Throughout the month we will also have other special content devoted to celebrating Women in Comics History. In the meantime, you can also check out our archive of Women in Comics History posts from 2021. Continue reading “Pop Culture Squad Is Celebrating Women’s History Month”

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Comic Book Editor Heather Antos

Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Comic Book Editor Heather Antos

We are proud to bring you the next installment of the Pop Culture SquadCast: Interview Edition.

This episode we caught up with comics editor Heather Antos.

She  began her career as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics and is currently a Senior Editor at Valiant Entertainment. Heather’s secret origin story was recently chronicled by Kat Calamia at Newsarama.

We talked to her about a bunch of different topics including: assembling talent, editing covers, diversity in comics, the Fabulous Flo Steinberg, and much more.

We transcribed a good portion of the interview below, but there is plenty more in podcast.

You can find the audio recording of our discussion below. We hope you enjoy the conversation.


Pop Culture Squad: Let’s dive in to your work with Valiant these days.  As a comic book consumer, I have enjoyed the fresh takes on the classic Valiant characters that you have been producing over the last few years. How does the process of putting together a creative team with a direction work nowadays in that shared universe?

Heather Antos: A great example to start off with would be that when I came in I was handed Livewire. That wasn’t a story that I helped put together. I think Vita (Ayala) and Joe Illidge (the previous editor) did a great job, but that was something where I was finishing it out. I just want to respect the previous work that is done. A lot of what I did there was asking if things made sense and fit in canonically.

Quantum & Woody #1 (art by David Nakayama)

The first Valiant book that I launched was Quantum and Woody that came out in January 2020. When I joined Valiant, there were really two books that I knew I wanted, and they were Quantum and Woody and then Shadowman (which is going to be on sale in April finally). Quantum and Woody is whacky odd couple-esque type humor. Coming off of Deadpool for three years at Marvel. That is the kind of book that I excel at, and I knew exactly the creative team to go for.

Shadowman #1 (art by Jon Davis-Hunt)

For me, as an editor, I always like to give the creative teams as much freedom as possible. I am hiring Chris Hastings and Ryan Browne for a reason on Quantum and Woody. The same for Cullen Bunn and Jon Davis-Hunt on Shadowman. I want them to feel as free as possible to tell the story that they want to.

The only time that I will put the gavel down and steer the ship is in the case of something majorly universally oriented. If Quantum and Woody somehow go down to New Orleans in Shadowman’s territory, then we have to play by Shadowman’s rules and whatever is going on in that Shadowman book at that time.

Note: I tried to see if we could get some secrets about the plans for the Valiant universe out of Heather. Listen to the podcast to see if I was successful. (Ouch that is the most shameless plug I have ever written.)

PCS: One of the things that we like to do is get into the process of how comics get made and demystify it a bit. As an editor, what do you do in relation to direction and/or assignment for regular and variant covers?

HA: Every editor has a different philosophy in this regard. There are artists like Mike Del Mundo, and the way they conceptualize and think about things are just so beyond what the average human can do; so, whenever I worked with Mike on a cover I would just say, “Hey Mike? This character. You interested? Go nuts!”  He might as  a story element or two to work in, but there are absolutely artists who just do their own thing. With them, I trust that it will be good, because they have a track record.

Valiant typically has three or four covers on every issue. The main “A cover”, two variants, and a pre-order. My personal philosophy is to have the main cover have some sort of a story element in it. For example in X-O Manowar #4, we debut his new suit, and so, on that cover, you can see a new suit morphing on him but you can’t quite make it all the way out. Continue reading “Spotlight SquadCast Interview with Comic Book Editor Heather Antos”