SDCC 2023: Wendy Pini And More Help Celebrate ‘Red Sonja’ At 50th Anniversary Panel

Red Sonja has been celebrating a milestone year in 2023 — 50 years in publishing! And to continue the festivities, Dynamite put together a panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego featuring talent like writer Amy Chu; Dan Panosian, writer of the upcoming Savage Red Sonja; and Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, writers of various Red Sonja title since Dynamite began publishing her adventures in 2005. But one other person connected to the character’s history made a surprise appearance: Elfquest co-creator Wendy Pini.

As moderator Luke Lieberman, president of Red Sonja, LLC, explained, Pini dressed up as Red Sonja in the early days of the character. Alongside renowned Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne, she also did a stage show of sorts. Thorne also appeared in the production as a wizard and devised the whole presentation.

“Frank was pure theatre,” she explained. “When I started to costume as the character, the theatricality just came naturally. It evolved into doing this stage show. We had special effects, we had music.” Sonja’s co-creator, Roy Thomas was supportive of the show, which toured various conventions in the late 1970s as a fan effort, but Marvel “looked at us sideways.”

Palmiotti asked if the company would’ve been more supportive if they’d written a part for Stan Lee.

“You can’t write a part for Stan Lee,” Pini replied. “He would just take over the show.”

Despite the fact that the term did not exist when Pini dressed as the character, cosplay continues to be an important element of Red Sonja fandom. Three people dressed up as Sonja were at the Comic-Con panel and Lieberman said he considers them a sort of “brand ambassador” bringing awareness to conventions all over the world.

Although Thomas and artist Barry Windsor-Smith were the first to depict Sonja, herself a rethink of Robert E. Howard‘s Red Sonya character for the Hyborian Age of Conan comics, Thorne is one of the most celebrated artists connected with the character. According to Pini, “Red Sonja was Frank’s muse. He was obsessed with the character. Roy had to steer this whole thing because Frank was out of his mind.”

“His art was just instantly recognizable,” Conner said. “It was the next evolution in comic book art.”

Panosian added, “When you think of Marvel in that period, there was the house style. But then when you got to the Howard books, it had a different feel. It had this surreal fantasy element to it that separated it from the Marvel universe.”

In those days, according to Pini, “feminism wasn’t as sophisticated and nuanced as it is today.” At the time, it was “all about anger” and “Sonja was the angriest character.”

Conner recalled the first time she saw a Red Sonja comic on the newsstand of the train station her father used to get to work. “I thought, ‘I was going to be Wonder Woman when I grow up, but now I’m going to be her,” she said. She credited both Thorne’s art and Pini’s work on Elfquest as key reasons why she went on to draw herself.

For Chu, Sonja entered her life thanks to another name closely connected to the character’s legend, writer Gail Simone. “I got a script review from her and I started reading all of her stuff and this was really kickass. I wanted to write Red Sonja because it’s so cathartic.” She eventually wrote Red Sonja: Worlds Away for Dynamite.

The title brought Sonja to modern New York — but in a different way than had occurred at Marvel in the late 70s. That instance saw Sonja possessing the body of Mary Jane Watson. In Chu’s book, Sonja got to visit the Big Apple directly and “she’s got to do some fun stuff.” Acclimating to Manhattan in the 21st century, she quickly finds a bike to ride and gets to business. “Destroying the Guggenheim [Musuem], why not? It’s comics!” Originally planned as a six-issue series, it ran 25 in total.

Palmiotti recalled his first glimpse of Sonja was in Conan #23. “I had some ‘funny feelings,'” he joked. “Barry Smith’s work looked like classical art and Roy wrote in a language that wasn’t the Stan Lee language. And then there was Red Sonja and I was fan from that moment on.” Also engaging with the fandom of the 1970s, Thorne and Pini were among the first artists he could recognize in real life and “they looked like the characters!”

He and Conner eventually wrote Red Sonja early in the Dynamite era. “I said, ‘let me do something different’ and put a story together where she’s asked to be a leader against an army three times the size of hers,” he said of that initial tale. “It was all about how great a thinker she was; a story about how she was smarter than everybody.”

“We were trying to unleash our inner Frank Thorne and Roy Thomas,” Conner said. “One of the things about Roy Thomas – he made up words. And I made up one word per issue.”

Panosian recalled a particular Savage Sword of Conan issue featuring Neal Adams on art. “It was the art and Roy’s storytelling” that swayed him. “If you love anything Howard wrote, you naturally love Red Sonja,” he said. His Savage Red Sonja limited series — a story he said took 8 years to get right because “words are trouble” —  will “hearken back to that early Red Sonja.”

Beyond the new ongoing Red Sonja series from writer Torunn Grønbekk and artist Walter Geovani and Pasonian’s Savage Red Sonja, the character will be featured in a number of venues across 2023 and beyond. According to Lieberman, Sideshow is prepping a new Sonja statue for October, new art prints are available now, the Boss Fight Studios Action figure is inching closer to release, Xplus is designing a model kit, Dynamite is producing a line of trading cards alongside the comics and a hardcover collection of various Red Sonja stories, and Jaded City Foods will release Red Sonja hot sauce in a variety of Scoville Heat Units.

But two of the most exciting future projects are a novel written by Simone, the first in a series, and the new Red Sonja film from Millennium Films. Of the former, Lieberman said, “[Gail’s] never written a novel before and she wasn’t sure if it was going to work. So she started with a chapter and then three and then more. She is a better prose writer than she is a comic book writer and she’s a great comic book writer.” It is still unclear when the book will come out, but he suggested a late 2023 or early 2024 release. He also teased a cover artist from Simone’s Red Sonja comic book run will provide the novel with its cover art.

The film, meanwhile, is still looking for a distributor, but fans in attendance got a sneak peak thanks to a trailer prepared for the panel. In it, Matilda Lutz stars as Sonja, a more slender take on the character than her previous film outing — where she was played by Brigiette Neilsen — but in the moments glimpsed in the preview, she has all of the character’s fury. “We did a real worldwide search,” Lieberman, who also serves as an executive producer on the movie, said. “I wanted someone who had Sonja in her soul. Mathilda has a unique fiber. She worked at three in the morning under fake rain and never complained.” The film co-stars Wallis Day and The Umbrella Academy‘s Robert Sheehan as the villain. Lieberman hopes to see the film out in the first or second quarter of 2024.

During the audience Q&A, Lieberman and the panel were asked about various potential crossover comics. He said that with the current publishing plan — the ongoing title and miniseries like Savage Red Sonja — such a story would not happen in the next 18 months. Of course, any crossover with Sonja would have to be “right opportunity.” But with that in mind, Lieberman also said, “If DC’s listening, Gail would love to write Red Sonja/Wonder Woman.”