Enter The World Of Wakanda: Roxane Gay On Facing The Hype And Writing The Dora Milaje

San Diego Comic Con, in what is now a great mid-summer tradition, dropped some great announcements this past weekend. Among them, Marvel’s new The World of Wakanda, the new companion series to the current record-breaking Black Panther run. World of Wakanda is going to be written by two Black women authors and drawn by two Black women artists. This is a first all around and worthy of all the excitement it has generated around the Internet. We were lucky enough to steal a few minutes with Roxane Gay, one of the authors for the new series. Gay is new to comics but brings with her a significant writing resume, with novels (An Untamed State), essays (Bad Feminist), and op/ed columns to her name. We talked comics and Marvel, the Dora Milaje, and dream projects. We’re happy that we get to share this with you. Black Nerd Problems: Needless to say, we’re big fans around here of the work Coates and Stelfreeze on Black Panther. How did Coates bring you on board to write World of Wakanda?Roxane Gay: Ta-Nehisi and I have been acquainted over the years. We did a reading together at 826 Boston during the AWP conference a few years back and he remembered the story I wrote. A few months ago, he e-mailed me, saying he had a crazy idea. One thing led to another and here we are. BNP: So I know you’re a new fan. I’ve only been a comics reader for a few years myself, so I know that learning curve is steep. How are you going about researching the universe where the comic will be set? RG: I am tryin…