We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brent Fisher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brent, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I think this question is important. All too often, I believe that creators – and individuals across a wide range of professions – subscribe to the notion that there is a chronology to a career, or to success.

There’s a general perspective, or philosophy, that I subscribe to when I have to address the idea of being too early or too late for any life stage or action: that I am intrinsically the right person for right now. I stand by that when I became an adoptive parent of an 8-year-old a year ago. I stand by that when it comes to my passion for storytelling as a vehicle to lift voices and evoke change.

I feel like that the person we are, right now, is the summation of what has come before, and will always be the right person for whatever endeavor we choose to undertake, or individual we wish to become. Do not second guess your journey. Do not question your validity. Step through every threshold proud of the person you are, because that is the person that will see you through both creation and crucible alike.

Brent, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello! I’m Brent Fisher (They/Them), a published writer, editor, and passionate advocate for intersectional justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and inclusive storytelling within the comic book industry.

My journey began with advocacy as a board member for Kaleidescope Youth Center, a queer-youth focused advocacy group in Central Ohio. Through my volunteer work I discovered more about my personal identity, and from there I rediscovered a profound love for the illustrative power of comic books and the ability of stories to bring people together, foster empathy, and catalyze social evolution.

One of my proudest achievements is the critically acclaimed anthology “The Color of Always,” which successfully bridged personal LGBTQIA+ stories of love and identity with a global audience. This project, fully actualized thanks specifically to seasoned comics editor Michele Abounader who oversaw all elements of creation, budget, production and fulfillment, underscored the transformative potential of combining artistic expression with social activism. Together, Michele and I co-founded the independent publishing endeavor Extra Pages Press, dedicated exclusively to LGBTQIA+ creators. Through successful Kickstarter campaigns and anthologies, we have celebrated the power of queer voices in storytelling.

“Most recently, I am delighted to share my appointment as Chief Diversity Officer at Band of Bards, a dynamic new worker-owned cooperative publisher. In this role, my primary goal is to lead transformational change by elevating diverse voices and promoting greater representation across both digital and traditional storytelling platforms. Collaborating closely with my esteemed co-founders at Band of Bards and our independent imprint Dauntless Stories, where I proudly serve as Creative Director, we are boldly redefining the landscape of independent comic book publishing by adopting a structure that reinforces the idea that creativity can still be worker-owned, with an ownership that mirrors the diversity we champion. Our ultimate aim is to cultivate a thriving and sustainable ecosystem for all those passionate about creating, reading, selling, and collecting comics and related forms of media.

I invite you to join me on this journey where every voice matters. Engage with my work, support our shared mission across the endeavors of which I am a part, and help me build a more inclusive and equitable future for storytelling that embraces all of us.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

As a staunch advocate for amplifying creative voices and fostering inclusive artistic communities, I believe there are several crucial steps society can take to support artists and cultivate a thriving creative ecosystem:

First, we must prioritize representation by providing more opportunities for marginalized voices in all forms of creative media. This includes increased funding and publishing opportunities. Organizations like Extra Pages Press play a vital role in uplifting LGBTQIA+ comic creators specifically.

Secondly, we have to reinvest in art education at all levels. I actually agree that we need to respect diversity in how we steer youth towards vocations, but we are nevertheless economically starving our cultural foundations and support structures. We either are depriving them from peoples and communities out of malevolent strategic purpose, mismanagement, racial redlining, or outright greed. This has to be stopped, and I recommend for those passionate enough to fight to run for school boards and equivalent decision-making civic structures to do so. The war for critical thinking and our shared imaginations is a multi-front effort.

Third, I would legitimize careers in creative fields by ensuring fair compensation, workplace protections, and benefits such as living wages, affordable housing, and actual healthcare. I would encourage and protect unionization of certain creative trades. I would extend this demand to any profession that helps broaden our minds, from teaching to all permutations of the arts. We have demonized artistic expression as the realm of those pre-ordained to a life of toil for their calling, while we festoon wealth upon titans of entertainment and commerce that contribute a fraction of value to our sense of identity, creativity, and whimsy.

A thriving creative ecosystem necessitates fair pay, professional support systems that give those who ideate and make a security, and true community engagement. By prioritizing, celebrating and supporting expression in all its diverse forms, we can usher in a generation that is more in tune with who they are and how to communicate with each other.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think the most important thing I had to unlearn is something terribly fundamental as part of our upbringing in the western world: the idea that there is no real grand plan, and that nothing is supposed to be anything.

From our earliest days of school, which in and of itself can be a form of cultural indoctrination if not allowed to be a vessel of expression, discovery, and true critical thinking, we are taught that we have to act, accomplish, and be a certain way in order to succeed. To deviate from the ordained course of supposedly knowing what we’re going to do with the rest of our life while still figuring out who we fundamentally are is considered foolhardy. We chart a course, calculate our value to society, and then produce and consume. That is the formula.

But as I began to fundamentally understand more about my gender identity later in life, as there was no resources afforded to me as child of the early 80s in the rustbelt of America, I began to unravel that narrative bit by bit. I poked my head above the cubicle wall – which, as a white-collar expression, is still a merit of privilege and a life that enabled me to have such a job – and realized I forgot everything that mattered to me as a youth. I started rediscovering my joy of pop culture, bit by bit.

During COVID, the comic writer Gail Simone had a comic school. She taught basic fundamentals about how script writing and production worked over Twitter. I took a risk and followed along. Suddenly I was writing comic scripts, and my childhood love of comics came roaring back into me.

I rediscovered a love of storytelling. Comics, specifically, but I also embrace all forms of narration, from novels to movies and beyond. I eventually realized I had a lot of living to do, which I think can be easily confused for a mid-life crisis to some. I wanted to experience what I could, feel what I could, and be who I really felt I was on the inside for the first time. I reclaimed a bit of my autonomy and my own body by doing something I thought just years ago an anathema: a sleeve tattoo. Of a comic book character, specifically: Captain Marvel. She became almost a focal point of my journey of rediscovering myself. I started writing again. In earnest. I started reading again. For pleasure.

I realized that after the tattoo, the world didn’t end. I realized that after I wrote a comic script, someone wanted to draw it with me. I started realizing there was a community of people like me. I was happily married by this point so I won’t say I was alone in a holistic sense, but it was like wandering out of the wilderness for years and happening upon a tribe you lost as a child. I came home again.

The rest unfolded from there.

This was a bit rambling and a clumsy retelling, but I think I want this story to be messy. It wasn’t the most direct route to my point, nor my lesson, but the fact remains that there’s no greater revelation to me than the fact that life doesn’t care who you are, what you do, or what kind of car you drive. Life is there to be lived, and it’s what you make of it, and the lives you touch with what you make, or do, or feel, that is the real gift of creation. At the end of the day, we only have each other, and what we leave behind.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.brentfisher.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolcollector
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentefisher/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolcollector

Image Credits
Color of Always – Myself and Michele Abounader Psalm for the Changed – Dauntless Stories – Me (Writer) and Salomee Luce-Antionette (artist) Other creators are credited on single page story samples provided for flavor.