‘Bitches on Comics,’ ‘Decoded’ Uplift Queer Sci-fi, Fantasy, Horror Stories

The Creative Trio Behind ‘Bitches on Comics’ Podcast, ‘Decoded Pride’ Anthology

The dynamic trio behind the Bitches on Comics podcast and the Decoded Pride anthology series finally have space to breathe, after wrapping the Decoded’s third issue as June came to a close.

Sara Century (she/her), S.E. Fleenor (they/them), and Monika Estrella Negra (she/her) are the group of writers and creatives who make it all happen, and it all began with their mutual love for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror and the desire to uplift queer voices in those spaces.

Bitches on Comics came first, founded by Fleenor and Century in September 2017. They worked at SyFy, eventually became friends, and decided it was worth creating something together, despite not knowing what form it would take. Century says that working at SyFy was still a great experience, but there was a lot to be desired working within a corporate structure. They also had Kate Warner on their side, the BoC sound engineer, who was able to help them to get production started.

“Our whole idea was that we wanted to talk about things that maybe queer people would care about, or women would care about, people who—usually in comics, for a long time—were alienated,” Century says.

Because of the sheer amount of people they already knew to bring on the podcast, it quickly became an interview-focused program, which is how Estrella Negra entered the picture.

“They kidnapped me! I’m just kidding,” Estrella Negra jests.

No, Estrella Negra simply became a recurring guest on BoC, to the point where Fleenor and Century decided she would be a good addition to the team. Estrella Negra is a filmmaker and initially connected with Century through collaboration on her horror film, Bitten. 

Before that, she organized punk shows in Chicago, including a festival called Black and Brown Punk Show, primarily a space for Black and Brown, queer, punk folks to come together and raise money for local grassroots organizations. As Estrella Negra moved forward to pursue her love of filmmaking, she opened a production company focusing on radical, leftist-leaning shorts, “which is why I’ll never be famous,” she laughs. 

That eventually led Estrella Negra to a job at SyFy as well, where she linked up with Century and, later, Fleenor. 

“They just proposed to me, basically, and were like, ‘Do you want to join our cult?’ and I was like, ‘Sick, sure,’” Estrella Negra says, though Century interjects, “You were in Decoded before that.”

Fleenor says—as they continued producing BoC with Century—they knew they wanted to have a written component, though they weren’t sure what form it would take. Fleenor says the idea for Decoded—a daily anthology of queer and trans comics and speculative fiction shared throughout Pride Month—ultimately came after examining their own experiences as queer people in literature and reevaluating the feedback they received from guests on BoC.

Looking back at those days, Fleenor says they pondered: “What if we could find an editorial team that has a real focus on queer and trans expression, without an expectation for what that expression would look like exactly?”

The pair looked specifically at Pride Month, referencing how frustrating it can be watching corporations make money off the LGBTQ community without any commitment to those communities or without monetarily supporting them. In that, they prioritized uplifting writers who faced rejection from other publications, giving them a chance to build a foundation, and a business model ensuring they could pay writers fair wages.

Estrella Negra came on as a co-editor, specifically handling sensitivity readings to ensure that there was no inflammatory material in the content and that the stories in Decoded were appropriate to the demographics they were looking to uplift. She says learning about the process behind Decoded ultimately brought her closer to Fleenor and Century, as the three collectively unraveled these often untold stories and shared their vulnerability with one another.

Fleenor is happy the team is growing. They shout out to Priya Saxena, Decoded’s new copy editor and editorial coordinator, a South Asian person with her own lived experience and another advocate to ensure Decoded honors their mission. They add that the team tries to be “flat” rather than hierarchical. They try to share edits with authors and creators in the spirit of strength and unity, giving folks a home for their stories that they may not otherwise have.

“When we’re selecting stories, are we looking for the most polished best stories? Not necessarily,” Fleenor says. “We are looking for stories that have something to say, that make us feel something, and that’s kind of our only barometer—They have to be by a queer and/or trans person.”

Century reflects on her own life when looking at the platform Decoded has provided queer creatives, referencing that there have always been spaces—include Pride, feminist gatherings, and comic conventions—where she wasn’t fully comfortable.

“I think Decoded and Bitches on Comics is—We’re kind of spotlighting people who are unique and strange… We’re trying to take a chance on people who, we see them now doing all kinds of things. We’ve seen people join the Horror Writers Association because we were their first professionally-paying market. I love that we’re being this jumping-off point in a lot of ways.”

Growing up and navigating her identities as a Black, queer, “nerdy-goth-punk hybrid,” Estrella Negra says she often felt a sense of social alienation. It was through the power of storytelling and cinema—especially speculative horror, fantasy, and science fiction—that she found her escape.

“I either had to deal with racism from white, weird dudes, or I was just completely, I wouldn’t say ostracized, because I definitely had lots of friends from my community and neighborhood who were not into the same alternative, nerdy things I was into,” she says.” I didn’t want to hang out with a lot of kids who were inhabiting those weird and nerdy subcultural spaces because they were primarily white, and the racism and microaggressions and anti-Blackness were definitely present. So I enjoyed a lot of those things on my own.”

She eventually found other Black people with the same interests, and her world expanded when she began traversing the internet, discovering a plethora of queer, Black authors and content creators. 

“They’re just not seen,” she says, “especially within the horror community, because the horror community is still overwhelmingly white and cis and straight and male. And it can be really fucking annoying, to be perfectly honest with you. I can’t find any solace, really, within the mainstream horror community.”

With that in mind, Estrella Negra says it’s important to bring that sentiment to Bitches on Comics and Decoded. Not only is diversity our strength, but there are so many stories begging to be told and so much work that will never be elevated, she says, “because those who hold keys to power will just never give us the time of day.”

Reflecting on three years of Decoded, and nearly five years of BoC, Century references her interest in archiving.

“Whenever I’m looking at what we’re doing right now—and sometimes it will be mid-interview or something like that, or I’ll be reading the Decoded submissions once they’ve gone through edits—and I just think this is not just a moment in time now. But if, if the world continues to exist in 100 years, then we have this time capsule,” she says. “There’s always space for more, but I think that, whenever I’m listening to a queer creator talking on Bitches on Comics, or reading the stories, I just think that otherwise, this doesn’t exist.”

Estrella Negra nods to the current political climate in the U.S., the “Christo-facist regime that we all live under,” how art has always been the precedent for revolutions, and artists have always been targeted by the state.

“There was this fear of art being this form of propaganda,” she says, referencing the Red Scare and leadership efforts to ensure communists weren’t making movies, “because the establishment did recognize that power in the art that people consume.”

In reference to this year’s Decoded Pride, Estrella Negra recalls the themes of the future, alternative worlds where queer people, trans people, Black people are the victors, the shamans, the heroes, and living a life where they overcame their oppressors. She says art and artists in general have a responsibility to try to formulate what a new world could entail.

“I’m trying not to be defeatist, and I’m trying not to be nihilistic about it, even though it’s really hard to not feel overwhelmed and powerless,” she says. “But I like to think that the power that we hold within us and how we manifest that power into our art and into our work can also empower people to keep going. Especially, I think about younger queer and trans kids that will pick this up, read it, and feel empowered because they identify with this one character that they read in a comic or read in a story, and then go on to create their own stories and to create their own art and create their own resistance.”

Fleenor adds, “We really believe in the power of queer and trans people; we believe in us, together; we believe in people people. And you can see that in the way we structure everything.” 

Now that Decoded Pride Issue #3  has wrapped, the trio have the time and space to look ahead to the future, “How are we going to blow everything up, basically,” Century says, in that they all have a lot of ideas they are ready to explore. 

Up next, they are looking to dive into narrative fiction podcasting. They’re currently working on the release of their new horror podcast, Tales From the Sapphire Bay Hotel. Generally, they see themselves continuing all of the work they’re doing right now, just to a greater degree. Though, they admit that they are still underfunded and encourage folks to buy a subscription to Decoded Pride and check out Bitches on Comics, which regularly comes out with new episodes.

Fleenor also notes that the future is full of possibilities.

“Our goal, with all of our prospect projects, is to try things we’re interested in to see how it goes,” they say, “to move with the way the spirit and the flow move us, you know? If it needs to take a new form, then we’ll take a new form. We’re kind of just open to whatever that looks like.”

Subscriptions to Decoded Pride Issue #3 are $14.99, less than 50 cents a per story, and can be purchased at decodedpride.com/buy-a-subscription. Subscriptions include PDF and eBook formats. 

To check out Bitches on Comics, visit the official website, bitchesoncomics.com, or find the podcast on Apple and Spotify. 

Illustration courtesy of Decoded Pride and Craig Hale