Kelly Thompson talks Jeff The Land Shark, Absolute Wonder Woman, and More!

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Kelly Thompson is the Eisner Award-winning writer behind Absolute Wonder Woman with Hayden Sherman and Jordie Bellaire, It’s Jeff with Gurihiru, Birds of Prey with Leonardo Romero, Sami Basri, Jordie Bellaire, and Adriano Lucas, and later this year, will pen a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series with Nate Cosby. We had the chance to talk with Thompson about her success and check in with the talented creator.

Absolute Wonder Woman is on the verge of reaching 12 issues. How has the overwhelmingly positive reception for the series felt, and what can readers expect going forward? How blessed do you feel to be working alongside Hayden and Jordie, as it feels like everyone is doing career-best work at once.

KT: It's been truly wild to experience. I fall in love with most of my books (and characters and creative teams) but it's impossible to ignore that this one feels special and the readers seem to agree. I think a lot of that is the setup -- one most books it's sink or swim on what you have to offer, but here we had the support of an exciting new line, and also Scott Snyder leading the line as one of the best possible advocates in comics you can have. But I don't deny that this creative team is in incredible beautiful sync. Aligned perfectly in both intention and execution. It's been a dream opportunity. Everyone on this book has done tremendous work, but Hayden, Jordie, and Becca in particular have blown me away at every opportunity. If anything, the challenge is to keep ahead of them and do my own best work.

Is it still wild to see Jeff the Land Shark's explosion in popularity? Do you feel protective of the character at all or do you just see what he's become and marvel at things? Did you see his popularity coming in even the slightest degree back when you wrote West Coast Avengers?

KT: It is incredibly surreal. I, unfortunately, feel very protective of him, which will surely go terribly for me! I think I created him a bit before I realized that sometimes these kind of non-human characters can really take off... a trend I'd observed my whole life going back to, oh, I don't know, Fizzgig in The Dark Crystal... but I hadn't ever really thought about it--why we love them so, why they can break out as they do. And I think, having watched it happen with Jeff, it's nothing so complex, I think it just seems incredibly special to have a connection with an inhuman creature like a Jeff the Land Shark, or a Grogu, or a droid like B2EMO, or a Pan, or a Totoro. It seems magical and like a childhood fantasy come to life. But these kinds of characters are created all the time, and rarely do they take off as Jeff has -- obviously, much of the credit is due to Marvel Rivals highlighting him in their game. But the real credit to my mind goes to Gurihiru, who, though not the co-creators of Jeff (that credit belongs to Daniele Di Nicuolo!), really have a true love for him. Long before we knew each other and started working together, they were drawing Jeff into things of their own accord. They just liked him and saw something in him. I think we all know they were right and how lucky we are.

How much fun is it to write Birds of Prey and bring in so many different characters and play in the wider DC sandbox?

KT: It's been a real joy. For this to be my first big experience at DC, it was just so much more fun than I expected. I didn't know if we'd get more than one arc when I first pitched, so I just reached for all my favorite DC characters that I'd been longing to write and built a story around them and hoped it would resonate and we'd get to do more (and I'd get to add more characters). Fortunately, the book seemed to resonate -- especially Barda and Cass Cain as best friends forever [laughs] -- and we've gotten to do so much more than one arc. I was looking the other day and we're headed toward six collected volumes, which is just so beyond my expectations.

What does the rest of 2025, entering 2026, look like for you? Anything you can tease? Any more creator-owned work on the horizon?

KT: Doing creator-owned work was incredibly fun and rewarding, but it was so much more work than I expected, even though I thought I was prepared for it. The freedom of creator-owned is divine and like a siren song that lures us all, but you do pay a high price for that freedom... I should never be an editor; let's leave it at that. [Laughs] I think, with the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL announcements, that's about all I can share for now. Though there is some fun online Jeff stuff (that I'm sure will eventually be printed) coming this fall.