The nice guarantee of writing your own original comic book is that you can build one perfect finished product. There’s no waiting on some producer to read it ten years from now and maybe give you funding. I’ll never need to fight off PAs and cry by the craft table. I can see my characters now. All it takes is a writer, an artist, and a letter.

My artist is certainly special. He’s an inmate in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and has been for as long as I’ve known him. Though he’s the most gifted comic book artist I know, he spent much of last year working as a prison janitor. What’s more, he’s a convert to Orthodox Judaism. His art for issue one features characters with attitude and panache who are clumsy and a bit dumb. The action cracks out of the panels. It’s magnificent.

And what about his creative partner? I cried during the Pussy Riot documentary. I have a framed spec episode of Girls that Lena Dunham signed. I write pieces about Katniss Everdeen for feminist zines. And as for our letterer: who do you think publishes those zines?

Though he’s very pious, our artist’s depictions of the female form lack…”modesty.” Tight dresses, lots of chiffon, Elizabeth Berkley lips, and the soft print of a belly button in every dress. Look, my artist isn’t starting some sudden coup against the female body. Objectified female representations are the industry standard in comic books. Artists like Fiona Staples, Jamie McKelvie, and Cliff Chiang will bring forth a new era of creative maturity, but there’s still decades of art that asserts the old way. My artist doesn’t have a discourse of drawing women in a more balanced way. And it’s not like he’s had much real life reference to inspire him.

If I can get my act together and launch this thing, this series will have some pretty progressive content. The cast is loaded with intelligent women, many of whom are driving the plot. There’s going to be a gay romance and a trans warrior princess.

The centerfold of the first issue is the return of Gosia, a World War II era warrior who has returned from the dead to save her great grandson. Gosia is a Polish hardass with a mission. She’s everything I love about my Jewish grandmother. I can’t wait for her to start slapping everyone around.

But, in her triumphant return on the last page of the first issue, she looks a little too… hot. Her tush is cocked a bit. And her dress is uncomfortably tight. When did she have time to apply that lipstick in this battle sequence?

My first instinct is to stick to my vision and force my artist to draw Gosia and her peeps more sensitively. But how much of a right do I have to do that? This man works tirelessly on my characters, regularly spending more time on them than I do. He draws every lock of hair, every line of the body, and every last fingernail with meticulous love. He’s the one who breathes eternal life into the women of my dreams. Isn’t that the ultimate service to a female art?

All female characters, from Leeloo in The Fifth Element to Elektra in – cough!– Elektra, are comprised of the work of dozens, if not hundreds of artists. Just because the witches in Oz: the Great and Powerful were an offense to the female species doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a massive crew who didn’t work endlessly to make them perfect.

I don’t know what it’s like to draw a liberal comic book written by a queer when you’re in a Texas prison. My artist has probably got a lot of explaining to do. While I can certainly guide my artist towards a new understanding of sexualization and provide him with examples of responsibly crafted women, I have no right to teach this truly gifted person a lesson. He loves Gosia just as much as I do, but he shows it with his own vision. I should put all my power into making sure that the characters and the words of these women are perfect, so that their bodies are just vessels for their greater essence.

I just got the last page of the book back from my letterer. It’s finished. Gosia looks the same, but now she’s got a voice. And it’s entirely her own. Whether her delivery into the world was the way I wanted it to be is irrelevant now. She’s here. She’s perfect. And she wants me to get out of her way so she can dictate her story. Seeing her complete for the first time…what can I say? I have goosebumps.