Jane Espenson has an impressive body of work as a writer and producer in television, and as a guest at Dragon Con over Labor Day weekend, she met with fans and answered questions.
Espenson is known for her work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Upon a Time, Angel, and she even wrote three episodes of the shelved-for-now Star Wars Detours with Seth Green and Matthew Seinreich.
One of her most recent project is Husbands, an online sitcom starring Brad Bell. Husbands takes place in a world where a gay couple feels societal pressure to stay married rather than get married after a whirlwind courtship and a drunken marriage.
Espenson explains that the show is not for a niche audience, “There’s this falsity that the audience looks just like your characters. When I was a kid, in most of shows I watched the characters were black or Jewish. I was watching these characters and really quite identifying with them.” Brad Bell adds that he loved The Golden Girls at the age of six. They feel that with the demographics of the viewers (split across genders evenly and watched by people aged 18-55), they’ve proven that a show about gay male characters isn’t necessarily only watched by a gay male audience.
And to broaden the appeal of the show, they wrote and marketed a comic book. But isn’t the comics industry still dominated by straight men, as evidenced by the way women are illustrated? “Don’t just look at the girls in the pages. Look at the women here at the con, how many women there are who are genuine fan geeks in the best possible use of the term . . . and so I think that notion that comic book readers are the aging white straight males, I think that’s starting to really change.”
When asked for advice for aspiring female writers, Espenson said, “Just think of yourself as a writer. Don’t let people tell you female writers are good at this. . . I think that’s a trap. I think you just want to be a good writer. And for aspiring writers in general, find out about the programs . . . all those entry levels that exist in L.A. that help you get started.” Or, she suggests, find the people with the technical skills and do your own thing as she and Brad Bell did in creating Husbands. “If you are driven, you can find a way to accumulate the best experience.”
Husbands can be seen on CW Seed, a digital platform that CW has launched. And this fall Once Upon a Time returns as well as its spin-off, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.