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This week, Legion of Leia talks to comic book artist Cat Staggs. This amazing lady is currently working as an artist for DC comics, doing covers and interiors for the Smallville Season 11 series and The Vampire Diaries. Her work has been seen in Womanthology and Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years. She also designed one of our favorite (and most popular) t-shirts for LoL profiled woman in sci-fi Ashley Eckstein‘s Her Universe Star Wars line.

Cat has done original character sketches for a Stan Lee character and worked for the Star Wars / LUCASFILM family since 2004. She also illustrated the weekly webstrip Hot Mess on Comediva.com. Check out her interview below!

Cat Staggs by Eddy Choi

Cat Staggs by Eddy Choi

Legion of Leia: I’m a huge fan of your work, as you know. How did you get started in comics and art?

Cat Staggs: First of all, thank you! That means a lot.

As far as art goes, I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. It’s all I ever wanted to do and luckily for me, my parents supported that.

I got started in comics by putting together a portfolio and attending conventions. Fortunately, Lucasfilm took a chance on me with trading cards, sketch cards and some licensed artwork and from there I was able to get work with other companies which eventually lead me to the comic book work I do today.

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Legion of Leia: What does it mean to be a part of this amazing group of women in all aspects of sci-fi?

Cat Staggs: It’s awesome. The sci-fi community is such a fun and cool world to be a part of and there are so many amazing women working in the community. I feel extremely grateful to be among them.

Legion of Leia: You and your lovely wife Amanda worked together on Hot Mess. Do you have any joint projects in the works?

Cat Staggs: Yes! DC Comics actually just announced our new joint project. We are doing a story in the new “Sensation Comics featuring Wonder Woman” written by Amanda and illustrated by me. Amanda’s script is really action-packed and I can’t wait for people to read it!
Our story will be in issue #1 alongside a small arc by Gail Simone and Ethan VanSciver, and you know that’s gonna be good!

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Legion of Leia: Who was the first sci-fi or fantasy character that struck you as a kid?

Cat Staggs: This is going to sound so cliche, but I am a total Star Wars kid. Han Solo was always the one who I really connected with. I wanted to be him when I was a kid and I kind of still do…I guess I’m not big on conformity.

Legion of Leia: What new goodies do you have coming up?

Cat Staggs: Well, I’m still doing covers on Smallville and I just finished interiors for a new issue of Vampire Diaries called “Loyal Dogs” which was really fun and, of course, now I’m working on the art for Wonder Woman! I’ve also got a few other fun things waiting in the wings,but I can’t mention them yet.

Check out Cat’s website: CatStaggs.com and follow her on Twitter @catstaggs.

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Jenna Busch

Jenna Busch is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Legion of Leia and has hosted and written for sites like Nerdist, ComingSoon.net, Metro, Birth. Movies. Death., IGN, AOL, Huffington Post and more. She co-hosted Cocktails With Stan with the legendary Stan Lee and has appeared on Attack of the Show, Fresh Ink, Tabletop with Wil Wheaton, in the documentary She Makes Comics, on NPR and Al Jazeera America, and has covered film/TV/gaming/comics for years. She's currently a co-host on Most Craved. She's been published in the comics anthology Womanthology, is a chapter author for Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind, Game of Thrones Psychology and Star Trek Psychology and more, and owns a terrifying amount of swords and 20-sided dice. There are also those My Little Pony trailer voice overs that give one nightmares.

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