feature image photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Audible
A Gay Highlight Reel of the Wynonna Earp Audible Panel at NYCC and More
Photo by Ilya Savenok, Getty for Audible
This weekend, I attended New York Comic Con and I’m here to report back on all the gay goings-on, including but not limited to some WayHaught updates from the newest addition to the Wynonna Earp universe.
This addition is an Audible original series called Tales from Purgatory, and it’s a series of short stories set in the time period between the end of Season 4 and where the Tubi movie Wynonna Earp: Vengeance picks up. It tells tales of Wynonna and Doc on the road, Doc’s past with Wyatt Earp, plus a peek back at what was going on in Purgatory without the Earp Heir and her gunslinging beau, with Mercedes, Jeremy, and more. Plus, of course, our gals Waverly and Nicole. On the panel for the series, showrunner, creator and writer Emily Andras said that while switching mediums is always intimidating, she ultimately found writing for the Audible original a bit freeing, since they didn’t have to worry about things like CGI budget and props. If they wanted a train, a plane, or even a giant, there were no hoops to jump through to get them. The only limit was the imagination.
Kat Barrell also said she was worried at first that scenes between Nicole and Waverly might not seem as intimate without being able to rely on the physical cues like touching and kissing, but was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t the case at all, and hopes fans enjoy this new type of intimacy between the characters. While queer representation has increased a bit since Wynonna Earp first graced our screens in 2016, it is still doing something rare and special. So often in shows, either because the characters are short-lived or the show is canceled before its time, we only get to see one slice of a queer couple’s life. The beginning, the middle, or the end. But with Waverly and Nicole, we have been on their entire journey with them. We first meet Nicole the first day she meets Waverly. We watched them fall in love, fight, make up, be pulled apart, find their way back to each other, get married, and enjoy a moment of honeymoon-period bliss. While we saw them sort of settled into a routine by Vengeance, Tales from Purgatory shows up more of the road they took to get there, figuring out what their lives look like now that Waverly is the only Earp in town.
While Amazon hasn’t confirmed anything yet (the series just dropped on Thursday, after all), Emily said that she’d definitely be interested in doing more Audible originals in the Earp universe in the future, and maybe even have actors like Kat Barrell and Melanie Scrofano join Tim Rozon on the writing team for them in the future. I have a good feeling about this, since Audible even threw an adorable Earp-themed party after NYCC on Saturday night.
This was my 8th NYCC in 10 years (2020’s didn’t happen, and I skipped 2021 because I was still self-quarantining), and I’ve attended them all with various combinations of queer friends, but always me and my two friends named Nic. We had a blast, squealing about all the queer cosplayers we spotted, whether it was queer characters like Imogen and Laudna from Critical Role or Vi and Caitlin from Arcane, or just fun genderbent cosplays. We also got to spot some queer actors and creators besides Emily and Kat, including Nicole Byer who hosted the Blumfest panel and Kate Siegel who was on a Shudder panel to discuss her short film in VHS: Beyond and also on a Fall of the House of Usher panel with her husband and costars to discuss the past and future of the Flanagan family, who we learned jokingly refer to themselves as the Flavengers. (“Flavengers, flassemble!” was an actual quote from that hilarious panel.)
NYCC also has a Pride Lounge available as a safe space for queer congoers, queer-owned businesses and artists on the show floor and in Artist’s Alley, and always has fun queer panels to attend, including some this year by Geeks Out.
Get in Line for More News
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+ Sophia Bush is joining Grey’s Anatomy and I am hoping Dr. Lauren Boswell returns as well
+ Megan Thee Stallion is staying booked and busy: first up, she’s releasing an album called Megan: Act II this weekend
+ And then, she also has a documentary dropping on Prime on Halloween
+ Queer Broadway star Kathryn Gallagher stars in Anna Kendrick’s new movie about the Dating Game Killer — and she wrote a song for it!
+ Queen Latifah’s The Equalizer is back!
+ Rosie O’Donnell spoke out about her daughter’s drug addiction and hopes for her recovery
+ This is not definitively queer news but any given Mike Flanagan project has a high likelihood of queer characters, and Carrie has queer undertones, so I’m filing it under “potentially relevant to our interests” here: Amazon MGM Studios has ordered a Mike Flanagan Carrie series!
+ Aubrey Plaza was present and flipping off the jumbotron at last night’s WNBA Liberty championship winning game
+ Lady Gaga is releasing her seventh studio album this Friday, which will hopefully make everyone forget how hard her Joker movie bombed (I haven’t seen it but I imagine the failure of the film is not her fault)
+ If Heartstopper gets a fourth season, it will likely be the show’s last — which is, of course, a bummer, but means we would get a satisfying conclusion to the story
+ In anticipation for her upcoming album, The Great Impersonator, Halsey has been recreating iconic images from iconic artists, including but not limited to Britney Spears
+ And finally I’ll leave you with Drew Barrymore and Taylor Tomlinson flirting
