Is Kitty Pryde named after a real-life acquaintance of JBs?
JB: If there was ever a story that grew in the telling, it is the “real” tale of how Kitty Pryde came to be! The real Kitty — who, incidentally, looks nothing like the character — was a student at the Alberta College of Art, tho were were not classmates. She started after I dropped out to pursue my would-be comics career. She was, however, briefly the girlfriend of one of the guys I knew in another class, and the first time I heard her name I thought “Wow! Comic book name if ever there was one!” “Feel free to use it when you become a famous cartoonist,” she said — and it might have ended there, had not Jim Shooter one day decided that what made the X-Men different from other superhero teams was that they were a SCHOOL. Never mind that Stan and Jack had graduated the characters a decade before Shooter’s edict. Never mind that most (i.e., everyone but Shooter) people thought “feared and hated by the world they are sworn to protect” was what defined the group.
JB: If there was ever a story that grew in the telling, it is the “real” tale of how Kitty Pryde came to be! The real Kitty — who, incidentally, looks nothing like the character — was a student at the Alberta College of Art, tho were were not classmates. She started after I dropped out to pursue my would-be comics career. She was, however, briefly the girlfriend of one of the guys I knew in another class, and the first time I heard her name I thought “Wow! Comic book name if ever there was one!” “Feel free to use it when you become a famous cartoonist,” she said — and it might have ended there, had not Jim Shooter one day decided that what made the X-Men different from other superhero teams was that they were a SCHOOL. Never mind that Stan and Jack had graduated the characters a decade before Shooter’s edict. Never mind that most (i.e., everyone but Shooter) people thought “feared and hated by the world they are sworn to protect” was what defined the group. Never mind that old hands
