Visual Worldbuilding in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow takes place amidst Bilquis Evely’s (@bilquis.bsky.social) stunningly imaginative backdrop, drawing attention to one of the more underappreciated art-forms in comics: the artist’s role in creating worlds from nothing – the art of visual worldbuilding. #supergirl 1/14

Worldbuilding (aka subcreation) is a term used by SF and Fantasy authors to describe the conceptual creation of fictional worlds. It can be simplistic or a process of incredible depth and consideration for the lived reality of a story’s setting. Famed author Patrick Rothfuss describes it as follows: 2/14

“In brief, worldbuilding is different than setting in my opinion. Setting is a room. A backdrop. It’s scenery. But without good worldbuilding, you can’t have realistic feeling scenery. You can’t have cool unique backdrops for your story.” 3/14

Bilquis Evely began her career in her home country of Brazil in 2009 and quickly garnered the attention of DC comics who recruited to work on titles like “Bombshells” and “Wonder Woman” beginning in 2015. She has since then won the Eisner Award for best Penciler/Inker (2025). 4/14

While the nature of the writer/artist collaboration varies, WoT is a clear example of the artist leading the world-building process. As King notes, “Bilquis is a world builder. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and I just give her room. She deserves all the credit for how everything looks…” 5/14

…She created a whole world in this issue, and I think my instructions were, It’s like Conan. It’s like three letters or something.” Even this minimalist instruction is somewhat misleading. It is like Conan, but in outer space and thus not like it at all from a worldbuilding standpoint. 6/14

Evely is up to this challenge, however, choosing to draw inspiration from the 1960s and 1970s creations of legendary French comics artist, Jean Giraud (aka Moebius). This stylistic choice draws with it a wealth of connotation from an era (and artist) of French SF comics excellence. 7/14

Through this important visual intertextuality, Evely immediately establishes a certain pedigree or ethos for the book. It promises to be inventive, contemplative, and challenging – thematic aims that move against the established Supergirl approach but ones that compliment King’s script perfectly. 8/14

It is the inventiveness that we are most interested in here, however. Evely is tasked with envisioning the landscape, flora, fauna, settlements, costumes, weapons, and transportation systems of multiple intergalactic locations and peoples, all across just 8 issues of comics. 9/14

She does this while grounding the story in the aesthetic of Conan (as requested) and also within the existing DC house style (to some degree) and that of Supergirl in particular. All this while also inking her own pencils. We also must note that Evely is ably enhanced by Matheus Lopes on colours. 10/14

Like Moebius before her, (or Mézières or Kirby or Wood or Frazetta) Evely is drawing an entire cosmology into existence, one upon which the narrative’s feelings of immersion, interest, and even the sublime depend entirely. 11/14

King’s story is deeply compelling in itself, but it is the eruption of Evely’s visual imagination in Supergirl that launches this story to the level of epic science-fiction worldbuilding, creating an immersive and unique landscape in which King’s tight exploration of morality, violence, and ennui can flourish. 12/14

As an aside, we should also note that an artist’s capacity for world-building in comics requires an SF atmosphere. A great example would be David Aja’s work on Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, which puts a grounded, realistic New York together under a visually distinct and compelling lens. 13/14

All in all then, this is ultimately an appreciation post for the often undercredited work that comics artists conduct in bringing new worlds’ into being. Evely’s skill with pencil and ink is readily visible on the page, but so too is the power and vision of her conceptual imagination. 14/14