Danielle Connor Is Still Drawing Herself How a Denver native became a best-selling comic artist, and found acceptance in the community Story and Photos by Giles Clasen DANIELLE CONNOR’S FIRST PAIR OF WOMEN’S JEANS came from Walmart. One might not notice they had smaller pockets, hugged her frame a little tighter and were cut a little lower. It would be easy to mistake them for tight-fitting men’s pants during the skinny jean era. But for Connor, they were special: They affirmed her true and hidden identity as a woman. What wasn’t hidden was her rising career. Conner first drew and wrote independent comics while working as a special education teacher at Denver Public Schools in 2008. Her first printed comics were adaptations of “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream” and “Dracula,” published by Abdo and released to schools and libraries nationally and translated into multiple languages. By 2018, Connor had published works for titles as big as “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “My Gal, The Zombie,” “Archie” and “Casper.” Then, in 2018, she reached a new milestone: writing the manga series “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas – The Battle for Pumpkin King” published by Tokyo Pop in partnership with Disney and Tim Burton. The book eventually became a New York Times bestseller. “It was amazing to get ‘Nightmare.’ I love the series and the movie,” Connor said. “It was a long shot, and I just really kept at it, like, getting the work, and I couldn’t believe I got it. It literally changed my life.” Back then, all her comics were signed “Dan Connor.” “I got to work on all these things and get my name on it: Danielle Connor wearing her feminine jeans and shirt in 2022. ‘Dan.’ But I felt I knew I wasn’t Dan,” she said. “I started signing everything as Connor. I was leaving Dan off because I didn’t know where I wanted to go. It was a long time before I started signing my work Danielle.” Connor had known since she was a small child that something about her didn’t match the boy she was born as. She came out to her Southern Baptist parents as gay at 11 years old — she didn’t have the language for transgender identity yet, so gay was the closest fit. “Their response was, ‘Let’s talk about it,’ but they definitely were trying to push me to be who I am not,” Connor said. “They didn’t hate me, they didn’t say, ‘We’re getting rid of you,’ but they did remind me where they feel the Bible stands on being gay.” Connor’s faith was deep then and now. She has always struggled with bringing her understanding of the Bible in line with her identity as a woman. Raised by a Southern Baptist pastor, Connor can quote a lot of Scripture. But Connor’s journey to go from Dan to Danielle in her 30s coincided with her world falling apart. Connor’s wife left her in 2020, taking care of their two children as, not long after, doctors found leukemia in Connor’s blood that ultimately landed her in a coma and nearly killed her. It was her father who carried her to every doctor’s appointment. “My dad gave up his retirement years to go carry me by my belt while I tried to walk upstairs, and drive me to chemo every day in 2-degree weather of Denver instead of sunny Florida,” Connor said. “I had no one else to do it and that is real love.” The cancer and chemotherapy left Connor permanently 6 COMMUNITY PROFILE
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