secondlina | Geekesses are princesses

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Geekesses are princesses

For some reason, men seem to think holding a pencil requires balls.
Go to any special comic meeting and the idiot in charge of the interviews will spot you, hunt you down and ask you the same damn question the've been asking for 20 years thinking they are helping out a feminist statement doing so.

Okay.

I'm wondering why this is still a question that needs to be asked.

In european and american comics, the place of women is still relatively minimal. In european, comics for girls tend to be either unisex comics or sinfully girly ones. The comic audience is still men. I remember reading Spirou (the france equivalent of Jump but for french comics) and they had this special about women in comics. They showed a bunch of "comic heroines" and did a little article about female comic autors. The comic heroines almost all came from series where they serve as eye candy on the side. The article showed a few women from the beginning of the comic book industrie, followed by a gap in time and then a few more artists. American comics have the same odd problem. Comic for girls tend to be unisex (like runaways) or girly (Mary-oh-shoot-me-now-jane). I appreciate the quality of the unisex comics but i'm not sure I appreciate the girly side too much, especially since a lot of those girly comics and written and illustrated by men.

I remember reading an article about the artist from Y: the last man who is female. She was telling the journalist how she was denied to work on several series because her artwork was "girly" Girly? GIRLY?!! It's the most basic american style ever! It's very similar to fable's drawing style...So how is it girly?

Manga is by far the comic industrie that gives the most space to women, which is most likely why so many of the anime fans are girls. They can relate more to that product. Even then though, Japan is a pretty darn sexist country: Ozamu Tekuza had to cross dress one of his heroins so that she could ride a horse and fight with a sword without putting some of the reader's parents into comatose shock.

So what is the place of woman in the comic world? I'm not sure. Their place in the fanbase is obviously growing as the place of geek-ess is becoming less and less diminitive socially and more and an association with a group of people. Geek is not something that marginalizes you anymore. The internet helps a lot. Most of the internet is porn, but a very good segment is dedicated to fandom. Inside the panels, some women still dress with string. I don't think that will ever change. I mean, they style make Jame bond style movies. It's difficult to stop treating women like objects. Men are also starting to be treated like objects in the media too. It's definitly a problem to be looked into.

As for woman in comiking. Humm. That role is growing too. In Japan and Europe, there is a lot of mangaka and bédéistes who are female. However not all of them can find serious work, often because of their "girly (?????)" style. (un)Suprisingly, the american comic business is still pretty hard to get into. It's totally a boy's club there. But then again, it's also a very dog-eat-dog world, so it's hard for everybody. Being the "weaker" (sic) sex just makes you look like an easier victim.

-Secondlina

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When Pia Guerra won The Joe Shuster Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artist Award, it wasn't because she was girly. It was because she was the best of all the nominees (strangely enough, all men) :)

Personally, woman are a creative force that bring another "layer" to comic books. Girly? Nope. Intelligent. (think Gail Simone on Birds of Prey - regardless of the "sexy" art, the stories shine through. I can only imagine what she'll be doing with Wonder Woman)

If you're in Toronto for the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon the first weekend of June, be sure to check out the Women of Comics symposium (http://www.womenofcomics.com/ if you haven't visited already :) )

I still don't understand why Guerra style was pinned "girly" by a few editors. He style is very versatile and similar to the one of many male artists. It's still a mystery to me. It's actually a funny concidence that she is the artist of Y the last man. ^^

You can have comics who have sexy women and good storylines. I mean, it's not because we are women that we refuse to be sexy or something. The woman body is a beautiful thing. I'm more against the "blowed up" brests. A women can have a good chest to body ratio without scrapping all notions of porpotions and inflating the things.

I really want to go check out that women of comics thing! O_O Thanks for the info!

In webcomics, most of my favorite comic authors are women. However, it's not much of an industry.

Oh, actually it is. Several webcomics do make some money, and with the internet growing, it's a business that can only flourish. We jst need to put down more rules and regulations about copyrights and such.

I like to think that, yeah. I'm definitely putting my all into it. Just, it's also a huge collection of hobby-ists. Which is probably where the strength of webcomics comes from. Webcomics are also gaining a lot of credibility lately, what with some of them getting syndicated.

I suppose it's just an old reflex of mine to state it's not exactly an industry.

It's not really one yet, but it's officialy a medium now, so the industry part is definitly coming. Not to mention on popular webcomics, ad space is already a juicy piece of the pie. ^_ ^

I really don't care for most American comics because they are very much directed toward male audiences. If the women in the comics have breasts bigger than their head, and waists that could be snapped in half, I know it's no comic I want to be reading.

I say it's high time to kick men in the head and make something better. It's already known that women on average read more than men, and they'd probably read plenty of comics if they could relate to them.

I agree with the call to arms, and the disatisfaction with the industry. I take umbrage that you mean to do war with me when I want to work with you.

I'm an American male cartoonist. I read the works of both male and female cartoonists from around the world, but many of which are made in the U.S. by women for everybody.

Almost all the comics I read are webcomics. Some of them even make money for their creators. Most don't. What "we" need to do is keep spotlighting those creators that are actually good. Turn the industry upsidedown by uplifting the indy cartoonist. Start new publishing houses with better editorial philosophies. But more important than all that, "we" need to get more people reading comics.

The material is out there, waiting to be read. It's wide and varied and exciting, and it comes from men, women and children from any country, you just have to find it.

I post a good one to my LJ every time I find it. That's the best way to start.

I agree with what you say: It's not that we lack female autors and/or good storylines. Comics by and/or for women exist. It's just not necessarly under the spotlight. It's the same with really astonishing works like Blankets or Strangers in Paradise. The work is awesome but it used to be considered underground. Maybe it's time to shed a bit of light on what creators do in less popular circles. I personnaly thing it's good that big houses like Dc and Merval have creator alternate logos like dark horse and vertigo to publish works that don't fll under the popular spandex mod. It shows that even the giants of the industry have a vision for alternate comic types.

I still think bone is one of the greatest comics i've ever read.

A comic artist heh? I'm glad you chose to participate in this discussion. Though this is mainly a rant based on poor information and the fact that i'm tired of being the "female token artist" to meetings I go to where it's always me and the same other girl who represent estrogen. The really should invite other girls.

ahhh I borrowed

ruralrambler's copy of the first Bone book. It was friggen awesome! That's done by a woman? I'm very bad at not looking at the names of comic artists.

Personally I mostly only read webcomics, and a good chunk of manga when I can get my hands on it. Mostly stuff that would be found in Shonen Jump, which I guess is male targeted right? And what, Shojo Beat is supposed to be female targeted? heh, well I don't know any women who read it, but my experience is limited.

Course I'm also not the average girl...

Anyway, the only female comic artist I can think of off the top of my head is Naoko Takeuchi (I know I spelled that wrong, its been too long) who did Sailor Moon. Which, I suppose could be considered "girly" with all the romance and mostly female cast but... mmmm, I didn't see it that way. Forget the Anime for a moment (and especially the dub) but the Manga is just a good read, and an oldie too. Plus she's quite guilty of drawing long legs, small waists and, well reasonably sized breasts.

I don't really know where I was going with this... my train of thought just derailed.

oh! there's an Indie artist named Kat(ie) on devArt that I adore, and her art is certainly not girly, and mostly gaming based, but on a different strain of humor than most gaming comics.

*rummages around*

Stupid devArt made this way too hard to find.

Anyway she's Hail-NekoYasha on devArt and recently opened her own webpage... www.akwardzombie.com , but the archives don't go back quite as far.

Anyway, thought I'd share that, I absolutely adore her work, oddly drawn and wacky sense of humour that it is.

Bone is actually done by a man, but I think it's a good example of a unisex comic. Shonen is targeting male and Shojo female. It's blantly stated actually, if you know japanese, since shojo means "girl" and shonen "boy" (props to the japs for their originality). Both kind comes with a certain number of caracteristics. As an example: Shojo tend to have a cute pet sidekick.

Sailor moon was definitly shojo. It was actually one of the manga that defined the shojo type. But it's normal if you saw other stuff in it since Sailor Moon also references a lot of hentai and Sadist and masochist practices. The sailor uniform for instance is a big fat juicy sex symbol. The association with the moon is also very sexual (even if the moon represents purity. heh)

Ding ding ding! YOu spelled her name right, here's a Minako icon for that. ^_^

Yahoo!!!!

I have no idea why the link to Kaitlan's LJ didn't work.... O.o

*tries again*

ruralrambler

Oh yeah. I dare say, I'd be totally fed up with being asked that damn question every con.

That and "Do you think comics are too directed at men?" or "Is it hard to be a part of a business ruled by men" or even (my personal favorite) "Yeah, so you're doing comics now. Are you planning anything serious in the future? This is just a temporary state, after all."

Feh. That last one is asked to comic autors of both genders...

I know that all male cartoonists aren't like you. You're probably familiar with the Something Positive webcomic. It's apparent that its creator has a very healthy respect for female artists, especially with how he crossed over with the Queen of Wands during its run, adopted Kestrel when it was finish and has promoted the sequel, Punch an' Pie.

But I also agree with Diane to an extent as well. I've been able to find in Japanese light novels/comics what lacks in a lot of the traditional DC/Marvel comics I grew up seeing on the rack. I would love to find a character like Lina Inverse that was created by an American artist, male or female. My problems with the vast majority of popular American comics isn't the fact that they're geared toward men, but the fact that they've been rebooted so many times that it's hard to follow the story. Granted, at times the Japanese aren't that much better, but it's still easier to follow.

But yeah, a lot of guys don't need to be kicked in the head. :)

Nah, but I do want to kick the 'artists' who don't understand human anatomy at all. (When the comic style is more cartoonish it's one thing, but when they're going for 'realistic' but can't even get it right....ow, my eyes!)

I didn't have the time to really go in-depth this morning, but I meant mainly comic books (not to be confused with comic strips, which are a completely different thing) that I've had the pleasure to be exposed to. I personally love comic strips (my favorite is Foxtrot, which is drawn by a man, but he speaks to geeks everywhere), and webcomics as well, but I don't know if they should really be lumped together with the comic book industry.

I think I just need to find people who read more varieties of comic books, because what few I've seen do not impress me at all. (And lets not get started on the abuse of the human anatomy in some of those..)

I'm all for turning the industry in its head. ^_-

That's OK. I kinda sensed that, and that we're really on the same page, but wasn't sure and felt I needed to speak up.

That might be a bit of an extremist jugement. I know of a few comics where women are slightly exagerated and yet the story is good. If anything, it might a bad association of an artist and a writer.

Men are starting to make things better since a lot of comics now are aimed at unisex audiences, like fables and runaways (and a lot of comics published by Vertigo). I don't think we should shoot down everything that was made by men. After all, Slayers is shonen. XD You just need to sample the work a lot, make sure you read the good stuff.

I love a lot of things done by men, but there are a few comics I've seen that just...bleh. I don't like being seen as eye candy by guys who don't understand that comics don't always represent proper female anatomy (to put it simply). I'm going to wave my little white flag and say I was writing this before work, and I didn't have the proper time to make a well-rounded argument. You just got my main points. ^_^;;

There's actually a reference we use in my store from time to time. "Bodies don't work that way." Take a look at Rob Lefield's stuff and prepare for your sense of anatomy to break. To name one of the biggest offenders anyway..and of course Michael Turner's covers from time to time. Ow.

Hi :) Your pic was hilarious and I just had to comment XD
Luckily the situation in my country (Italy) is not that bad: there has been an explosion of comics for girls and/or by girls in recent times

Just look at Winx Club (http://www.winxclub.com/) , W.i.t.c.h. (http://www.disney.it/Publishing/Witchmagazine/) (not the horrible cartoon, but the awesome comic by Elisabetta Gnone), Sky Doll (http://www.pavesio.com/scheda_titolo.asp?cod=28), Fairy Oak, Luna (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_%28fumetto%29), Lys (http://www.luccacomicsandgames.com/06/xhtml/comics/novita_editori/img/tridimensional_LysPromo.jpg)

It's just a matter of trends, I think...W.I.T.C.H was such a huge success that people realised girl comics were a gold mine, and they started to pop up everywhere ^^
I hope things will get better where you live ;)

I know W.I.T.C.H, Sky doll and Luna. I was lucky enough to be able to get a french translation of those comics (who are all originaly italian I think.) I read an article about how the comic industrie for girls was totally booming in italy. That's really great.

I think the problem with my situation is that I live in canada. Canada doesn't really have a comic industrie. We do publish comics, but we import much, much more. We import from france in Quebec and from the Usa in the rest of english canada. So the canadian place for comics artists is even more reduced by the lack of support.

One of my very favorite webcomics is Get Medieval by Irony-chan, another Canadian female. The commentary community that has built up around the webcomic is almost as good as the comic for humor and geekiness. So there are at least three of you!

Well,our comic industry is not on par with the French one...but Italian artists got somehow a big position in the Disney industry, and all the good Disney comics are produced here (like P.K.N.A.: the adventures of Donald as a super hero, Monster Allergy, Mickey's weekly stories etc ) so we are "shining in Disney's reflected light" ;)

W.I.T.C.H may be the first italian comic for girls to become a success, but it's not the first: when I was little there was "Minnie & Company", a special Disney magazine with comics by female artists that featured only the female Disney characters (Minnie, Daisy, Magica De Spell, Gradma Duck and her stories, Brigitta Mc Bridge etc) Boys allowed only as love interests XD
I adored that magazine , there were really memorable stories, too bad it didn't last more than 2-3 years. Re reading it now that I'm an adult, I'm still surprised at how many feminist ideas they managed to hide behind those stories XD and I'm still wondering if they are the reason why I'm a feminist now XD
I read an article about how the comic industrie for girls was totally booming in italy.
Try this article (http://www.lastampa.it/_web/cmstp/tmplrubriche/base/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=47&ID_articolo=67&ID_sezione=70&sezione=) Sorry, it's in italian, but you can translate it with babel fish...

I hope things will get better in Canada ^^

I didn't know that WINX club was originally a comic. Is it very different from the cartoon version?

Winx Club is both a comic AND a cartoon: they started being published at the same time (it's an artistic decision, i think)
But most effort is put into the cartoon ^^
I've never read the Winx comic ^^, but I've heard it's identical to the cartoon, with just a few new one-shot adventures thrown into the mix from time to time...

Ah, (nods,) I've only ever seen the cartoon. I'm not that big of a fan of it (no offense to WINX fans), so I was curious if the comic version was any better. I know that the WITCH comic is a lot better than the cartoon version. Thanks for the info. ^_~

Lack of girl comic artists and good comics for girls is certainly is problem in North American comics. I didn't read comics as a kid, but there wasn't really a big selection for me except for Betty and Veronica (which I still do read once in awhile).

However, I do think it's only a matter of time before things change. With the internet, there's a lot more exposer for girl comics and artists. As

rowenathewitch said it also depends on trends, because the same problem has occured in North American cartoons. In the 80/early 90s there were cartoons like She-Ra, JEM, Tanko and the Guardians of magic for girls to watch that weren't too girly. But later, the number dropped and there weren't many cartoons directed at girls that weren't unisex or super girly like the WINX cartoon.

However, now the selection is a bit better. There's Atomic Betty, Kim Possible, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, etc. Also, in the unisex cartoons there is a much larger selcetion of female characters like in Avatar. I realize that the cartoon industry is a probably different fromt he comic industry, but I do think it's only a matter of time before female comic artists and comics directed at girls get notice more. The real question is how long do we have to wait.

Also, you should check out Achiru's online manga Raven http://acorn.chorwong.com/raven/index.html

She's also a female Canadian manga artist and she's on deviantart http://-achiru-.deviantart.com/

Did I just hear you reference Tanko and the Guardians of Magic? Wow..I thought I was one of the only people to have even seen the show. You might laugh but I actually kind of liked the show when I was younger. It was fun.

I was wondering if anyone else would know about that show.

I loved that show, I even had one of the few action figures that were made. It's too bad that it didn't last very long.

Out of curiousity, did you ever seen the cartoon called "The Magician". That's another, not well known and yet very cool cartoon, that I greatly enjoyed.

Yeah actually! That's another obscure one. It was extremely fun and barely lasted anytime on TV. It was another one of those blink and you missed it shows. I think it maybe was on..six months here in my area.

Yeah, same here. I don't know why it didn't take off, I thought it was a great show. The show originally came from Germany. What really annoys me though is that apparently there were about 13 episodes that were never aired over here.

This person, who lives in Germany, made summaries of those episodes and even took screencaps. I wished they had been shown over here, because they sounded like good episodes. Missing Episodes

It is interesting that the american comic industry has generally been a slower market with female creators over the years. A recent artist I've been reading is Nicola Scott who's been working on a book called Birds of Prey with another female writer Gail Simone. Honestly one of the stronger comic books I've read in years. That's a DC book actually and it also has a few trades out as well. It is set in the universe but you don't have to be a DC Comics Whiz Kid to get into it as well.

There's some horrifying moments involving a certain comic called Witchblade Takeru that hurt my mind..but that's a story in itself.

Actually there's one book that I adore as well called A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran. She's an amazing artist who has worked all over the map comic wise. Ever get the chance read some of her stories about her experiences in the comic industry..she has a few doozies from when she was first starting out.

It does surprise me that Pia (artist on Y: the last man) was thought of as too girly. Gosh..she's a solid damned artist and she does a hell of a job with that book. It makes me hope that when that series finishes up she becomes just that much more bigger. Bless you vertigo on that. Actually a fascinating creator to keep an eye out for that's just an amazing artist as well is Becky Cloonan her work on Demo and currently American Virgin is great stuff. (Seriously Demo = One of the best serials I've read that I'm glad I own in single issue and soon enough here will own in trade format, it's that good.)

I just hope that with more diverse stories and so forth will lead to a more vibrant comic industry. Because right now it's pretty well it's getting better but..wow that could be a hell of a post in itself.

Pia does not have a girly style. Actually, if she sent in her stuff without being present, she might have gotten more jobs. It's more of an image thing. Kinda like when you do a job interview with someone who is crippled or black. You can't help but notice they are (in the case of women: behold, bouncy parts). Some people's views are influenced by that image. It's not the most objective people, dare I say.

I don't know about the US, but in the french comic industry, a lot of the "old boys" are still around. Though new and hip artists are emerging, the biggest mediums (like Spirou) are still ran by artists who had their peak back in 1980. So sometimes the image they have of women (artists) is a little dare I say..dusty?

Italy is booming though. This is mainly a france-belgium thing. But then again, don't get me started on france! Up there with japan in the misogynous lands. Ever seen mainstream french film? One pair of bobbies per blockbuster. At least.

Yet some of the most interesting artists right now (Canepa, Wendling, Karatu just to name a few) are women!

Oh well. One day we will prove that we have a place in the comics as both viewers and writters. We just need a bit more time.

Oh, didja notice the Tiresias drawing? XD I figured..a post about a gender war. Perfect spot to put Tiresias!

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Geekesses are princesses

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:)

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