secondlina | 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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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...

Geekesses are princesses

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