women & comics....

Fysh

Yeah, I know, that's the kind of subject line that could lead to "are there any women out there who read comics?" (often as not meaning "are there any hot women out there who share my fixation with <insert superhero title here>?", excuse my cynicism). But anyway.

Recently I noticed that CBR is now carrying a series of articles by Johanna Stokes called Girl In The Clubhouse, presenting a female fan's view of, well, the comics world in general. It's interesting, although I have to admit the first column (how to get girls into comics) is kind of patronising in tone. Then again, maybe it's pitched at, I dunno, younger fans or something. The one about comics stores and how they could appeal to women more was very good, imo, and I'm just wondering if female fans on here have read these columns and if so, what they reckon? Agree with her? Disagree? Come to that, what do the guys reckon?

simu

It's not really a questin of attracting women to comics but more one of attracting non-geeks imo. True, there seem to be more male geeks than female ones but certainly, there is a huge number of men out there who would not get the comic thing either.

LucyBliss

Those articles were very interesting. I've always been interested in comics but unfortunately storage and finance issues have prevented me from actively pursuing it. I do like to get those paperback graphic novels though where they put all the issues of a particular story arc under one cover. That probably singles me out as not being 'a true fan(!)' but what can you do. I remember a very pleasant afternoon spent in UCG library reading a bunch of X-Men comics a friend of mine loaned me when I really should have been revising British history.

I have to say though that sometimes wandering into browse in our local comic stores, I do feel a bit out of place and awkward. That could be due to the fact that the shop is cramped and walking around the shelves means I'm almost walking into or bumping elbows with the other shoppers, who are men.

direbadger

I've worked in a comics and games shop and in the past there hasn't been many things "for girls" to choose from. Sure, there have always been girls and women who were into the genres of sci-fi/fantasy/adventure/super heroes and all the things comic books traditionally are about. I always liked all that stuff and so invariably was reading comics nearly always by men in the past. That changed when I got into manga. I got to read a lot of stories with female protagonists and even though I didn't know it because of the Japanese names, many of the not-particularly-girly Japanese comics I was drawn to were actually by women (Rumiko Takahashi is an example, I was a fan but didn't know she was female for aaaaages!)
Anyway, since the days when I first started going into comic shops things have changed. Not only can you get lots of comics with female protagonists, and not just the ones about their boobs *coughTarotcough*, you can get comics written by girls for girls and of course, comics by men about women but not in the sexist way. You only need to go to a convention to see that the stereotype of nerdy boys playing by themselves is dead. There'll be more and more girls getting into comics in the next few years too! long may it continue!

snuffles

I don't think anything needs to be done to make comics "more accessible" to girls. In fact, I'd find it incredibly patronising. Granted I was raised on old science fiction novels and my Dad has a massive treasure trove of old DC stuff, but I've only recently taken an active interest the whole graphic novel scene (and how incredibly expensive it is to be a fan) and I'm addicted. I know comics are traditionally a "boy" thing, but so are videogames and there are nowadays there are plenty of girls who play videogames. Similarily, it's no longer an amazing thing to meet girls who are into comics and the idea of comic makers and retailers going out of their way to cater for them is a bit stupid.

iguana

snuffles wrote:

I don't think anything needs to be done to make comics "more accessible" to girls. In fact, I'd find it incredibly patronising............................ .........................................................................................the idea of comic makers and retailers going out of their way to cater for them is a bit stupid.

Agreed. I started to read comics because I grew up reading them. I read them now as long as they are well written. I won't blindly follow a comic because I like the characters if they are being badly written at present, as I did as a teenager. I've been a X-men fan since I was 7 and am currently enjoying the Astonishing series, but after getting the first few of Claremont's Uncanny I'd be loath to waste time reading them if I was given them for free.

I'm happy to explore new writers and stories. If it is good I will keep reading, if the writer changes and I dislike the new direction I will stop. In much the same way as male comic readers.

The bulk of comics are written in the sci-fi/fantasy genre and female characters have been depicted as strongly and with integral roles to the story for at least the last 2/3 decades. But sci-fi/fantasy tends to attract more men than women, probably because the subject matter can be pretty testosterone fueled and most women tend to get bored of this quite easily.

Fysh

iguana wrote:

The bulk of comics are written in the sci-fi/fantasy genre and female characters have been depicted as strongly and with integral roles to the story for at least the last 2/3 decades. But sci-fi/fantasy tends to attract more men than women, probably because the subject matter can be pretty testosterone fueled and most women tend to get bored of this quite easily.

I'm not entirely sure I agre with this, at least insofar as the "presentation of female characters" goes. There's been a fair bit of outcry against Avengers : Disassembled and Identity Crisis for the reason that the writing depicting the women was, well, crap. Wanda Maximoff lost her mind and screwed up reality because *gasp* she wanted kids and couldn't handle it. And Identity Crisis was Jean Loring wanting her boyfriend back - so she kills a load of people to find out if he still cares about her. (see here for a well-written discussion on these aspects of those particular series).

Moving away from that, there's the visual presentation of women in comics. Female superhero costumes are still, by and large, tight and well-fitted enough to show off their improbable physiques. And yes, I know Powergirl has the attitude that's supposed to justify the writers making her walk around in a tight-fitted top when she's fairly hefty up top. What I'm asking is, how come pretty much every female superhero seems to end up swanning around in revealing costumes for much of their time? And more importantly, how come they're more often than not deliberately created as being some sort of model of attractiveness? If you look at male superheroes, yes, it happens, but you also get characters like Ted Kord who doesn't really have much of a build compared to other heroes (though, like any hero character, he's bigger than the average guy). He's not the prettiest face to look at. Or you've got Deathblow. Or a variety of other characters who have some sort of disfigurement or vaguely original aspect to their physiology. Whereas female characters mostly tend to the hourglass figure and face that's easy on the eyes. (Admittedly, I'm not the best person to judge this, since I mostly skim hero comics out of a vague interest in the mainstream comics scene, rather than read them regularly out of interest in the characters).

Now, if you wanted to convince me that there's strong, well-written female characters out there....well, point me at Transmetropolitan and Preacher and Garth Ennis's run on Hellblazer, and Ghost World and 100 Bullets (well, Dizzy's character mainly) and so forth. But unless there's a hell of a lot that I've missed, the pervsuit books aren't the best place to start looking for intelligent, well written women. (In fact, the only mainstream hero I can think of that's an intelligent and strong woman first, and someone occasionally in a dodgy costume second, is Zatanna. And even then I don't know much about her outside of the original Books of Magic series and Morrison's "7 soldiers" series).

Nevyn

I think a lot of it is the lack of comic book shops outside of the city centres.
I never get into the city centre and upon the rare ocassion I do they are closed.
Somewhere that you dont have people looking down thier noses at you or wanting to assertain what your level of comic book knowlegde is and then when
you inform them you had read watchmen before they had thier first errection they as you to marry them ffs.

iguana

Fysh wrote:

Moving away from that, there's the visual presentation of women in comics. Female superhero costumes are still, by and large, tight and well-fitted enough to show off their improbable physiques.

By that reckoning there is only about three strong female characters on all of television, as most actors tend to be very good looking and have great bodies.

Most people in comics tend to fit into the ideal notion of attractiveness. Are you saying that the men in these comics are the dominant, better written characters? Because over 95% of male superheros are drawn as highly attractive. About the same percentage as the women.

Do you associate attractive women with weak personalities? Because that is the impression I'm getting. Female superhero's look hot so must therefore be weak characters only drawn in to titilate the male readers.

Hagar

I live in France and comics, BDs, are huge over here. The artwork is amazing. Many are Jap influenced but there are many original French works. My local Mediatheque, public library, has shelves after shelves of the stuff in the adult section. I use them to improve my French as there is little in the text that cannot be connected to the pictures.

Geranium

I don't think that there particularly needs to be anything hugely done to promote female interest in comic books. Most of the people i know wjo read comics are male but whenever I've asked about comics or shown an interest they've been more than happy to elaborate. I was a bit intimidated at first going into comic shops but I've only ever had a positive experience. I think that any person new to comic books could be equally uneasy, male or female. I think that just treating people nicely when they ask about comics, or lending an issue or two to an interested person is the best thing anyone can do to get anybody into comics.

Fysh

iguana wrote:

By that reckoning there is only about three strong female characters on all of television, as most actors tend to be very good looking and have great bodies.

No, I don't think that argument holds up at all. Chiefly because TV as a medium doesn't have a history of being generally more oriented towards teenage boys. It certainly has genres that do so, but comics to someone who's not interested in them generally mean either superheroes, newspaper comic strips like Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes, or kids comics like the Beano. I'm sorry but you're going to have to work harder to convince me on this point.

iguana wrote:

Most people in comics tend to fit into the ideal notion of attractiveness. Are you saying that the men in these comics are the dominant, better written characters? Because over 95% of male superheros are drawn as highly attractive. About the same percentage as the women.

I'm not saying they're better written, I'm saying that until very recently (and even then, not always - see previous comments about Avengers : Disassembled and Identity Crisis) they tended to be dominant. I freely admit that my less-than-encyclopedic knowledge of superhero trivia may be leading me astray here, but I've seen more non-stereotypically-attractive male superhero characters than I have female ones. Which, I think, is telling in terms of the target audience they're aimed at as well as some of the people writing them. You're welcome to differ, but I'd be interested in specific examples if you do disagree.

iguana wrote:

Do you associate attractive women with weak personalities? Because that is the impression I'm getting. Female superhero's look hot so must therefore be weak characters only drawn in to titilate the male readers.

Um, no, and I could equally suggest that you associate unattractive men with weak personalities. It's got sod-all to do with what I'm saying. What I'm getting at is that, from my experience, it's more of a requirement for a female superhero character to be physically attractive than it is for a male superhero - but the dominant nature of some of the male superheroes tends to relegate female superheroes to sidelined roles. Obviously this doesn't apply to every character (yes, I know Storm kicks ass and takes names, and I'm also vaguely familiar with the Phoenix saga in which Jean Grey saves, well, the world or something) but I'm talking about tendencies across the board rather than specific cases.

Of course, most of the above really means jack-all to me anyway, since I really couldn't care much less about superhero comics.

iguana

Fysh wrote:

Um, no, and I could equally suggest that you associate unattractive men with weak personalities.

Well I don't see where you got that from? All I did was point out that most forms of media tend to use attractive people. So the logical extention of your argument that the women in comics can't be strong characters based on the fact that they are drawn attractively is that any use of attractive women to tell a story means that they are not strong characters.

Fysh wrote:

TV as a medium doesn't have a history of being generally more oriented towards teenage boys. It certainly has genres that do so, but comics to someone who's not interested in them generally mean either superheroes, newspaper comic strips like Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes, or kids comics like the Beano.

And who are comics such as Bunty, Mandy and Judy aimed at? Now I might be wrong here but I'm guessing pre-teen girls. Yet if you flick through their pages you will find them filled with attractive girls. They generally tend to wear street clothes or school uniforms but the main characters are usually good looking, with only the nerdy annoying boy being skinny and pimply. Does this mean that Bunty are trying to capture a male audience?

Fysh wrote:

There's been a fair bit of outcry against Avengers : Disassembled for the reason that the writing depicting the women was, well, crap. Wanda Maximoff lost her mind and screwed up reality because *gasp* she wanted kids and couldn't handle it.

I haven't read this but I have heard about it and I'm pretty sure that Wanda was less filled with unfulfilled broodiness and more greif stricken at the loss of the twins she had in the 80's with her husband Vision. Plenty of male characters, such as Scott Summers or Reed Richards, have done stupid things while motivated by their fatherhood or romantic feelings too. So your point doesn't hold water.

Fysh wrote:

Of course, most of the above really means jack-all to me anyway, since I really couldn't care much less about superhero comics.

Then maybe you might want to take into account that someone who has spent the last 20 years reading them might know a little more about them than you? I started reading from my uncles collection which dates back from issue one of most books, (unfortunately English re-prints and not the American originals or he'd be a millionaire:( ). And certainly in the 60's the women were weaker characters. But by the mid-seventies the women's roles had much expanded to the point where my ten year old self, who used to re-write all my Famous Five and Secret Seven books so that the girls actually did something, was inspired and motivated by the female characters.

Even things that annoyed me like Susan Richards struggle to decide whether she should quit the FF to raise her son or not were actually ahead of their time and is still the kind of thing relevant to working mothers now. And her husband was an ass about it, and was proved to be in the wrong by his wife. The fact that the characters are drawn as people first and super-powered second is a strenght that the books have, not a weakness. And a factor that is more likely to attract women than teenage boys.

You can disagree all you like, I don't really care as you have made it obvious you neither know much about or respect the books you are talking about. (This isn't my opinion, you have said this yourself repeatedly.) The fact of the matter is that as someone who has read a lot of these books from inception to present day I can say without doubt that for the last 2/3 decades these books have been filled with strong female characters that have meant a lot to me. That have not been sidelined by male characters but have interacted as equals.

Oh, and Phoenix didn't save the world or something. She saved the entirety of existance, repeatedly.:D In fact Jean Grey as Phoenix is the most powerful character in the entire Marvel Universe and has been for nearly 25 years.

Fysh

iguana wrote:

Well I don't see where you got that from? All I did was point out that most forms of media tend to use attractive people. So the logical extention of your argument that the women in comics can't be strong characters based on the fact that they are drawn attractively is that any use of attractive women to tell a story means that they are not strong characters.

Well in the same way I don't see where you made the conclusion that I clearly think attractive women have weak personalities. I wasn't saying that the weak personalities that I perceived stemmed from being drawn as physically attractive characters, just that I'd seen the two go hand in hand.

iguana wrote:

And who are comics such as Bunty, Mandy and Judy aimed at? Now I might be wrong here but I'm guessing pre-teen girls. Yet if you flick through their pages you will find them filled with attractive girls. They generally tend to wear street clothes or school uniforms but the main characters are usually good looking, with only the nerdy annoying boy being skinny and pimply. Does this mean that Bunty are trying to capture a male audience?

Yes, well done, and nice try at condescension too. As with superheroes, Judy, Mandy & Bunty were never exactly my thing, so I don't know much about them. But your argument seems to be that the aspect of superhero comics that was designed to appeal to a male audience was purely the way female characters were drawn, therefore this must extrapolate to all comics. Whereas what I was saying is that the way female characters have often been presented in superhero comics is an aspect of the fact that these comics were for a long time (and to a greater or lesser extent still are, depending on the title) targeted at a young male audience.

iguana wrote:

I haven't read this but I have heard about it and I'm pretty sure that Wanda was less filled with unfulfilled broodiness and more greif stricken at the loss of the twins she had in the 80's with her husband Vision. Plenty of male characters, such as Scott Summers or Reed Richards, have done stupid things while motivated by their fatherhood or romantic feelings too. So your point doesn't hold water.

Uh, sorry, but yes it does. The point is that crap writing is crap writing, and that female characters with such a hollow 2-dimensional motivation for their actions are crappily written. As are male characters with hollow 2-dimensional motivations. I mentioned those 2 sagas purely because there'd been quite a lot of attention focused on those aspects of the writing that were found to be lacking.

iguana wrote:

Then maybe you might want to take into account that someone who has spent the last 20 years reading them might know a little more about them than you? I started reading from my uncles collection which dates back from issue one of most books, (unfortunately English re-prints and not the American originals or he'd be a millionaire:( ). And certainly in the 60's the women were weaker characters. But by the mid-seventies the women's roles had much expanded to the point where my ten year old self, who used to re-write all my Famous Five and Secret Seven books so that the girls actually did something, was inspired and motivated by the female characters.

Even things that annoyed me like Susan Richards struggle to decide whether she should quit the FF to raise her son or not were actually ahead of their time and is still the kind of thing relevant to working mothers now. And her husband was an ass about it, and was proved to be in the wrong by his wife. The fact that the characters are drawn as people first and super-powered second is a strenght that the books have, not a weakness. And a factor that is more likely to attract women than teenage boys.

You can disagree all you like, I don't really care as you have made it obvious you neither know much about or respect the books you are talking about. (This isn't my opinion, you have said this yourself repeatedly.) The fact of the matter is that as someone who has read a lot of these books from inception to present day I can say without doubt that for the last 2/3 decades these books have been filled with strong female characters that have meant a lot to me. That have not been sidelined by male characters but have interacted as equals.

Oh, and Phoenix didn't save the world or something. She saved the entirety of existance, repeatedly.:D In fact Jean Grey as Phoenix is the most powerful character in the entire Marvel Universe and has been for nearly 25 years.

Re : all of the above. If you've found female characters in the last 30 years of superhero books that really made sense to you, etc etc, that's great. It's a good thing, and I'm glad of it - and presumably others have found the same characters, and more power to you (and them) for it. I've not heard many people put forward a case for the writing in superhero books like you have, and I suspect that my enduring cynicism regarding superheroes would mean that personally, I still wouldn't have time for them. It's still nice to hear that other people get more out of them than I do.

Rozie

It really annoys me the way other girls look down on comics, and people in general.

I don't like that kind of snootiness.

AARRRGH

Rozie wrote:

It really annoys me the way other girls

Hmmmmm.

I think you'll find comics are very popular by girls in other countries, for example, France.

They don't read DC/Marvel stuff though. More "intelligent" stuff...

ChrisCross

I know a lot of girls who like comics. I mean, targeting comics towards girls. What the hell does that really MEAN? Going down the manga route where you have 3 types of comics: sparkley girly comics, boyish action comics and ones meant for both genres? I know many a girl who hate the shoujo manga/anime. If you have a comics with a good plot, well developed characters and interesting artwork then you've got a comic that should appeal to anyone. There is no need to try make girls your target audience.

Maybe the superhero image would scare a lot of girls off. Mainly the oldschool image of the female in comic books being the love interest. I'd like to think that on the whole that may have changed a little.
When I think of female characters I love from comics, Rogue, Emma Frost, Jean Grey, Death, Kabuki, Devi - all pretty hedstrong characters. Comics were originally geared towards guys, it's true. That's why all the cool characters were male but I think it's changing a little now.

You know.. thinking about it and making a list, I think X-men is one of the only comics where the female characters are really good and don't get a really raw deal. I mean, Elektra isn't the best character for girls to identify with.

On whether you should have female based comics though I'd say no, but part of me says theyre already here - Aeria (sp?), I feel sick, Love and Rockets, Strangers in Paradise, Killer Princesses, Alias?

What makes a comic geared towards women?

Thren

I've been reading comics for years and have quite an extensive collection to show for it, and could be considered quite "feminist" by some people. I've never had any problems in shopping in comicbook shops, apart from a few stares at times, and Thursday holds a special place in my heart. I would read quite a diverse array of stuff, from Xmen to Preacher and back again, and enjoy them all. Granted, I am more a follower of artists, and will put up with poor plots/writing if I like the art, but I've always found there to be a plethora of strong female characters throughout comics - Rogue, Storm, Jean Grey, Aria, Zatanna, Agent Blaze, Sara Pezzini etc.. And yes, they are drawn in revealing clothing and their proportions exaggerated (think of the back pain!) but this is nothing new when you look at the rest of our culture, where women's pictures are regularly airbrushed and legs elongated etc... I do feel that things are changing however, if you look at Witchblade as an example - it used to be the worse culprit for T&A, but has recently transformed itself into a well written comic with very little revealing clothing, and is much better as a result.

As to what would make a comic geared towards women, well, strong female characters, good writing, good art - any of the things that would also attract the discerning male. Perhaps it would be better to look at what *doesn't* make a comic geared towards women - á la the aforementioned Tarot or even Vampirella....

I also find that those articles are completely patronising!!

ChrisCross

Aria - I just personally hate that comic. I tried. I really tried to get into it.
Slightly off the topic but.. role model she may be. Good comic.. not in my opinion.

Anyone also see that SLG comic Street Devil or something.. think they starting to target younger goth/rock/skater kids nowadays too. Well i think mainly SLG are, 'I feel sick', Lenore and the like are all kinda targeted at that market. You COULD say thats a way of gettin gurls into comics. I mean.. without girls how are comicbook geeks gonna copulate and develop the master race of comic book geeks who will eventually take over the world with pedantic fanboy/girl rage.

I've said too much already.