Women in comics

Fysh

OK, so I'm several months late to the party here, but I just stumbled across this article on the Irish Times about women in the Irish comics scene, including interviews with several folks who'd be familiar to anyone in the Irish indie/small press scene.

Hatgirl

"The Batgirl of San Diego” has a new column at comicsbulletin.com

(if you've no idea who I'm talking about, there are good summaries here and here, and interviews here and here)

Fysh

I read a bit about the Batgirl of San Diego, but I didn't realise she'd been given a column anywhere - ta for the link

I'd seen the interview with her here, which was followed up by a couple of great interviews with Joan Hilty and Louise Simonson. Both are well worth a read.

Fysh

This is also being discussed in the DC reboot thread, but there's been a good bit of bad publicity arising out of the new Red Hood & The Outsiders and Catwoman #1s.

In particular, the depiction of Starfire as poorly-characterised cheesecake seems to have gotten a lot of hackles up, leading to stories like this.

DC are openly saying that their core target audience is young men, but even at that it seems a bit odd to be this blunt about it. Aside from anything else, having grown up in Spain, I'm confused as to why DC don't just have an adults-only porn comic for that part of the audience if they're keen in offering that sort of material at all.

Penn

I can't see why, in the days of so much easy access to the internet, why comics companies need to do this to get young males to buy the comics. It just makes no sense to me. It reminds me of 'Scorer', the little cartoon strip that used to be in the Daily Mirror (I sound old, but it was only about a year ago). The footballer's girlfriend Ulrika was constantly nude, or posing in a bikini, or posing seductively etc. They even had an Ulrika Fan Club for her. Why? Who gets off on that? Or another one that does be in The Sun (I forget the name of it). They'd have two women, one of whom makes a really **** 'Sex and the City' type joke" Yet both of them are usually naked. Just trying on clothes or some ****. I worry more about the mentality of the artists rather than their perceived mentality of their customers.

They're comic books. There'll always be hot girls in tight leather costumes, but to make it so overly blatant is just unnecessary and damaging to other people's perception of comic books.

Fysh

Yeah, it's a bit silly really. I look at stuff like the Dresden Codak Justice League reboot and it just makes me a bit sad , because the changes could have pushed the idea that female characters aren't there to be spankbank material but instead we've got the same stupid and recessive "Oh, but it's magically not soft porn because its, er, empowering or some such" arguments being put forth again and again.

Ridley

Dang, I'd be willing to read/watch more DC purely on the strength of Diaz's art alone.

donaldbracy

Huntress, she is the daughter of Batman. If they are including the Birds of Prey then Oracle(which is Bat Girl in a wheelchair and really smart) and the other girl who has powers like Rogue from X-Men.

ForgottenCandy

donaldbracy wrote: »

Huntress, she is the daughter of Batman. If they are including the Birds of Prey then Oracle(which is Bat Girl in a wheelchair and really smart) and the other girl who has powers like Rogue from X-Men.

I vaguely remembered seeing a TV show about them, but they made some changes, especially to the other character. Huntress and Oracle are depicted as is, but somehow changed the powers of the other girl, whose name I kinda forgot. Lol.

Fysh

I've just deleted a couple of posts from this thread, so I'm posting to clarify:

This thread is for discussing issues affecting women in comics (whether they're readers, retailers, editors, writers, artists or whatever). It is not a thread for discussing what characters you've got a crush on, or posting your favourite artwork of said characters.

Fysh

On a different theme, I've just seen this story about Kapow, who have decided to once again not have any female professional artists as guests at their convention.

I find this mindboggling, myself - not just because of how many excellent female creators have to be ignored if a convention decides to have an all-male guest list, but because of what that then says to your potential audience. I know Kapow is a bit weird anyway (why in the hell would you have a convention in central London and then not have any tickets available on the day? What's the point? If you're working on a prior-booking-only basis why not go somewhere cheaper?) and their attitude to the small press side of things was only exemplary in that it was essentially a demo of How Not To Do it, but...making a mistake like this again seems very, very silly.

Edited to add:

Unrelated to the Kapow thing but adding a note of hilarity to the day, the latest Shortpacked! strip explains the difference between the sexual objectification of women in superhero comics and the power fantasy aspects of male characters in just about the best way possible.

Ridley

A Video Breakdown of the Sad History of Ms. Marvel, Sex Slave

and Jim Shooter's thoughts on his hand in it.

Potatoeman

Ridley wrote: »

A Video Breakdown of the Sad History of Ms. Marvel, Sex Slave

and Jim Shooter's thoughts on his hand in it.

There is a good video of it here too:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5013-Favorite-Ms-Take-Part-1

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/5044-Favorite-Ms-Take-Part-2

Bistoman

One of the strongest characters I ever came across was Halo Jones in 2000 ad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Halo_Jones
Its' a shame that Alan Moore decided to not continue the story, Even though Ian Gibson has said He would love to do a new story.