Women in comics! Yaaay! For me, I was always reading comics
aimed at women and girls from the beginning. I read Archie for a long time, before
discovering manga, and the kind I read was almost exclusively written and
illustrated by women. Largely because of manga and webcomics, I grew up
thinking that women in the comics industry were everywhere.
Eventually I discovered that a lot of mainstream comics (particularly
Marvel, DC, and “classic” comics) here in the U.S were male-dominated. Walking
through the aisles at the comic/gaming stores, its pretty obvious that these
comics aren’t made with me in mind. I see a lot of covers that feature women in
skin tight costumes and spine-breaking positions, ensuring that I never pick it
up. When I open these kinds of comics, the few female characters that exist are
stereotypes with no personalities, and seemingly exist as eye candy for male
readers. Of course, not all comics by men are like this, but there is
definitely an abundance that seem to try and exclude any other audience except
for straight white males.
In my experience, comics made by women are more inclusive
and sensitive to fact that many different types of people read comics and need
to be represented.
This week I read Skim (for the twentieth time) and it
remains one of my absolute favorites. I think it’s a great example of the
strength writing in combination with pictures has. It helps that there’s a
writer and artist team, and each is very talented in their own right. The story
is great, I love the diary aspect of the writing. It explores some problems a
lot of teenagers go through, but with some interesting elements. Falling in
love with your teacher, fitting in at an all-girls school, getting sick of lame
friends, and of course the super cool hobby of practicing Wicca.
Like we talked about in class, the day is fast approaching
where “women in comics” won’t be a big deal, because we’ll have been integrated
into the community for so long it’ll be like we were always there (and we
were!).
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