New Women's Anthology

This coming March, Marvel is releasing "Girl Comics", a three issue anthology written, penciled, inked, colored, and designed by women in the business.

The full article is here:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/12/marvel-to-publish-girl-comics-anthology-next-year/

I think this could be cool. The title seems a little on the nose though.

Some Future Potential

I know that it seems like I've just been dogging on all of the male (and occasionally female) writers and artists in the comic book business, so I wanted to compile a list of some female creators, as well as some males, who have made, and are making a difference when it comes to issues of gender and sexuality.

Craig Thompson - Known for his epic graphic novel "Blankets", Thompson pretty much does straight autobiographical stuff. "Blankets" seriously made me tear up when I first read it. It's a no-hold-barred look at first love from a young male's perspective. Highly recommended.

Becky Cloonan - Cloonan is more of an indie artist, but she occasionally does work for Marvel. I first saw her work on "Demo", which was written by Brian Wood. "Demo" is addicting - it's 12 issues, each one about a different kid. Her portrayals of women are realistic and respectable. I would check out her website, and if you like her work, "Demo" is a great place to jump in.

Brian K. Vaughan - As I mentioned before: go read "Y: The Last Man". Now.

Bill Willingham - "Fables" is one of the best modern comic books out there. Most of the main characters are female, and pretty much run the show. Definitely recommended.

Jeff Smith - His work is pretty much summed up with one word - "Bone". He worked on this title from 1991 to 2004, writing, drawing, lettering, everything. It's one of the best comic books I've ever read.

Sean McKeever - His first work is awesome. It's a series called "The Waiting Place" and it revolves around a group of kids during their last year of high school in a small town dominated by ignorance, tradition, racism, and repetition. I just read this recently and it really resounded with me.

Alison Bechdel - I haven't read her autobiographical graphic novel about coming out to her father, but I've heard great things. It's critically acclaimed, and next on my reading list.

These are just a few of the good writers and artists out there.

Frank Miller

One of the more critically acclaimed writers in the comic book business is Frank Miller. Especially in the 80s, Miller created some of the most influential and groundbreaking books in the field. His dark and uncompromising take on Batman was met with resounding success when he did "The Dark Knight Returns" in 1986. Miller also was met with enthusiasm when he did the "Sin City" stories for Dark Horse, as well as "300" which was made into an extremely profitable movie starring Gerard Butler. His run on "Daredevil" set the ground for everything that came after, and is considered the best in history.





I read his Batman stuff when I was younger, and really got into the "Sin City" stuff when I was in high school, mostly because I'm a huge film noir fan. I liked "300" because the tale of those Spartans always intrigued me.

All of that being said...Frank Miller is extremely sexist.

Almost every female character in "Sin City" is a prostitute. The women in "300" are considered sex objects for the men. One of Daredevil's most famous characters is Elektra, a trained ninja that wears next to nothing. She gets brutally murdered.

I think that everything really hammered home for me when I read his recent run on Batman. It's another different take on the character. The thing that really stood out for me was when Batman runs into Black Canary - a female super heroine that is usually extremely competent. They fight for about 2 seconds and then drop to the ground and have sex right where they were standing. Apparently, Black Canary couldn't help but succumb to Batman's charm - typical for a story penned by Miller.

Hopefully, Miller will start to be more respectful toward his female characters as time goes on. He's in his 50s now. But, again, I really needed to take a hard look at the things that I enjoy reading to see what they're really saying.

...

The Pro

Garth Ennis is a comic book writer known for his outlandish behavior within his stories. He is responsible for the infamous (and in my opinion, highly overrated) comic book series "Preacher", and is pretty much always reliable when it comes to controversy.

In 2002, Ennis wrote a one-shot (comic book lingo for a "one and done" issue, where there are no more parts to the story after the single issue) about a prostitute who gains super powers and immediately uses those powers for her own gain. She joins a super hero team (which lampoons a popular DC team called the Justice League) and gets into more and more trouble due to her slutty antics.

What troubled me most about this series wasn't the concept, the blatant sexism, or the content as a whole. What really bothered me was that the artist who was responsible for all of the art is a woman. Amanda Conner is actually a pretty good artist, and I enjoy reading books illustrated by her. But I wondered what this meant for women readers, and especially women in the business. "The Pro" is meant to be a comedy, but it still makes me wonder why Conner agreed to do it in the first place. She is known to be kind of a potty-mouth, making constant dirty jokes, etc. I can understand all of that - people are different. But this always seemed like a step backward for women, regardless of how funny it was supposed to be.

Wonder Woman Wasn't Always So Wonderful

My, how times have changed huh?

Interview!

Well, a short one, but an interview nonetheless.

I talked to Jason Pierce, lifelong comic book reader, owner and manager of Alter Ego Comics here in Muncie, and a close friend of mine today and asked him a couple questions about the industry and the sexism that usually closely follows behind it.


David: Do you think that there is a problem with sexism in today's comics?

Jason: I think it's certainly there, mainly because comics is a male dominated industry - Mostly written by males and drawn by males. Especially with the artist you get exagerated versions of the female form...but i suppose you get that in real life with any model. From a writing standpoint I think there are some strong female characters out there.

David: Who are some of those characters, in your opinion?

Jason: Powergirl, Wonder Woman, and Oracle come to mind. Oracle is probably the strongest female character out there right now. Pepper Potts is a good one right now too.

David: I just did a blog post and talked a lot about 355 from "Y".

Jason: She's a GREAT example.

David: What do you think are some of the initial improvements that writers and artists can make when it comes to being less sexist, or making the female characters stronger?

Jason: Treat the characters as they would act, not how we perceive them to act. And the artists really need to start making the women less gratuitous.

Holy Sexism Batman!

Thoughts?

The Last Man on Earth...and a Monkey

If you haven't read "Y: The Last Man", you need to. It is, hands down, my favorite comic book series of all time. The plot centers around a mysterious illness that suddenly kills everything on the planet that has a male chromosome.

Except for one man - Yorick Brown and his monkey named Ampersand.

Written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated (mostly) by Pia Guerra, this book has everything. It's extremely engrossing, funny, at times very sad, and has one of the most original ideas which is executed perfectly. Vaughan takes an idea that many would make pornographic and treats it realistically. Yorick's journey to uncover answers has so many twists and turns that it took 60 issues to complete the story.

One of my favorite things about the series is the character of Agent 355. She aids Yorick in his journey to both find his (possible) fiance, and to also arrive at a laboratory ran by Dr. Mann, the other main character of the story. Dr. Mann was experimenting with some dangerous stuff involving cloning when the illness struck. She knows that the answers to the epidemic lie in her lab, and as long as she can get Yorick and Ampersand there, they can hopefully find a cure.

Agent 355 is an extremely strong female character (and also black) and is probably even cooler than the main character himself. Vaughan explores her motivations and past over the course of the series and really cares about her. She is by far the coolest, most competent, and respectable female character I have ever seen in any medium.

Paradigm Crisis

As I've mentioned before, this class has really opened my eyes, and forced me to notice things that I never would have paid attention to before. Like Byron Hurt, I'm trying to take a step back at times and take a hard and critical look at some of my comic books to see if they are really fair and appropriate.

I started thinking about one of my favorite DC books - "Identity Crisis". It's written by Brad Meltzer, who was already an acclaimed novelist before he made the jump to comic books for awhile. The story revolves around Ralph Dibny and the rape and murder of his wife Sue. Ralph's alter ego is the Elongated Man, and his friends in the Justice League track down the murderer - Dr. Light. They make the controversial decision to erase his mind of the event and to wipe away what happened. A lot of the book centers around this, but there is also a lot of attention paid to Ralph coming to terms with his wife's rape and death.

Meltzer makes us genuinely care about the characters and it's a really moving read. There were a couple different moments in the book where I had tears in my eyes.

Despite all this, I have to ask myself:

Is Sue Dibny just another Woman in a Refrigerator?

I don't want to think so, but it really makes me wonder.

Fray

This post is going to be a little short, but I just wanted to talk about one of my favorite comic books with a strong, female lead (for a change) - "Fray" by Joss Whedon.

I'm a huge Whedon fan, and have read all of his comics, seen all of his movies, and watched (almost) all of his TV shows. In my opinion, he has a great knack for dialogue and is one of the best writers in the business today.

In 2001, Whedon started the story about a young girl who fights vampires in a dark future. This probably sounds a lot alike another story Whedon did called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and it should - Fray is a direct descendant of Buffy.

It's definitely a series that I recommend reading. Fray is a complex character, and Whedon spends a lot of time developing her through her actions and her relationships with others. The art by Karl Moline is great, and I often will pick up something that I've noticed he did, regardless of the writer.

Women in Refrigerators

Perhaps an obvious thing to talk about on this blog is "Women in Refrigerators", a term coined by acclaimed comic book writer Gail Simone about the many women in comics who have been killed, depowered, raped, etc. over time.

The term comes from an infamous issue of Green Lantern written by Ron Marz in which the Green Lantern Kyle Rayner comes home to find his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt killed, and stuffed into a refrigerator by a villain with a terribly uncreative name - Major Force.

While obviously offensive on a surface level, it becomes more relevant when one notices the hugely disproportionate amount of women that this happens to, as opposed to men. It was also pointed out at one point that while these things to happen to the male characters in comic books, they are usually reverted back to the status quo, i.e. they get their powers back, they come back to life, they are reborn, etc.

Gail Simone also helped but together a website about all of this when she coined the term back in 1999. They compiled a list of all of the women (then) that had succumbed to the WiR syndrome. Here is the original list:

All of Savage Dragon's girlfriends (dead)
Alysande Stuart (dead)
Amethyst (blinded, merged with Gemworld, destroyed in LSH; became a power-hungry witch in Book of Fate)
Apparition (one of her three bodies dead, soul bound to boyfriend)
Aquagirl (dead)
Arisia (dead)
Aurora (Multiple Personality Disorder, depowered)
Batgirl I (paralyzed)
Batwoman (dead)
Betty Banner (abused, changed into a harpy, multiple miscarriages, dead)
Mrs. Brian Banner, Bruce's mother (murdered by her abusive husband)
Black Canary I (dead)
Black Canary II (tortured, made infertile, depowered)
Blink (dead)
Bluebird (dead)
Buf from X-Man (crippled)
Candy Southern (dead)
Captain Marvel II/Photon (depowered, ceded code name to a male hero)
Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire (turned into a villain by the Zamarons, possessed by the Predator)
Celsius (insane, dead, called delusional liar)
Christine Helvin of Troublemakers (victim of date rape, discovered she could never have children because she was no longer human)
Courtney Ross (dead)
Crimson Fox (both sisters dead)
Dart (crippled)
Dawn Allen (dead)
Dawnstar (wings cut off, possessed by another persona)
Diamond Lil (kidnapped, experimented on by own government, developed benign breast tumor)
Domino (kidnapped, tortured)
Dove II (dead)
Dr. Midnight of Infinity, Inc. (dead)
Elasti-Girl (only original Doom Patroller to stay dead)
Electrocute (dead)
Elektra (the real one... dead)
Element Girl (dead)
Enchantress of Suicide Squad - originally a heroine (turned evil, insane, depowered?)
Firebelle (dead)
Firestar (powers were sterilizing her)
Frances Kane/Magenta (stalker complex)
Fury II (child kidnapped, husband killed twice, insane)
Gwen Stacy (dead)
Hawkwoman (depowered)
Hellcat (dead)
Huntress I (dead)
Huntress II (sexually abused)
Ice (dead)
Illyana Rasputin (kidnapped and raised by demons, aged, de-aged, dead)
Invisible Woman (miscarriage of second child)
Jade (lost natural powers)
Jarella (dead)
Jean DeWolff (dead)
Jean Loring Palmer ("nervous breakdown")
Jet of New Guardians (died in battle after contracting HIV)
Jocasta (deactivated - more than once)
Karen Page (addicted to drugs, made porn films, infected with HIV, dead)
Katma Tui (dead)
Kinetix (depowered twice, catatonic)
Kole (dead)
Lady Flash (evil, dead)
Lady Quark (dead)
Laurel Gand (dead)
Laurel Kent (revealed to be an evil robot, dead)
Linda Park (kidnapped, removed from history)
Looker (now a vampire)
Madelyn Pryor (clone, brood mare, demon queen, dead, brought back)
Mantis (child taken away, dead)
Marlo Chandler -- Rick Jones' wife (former prostitute, killed and brought back mindless; got better)
Marrina (insane, dead)
Mentalla of LSH (dead)
Mera (insane, child murdered)
Mirage of Team Titans (impregnated by rape)
Mockingbird (abducted and mind-manipulated into a relationship, dead)
Moira MacTaggert (diseased)
Ms. Marvel I/Warbird (mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!)
Ms. Marvel II (became a monster in Fantastic Four, de-monstered but enslaved by Dr. Doom, depowered)
Mystek of JLTF (dead)
Namorita (revealed to be a clone, reverted to a more primal Atlantean form)
Negative Woman (depowered)
Nightshade (depowered)
Nightwind (dead)
Nova II/Frankie Raye (dead)
Phoenix I (evil-dead-who knows)
Power Girl (depowered, magically impregnated, made vulnerable to unprocessed natural materials... like sharp sticks)
Psylocke (eyes removed, eviscerated, depowered, mind-swapped)
Rachel Summers/Phoenix II (lobotomized)
Raven (sometimes evil, sometimes dead)
Red Guardian II (kidnapped and brainwashed into the love-slave of a super-villain)
Redwing of Team Titans (dead)
Revanche (dead)
Rogue (just plain messed up)
Roulette (dead)
Scarlet Witch (children 'die'/vanish/are lost because they are figments of her imagination)
Serpentine
Shrinking Violet (lost a leg in Giffen's Legion)
Shvaughn Erin (turned into a man)
Silver Sorceress (dead)
Snowbird (child and husband murdered, insane, dead)
Spider-Woman I (dead for a while, depowered)
Starfire (raped, tortured, enslaved; forced into marriage... twice)
Storm (depowered, repowered, periodically crazy to one degree or another)
Supergirl, pre-Crisis (dead)
Supergirl, PAD version (lost her invisibility and most of her shapeshifting)
SW6 Projectra (dead)
Tarot (dead, brought back w/life bound to an evil man)
Threnody (dead)
Tigra (devolved into cat-thing)
Triplicate Girl (one body killed, one presumed dead but revealed to be Glorith's pawn)
Wildcat II (dead)
Wolfsbane (locked in werewolf form for awhile, needs major therapy)
Wonder Girl I/Troia/Darkstar (identity and powers stripped from her multiple times)
Wonder Woman (killed, revived, but lost goddess powers)
Zatanna (powers severely limited)

You can imagine how much that list has grown now.

Batwoman is GAY?! AND JEWISH?!

Today's headline comes from ignorant people everywhere.

About 3 years ago.

In 2006, DC comics updated Cassandra Kane's history, and made her into a strong Jewish woman, who also happened to be a lesbian. It was all over the news even. I actually first heard about it on CNN, since I didn't read DC comics back then.

Times have changed though (somewhat), and all of the hubbub around the character has died down. The people that didn't accept the idea before, accept it now, or they stopped reading her books. Which is a shame, because one of my new favorite DC books is Detective Comics.

Detective Comics isn't actually new per se, it started publication in 1937, and is best known for the comic that Batman first appeared in. It's also where DC Comics gets its name. In recent years, Detective Comics was the starring vehicle for Batman and all of his stuff, but Bruce Wayne was recently "killed" in a story-arc that no one understood, and ultimately didn't care about called "Final Crisis".

SO...(and I know this is geeky and boring, but please bear with me. I'm almost done)...Cassandra Kane AKA Batwoman has taken over the book as the main protagonist.

And it's AWESOME.

Greg Rucka, known for his gritty crime comics, does a great job of keeping Cassandra's sexual orientation relevant, but not the main focus of the book. J.H. Williams III does the art, which is literally jaw-dropping.

I recently came across an article about some of the hidden messages in his art concerning sexuality that I found interesting here.

Catching Up

Welp, I took my sweet time updating this. Better late than never though.

When I had the idea for this blog, a handful of topics and comic book related items came to mind. One was the Supergirl shorts debacle (if you can even call it that), and another was a recent issue of "Invincible".

"Invincible" is actually one of my favorite comic books. I'll let Wikipedia give you the synopsis:

Invincible is the teenaged son of Omni-Man, an extraterrestrial superhero of the Viltrumite race, recently revealed to be more than he seems. Invincible inherited his father’s superhuman strength and ability to fly and he has sworn to protect the Earth. He has had trouble adjusting to his newfound powers and coping with the reality of his origins. Invincible began in 2003, and was a debut title in Image's new superhero line, one reminiscent of the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, as opposed to the more modern and dark comics, such as Spawn and Savage Dragon, which Image is known for.

So yeah, mostly pretty standard superhero fare. The series has been going on for 6 years now, and has had TONS of twists and turns. Kirkman writes teenagers really well, and it makes for some compelling reading. He usually does really well with avoiding many superhero stereotypes, i.e. the busty girls, the totally ripped men. It's not to say that it's not there, it's just more subdued than many other books on the stands.

A recent issue has Invincible's girlfriend Eve almost killed. In fact, you think she's dead for an issue or two, and then she comes back, fully recovered, and actually stronger than ever. Along with her new strength comes two new changes. And I'm pretty sure that you can guess what they are.

You see, Eve can create new matter out of organic things around her. So when she got the crap beat out of her by a villain, she rebuilt her body. The panel at the top shows a bit of the dialogue between the two kids.

I read this long before I joined the WMNST class, before my paradigm had shifted, before my eyes were opened more to things around me, etc. But I still balked at the complete and total randomness and irrelevance that this change had. Kirkman never went for this blatant sexual stuff. Every once and awhile there's some innuendos, but nothing like this.

To me, it was definitely a step back for the series.

Away We Go...

Okay, for starters, let's explain what I'm doing here, and why I'm writing about comic books and feminism.

I am a junior at BSU, majoring in Telecommunications, and this semester I am taking a Women's Studies class. One of the big assignments this semester is the Engagement Project - in which we "actively engage with the Ball State and/or Muncie community through an educational awareness project". For my project, I have obviously decided to do a blog. The inspiration for this blog came about because of my love of comic books. In this blog, I will be looking at current going-ons in the comic book community (but still looking at past good and bad examples) and how they affect the feminist movement, as well as how they inscribe gender. I'll usually post links and such, but occasionally I might scan in some pictures from some of my old comic books to see how things have (or haven't) changed. I might post an interview or two up as well.

So, to kick things off, I'm going to post the story that specifically inspired this blog - the Supergirl panties controversy!!!

Okay, so it wasn't much of a controversy, but it was a step in the right direction. You see, for years Supergirl had the same outfit - a top (usually a t-shirt) and a miniskirt with underwear underneath. Here recently, DC announced that Supergirl would no longer have this outfit. From now on she will be wearing shorts underneath the miniskirt.

Some people spoke out about this (and pretty much immediately identified and cemented themselves as total creeps), but most really didn't care either way. I was one of the guys that didn't really care either way. I didn't read Supergirl (still don't), so it really didn't mean much to me at all.

But my paradigm has definitely shifted since I started this class. My eye is much more trained to notice things that are sexist, or are common misconceptions about gender. I came to realize that this underwear thing is a good thing. It may not make Supergirl a strong character that all girls can look up to (maybe it does - again, I don't read it), but at least it makes her less of a sex symbol.

And that's the least they could do.

Here's the original article at Newsarama:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/060926-Supergirl.html