Comicsgirl

Archive for April, 2006

This short and sweet piece says girls — and women — are the ones that will keep the comic book market alive. I don’t think it’s too far off (except on Y: The Last Man Standing. I read the first collection and I didn’t like it).

I do hope the fixation on manga does translate to non-manga (or even non-manga-sized) comics. But I do think it’s a matter of getting these girls and women out of the bookstores and into the comic book stores, and even I, who have been playing this game longer than most, knows that can be a challenge.

(For me, of course, since it means there’s no way I can go).

The Women of Comics symposium gathers a diverse group of women who work in the field of comic books as part of the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon. I don’t think there’s been anything quite like this before. It’s very heartening to see it. Since Heidi MacDonald will be there, I’m hoping she’ll write a full report in The Beat.

I should have more to say but I haven’t had my coffee.

Or excuse me, asap, since lower-case letters are cool. But I guess I didn’t realize that women write and draw graphic novels. I guess someone lost their copy of A Century of Women Cartoonists.

I know, I shouldn’t complain too much and I really have nothing but admiration for the creators mentioned in the piece, but as these sorts of things go, it seems like the writer wanted to highlight only the “serious” comics by women. Where’s Jill Thompson? Where’s Raina Telgemeier? Where’s Colleen Doran? Where’s Megan Kelso? Where’s Chynna Clugston? Where’s the five dozen up-and-coming “manga” artists? (Since no one wants me to go on, just go here and Friends of Lulu will help you out.)

I’m all for women doing comics, obviously. I am, in theory, all for women who are doing comics getting written about (Telgemeier and her Babysitter’s Club adaptations were the topic of an Associated Press article last weekend, which delighted me). I guess, though, it’s that there’s all kinds of women doing all kinds of comics. The asap piece makes it seem like women who do comics are only doing one sort of thing — realism that’s quite often grittyy. That’s not at all true. Women in comics are a diverse group and I want them to be treated as such.

But small steps, I guess. We’ve barely escaped the “comics aren’t for kids anymore!” articles and the “young girls are reading lots of manga!” articles. This is kind of refreshing compared to that. In a way.