Comicsgirl

Posts Tagged ‘women’

Yes, this month we get two books. I always find February to be a terrible month so I think having two books is a way to counteract that.

And I wanted to do a superhero title. I wanted to do a superhero title that had an all-female creative team. I tried to find something that had either one woman doing both the writing and the art or two different women taking the main roles.

X-men: Firestar Buy at Amazon.com

I’m sure this exists but I just couldn’t find it (if you know of any, please tell me). Writers were easy, but finding artists were harder — I know they’re out there. For instance, I really wanted to include something by Marie Severin, but collections that are just of her pencils seem to mostly not exist (part of my goal here is to point people to things they can buy easily. I don’t want to send people after individual issues).

So yes, Firestar and Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds.

The collection of the Firestar limited series from the ’80s, revealing the character’s origin story. It’s a slight book, sure, but it’s a lot of fun. Mary Wilshire’s art is honest and appealing — it’s maybe a little dated, but in a charming way. Angelica Jones is all flowing hair and teenage emotions, and Emma Frost is awesomely icy here. And you can always laugh at the fashions (I loved Angelica’s “formal” dress. But surprisingly — or not — Emma’s outfits haven’t changed much over the years).

Tom DeFalco’s story is simple and melodramatic, but highly entertaining. I get the feeling this is probably going out of print, but it’s cheap enough that it’s worth seeking out (and the original issues don’t seem like they’re that much more expensive).

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds Buy at Amazon.com

Everyone, of course, loves Gail Simone (the whole #gailhateswomen thing notwithstanding). Those of you who weren’t around in those days don’t know how cool it was when people figured out the Gail who wrote “You’ll All Be Sorry” at Comic Book Resources was the same Gail behind Women in Refrigerators. We’re lucky to have women like her in comics.

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds isn’t the very first story of Birds of Prey but it is Simone’s first, and provides a good entry point into the title.

I love Simone’s deft handling of the characters here. Her women are well-rounded — intelligent, thoughtful, funny, but also prone to making mistakes. She has a wonderful talent for letting women be in peril without making them victims. I love this and need to read more of Simone’s work. Ed Benes’ pencils are strong and clean. This is just appealing all around and I’m going to be buying more soon.

So that’s this month’s books. I promise I’ll go back to one for March.

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And just to piggyback on this post, I am associate editor of Geek Girl on the Street (in case you haven’t noticed from Twitter). There will be some comic stuff there (like my preview of Crogan’s March) but there will also be plenty of other geekiness that won’t necessarily fit here.

It’s a new but growing site and I think we’re doing a lot of fun things. Follow us on Twitter and add us on Facebook.

With all the talk of women in comics and comics for women that has gone on over the past few years, I’m always surprised that very few people brings up BoHoS. Unlike most comics aimed at teenage girls, this was actually written by one.

Published in 1998 by Flypaper Press/Image, writer Maggie Whorf tells the story of four friends — the contemplative Catherine, the sarcastic Amy, hippie Vicki and rock-star wannabe Stew — as they navigate late ’90s pop culture. References to Hanson, Kevin Smith movies and Dawson’s Creek do feel a little dated now, but the emotions and interactions between these friends still remains genuine. Byron Penaranda’s quirky angular style and the candy colors give the comic a bright and distinctive look. The issues also featured essays and commentaries by teenagers and women about topics ranging from dating to pop culture.

Inspired by the latest round of “women making comics for women,” I decided to track down Maggie Whorf to get her thoughts on her experiences with BoHoS via e-mail.

The comic had its origins after Whorf and two friends created a zine called “Whore-Hey,” which was “filled with the teen angst of three over-taught and highly privileged private school girls,” Whorf wrote, adding “We also said fuck. A lot.”

This, along with the fact that they were selling their zine on school grounds, led to some trouble for the three — they were suspended for three days. (The punishment “wasn’t very effective,” Whorf wrote and that the girls’ parents were proud.)

After attracting some media attention, Flypaper Press came calling and Whorf was the one to respond.

Whorf says she had creative control over the comic: “There was an amazing sense of freedom and my opinions were always respected. I was set up with a great editor and she taught me how to break down a scene and write with the panel in mind.” and that she “created the characters, the storylines and supervised the design.” She does admit “There were times I was treated like a commodity” but also understood “The story of a 16-year-old girl writing a comic book was the thing they could sell.” She wrote that she “loved it” and “felt very grown up” during the whole process.

After some movement on pitching it to production companies, Whorf headed off to college, thus ending her comic book career (for now, anyway).

I asked Whorf if she had been comic book fan previous to BoHoS and she wrote that she used to draw pictures of X-Men to sell to friends in elementary school and came back to comics through Tank Girl. She wrote that she’ll “always love Batman” and loved the Civil War run. Other than that, she hasn’t kept up with any of the other attempts to entice teenage girls to read comics, like DC’s Minx line. “That’s kind of shameful, isn’t it?” she wrote.

Whorf is currently working for “a large internet company” and writes a fashion blog call The Pudge.

I was delighted to be in touch with her and even more delighted to hear her experiences with BoHoS were good ones. As for the comic itself, it’s never been collected, but issues are pretty easy (and cheap!) to come by on eBay.

There have been lists of entry points and/or the best comics that did no feature a single female creator. And sure, men create plenty of amazing comics that are worth reading. But so do women.

Marvel is beginning a year-long initiative in 2010 about comics for and created by women. Even before I read about this, I had some thought in this direction: Great comics by women, worthy of being read by any comics fan, new or old.

On the first Wednesday of each month for the rest of 2010, I will profile a title that had a strong contribution by a woman, whether she was artist, writer or both. These won’t be reviews as much as it is a call to pick up these books and read them. If they’re on the list, I like them and I think they’re good. And I think you’ll like them too.

La Perdida Buy at Amazon.com

For January, I am starting with Jessica Abel’s La Perdida (Pantheon Books, 2006).

I’d really like to say I picked this book for some specific reason — like it relates to the New Year because it deals with trying to start over, trying to find one’s self, or even because it’s really cold here right now so being in Mexico seems like a nice thought — but I didn’t. I really just picked it at random. But those reasons do work pretty well.

Carla travels to Mexico to try to reconnect with her father but mostly she’s there to try to find herself. She ditches her community of expatriate friends to ingratiate herself in Mexican culture. While she’s busy more-or-less playing tourist, real life intervenes. Carla isn’t always likable and she often gets in her own way with her naivete. She’s fun to watch, though.

Abel’s art reminds me, appropriately, of a travel sketch journal — her drawings are done in thick pen and ink and have a hurried feel, as if she needed to record events before they slipped away. There’s a beautiful immediacy to this book that’s incredibly satisfying and poignant.

Yes, this is maybe more a book you give your socially-conscious friends rather than your X-Men-reading friends, but I see nothing wrong with offering it to both. It’s imperfect, sure — some plot points felt a little rushed to me — but like all great literature, it’s thought-provoking. I’m actually going to hand my copy off to a friend to see what he thinks of it.

The Internet was all a-buzz about it yesterday. Well, the comic book/”genre” blogs were, anyway. I read the post about it at The Beat and read a few more pieces about it, promptly got fed up and then watched another episode of Lost (granted, yes, I probably would’ve watched another episode of Lost anyway).

I am pretty pro-Girl Comics, at least at this point. The concept sounds wonderful on paper (er, screen, but you know what I mean) — there’s a great line-up of talent that covers quite a broad range, and I like the idea of having women do everything from the art to writing to lettering and more. I think that’s really cool.

But considering Marvel’s problematic attempts to appeal to women recently (the entire Marvel Divas debacle, the bad inside art of Pride & Prejudice, the whole lip gloss thing), I’m guessing this will probably be similar. Yes, giving Heidi MacDonald an exclusive interview with the editor is a good first step, but I don’t think this is going to get women who aren’t already reading comics to do so.

At the most, I think it’s just going to get indie readers to pick up this Marvel title. And I’m OK with that. I like superhero comics. In theory. I’m not speaking for all women here, but personally, the art of a lot of superhero comics turns me off. I just don’t connect with it. (I had a dream the other night that Colleen Coover was drawing Blackest Night for DC and when I woke up, I thought how awesome that would be. That would probably get me to read the book.) So I like when indie creators do superheroes. It’s fun. So I’m looking forward to that on this level.

I read a lot of disappointing-but-expected objections to this, like “why can’t we just tell stories for people” which usually means “I don’t really want to read books by women.” Because I mean, I like stories for people, regardless of who writes/draws them, and men absolutely can tell wonderful stories about women (I loved loved loved Dong Hwa Kim’s Color trilogy, which I will review eventually). But when there are pretty good lists of “entry” comics that don’t have one title by a female creator, I think there’s a problem. It’s not that women aren’t making comics — they are, and they are making good ones — I think they’re often ignored.

So I think Girl Comics is at least pointing out that hey, women are making comics.

I don’t know if there’s really an answer to “how to get women to read more comics.” I don’t know if there needs to be, personally. I think women are already reading comics, just not what Marvel and DC typically consider to be comics. But maybe this is a step in the right direction. Or a step toward something. I guess we’ll see how successful it is.

I suppose I don’t really have much of anything intelligent to add and in the 30-plus hours since it’s happened, it’s been analyzed to death (and people were quick with the mashups of Disney and Marvel characters).

Adweek probably had one of the more interesting dissections (Note to Adweek: Lame headline. It’s going to bring changes? Really? Yes, I know sometimes you just have to write a headline, but come on.)

Everyone’s talked up the “Disney wants to bring in the boys!” point, which makes sense, sure. The Adweek piece mentions that Marvel wants to bring in the ladies:

Still, Disney is expert at attracting young women to titles they may not normally be interested in (see, Johnny Depp making the ultimate young-boy fantasy, a pirate-adventure, popular with girls). For all the talk about Marvel continuing to run independently, don’t be surprised if the studio accesses Disney’s stable of talent to make some pics more girl-friendly.

If that ends up being true, that sounds pretty awesome to me.

The hopeful part of me would like to think having Disney be in control of things like marketing and branding (two things that the company is very, very good at) will allow Marvel to just make comics and develop properties. It’s probably too much to ask that it will usher in some new era of creativity, but I guess we’ll see.

But In any case to me, after the initial “Wow! That’s huge!” thing wore off, I don’t really think it’s going to change too much for either company. It doesn’t feel like a good thing or a bad thing.

He still makes a couple of good points, but seriously? “The essential comic book geek’s guide to women and dating and sharing the love”?

He covered all the comics that always get recommended to women. Really, spend about two minutes and you can make the list yourself (although it was kind of cool to see Ross Campbell’s Wet Moon in there. And while I like that comic quite a bit, I honestly think my boyfriend likes it more than I do). And no superhero stuff other than Watchmen? There are many superhero comics I’d recommend to the generic woman in this scenario first before Watchmen.

If an individual woman doesn’t care about comics, that’s cool. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Some people love film the most, some people love music. Some love theater. Sure, people can love all three, but we all have our favorites and that’s what makes us unique.

And I guess that’s the problem with these sorts of lists. Yes, maybe I would recommend The Sandman or Blue Monday to women, but only on a case-by-case basis. These sorts of articles — “how to get girls to like comics” — don’t really take into account that women are individual people. My mom read Nick Abadzis’ Laika and loved it, but I don’t think that necessarily means she’s going to love Charles Burns’ Black Hole. A woman I’d recommend Jessica Abel’s La Perdida may not be the same woman I’d recommend Ai Yazawa’s NANA to.

Also, why is it so important for all these hypothetical girlfriends to like comics? Yes, I understand sharing interests and hobbies with one’s significant other, but what if the hypothetical girlfriend really loved jazz or New Wave French films or something? Are the comic-book loving men that write these sorts of pieces interested in sharing those interests? Or is it just all about getting the girls to accept comic books?

Nana O., played by Mika Nakashima, and Ren, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, from NANA live-action movie, released by VIZ Media in the U.S. Seemed appropriate to me.

Over at Newsarama, creator Kelly Sue DeConnick writes about comics, women and mythology. And she’s pretty much right about all of them.

Esteban I.V. Galindo of The Capistrano Dispatch offers A Ladies’ Guide to Comic Book Heroes. And for proclaiming to be a guide, it’s really not that informative. I think most “ladies” would be able to figure these things out on their own.

So Galindo’s wife isn’t interested in superhero movies or the comic books they were based on. There is nothing wrong with that. But she’s not representative of all women. Neither am I. I think that’s the ultimate flaw with pieces like this — just because one man knows one woman who may be more interested in Sex in the City than she is in comics doesn’t mean that all women are. I certainly don’t think all men like comic books or football.

While I did feel myself getting more and more stupid watching G4’s coverage of San Diego Comic-Con (and the commercials! How many do they really need?), I was delighted by Blair Butler. Sure, she’s a lovely girl and it’s obvious that she appeals to G4’s target demographic, but her excitement and enthusiasm for being there, getting to talk about comics was unmistakable. I doubt she needs a “ladies’ guide to comic book heroes” either.