Female heroes

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Looking through new titles, there are quite a few that have women as the protagonist or as one prominent character among several -- but is this movement any better than the Bad Girl flood 10 years ago? Just off the top of my head, Alias, Catwoman and virtually everything that Rucka writes are examples of women written more thoughtfully than, say, Gen13. We've even gotten to the point where there's a universe where all the men but one have died -- girl power indeed. Yet remnants of the Juggy Brigade seems to be sticking around to balance out the ~~more rounded~~ less caricatured trophy heroine.

And to stamp my interests all over this thread, what is it with Rucka that in every single comic he's ever written, there's a woman, usually a blonde government agent who's more often English than American, at the center of the action? He seems to embody the whole movement of strong women in comics, simply by virtue of their ubiquity in his stories, to the point that it's just as fetishized as the Bad Girls?

Obv., there are other examples of action women in pop culture -- is it a new kind of voyeurism? Or is it a sign of genuine progress, no matter how small?

― Leee Majors (Leee), Monday, 9 February 2004 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

TS: getting your idea of women from porn mags vs getting your idea of women from action films.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Monday, 9 February 2004 22:50 (twenty-two years ago)

..vs getting your idea of women from superhero comics.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 09:10 (twenty-two years ago)

whatever, just as long as I don't ever have to talk to actual women. That would be scary!

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Sam Kieth, in the afterword to Zero Girl, sez that he naturally has a dislike for his male characters and so as an easier way of empathizing with them, makes them women.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

that's one of the stupidest things I've ever read.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Zero Girl or what Sam Kieth sez?

― Leee Majors (Leee), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

what he says.
I don't know anything about Zero Girl or Sam Keith, but it sounds like he's trying to appear sensitive to women by hating men. And it's sorta ridiculous. But very Timothy Findlay of him.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Findley.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Zero Girl is fairly autobiographical, and my guess is that the man-hating is as much to score sympathy points as it is an issue of self-loathing, since what Sam Kieth seems exceptionally self-deprecating.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Tuesday, 10 February 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...

Just givin you boys what you want, plus us few females in the field need role models too(there are girls who read comics, some of us OWN stores too, the take over is imminant.)

― Christy Stevens, Thursday, 22 April 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Welcome Christy, great to have new posters here, male and female alike! Make sure to introduce yourself!

― SLeeeter Kinney (Leee), Thursday, 22 April 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

[snicker] SLeeeter Kinney is macking on all the new girls. Oh hello Christy, Lea. Don't forget to introduce youself and post a picture. This shirt is nice... What is it, felt? Ha ha, now it is!

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 23 April 2004 11:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, ILComics be where the girlz at!
(that's a good thing)(not in a sleazy way)

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Friday, 23 April 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I learned from the best, baby.

― sLeeeter kinney (Leee), Friday, 23 April 2004 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, that's a good line, VG, I'm writing it down.

― sLeeeter kinney (Leee), Friday, 23 April 2004 22:37 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Comics Hate Women!
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14931-1636789_1,00.html

― Huk-L, Friday, 3 June 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

Humans Hate The Times!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 3 June 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

...that the movie unwittingly reveals the frank and masturbatory hatred of women that is fundamental to any understanding of the comic-book geek.

WHAT? I'm not done with the article but had to stop at this point just to say... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 3 June 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

So. Goddamn mad. Can't. Think.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 3 June 2005 16:35 (twenty years ago)

I could only read half of the article before I fell out. I should really try my hand at writing because clearly you don't have to do any research to sell a piece.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 3 June 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

I think what the author didn't realize is that Sin City is not what all comics are like. Yeah, it's brutal and sexual but other comics aren't. And not all "comic book geeks" hate women. Right?

As for the big boobs, small waist look of some female comic characters- HEY! It's an idealized image. If you actually saw a woman that looked like that, you'd be completely frightened. Or grossed out. I know I'm grossed out when I see those massive, body-builder dudes.

All in all, I found the article to be offensive and inflammatory.

― Vermont Girl (Vermont Girl), Friday, 3 June 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Women just don’t go into comic-book stores,” explains Trina Robbins, the author of The Great Women Cartoonists, speaking recently to the New York City Comic Book Museum. “A woman gets as far as the door, and after the cardboard life-size cut-out of a babe with giant breasts in a little thong bikini and spike-heel boots, the next thing that hits her is the smell. It smells like unwashed teenage boys, and it has this real porn-store atmosphere.”

Haha, wow. I'll have to ask Maddie how she gets all of those comics without actually going in the store. Perhaps they have a drive-through for women?

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 3 June 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

My local comic shop is always full of teenage girls. They're there for the manga though, which is much more Girl Positive, right?

― Huk-L, Friday, 3 June 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Hahahahahahaha.

Um, sorta.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 3 June 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

Girl Positive = every orifice crammed with tentacles?

Every day I learn something (n)ew.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 3 June 2005 17:51 (twenty years ago)

"taut buttocks"

― Leeeeee (Leee), Friday, 3 June 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Also, there's not a trace of irony in the Sin City books.

― Leeeeee (Leee), Friday, 3 June 2005 18:22 (twenty years ago)

Seriously, I kept getting distracted by the "I am wsnking as I write this" subtext and had to stop reading.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 3 June 2005 18:29 (twenty years ago)

I really didn't think I was going to read anything dumber than G Gordon Liddy's condemnation of Deep Throat today, but there ya go!

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Friday, 3 June 2005 18:31 (twenty years ago)

This guy and the PopMatters columnist should get their own call-in show on FoxNews.

― Huk-L, Friday, 3 June 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

Uh, not that that column wasn't a totally asinine, hateable work of asshammery, but it's not like mainstream comics DONT have any gender issues.

Having said that, the TCAF-fest in Toronto last week, which was mostly indie, was pretty close to 50/50 in the M/F customer/creator divide -- which was good to see. That article is like saying all books are sexist and only using Micky Spillane and Clive Cussler as examples. (Not that there's anything wrong with Spillane, especially when he writes D3TECTIVE stories with SHARKS in them.)

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/brianbogdan/root/march/batman_helo_shark.jpg

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:16 (twenty years ago)

Chuck, no one is disputing that there aren't gender issues in comics! There are gender issues in EVERYTHING; it's an unfortunate side-effect to having genders. Everyone is howling at the idiocy you've described in paragraph two, particularly since the fist half at least is written with a leering, lascivious tone that seems to mirror exactly what the author thinks he's decrying.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:29 (twenty years ago)

Maybe we shouldn't be so hasty, it could be a regional thing. Maybe all comic book stores in the UK ARE dens of boyish filth, just as all the comic book stores I went to in NYC were staffed by hot indie girls.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

I can't help it! I've been whipped into a hopeless phallocentric frenzy.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:37 (twenty years ago)

I've only been to Gosh! recently, which is I think acknowledged to be the nicest of the UK comics shops and, yeah, it's a nice place, lots of blokes around but it feels like a European BD shop, particularly with their great section of really gorgeous picture books.

The real idiocy is the implication that Sin City is what all these other comics secretly want to be. But of course the guy's right, I'm in denial. I was just re-reading Enigma this evening - tit and bum central! In fact I think I'll go off RIGHT NOW and have a GREAT BIG WANK.

OVER A GIRL.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 3 June 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

When I lived in the UK, Mega City in Camden was my usual haunt -- pretty mixed. Blokey, but lots of goth-girl types buying Vertigo stuff.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 3 June 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

somehow I don't think that when Trina Robbins talks to the New York City Comic Book Museum that it's UK shops being discussed.

― kit brash (kit brash), Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:10 (twenty years ago)

I think in Finland the M-F ratio of comic book fans is maybe 70-30 or 60-40; I for myself know a lot more female comic fans than male, and the comic conventions here are quite far from boyish geekfests. I think this is partly because the Finnish scene is rather small and indie, and superheroes and other fanboy stuff has never been that big here. Finnish comics themselves are pretty well balanced regarding gender issues - no big-boobed fantasy women there. Also, a few of the most prominent Finnish comic book artists at the moment are women.

Manga has been making a gradually growing impact here, and that might be somewhat problematic. While it is true that many mangas have strong female protagonists and/or supporting characters (not every manga is about tentacle sex, Dan), these characters often still revert to "traditional" feminine behaviour when time comes to it - see Ranma 1/2 for an example (and one made by a woman, no less). But there are counter-examples too, of course, like Battle Anfgel Alita.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 4 June 2005 06:11 (twenty years ago)

not every manga is about tentacle sex, Dan

Wow, really?

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Saturday, 4 June 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

That's not what the t3ntac13 h3nta1 sites say!

(that's a joke, son)

― David R. (popshots75`), Saturday, 4 June 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

A smart response from the always-discerning Paul O'Brien: http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=1052

― Huk-L, Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:28 (twenty years ago)

Paul completely OTM.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 June 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Like it or not, comics fans have a reputation as trivia-obsessed geeks whose understanding of the opposite sex derives from a combination of hearsay and porn.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 10 June 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005AWHO.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 10 June 2005 12:47 (twenty years ago)

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