Matthew Badham passed me a piece from the Guardian entitled: Brilliantly Drawn Girls.
Go and have a look and report back here.
Problems?
Number 1: Brilliantly drawn girls? girls?
Number 2: The byline – Comics never used to be much fun for their rare female characters, but with more women in the industry, kick-ass heroines are taking over. No, that’s just not true. See below.
Number 3: In an article about women in comics does the first and only image have to be a shot of a glammed up Wonder Woman?
Number 4: Is it just me or could the article be summed up as a love-in for Gail Simone tied up in a suitably relevant issue piece?
Surely this is just rubbish:
“Simone is perhaps the most public face of the revolution – a highly popular voice, she has been appointed by comics giant DC as the first female ongoing writer for Wonder Woman”
No. Simone is merely one woman writer at DC who happens to be on a highly iconic character. But the most public face of the revolution?
No. That has to go to Manga as a whole. Or maybe Marjane Satrapi or Alison Bechdel. But they get barely a mention later on and when they do it’s with this context:
And beyond the comics mainstream, some of the most groundbreaking and exciting graphic novels of the past few years have been written – and devoured – by women, including Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.
Of course women read and write comics “beyond the comics mainstream”. That’s because the comics mainstream wears bright stupid costumes, has superpowers and tends to be about as likely to appeal to women as Mills and Boon do to men.
And before I get complaints, I’m merely using the Mills and Boon as a simple example. Generally Mills and Boon is written for and read by women. It is the mainstream of romantic fiction. And it’s about as likely to get men reading fiction as superhero comics as the comic mainstream is likely to get women reading comics.
Manga is incredibly popular to women. Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel are very public faces of women in comics. The article just brushes this aside and misses the fundamental point. If women are getting into comics and thankfully, years of experience in and around comics shows me that they are, then they certainly aren’t coming into it because Gail Simone is leading the way in writing “Kick-Ass heroines”.
To it’s credit the article then goes on to talk about DCs Minx line and has the ever interesting Trina Robbins talking intelligently about the changes we’re seeing.
But perhaps the most shocking thing: In a Guardian article there was not a single mention of Posey Simmonds. Women in Comics in the Mainstream. But no Posey. Terrible.
Oh well. At least the thing didn’t start with “Biff Bam Pow, comics aren’t just for boys anymore”.
fictions 