I'm probably not experienced enough to give good accounts on all of these subjects, but I'd like to point out something I always thought was strange, and that's women's double standard. Seriously, put the pies down. A lot of women talk about how men write and draw their women differently then men, but why don't they ever comment on the men in comics? How often to women complain about Superman's muscles being too huge or Batman's package being too big? (You know batman, the pretty boy millionare who holds several phd's and knows 10 kinds of martial arts) Aren't they portrayed just as far from your average man as many female superheroes? Maybe it's just me, but it seems men complain about their equally unrealistic representations in comics less than women do about theirs, why is that? Ok, now you can pick up your pies.
blackaby wrote:Not sure how much my input would really help, since I don't read comic books & I'm not an artist... but the comic I'm involved in has three chicks working on it: writer (ME!), artist and webdesigner. Unfortunately I can't say much about the genders of the characters and their portrayal, because they're actually wrong. The main character (Blackaby) was meant to be female. In all the scripts, backgrounding, and everything else, Blackaby was female, and her love interest - the comparitively bland and boring angel character (creatively named Angel) - was male.
However when I got the first sketches of the characters back from the artist, Blackaby and Angel had had their genders switched around. I still don't know why.
But the art was awesome and Angel had some seriously sexay booty going on, so I revised the script I had and just didn't tell the artist. A lot of people had assumed that Blackaby was male anyway - well, EVERYONE did, despite the fact I made a point of making her female - so I guess it was for the best. The female characters we have/ have planned (one of them, the fairy, was originally male, but I had to change the gender to fix the gender balance ratio) are:
A fat chirpy angel with a kink for 'bad boys' who is, I guess, the female lead.
A beer-drinking porn-watching werewolf.
A mad-scientist/power hungry/stalkerish fairy.
A mildly insane vegan eco-ninja elf.
1. That is really funny because when I first saw the comic the rounded face and lips made me think Blackaby was a girl, it's been hard drawing him to not look too feminine.
2. Damnit, there wasn't any wolf watching porn in the script I got!
starline wrote:Thatguy, we can't see the pictures you linked because keenspace doesn't allow hotlinking. No image shows up.
Hrm... they seem to work from each computer I've gone to - anybody else not able to see them when you click 'em? I didn't want to fill the post with large images, so those are links to them instead... should I just put them in as pics?
Beyond_Alpha wrote:They got rid of jubilee?
No - - That's Shadowcat, Kitty Pryde. Jubilee's still kickin' around. She's gone pretty hardcore goth-punk lately.
And everyone else, thanks for your input I'll have to start going through and organizing a solid thesis now and selecting what I'll use for references. I'll still let you know if I'm going to quote you.
1) Your input AS artists, especially female artists or artists with female characters
Being a female artist, I definitely see a bias in popular print comics towards male creators and male characters. This is probably because more men than women have been historically interested in comics. For some reason there was a thought that comics was a medium that women in particular are not interested in, and therefore nothing was marketed toward them. I don't know whether it's a case of the chicken and the egg or what. However, in webcomics, I have seen a positive outpouring of female talent, as well as female characters with depth and ability, and portrayed in a believable way.
2) Your thoughts on how women are portrayed in popular print Comic Books TODAY
In my opinion, women are oversexualized in comics, though not portrayed as unfavorably as in the past. Many comics, both american and from other countries, show women as strong figures who are worthy of respect. But there are always comics that play up the weakness of women or their ability to be manipulated, et cetera. Though Japanese comics can have some very strong female characters, they can have exceptionally weak and unfortunate ones as well, portraying unhealthy relationships as if they were normal. Oversexualization in popular American comics probably has to do with the oversexualization and sexual hype seen in American culture today.
3) Your thoughts on how women USED to be portrayed in print Comic Books.
For the most part in the past, women in superhero comics were there to be "saved", and in indie comics, there to be f***ed. This stereotype eventually began to change, but its effects are still seen in print comics today. A woman could have one of two roles in golden/silver age comics: A threat or a victim. The parameters of these roles have expanded, but for the most part women characters fit into boxes like that. This is not to say that male characters don't as well, comics as a genre has a very exaggerated way of defining characters. However, where characters like Batman and Superman are given extreme depth in popular culture, characters like Wonder Woman remain socially one-dimensional. It is harder, in my opinion, to find depth in female characters than it is in male, especially if you're only a casual reader of comics.
4) Any especially of extreme examples of grossly exagerated or objectified women (the bulk of Rob Liefield's work).
Many comic artists, such as Adam Hughes, make it big because they can draw beautiful women. A book I own about drawing comic art, the title of which I forget right now, has pages upon pages of drawing different types of male characters, large, small, muscular, hyper-muscular, different examples of possible ways to use scars, etc. The section on women showed different types of women with the same faces and bodies, different hairstyles, clothes and MAYBE differently sized breasts, all perfectly proportioned and well endowed. An offhand comment in the book says something to the effect that if you can draw a beautiful woman, you have it made in the comics industry. There was one example of a woman who looked different than the rest of them, in the extreme muscles section, and she too had gigantic knockers and a beautiful face. (A different one, having been drawn by a different artist.) The anatomy section, also drawn by a different artist, showed obscenely, unrealistically skinny women. These images are frankly harmful to women, and caused my anorexic former roommate to almost have a fit.
5) Especially good examples of women as strong, positive characters in comics, (fully developed in more ways than cup size)
There are more in webcomics, but as far as print comics go, I feel that Storm is a fairly good strong character. She has control over her emotions, she's a leader. She changes and she's her own person, in control of her own body. She is not weak and in need of protection, for the most part. Her major weakness, claustrophobia, is eventually overcome, unless I haven't read someplace where it was retconned back in which would REALLY piss me off. Barbara Gordon, batgirl, is also a good example. She's strong willed, knows what she's doing, and does not let things set her back. (Such as paralysis...)
6) Also thoughts on the ways women and men are portrayed differently, both in the clothes they wear, body types, characterization, role in plot, etc.
As I said earlier, I feel that women's costumes are inevitably more skanky and revealing than men's. However, I don't think that this is necessarily something that can be compared. Costumes of male characters can also be quite revealing, less as far as skin goes, but they are very clingy and defined. I do believe that women's body types in comics are largely the same from title to title and character to character. Men's body types, though slightly different, still range in size through narrow definitions, small, medium, large, extra large, etc, with muscles being another category, ranging from none to 'roid chomper.
7) And, lastly but very important: how different countries have influenced each other and how that has come out in comic books. Culture/style exchange. Social differences in what's moral/ethical from country to country. Differences in accepted gender roles, etc.
As I mentioned earlier, Japan's comics have often had more positive female characters. This is spreading a bit to American comics, and has for some time now. My arms hurt, so I'm not going to be able to say all that I could about this topic, but Japan has comics that are geared towards women, something that is lacking for the most part in America. Japanese comics have heavily influenced webcomics. However, as I said, the Japanese sensibility toward women states that women are to be submissive, more than America. Therefore, some of the comics coming to america have damaging contents and consequently, many American comics that are influenced by Japanese comics can have much more objectifying of women. I'm now babbling so I'll cut this short.
The section on women showed different types of women with the same faces and bodies, different hairstyles, clothes and MAYBE differently sized breasts, all perfectly proportioned and well endowed.
I'm guessing it was How To Draw Cutting Edge Comics or something like that by Chris Hall. I have the book.
Don't know about the whole unrealistically skinny part, but the guy DEFINITELY suffers the flaw of every single woman looking exactly the same disregarding hair or clothing. That alone was enough to give me fits, there's so much more beauty in variety.
The section on women showed different types of women with the same faces and bodies, different hairstyles, clothes and MAYBE differently sized breasts, all perfectly proportioned and well endowed.
I'm guessing it was How To Draw Cutting Edge Comics or something like that by Chris Hall. I have the book.
Don't know about the whole unrealistically skinny part, but the guy DEFINITELY suffers the flaw of every single woman looking exactly the same disregarding hair or clothing. That alone was enough to give me fits, there's so much more beauty in variety.
Yeah, that's the one. I didn't think his last name was Hall, but that's it. It's in the anatomy section, there's this one really terrible picture of a stick-thin girl who would have to have had ribs and shit removed. GAH.
It was a helpful book when I was starting out and all, and I don't mind it now, but.... ALL LOOK THE SAME WARRRGHHH!!
That's actually when I started to draw my much-touted lips... :/
If it is any consolation, I also have another anatomy book by him that is much more realistic in proportions for both men and women. I think the whole thing in the Cutting Edge Comics book (I keep wanting to type EXXXXTREEEEEME) was to go for the cheesy teenage male demographic.
Yeah, I saw that one. I just wanted to change my style from anime to more like comic books and didn't have anything to look at so I picked up something random. I saw the anatomy book later and wished I'd gotten it.
A last statement from me about this (hopefully not too terribly late) CLAMP, who if I remember correctly is all female, created Miyuki-chan in Wonderland.
Tokyopop has a preview here
one of the strongest woman characters that i've seen introduced in comic (which is a very select few, but mostly manga) is the main character from nausicaa of the valley of the wind. its creator, miyazaki, even commented (i believe) that the character was rather too emblematic of perfection (thus not really naturally conceived). and it seems that in many comics, if there was one strong willed female character, it cannot possibly even in its wildest incarnations suffer another one, as if to mean 'look, here is a strong female character, okay? now oogle at these miscellaneous set of tnas!' maybe not, but it just feels that way.
Fantastical feedback from everone involved. Thanks all! I'm writing the paper now. I already checked with just about everyone I'm quoting directly, but feel free to keep commenting if you've got more to say.
Okay, I had to cut things down to my top 6 sources for pertinent quotes, but before I include ANY of them, here's who I have:
As you can see, only 2 of these are directly from current avatars, that's because frequently the avatars change and shift and don't apply to what we actually do with our comics (as proven by the number of M2 avatars at present). I tried to find particularly good shots that I think display your individual style and personality.
I'd like to include these images, but of course I will not if any of you object for any reason whatsoever.
In addition, please double-check that the names on the right are the names by which you would like to be cited and that they're spelled properly. I want to be sure to give credit and respect where it's due.
Once more, thank you very much (to the people I am quoting as well as those I'm not) Your discussion was wonderfully helpful.
I'll have to start going through and organizing a solid thesis now and selecting what I'll use for references. I'll still let you know if I'm going to quote you.
