Girls vs Boys

[Drowemos]

I was just wondering about how people thought gender affected creating comic. Do women make fundamentally different comics from men? Are there comic elements that are particularly male or particularly female?

[Jekkal]

Kneejerk Answer: Of course not! You misogynist pig.

Truth: Each comic is uniquely impacted by the creator who made it. So, as much as we stereotype men and women in general, so can we stereotype comics created by Men vs. Women.

Unfortunately, there are still a lot of social aspects in our culture that correlate to one gender or the other for no good reason other than this is what the culture has always sort of trended to. So because boys (in general) play more video games than girls and are encouraged into more science-type fields, they might trend more towards making more action and game-oriented comics as a result. This does not say that women don't or women can't, but they aren't exposed to the same elements based on societal upbringing. Likewise, most of the mainstream media featuring women often centers around clothing, fashion, music, or boys, so it would not shock me to see that women's comics hit these cylinders more often.

All of this, of course, is just as stereotyped and ingrained as the idea that boys think one way and girls another. To give you an example, let me describe a few plot synopses in as general, non-gendered terms (for the main characters, at least) as I can:

Two fashion-minded friends spend all their time outside of high school insulting boob jobs, arguing with Christians, hanging out, and listening to emotional wrecks tell their sob stories, and 'help them out'... if the price is right.

Four friends who write for a popular magazine have lots of sex, drink coffee, tell jokes, deal with strange supernatural creatures, and get upset on a regular basis with their arrogant male boss.

Two friends travel to a foreign country with no way home and very little money, and must work for a strange man who has them dress up in strange costumes to please customers, while dealing with a strange goth who plays mindgames with them on a regular basis.

A scared musician far away from anyone even remotely helpful arrives in a new city with very little luggage or resources, meets up with a gang of criminals, and must cooperate and work with them in order to achieve redemption, restore family honor, and return home.

Guess which ones are which. Here's the clue: All four are plots of currently running comics. Only one of these is drawn by a woman.

[Dr Neo Lao]

Trust a woman to give a long and well-researched answer!

*runs and hides*

You do tend to notice a bit of a difference if you start random-hopping comics and reading a bit. It's not always easy to confirm which gender the author is when they use an alias. And it's also harder to quantify how much of the difference is purely due to gender and how much of the difference is due to the individual.

What I find interesting is reading forums where the poster has a pic in their avatar of a person (often a character in their comic) and one associates that poster with their avatar and then they make a comment and you realize they are a guy/girl and you thought they were the other.

Then posts seem to either make more sense or less...

[Jekkal]

Trust a woman to give a long and well-researched answer!

*runs and hides*

Oh come on. You know you love my long, hard (to argue with) responses...

[McDuffies]

I am of impression that women create comics with very different sensibility.
I find that in art of comics that was traditionally ruled by males, this sensibility was desperately needed, and is a breath of fresh air.
Which is one big plus for webcomics, since they have greater percent of female creators that

[Black Sparrow]

Might as well admit it. Gender--along with race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic background, class, and parental upbringing--affects everything we do. However, there's a spectrum. A person may tend towards the societal norms of gender, or may move more freely between the feminine and masculine; their comics will reflect that.

There are certain types of comics that are more typically written by one gender than the other. Shounen-ai, for example, is primarily female author- and readership, whereas there is that male majority in game comics.

However, there is no pattern in which girls create more lovey-dovey comics and boys focus on gore and sex, not that you'd be able to prove around here, anyway. Readership may tend toward one gender, but that says nothing about the writer.

[Johndar]

Two friends travel to a foreign country with no way home and very little money, and must work for a strange man who has them dress up in strange costumes to please customers, while dealing with a strange goth who plays mindgames with them on a regular basis.

This is painfully obvious as to which comic this is.

[Dr Neo Lao]

It might just be that the examples that really stick in the mind are the ones that reinforce the preconceived idea.

No Pink Ponies is "obviously" written by a female because it deals a lot with emotion, it has a lot of pink all over the site (or the old version did) and reads more like a soap than webcomic. Except that (and here's the joke) it's written by a male (read the about author page).

Jack is "obviously" written by a male because it deals a lot with violence, gore and sex. But it has a lot of very strong emotional threads in it, especially the earlier story arcs.

Girl Genius reads quite well balanced, and that would be because it's team effort - both a male and a female are involved.

Random Assembly is very touchy-feely - female writer.

Crimson Dark is very macho and action-oriented - male writer.

Look hard enough and you'll find many comics that support the idea and just as many that don't.

[Yeahduff]

Two friends travel to a foreign country with no way home and very little money, and must work for a strange man who has them dress up in strange costumes to please customers, while dealing with a strange goth who plays mindgames with them on a regular basis.

This is painfully obvious as to which comic this is.

Happy to say I have no idea what you're talking about.

But basically Sparrow and McDuffies are on point here.

[McDuffies]

Might as well admit it. Gender--along with race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic background, class, and parental upbringing--affects everything we do. However, there's a spectrum. A person may tend towards the societal norms of gender, or may move more freely between the feminine and masculine; their comics will reflect that.

There are certain types of comics that are more typically written by one gender than the other. Shounen-ai, for example, is primarily female author- and readership, whereas there is that male majority in game comics.

However, there is no pattern in which girls create more lovey-dovey comics and boys focus on gore and sex, not that you'd be able to prove around here, anyway. Readership may tend toward one gender, but that says nothing about the writer.

Yeah, every little thing affects the final comic, but there are some characteristics that allow them to be very broadly divided into gender categories.

No Pink Ponies is "obviously" written by a female because it deals a lot with emotion, it has a lot of pink all over the site (or the old version did) and reads more like a soap than webcomic. Except that (and here's the joke) it's written by a male (read the about author page).

But "No pink ponies" deals with these subjects very superficially, as you said it's soap opera style that uses stereotypical emotions rather than personal ones. When I was reading it, my feeling was that female characters were too stereotypical of how males see females (while male characters, addmitedly, are practically nonexistant).
My guess was something like, drawn by a girl, written by her boyfriend.
I think that the difference is the least of all in topics covered, specially since it seems very important for authors to try to break gender roles, but it's, perhaps, it the way they see their characters, level of details in drawing, the use of colour, etc.

[Drowemos]

Well there are clearly some elements that are more clustered around one gender or another. Oddball gamer humor = high probability male. Period romance piece = high probability female.

But here was the thing that got me thinking about this. There is a women comic creator collective call tomgeek. The have all type of comic all created by women.

All genera were cover so that factor in the equation was ruled out. But reading through the comics I did sense a sort of similarity in story telling. A sort of... and here I am at a loss for words... slow deliberate manner perhaps. More use of decompression less reliance on punch lines. I don't know they seem different from the male dominated fare I usually read.

[Dr Legostar]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

[Berg]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

Stop making me question my manhood!

[Dr Legostar]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

Stop making me question my manhood!

stop making it so easy!

[McDuffies]

Girls fart too you know.

[Pimpette]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

I make really bad dick jokes, does this make me less of a woman?

[Drowemos]

Strangely men don't make that many dick jokes. Jokes about boldly functions yes but the important body parts not so much. This is a strange gender divide I noticed as well. Male often writers have more innuendo were female writers will either steer clear of the subject all together or not hold back at all and be quite graphic.

Granted this is a completely unverified impression. It could just be my imagination.

[Dr Legostar]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

I make really bad dick jokes, does this make me less of a woman?

naw, a guy would make good ones.

[Deca]

In this world there will be the majority that stick to the stereotypes:
Men comics tend to be gory or rude with big busted women.
Women comics can be romances, with furries, hyper witty people (I dunno why but a lot of women comics I've read the main character is on a double espresso mocha latte with two more shots of caffiene), the coming of age, I don't see too much of the shopping aspect online usually I see that in male comics portraying women...

But at any rate, there will always be a stigma that male comics are different then female comics because there is evidence to support the concept... And THEN you have your shades of gray that no one ever considers because they are either rare or not as popular.

There's males that write romances, some under pen names
Woman who write gory action scenes, I for one can't live without an explosion or two, some under pen names.

I think in a general sense, yes, women and men have a certain distinction between their work. And then, like always, there's a few exceptions to the rule.

[Pimpette]

it's very simple, when men make comics, there are more fart jokes.

I make really bad dick jokes, does this make me less of a woman?

naw, a guy would make good ones.

Oh, whew.
*goes back to drawing scantily clad womens*