Girls and Comics

[Ranger REG]

So it's not that women do not read comics - it's that they do not read superhero comics.

What repulse them about superhero comics? It can't be the "image" factor, is it?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

(Not that I'm rushing out to buy a Ken doll soon, mind you.)

That's because they haven't made a Ken doll with a kung-fu grip yet. Boys buy Dolls, they just call them Action Figures. Girls read comics, they just call them Manga. Just because boys don't buy Ken dolls, doesn't mean they don't play with dolls.

 

[Umbran]

What repulse them about superhero comics?

I think that might be the wrong question. Do you read comics because they fail to repulse you?

Perhaps you should ask what there is in superhero comics that might attract female readers. A focus on physical strength and conflict, and beating the snot out of other people as a solution to problems - does that sound like it'd attract young females?

It can't be the "image" factor, is it?

I know several women for whom that is an issue. Superhero comic women are hyper-sexualized to the point of objectification.

Take a look at some of the characters and books that did attract what few female readers comics had back before manga:

The New Mutants - first off, more female members than male. The male characters did have powers centered on physical force, but they were not depicted as being hyper-muscular. The females were not depicted with the amazingly unrealistic body shapes seen in other female heroes. The stories tended ot focus on teenage angst.

Kitty Pryde, of the X-men: again, not hyper-busty and with powers that require some brains to apply. Vulnerable, but not powerless, hangs around with (but not romantically entangled with) Nightcrawler, the X-man with the most panace and romantic bent. Eventually gets in a romantic relationship with a "strong, silent type"...

Remember - when they talk about being a "strong female character", they aren't talking about being able to lift 10 tons...

 

[el-remmen]

I think its because there are two basic kinds of main characters in mainstream superhero comics, those the readers want to be and those they want to do.

Even the most ostensibly "strong" woman in the comics ends up an exaggerated and sexualized being with little to make her appealing beyond a superficial independence and an adolescent obsession with sex and violence.

Heck, there was a time that even Kitty Pryde was being drawn with D-cups.

In my view, these comics appeal to a group of 30-something men whose view of women was in part shaped by their obession with comics as adolescents, except that they have never grown out of that childish manifestation of desire.

And I say this as a guy who buys comics every Wednesday.

I write about comics some on my blog. Examples:

Comic Books: A Second Adolescence
Excerpt: [T]he ease with which we can collect and absorb the historical narratives of these characters in this age of the internet makes retconning more pervasive because it is too easy for people to reference contradictory events in the Marvel Universe. It gets harder and harder to just pretend something didn't happen or never existed because of this access, so very trite explanations that bind together a variety of things have to be come up with. If my generation had simply outgrown comic books like the generations before us, it would not be as necessary to make these explanations, but we didn't.

Of Man-Drills and Spider-Women
Excerpt: The current crop of mainstream comic book writers are in a way their own audience. They are guys in their 30s/40s who are finally getting to push comics towards what they desired when they were adolescents without crossing the line (too often). And that audience is (for the most part) guys in their 30s - Guys who can afford to buy comics week after week that can total more than $100 a month. These are guys who have never gotten over that idealized vision of women from those teen years. I know because I am a guy in my 30s who is in Forbidden Planet every Wednesday picking up comic books (though I am at less than $25 a month). I know because I am guy that is only slightly ashamed to admit that if I had a girlfriend that could fill out a Spider-Woman or Wonder Woman costume and tie me up, I would be pretty happy in that moment. I know because I found an interview with Brian Michael Bendis (who writes New Avengers) in which the first thing he mentions when asked about why he loves the character of Spider-Woman is "For starters she's way hot, and she's got a great costume, and the best head of hair in comics." The dude is 40.


EDIT: Warning, these blog posts are not always grandma-friendly, and some may verge on NWS, depending on where you work (no full nudity, but ya never know. .. )

 

[Tetsubo]

My friend Scott Wegener (Scott Wegener) has had quite a bit of success attracting a female audience to his comic Atomic Robo. Partly I think because he draws women like humans. It is possible.

 

[Farganger]

My friend Scott Wegener (Scott Wegener) has had quite a bit of success attracting a female audience to his comic Atomic Robo. Partly I think because he draws women like humans. It is possible.

I have nothing against that style, but none of the women in the porfolios on his webpage look much "like humans."

Also, from the sequential art section: the panty-shot of the samurai-girl and close-up of her face as she licks blood from her sword seem a bit "fan-servicey".

I don't know, of course, but would guess that it's something other than the way he draws women that has attracted a female audience to his comic.

 

[Silver Moon]

Have to agree with much of what is stated above, but there are exceptions, even in the mainstream companies. The one superhero title that comes immediately to mind is Runaways, great story and realistically drawn teenage kids. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the female readership on that title is a lot higher than other books that Marvel puts out.

 

[Relique du Madde]

The one superhero title that comes immediately to mind is Runaways, great story and realistically drawn teenage kids. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the female readership on that title is a lot higher than other books that Marvel puts out.

Just be thankful that it's Ramos who is drawing Runaways now. The X-men are stuck with Land and Young changing Pixie from a 12-14 year old girl to a busty 21 year old woman woman which wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know she supposed to be a 12 - 14 year old girl.

 

[Tetsubo]

I have nothing against that style, but none of the women in the porfolios on his webpage look much "like humans."

Also, from the sequential art section: the panty-shot of the samurai-girl and close-up of her face as she licks blood from her sword seem a bit "fan-servicey".

I don't know, of course, but would guess that it's something other than the way he draws women that has attracted a female audience to his comic.

I'm just repeating what his female fans tell him. Maybe they lie.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Yep, second the Sandman anecdotal, essentially. Hm, and third, fourth and fifth it, actually.

Buffy comic books are the other ones I recall one of the young women in question actually buying and talking about.