Hey Holland, thanks for reminding me that I had a book question for our readers!
I just finished reading Black Hole by Charles Burns. I sorta recommend it: it’s very upsetting. It’s about high school, and even though the plot revolves around a pretty fantastical idea, it still manages to evoke a horrifyingly realistic portrait of some of high school - likely to cause gruesome flashbacks if you had a rough time between the ages of 13 and 19.
But here’s my question: I’ve read a lot of graphic novels recently, and while I enjoy them, I hate the way the women are drawn. Even in stories like Black Hole, where the women are real characters - not just there to flesh out some aspect of a male character - they are often drawn naked, or in a way that’s extremely graphic. That would be fine, except for the fact that they’re always thin with big boobs and wide hips. A comic book illustrator explained to me that it’s just easier to draw women that way, but I’m not sure I buy that. Does anyone know of some good female-friendly graphic novels?
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eight comments
Julie Doucet. Julie Doucet. Julie Doucet. Her semi-autobiographical comix are hilarious and really artful, and she's a total pervert. In an adorable way. She's been doing more "high-art" style chapbooks these days which are also stunning, but for good old fashioned comic fun, look for Dirty Plotte (also known sometimes as Purty Plotte). L'Affiare Madame Paul is a great graphic novel as well, though I don't know if there's an English translation.
Also, check out Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis if it hasn't washed up on your doorstep already. I haven't read the sequel yet, but the first one was really enjoyable.
Genevieve Castree does amazing graphic stories as well, but they're also more on the artsy chapbook side than down 'n' dirty comix.
And, by the way, um, big boobs are easier to draw? This sounds like the kind of explanation that comes from someone who grew up tracing Jessica Rabbit and never learned how to do anything else. Just sayin'.
Posted by Anna
June 18, 2006, 4:39 PM
For the younger set, I'd definitely recommend Leave It To Chance, about a thirteen-year-old girl following in her dad's monster-hunter footsteps. Chance actually looks like a teenaged girl, not a pin-up.
I think the Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O'Malley is also pretty female-positive (in terms of the look of the characters). I'd argue that the Love and Rockets comic books are, too. And the now-defunct Sandman Mystery Theatre, which was set in the late 1930s and early 1940s, featured full-figured women as a general rule.
There are quite a few books out there, but I agree, the majority of comic book artists draw impossible female bodies. As a sometime comic book maker myself, I was afraid to draw women for the longest time, because I was afraid of messing things up and drawing women unrealistically. As a result, I still can't draw women very well.
Posted by Evan
June 18, 2006, 10:08 PM
Thanks for the exciting suggestions! I'll definitely check them out.
I think the reason why my comic writing friend (who's not a sexist pig, incidentally) feels it's easier to draw women that way is because it's the industry standard - the same one that produced Jessica Rabbit. It's just the way it's done.
I think it's a bias that's so built in to much of the comic book world, that a lot of even progressive illustrators don't think about the political implications of the fact that ALL the women have 20 inch waists and 30 inch busts. I've been reading a series called Y the Last Man, which is amazing, and tries to envision a world where all male animals (including human of course) have been killed off by a virus. But even in that one, which is forced to deal with gender issues, the women generally still look ridiculous.
I had another comic book drawing friend who used to stick pictures of women he found in magazines all over his wall as a guide to drawing women. And so natch, all his female drawings had big boobies and tiny waistlines...
Posted by thea
June 19, 2006, 11:18 AM
This is an interesting question. I wonder if graphic novels suffer more from the traditional sexist superhero comic aesthetic, than say, newspaper comic strips.
But let me tell you about some neat strips! I have been inspired by the touching, insightful, politicized, funny feminist comics of Alison Bechdel, called Dykes To Watch Out For (do her books count as graphic novels? Or just comic compilations?). I've become addicted to those, and since then I've slowly discovered a community of lesbian comic artists (which doesn't necessarily, but often, equals feminist).
You can find a sample of her comics at
http://static.flickr.com/47/148336882...
I got a headache on that site until I realized I could use the handy enlarging magnifying glass tool... Her comics run biweekly in over forty small press papers. She refused a 1994 offer by the Universal Press Syndicate to run the strip in mainstream daily papers, because she remarked, she had no desire to "speak to the mainstream."
Even more radical, and also very popular, is Diane DiMassa's quarterly strip Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist.
http://www.hotheadpaisan.com/
I actually find her a little too sexist sometimes, against men, for my taste. But I found my first copy of the Paisan at Robarts Library in Toronto!
Other successful lesbian and bisexual female comic artists include Kris Kovick, Jennifer Camper, Erika Lopez, Andrea Natalie (founder of the Lesbian Cartoonists Network), and Fish.
Posted by Elisha
June 20, 2006, 6:52 AM
At least the first two volumes of Chynna Clugston's "Blue Monday" are fun and feature cool teen girls as main characters. There are also a lot of pervy jokes therein, as the boys in the series are very much teen boys. But if they comment on the girls' breasts they're likely to get punched in the face.
The "Hopeless Savages" series is another ensemble-cast thing from Oni,
Ai Yazawa's manga series NANA is about two friends with the same name who meet when they're both moving to Tokyo. One is boy-crazy, selfish, and irresponsible, but basically good natured; the other is a tough survivor who wants to move up in the music industry with her punk band. In general, Japanese comics are not progressive about gender roles (though homosexuality is rarely portrayed as "a big deal"); to some extent the Nanas are both defined by the men in their lives, although the tendency of Nana Komatsu, the sillier one, to do so is explicitly portrayed as one of the problems she must overcome. It's worth looking at, though, because the women are so well-written and sharply delineated. It IS a soap-opera, to an extent, but Nana Oosaki (the singer) is an extraordinary character. (One of Yazawa's previous series, "Paradise Kiss," is also a fan fave, but it includes a moment of extraordinary ickiness in the last volume that some feminist readers have a tough time forgiving. I enjoy the story, but it does not stand up to critical scrutiny when you're looking for feminist comics heroines.)
Overall, though, I would agree that the comics industry has a big problem with endemic sexism and that it's not too acknowledged by the male side. In my experience... there are a lot of guys in comics who don't think they're sexist, but don't realize that they pooh-pooh all female-interest or female-written comics that have not been published by one of the major Art Comics publishers (Fantagraphics, Pantheon, sometimes Top Shelf). So Julie Doucet and Jessica Abel are OK, but manga is automatically and wholesale NOT (neither is, for some reason, Marjane Satrapi, but that may just be the comics guys I know). Humorous comics that do not have the Indie Boy Stamp Of Approval are right out. Etc. Some comics companies have their convention parties at strip clubs; one small upstart company recently described their ideal office, and it included incredibly attractive female collaborators, *and a pole for them to dance on.* So I understand Julie Doucet's disgust.
Posted by miranda
June 24, 2006, 1:06 AM
Doh! I never finished writing about Hopeless Savages... it's about two 70s punk singers who marry and have a family, and the adventures of their children as they grow up. A lot of attention is focused on the youngest daughter, Zero, who is a fully realized character who's clued in about music and has her own band with a few friends, and finds herself totally attracted to a really sweet, non-mainstream guy. There are positive gay characters, and the whole thing is sweet and a lot of fun.
It's been a while, and I haven't read the whole series, but IIRC Andi Watson's "Skeleton Key" is sweet and worth checking out, too.
Posted by miranda
June 24, 2006, 1:09 AM
[...] I was shocked when I discovered that, in writing my complaint about how women in comic books are sometimes drawn (that is, like toothpicks, though with symmetrical cotton balls stuck to their upper regions), I didn’t consult a most obvious resource: Shameless! See Shameless: Summer 2005 for more info. (If you, horror of horrors, don’t have it, don’t fret! You can still buy it here. Whoop whoop! Posted by thea July 8, 2006 [...]
Posted by Shameless Magazine - for girls who get it » comic
July 8, 2006, 10:27 AM
I just wanted to add a perspective on the issue of women being drawn "well endowed". I will not deny that a very great influence is that that's what guys like. But I've been told it also helps destinguish adult women from teen-aged girls. Most comics are not drawn extremely detailed and not all artists are extremely talented. I know if I draw a slim woman and make her flat chested, she's in danger of looking like a kid.
Posted by Robert
July 29, 2006, 10:45 AM
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