So begins my effort to actually use this blog. If all goes well, expect more updates here that are generally less formal and likely more rambly than previously. We shall see how it goes!
I don't do a lot of talking about any of the thought process that does the ground work for the webcomic my wife and I work on, Of Stars and Swords. Mostly, I like to let the work speak for itself. That's the idea, at least. But after talking with people at Megacon this year and seeing some things other creators have been saying about their own work, I've been rethinking my silence.
So here is the result, some thoughts about the comic's main character, Seren. There will be some mild spoilers here, mostly from the first twenty pages of the comic that detail some important background, but that should be about it. If you don't want those spoilers, go read the pages then come back here!
The best place to start is at the beginning, so here's how things came together. The basic idea of what would become Of Stars and Swords always had it's inception in a fairly common concept: There are two brothers from a noble family, one is a jerk and one isn't. The latter gives up money and power and all that goes with it for a happy life with a loving family, but the former isn't about to have that and murders the family because he's a jerk. The family was always a wife, a son, and a daughter in my mind. In the initial thinking, it was the son that survives and goes off to find his father and get revenge.
At some point, obviously, that changed. Why? I'm not too terribly sure. The best I can remember is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about all of this when I wondered why not have it be the daughter that survives. Somehow, that thought made everything else click. Why not have it be the daughter that survives and wants revenge? Her being arrogant, stubborn, a teenager, and all the other things that make her insufferable and/or wonderful were pretty quick to follow. She became a very well realized character in a short amount of time, to the point that I knew exactly where she had to begin and where she'd end up once all was said and done.
Writing Seren comes easy for me. I have never been a teenage girl with a murdered family in a fantasy setting, but I was a teenager and I look back on that with one clear thought: I was a little shit. We all were, really. In my mind, we all went through pretty much the same crap at that age, and it's just a matter of tapping that to find where Seren's voice is. She's stubborn, she thinks everyone around her is an idiot, she doesn't listen to advice, she doesn't think about anything but the goal directly in front of her, and she's very easily put off when things don't go her way IMMEDIATELY. And the worst part? She's smart, capable, and able to back up a lot of her talk with actual skill and ability. Plus, she's pretty good with a sword and fairly quick to use it.
In a lot of ways, she's a pretty terrible person. In those first twenty pages, we see her kill a man because...well, just because. There's no real good reason. She just does it. And barely thinks twice about it. It's a moment that made sense to me writing it, but has been jarring for at least a few readers. And it should be, honestly. I'm actually surprised that people ever admit to liking her at all, as we've seen very little of Seren being anything but a borderline bad person. Even writing her, sometimes I just want to yell at Seren to take some deep breaths and go pet a turtle or something for just an hour, because if she keeps brooding and yelling at everyone her face is going to get stuck that way and then I'm just going to type in run on sentences out of rage at how infuriating she can be.
But sometimes she does make the right decision. Sometimes she takes those revenge blinders off and there's a moment of possibility that she COULD be better. She just...keeps going the other direction. Obviously, the reason to keep reading is to see if she ever does turn things around, so I won't say anything on that. She might, but she might not. There are some rough moments coming up in the story, and so far Seren hasn't proven to deal with those all too well.
Before I end this stream-of-conscious-like blog post, I want to babble about one more thing. Namely, Seren being a girl, and a fully clothed one at that. Comics, especially, have a big problem with how female characters are depicted, and things are definitely in the process of getting better...but fantasy is a genre that seems to have even more problems with that, especially the fully clothed part. But here's the thing: Seren isn't a girl OR fully clothed to buck any trends or show people 'how it's done'. Seren is a girl because...well, I mentioned it before. She just is. It fit. The story came together the second that thought hit. Why? I don't know. And why is she fully clothed? Well, because she is dammit. Her design is something I put together that Caroline has then tweaked since she's the one doing the penciling, but even that was never a 'I'll show them!' in how she's dressed. It just made sense. Fantasy worlds are full of sharp and stabby things and, besides, showing skin is cold and stupid and just asking for trouble. You're all just lucky she doesn't have a mask or hood, as well, because that would sure make all the sneaking around a lot easier.
And I've rambled enough. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but it at least can give you an idea of where Seren came from and where I come from in writing her. Or I just read like a crazy person, which isn't terribly inaccurate. Either way, if you guys find this kind of thing interesting, I'll gladly do more of this in the future. Probably do it anyway, maybe even more about Seren as Of Stars and Swords moves along.
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
More Thoughts on Female Comic Characters
This might be a bit more directionless than some of my posts, so you've been warned.
As the days have continued to pass, my mind has been continually on the topics surrounding the problems with the comic industry, how to solve them, etc. As I'm not a business expert and, at the moment, just an aspiring creator with only a small amount of independent work to show, this is all still coming from a fairly outside view. Perhaps that's a good thing, though, as most of the problems that tend to exist with comics are due to the insular nature of the current medium.
Lately, the hot button topic in regards to superhero comics has been the treatment of women. This is not a new problem, but it is one that dies down every so often. It hasn't ever actually been solved, and that baffles me. Everyone knows the stereotype. In comics, men are huge muscle-bound guys and women have huge chests and tiny waists. To a point, one can attempt to argue that both are exaggerations, and yes, they are, but they are different kinds of exaggerations. Both are an idealization, but both come from (and are for) a generally male point of view. Thus, the aspects of men in comics that are emphasized are that of physical power and strength, where as female characters tend to be idealized sexually. Posing in comics is a bit of a staple, that pause where the hero shows their power, but it is, again, quite different with male and female characters. For some reason, female heroes tend to stand in such a way so as to show off as much of their bodies as possible, many times in positions that normal human spines would snap in.
This is not just a problem with comics, either. Most all media directed towards male audiences is this way. Look at action movies, especially those that star female characters, for basically the same problem. The only real difference is that movies require actual people, so the ridiculousness of proportions doesn't happen to the same degree. But here's the thing. The physical aspects of the problem are the obvious ones and the thing that most people tend to latch onto. But in my view, they aren't truly the problem.
The problem is the next layer down, and that's characterization. Even if the art in comics changes overall to show more varied body types for female characters, none of that will do any good if the overall characterization of women in comics remains the same. While we're nearly entirely beyond the stories of the 60s and the 70s where all the women, even the Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman (Invisible Girl at the time...), are simply damsels in distress, many stories still contain obvious male/female splits when it comes to the roles they take. It is true that there are a great many more female heroes today, but they still tend to take a back seat to the men.
All of these are problems or issues that you most likely know of on some level already, whether you see it as a problem or not is up to you, but most people do realize that it's there. Yet this is all considered normal to us. Men are our action heroes culturally and have been for a thousand years. But for most of that history, when it comes to women in the stories, they exist as objects or a reason for a plot. Active roles for women in stories are a very modern thing, and the transition to female action heroes even more. Yet, somehow, female action heroes are sexualized in ways that males are not. The obvious reason is that the action genre in any medium (TV, Comics, Movies, Books) is aimed at men, and it's no secret that sex sells.
But to me, this feels wrong. Usually, these are subjects tackled by women, something I am very much not. I don't claim to have some special insight, but the thing is, I don't think it's necessary. To me, this kind of thing has never been a so-called "Women's Issue" and I've always felt that framing it as such misses the point. The longer we bury ourselves in this thinking, the longer we'll have to deal with bad stories and the more we put off new, great things.
It is possible to tell a good action story with a female lead that doesn't rely on her being half-naked or constantly posing for the viewer. In fact, it has been done more than once. That isn't the issue. I'm not saying this doesn't exist, just that it should be the norm. Young girls deserve to have role models in Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Wasp, and even Mary Jane Watson without their only actions being centered around sexualization. And that doesn't mean some characters can't be more focused on sex. Some people are. Men and women.
But, again, it shouldn't be the norm.
Not only that, but those women that do read comics shouldn't be ridiculed when they point out these problems. No one should. If this medium is going to continue, it's going to need men and women reading. The explosion of manga a few years back proved that girls will, indeed, read comics if you give them subjects they want to read. And thankfully, while the big two companies may be slow to change, the indie market will continue to lead the charge into places where we should have been all along. Hopefully, as indie creators push forward, Marvel and DC won't wait too long to catch up.
As the days have continued to pass, my mind has been continually on the topics surrounding the problems with the comic industry, how to solve them, etc. As I'm not a business expert and, at the moment, just an aspiring creator with only a small amount of independent work to show, this is all still coming from a fairly outside view. Perhaps that's a good thing, though, as most of the problems that tend to exist with comics are due to the insular nature of the current medium.
Lately, the hot button topic in regards to superhero comics has been the treatment of women. This is not a new problem, but it is one that dies down every so often. It hasn't ever actually been solved, and that baffles me. Everyone knows the stereotype. In comics, men are huge muscle-bound guys and women have huge chests and tiny waists. To a point, one can attempt to argue that both are exaggerations, and yes, they are, but they are different kinds of exaggerations. Both are an idealization, but both come from (and are for) a generally male point of view. Thus, the aspects of men in comics that are emphasized are that of physical power and strength, where as female characters tend to be idealized sexually. Posing in comics is a bit of a staple, that pause where the hero shows their power, but it is, again, quite different with male and female characters. For some reason, female heroes tend to stand in such a way so as to show off as much of their bodies as possible, many times in positions that normal human spines would snap in.
This is not just a problem with comics, either. Most all media directed towards male audiences is this way. Look at action movies, especially those that star female characters, for basically the same problem. The only real difference is that movies require actual people, so the ridiculousness of proportions doesn't happen to the same degree. But here's the thing. The physical aspects of the problem are the obvious ones and the thing that most people tend to latch onto. But in my view, they aren't truly the problem.
The problem is the next layer down, and that's characterization. Even if the art in comics changes overall to show more varied body types for female characters, none of that will do any good if the overall characterization of women in comics remains the same. While we're nearly entirely beyond the stories of the 60s and the 70s where all the women, even the Fantastic Four's Invisible Woman (Invisible Girl at the time...), are simply damsels in distress, many stories still contain obvious male/female splits when it comes to the roles they take. It is true that there are a great many more female heroes today, but they still tend to take a back seat to the men.
All of these are problems or issues that you most likely know of on some level already, whether you see it as a problem or not is up to you, but most people do realize that it's there. Yet this is all considered normal to us. Men are our action heroes culturally and have been for a thousand years. But for most of that history, when it comes to women in the stories, they exist as objects or a reason for a plot. Active roles for women in stories are a very modern thing, and the transition to female action heroes even more. Yet, somehow, female action heroes are sexualized in ways that males are not. The obvious reason is that the action genre in any medium (TV, Comics, Movies, Books) is aimed at men, and it's no secret that sex sells.
But to me, this feels wrong. Usually, these are subjects tackled by women, something I am very much not. I don't claim to have some special insight, but the thing is, I don't think it's necessary. To me, this kind of thing has never been a so-called "Women's Issue" and I've always felt that framing it as such misses the point. The longer we bury ourselves in this thinking, the longer we'll have to deal with bad stories and the more we put off new, great things.
It is possible to tell a good action story with a female lead that doesn't rely on her being half-naked or constantly posing for the viewer. In fact, it has been done more than once. That isn't the issue. I'm not saying this doesn't exist, just that it should be the norm. Young girls deserve to have role models in Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Wasp, and even Mary Jane Watson without their only actions being centered around sexualization. And that doesn't mean some characters can't be more focused on sex. Some people are. Men and women.
But, again, it shouldn't be the norm.
Not only that, but those women that do read comics shouldn't be ridiculed when they point out these problems. No one should. If this medium is going to continue, it's going to need men and women reading. The explosion of manga a few years back proved that girls will, indeed, read comics if you give them subjects they want to read. And thankfully, while the big two companies may be slow to change, the indie market will continue to lead the charge into places where we should have been all along. Hopefully, as indie creators push forward, Marvel and DC won't wait too long to catch up.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Gender and Comics
I'm going to divert away from the direct talking about Art in comics to get into something that's been rising it's head more and more over the last few years. When it comes to comics, gender has been an issue for a very long time: Be it in relation to what female characters wear, how they are portrayed, how many exist, how many female creators there are, and the overall makeup of the comic-reading audience.
Part of the reason this has come up on other blogs and on twitter and any other place people discuss comics is due to DC's recently announced relaunch. In September, they are relaunching (nearly) their entire line of comics with new creative teams, altered characters, and somewhat of a clean slate. But as the 52 books being relaunched were announced, a rather glaring thing was noticed: Of the creative teams on all of the books, there is only one woman involved. Gail Simone, one of the best writers in comics, will be co-writing Firestorm and writing Batgirl.
Out of all the other books in the relaunch, the only other women involved are on the editorial and DC staff side. This isn't meant to belittle those people and their jobs, as they are extremely vital, but one woman working on two books out of 52 is a pretty damn small number. And the internet reacted as it does, with some insanity and some good commentary on why this is and why it's bad. So this is my stab at the whole thing.
The first, and arguably most important thing, to get out of the way is very simple: Comics do not appeal to men more than women. As I've stated more than once on this still-small blog, comics are a medium, not a genre. TV does not appeal to men more than women. Books do not. Movies don't. Plays don't. No forms of entertainment do. Mediums are gender neutral. They are simple ways to tell a story and have little to nothing to do with the actual content.
So we break it down further. When many people say women don't like comics, they actually mean women don't like superheroes. In many ways, this is also just as false, but it's possible this is more where the root of the situation is. Superheroes, as a genre, dominate the American comic market to the extent that saying 'comics' to many people just means 'superheroes'. So let's dig into this.
I will make the statement here that I firmly believe: Superhero comics do not inherently appeal to men or women. The current handling of superheroes may appeal more to men, but the idea itself doesn't. The problem, then, is somewhat of a circular situation. Because of the early days of the American comic market, comic books are marketed to the male audience. The comic market is small, so small that the companies cannot afford to risk losing what audience they already have. Sadly, right now, the audience is getting older and the stories are adapting in such a way that even younger audiences, male and female, are being slowly pushed away.
It is a very difficult position. Can these companies afford to take risks on different takes on superhero books? Things that may appeal to younger audiences or to female readers of any age? Every so often, it's attempted. Usually it fails. Sometimes it's never given a chance to get far enough TO fail. The comics business isn't dying, but risks are difficult to take by the larger companies that shape the market, and so we continue to see the same kinds of books over and over.
This is not to say there are not women working in comics. While DC's upcoming relaunch only has one female creator, as noted above, editorial positions are much more largely diverse across the board. In fact, women have held editorial and corporate positions in comics companies for years. And it isn't as if there aren't women that write or draw comics. DC has had more than just one before, as does Marvel. Admittedly, the numbers are always skewed heavily to male creators, but female creators aren't nonexistent.
But not just that, there are even more women in comics when you broaden your scope. The world of manga in Japan is heavily occupied by women, telling all kinds of stories. During the early 2000s, manga was seen as the great way to draw in female readers to comics as a whole, and while it succeeded in part, the fad has since been dying in the states and female readership falling with it. So what does manga have that the mainstream American comics don't, that attracts more women creators and readers?
Simple: Manga is not dominated by a single genre.
And this is where the whole thing gets even trickier. As I've said already, superhero comics are not inherently more for men than for women, yet they are marketed that way and viewed that way by many. But looking at the larger picture, it seems more than superheroes, as a genre, are just as niche a market as Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, or what have you. It's not a gender issue, it's a genre issue. Superheroes appeal to some people more than others, and it's generally a smaller group.
The issue of women in comics, both readership and creators, is actually the same piece of a larger problem in comics today. Solving this one thing could, arguably, solve numerous other problems with the market all at once. And in many ways, it is already happening.
The advent and growth of webcomics and the way independent comics are rising today has given a voice to anyone that wants to tell any kind of story with panels and pictures and words. There are humor strips, fantasy epics, scifi space operas, detective stories, noir, romance, war stories, and a thousand other things out there in the world of indie comics. This is where the mantra that comics are for everyone shows through the most. And to bring this back around to the topic at hand, the indie market is flooded with as many women as there are men! They're telling all kinds of stories, just like their male contemporaries.
So here we are at the real point I see at the end of this long debate. Yes, there are problems still with how women are depicted in many comics. Yes, this applies to both what they wear and how they act in many cases. These problems and issues are, however, fading from even the superhero genre as a whole. We no longer live in a time where it's okay to have the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four told to get out of the way while the three men of the team take care of the bad guy. Now, she's portrayed as probably the strongest member of the team, and this is just one example. The content problems are changing.
The next step, the step that extends beyond the content and is far more important to the survival of the comic industry as a whole, is to broaden the market as a whole. The means bringing in women, younger readers, and all those other men that still don't read comics because they just don't give a damn about superheroes. And the key to that isn't using a quota system or anything like that, as has been suggested by many who are annoyed by the discussion of women in comics.
Simply, we need a broader selection of genres on the bookshelves that can appeal to any and everyone. Amidst all the doom and gloom that one might hear about the comic market today, I think that this is not only possible, but already happening. And hopefully this will mean more women reading comics, more women making comics, and situations such as the current one at DC becoming a thing of the past.
Part of the reason this has come up on other blogs and on twitter and any other place people discuss comics is due to DC's recently announced relaunch. In September, they are relaunching (nearly) their entire line of comics with new creative teams, altered characters, and somewhat of a clean slate. But as the 52 books being relaunched were announced, a rather glaring thing was noticed: Of the creative teams on all of the books, there is only one woman involved. Gail Simone, one of the best writers in comics, will be co-writing Firestorm and writing Batgirl.
Out of all the other books in the relaunch, the only other women involved are on the editorial and DC staff side. This isn't meant to belittle those people and their jobs, as they are extremely vital, but one woman working on two books out of 52 is a pretty damn small number. And the internet reacted as it does, with some insanity and some good commentary on why this is and why it's bad. So this is my stab at the whole thing.
The first, and arguably most important thing, to get out of the way is very simple: Comics do not appeal to men more than women. As I've stated more than once on this still-small blog, comics are a medium, not a genre. TV does not appeal to men more than women. Books do not. Movies don't. Plays don't. No forms of entertainment do. Mediums are gender neutral. They are simple ways to tell a story and have little to nothing to do with the actual content.
So we break it down further. When many people say women don't like comics, they actually mean women don't like superheroes. In many ways, this is also just as false, but it's possible this is more where the root of the situation is. Superheroes, as a genre, dominate the American comic market to the extent that saying 'comics' to many people just means 'superheroes'. So let's dig into this.
I will make the statement here that I firmly believe: Superhero comics do not inherently appeal to men or women. The current handling of superheroes may appeal more to men, but the idea itself doesn't. The problem, then, is somewhat of a circular situation. Because of the early days of the American comic market, comic books are marketed to the male audience. The comic market is small, so small that the companies cannot afford to risk losing what audience they already have. Sadly, right now, the audience is getting older and the stories are adapting in such a way that even younger audiences, male and female, are being slowly pushed away.
It is a very difficult position. Can these companies afford to take risks on different takes on superhero books? Things that may appeal to younger audiences or to female readers of any age? Every so often, it's attempted. Usually it fails. Sometimes it's never given a chance to get far enough TO fail. The comics business isn't dying, but risks are difficult to take by the larger companies that shape the market, and so we continue to see the same kinds of books over and over.
This is not to say there are not women working in comics. While DC's upcoming relaunch only has one female creator, as noted above, editorial positions are much more largely diverse across the board. In fact, women have held editorial and corporate positions in comics companies for years. And it isn't as if there aren't women that write or draw comics. DC has had more than just one before, as does Marvel. Admittedly, the numbers are always skewed heavily to male creators, but female creators aren't nonexistent.
But not just that, there are even more women in comics when you broaden your scope. The world of manga in Japan is heavily occupied by women, telling all kinds of stories. During the early 2000s, manga was seen as the great way to draw in female readers to comics as a whole, and while it succeeded in part, the fad has since been dying in the states and female readership falling with it. So what does manga have that the mainstream American comics don't, that attracts more women creators and readers?
Simple: Manga is not dominated by a single genre.
And this is where the whole thing gets even trickier. As I've said already, superhero comics are not inherently more for men than for women, yet they are marketed that way and viewed that way by many. But looking at the larger picture, it seems more than superheroes, as a genre, are just as niche a market as Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, or what have you. It's not a gender issue, it's a genre issue. Superheroes appeal to some people more than others, and it's generally a smaller group.
The issue of women in comics, both readership and creators, is actually the same piece of a larger problem in comics today. Solving this one thing could, arguably, solve numerous other problems with the market all at once. And in many ways, it is already happening.
The advent and growth of webcomics and the way independent comics are rising today has given a voice to anyone that wants to tell any kind of story with panels and pictures and words. There are humor strips, fantasy epics, scifi space operas, detective stories, noir, romance, war stories, and a thousand other things out there in the world of indie comics. This is where the mantra that comics are for everyone shows through the most. And to bring this back around to the topic at hand, the indie market is flooded with as many women as there are men! They're telling all kinds of stories, just like their male contemporaries.
So here we are at the real point I see at the end of this long debate. Yes, there are problems still with how women are depicted in many comics. Yes, this applies to both what they wear and how they act in many cases. These problems and issues are, however, fading from even the superhero genre as a whole. We no longer live in a time where it's okay to have the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four told to get out of the way while the three men of the team take care of the bad guy. Now, she's portrayed as probably the strongest member of the team, and this is just one example. The content problems are changing.
The next step, the step that extends beyond the content and is far more important to the survival of the comic industry as a whole, is to broaden the market as a whole. The means bringing in women, younger readers, and all those other men that still don't read comics because they just don't give a damn about superheroes. And the key to that isn't using a quota system or anything like that, as has been suggested by many who are annoyed by the discussion of women in comics.
Simply, we need a broader selection of genres on the bookshelves that can appeal to any and everyone. Amidst all the doom and gloom that one might hear about the comic market today, I think that this is not only possible, but already happening. And hopefully this will mean more women reading comics, more women making comics, and situations such as the current one at DC becoming a thing of the past.
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