Bravo.

It’s kind of obvious that once the playhouse is built, the first thing that goes up, the “no gurls allowed” or “no boyz allowed” signs go up. :-) Even if mom says you have to let your sister in, it’s not like she’s going to be “in.”

This playhouse was built by guys, it’s going to take a lot of us women to make the guys inside cool with playing with women and sometimes it’s just easier to build our own playhouses, ’cause boys are smelly anyway. :-)

The people at the tops of companies aren’t the one’s that are going to make the change – because few can really see their prejudices for what they are, so it means that all we can do is comment, and push, and comment, and do our own work and comment. And comment. And comment. Every time we note the sexism that’s inherent in comics as an industry, we take a step forward against it. Every time we make our own comics (and by we I mean anyone who has something to say that generi-comics don’t say) we take a step forward against it.

Each step is a step forward for comics. Period.

Cheers,

Erica

Hungry for Yuri? Have some Okazu!
http://okazu.blogspot.com

I think it’s certainly worthwhile to point out that there are women working in comics in various capacities, and to note that sexism isn’t only a comics problem. On the other hand…bad as they are in certain ways, I think books, magazines, television, movies, and music all do better in trying to reach out to women as audience members and in including women as some sort of creative presence. Obviously there are still major problems (women directors should be a lot more prevalent by all rights) but the fact that comics do worse than other comparable industries is telling — as is the fact that the way in which we did finally get viable comics for women in this country was by importing them from halfway around the world.

It would have been interesting to have Independent Comic Artist gone Spiderman cover artist Abby Denson on the panel, or DC Editor Joan Hilty.

The question of gender fairness is not really a Comics Industry question, but one of society in general. Men represent men’s stories, and set that as societal norm, so any women looking to rise in the field will have to write/draw those stories too or be relegated to an inferior “girl’s” position.

It’s not just a wn/lose situation, because it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. Comics are for guys, so guys read comics, so comics are for guys,so guys read comics.

But what I, Abby and Joan have in common is that we work within the system AND outside it simultaneously. we create “stuff fo people who want to read it” which is potentially the most out-of-the box one can get in comics or manga.

I wish this were something that had an actual answer, but it really doesn’t. Comics here in the US will evolve to a different space than manga precisely because it’s not an answerable issue.

I look forward to this evolution, and wonder if it will make comics more inclusive, or even more of a niche than ever before.

Cheers,

Erica Friedman

Hungry for Yuri? Have some Okazu!
http://okazu.blogspot.com

The problem with hierarchies, and with trying to separate from the mainstream in general, is a real one. James Baldwin talks about this in “The Fire Next Time”, when he points out that the Black Muslims couldn’t exist without the society they’re attempting to turn their backs on. But, as Baldwin also notes, that doesn’t mean the Muslims were wrong to turn their backs, or that that gesture was futile, or meaningless.

Hierarchy refers, as the term is usually used, to human pecking orders, and I don’t think it’s ridiculous to try to find ways to live that minimize those or try to work around some of them.

So Kramer’s does have more women than men in its pages? Odd.

“You need to ask these anti-hierarchical types why they all seem to worship Fort Thunder, and ape all the same stuff even beyond that.”

Dewayne knows and has worked with Fort Thunder people. He apes it in the sense that it’s the idiom he works in, not in the sense that he’s stealing from it, as you imply. You might as well ask manga artists why they “ape” manga conventions. Dewayne says nothing about being radically new; that’s your avant-garde baggage, not his. Though, when it comes to that, his artwork, which combines music, visual art, comics, dance, and performance, is as original as that of any comics artist I can think of.

In any case, you can be anti-hierarchical, or anti-mainstream, and be part of a tradition. There’s simply nothing incoherent about that.

Dewayne’s not especially interested in being radically new or in selling his crap to you. He’s interested in community and collaborative work. Your real objection is that you dislike the idea of community, you dislike the idea of female communities, and you really, really dislike the idea of queer female communities.

“People don’t organize “talks” around my complaints..”

So the tea-party convention didn’t happen, then?