Where Are the Posts on Female Indie Comics Creators?

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This week during our indie comics roundtable an anonymous commenter argued that HU should spend more time on the work of female indie comics creators. I don’t necessarily disagree with that. But I thought maybe in the meantime I could link to some of our coverage on that topic in case people want to poke around in the archives. So, in no particular order:

We’ve done a number of posts on Carla Speed McNeil.

I wrote this piece a while back on Edie Fake’s Gaylord Phoenix.

Ng Suat Tong on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother.

Caroline Small on authenticity in the work of Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

A piece on Kate Beaton’s comics.

Erica Friedman interviews Marguerite Dabaie.

Our roundtable on Ariel Schrag’s Likewise

Caroline Small on Anke Feuchtenberger and Scopophilia.

Domingos Isabelinho on Shannon Gerard.

Domingos Isabelinho again on Dominique Goblet and Nikita Fossoul.

From way back, a roundtable on Okazaki’s Helter Skelter
 

8_legs_of_love

A page from Oglaf, a female-created indie comic that HU has not covered.

12 thoughts on “Where Are the Posts on Female Indie Comics Creators?”

  1. So I wonder what folks think about the Oglaf? Over in the other thread I said I wasn’t that taken with it — but this one’s better than some of the other strips I saw. The spider-vagina creature is pretty cute (if that’s the right word), and the timing is odd, which I like (horror, joke, lots of space.) Not sure exactly what I think about the representation of men being raped. If genders were reversed here (i.e., joke is monster is sneaking in to rape a woman in the night) I think it would be extremely controversial. And unconscious guys do actually get raped (often with date rape drugs, as the spider-thing sort of suggests). And it’s hard for them to get their experiences taken seriously because, as here, people tend to see it as a joke.

    On the other hand, there is actually a representation of his trauma…? I think? Is he frozen there in the last four panels, or is that a somewhat wry, what the fuck look?

  2. I sampled Oglaf. It’s cute and a bit randy, but the art is a bit too generically slick for me, as well. I was tickled by it, I guess. It seems like its geared towards being quoted on tumblr accounts.

    Had you not pointed it out, I don’t think I’d have thought twice about the rape joke above. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me, but there definitely is a discrepancy with how society popularly receives male rape vs. female. As could be seen in the whole Mark Millar brouhaha, rape is seen as particularly nasty to be used in fiction, worse even than beheadings. I think that has a lot to do with a general (sexist) feeling that a woman is more contaminated by being violated down there than a man is. True, a man being violated by another man is seen as possibly losing some of his purity, but a woman violating a man just doesn’t have the same notorious appeal. Even in terms of beast-on-human rape, this comic probably won’t be considered as offensive as that gaming comic which got into trouble for joking about alien monkey rape or whatever without having actually depicted it because the victim is a man. (I’ve forgotten the title of the strip and the exact joke, but someone probably remembers.) Maybe The Beat will pick up on this comic and really go after it, but I doubt it.

  3. It’s not just rape– the comic often has the gag that the wizard woman is sexually harassing the male apprentice- and other gags along those lines.

    A lot of what its doing seems to be twisting common fantasy conventions as much as possible and parodying masculinity.

    I thought this one was pretty funny, war is usually a masculating activity but the comic twists it around leading to a funny final gag:

    http://oglaf.com/obituator/

    And of course strips like this make fun of the religious idea that men have had through the years that women are impure:

    http://oglaf.com/lapis/

    This one isn’t particularly funny, but its making fun of the part of the King Arthur story where Arthur’s mom is raped by his dad with the assistance of Merlin. http://oglaf.com/cornwalling/

    So there’s a context to these comics, it seems to be pretty satirical, even if the author is getting off on it.

    There’s a pretty interesting gag in a recent trailer for the south park game, which is a fantasy parody, with Cartman saying “They’re going to rape princess Kenny! We can’t let them rape princess Kenny!” That seems to be doing something similar.

    I think a number of fantasy Disney movies have implied rape threats, but by making it a male character (Kenny) who is the princess, it makes the convention look kind of ridiculous and draws attention to it. (Just going by the trailer).

    And yeah, people probably tend to see women raping men as a joke… but I really don’t see that changing any time soon, it’s a symptom of a million other gender assumptions that this strip plays with…

  4. I don’t really see much play happening in this one I guess. Or, it’s only playful and mixing up your assumptions if you think men don’t actually get raped by women, and that therefore seeing men being raped by women is automatically funny.

  9. I *love* Oglaf. Reminds me a lot of Phil Foglio’s XXXenophile. Intentionally funny porn designed to be enjoyed by all genders and orientations.

  11. Speaking of female indie comics creators, have you read Colleen Doran’s “A Distant Soil”? I’ve been following the series since 1991 (the 3rd version, partly redrawn from earlier GNs, which was a much improved version of the initial issues at WaRP Comics). And the story is now about 5 issues away from completion. It’s been a long time coming, with many stops and starts along the way, and a great milestone.

    Just something to consider, if you’re looking for more article ideas. :)

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