Minds in the Gutters

Homage...? 20090509

2009-05-09T21:09:00.003-07:00

...to Scott McCloud?

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/239

celebrating the kid

2009-04-26T17:43:00.002-07:00

Paperrad is one crazy website and the comics featured are seriously messed up, but at the same time I am completely drawn to the ridiculousness of these comic projects.

http://www.paperrad.org/comicsgallery.html

If you follow the above link you get transported to a seizure page of strobing, flashing, nintendo neon lights. On the side of the page there are links to multiple web comics to peruse and explore. What the comics generally have in common is a purposely naive composition with sketches and computer animation resembling what you might have drawn up in grade 5. And while the sketches are innocent looking the stories are just plain nonsensical; I'm pretty sure they were for the most part written in mind altered states of drug induced folly – there is a strange appeal to them.

I'll let you take a look at the first strip that caught my attention and strangely drew me in – Gonzo the Dude.

Now see what I mean? Innocent, pointless, pretty dumb, but silly, relatable and kind of appealing.

These webcomics play on some kind of childhood nostalgia and present humour of nonsense which, admittedly, is probably completely geared at stoner culture, but I am no stoner, and I found a few to be quite entertaining.

Another level of these stories is the meeting of adult humour with child-like images. The comic format, as we have often brought up, is stereotypically linked with the the 10 year old boy. It carries the association of innocence, naivete and boyhood. We have seen a plethora of comics out there that have nothing to do with 10 year old boys - it is a stereotype that should really no longer be implied - but at the same time I feel like it is one that still lingers. Paperrad comics blatantly celebrate the childishness that is associated with comics in their simple drawings and nostalgic characters like My Little Pony and Gonzo. The use of adult humour in childish comic format is no innovation and paperrad comics simply serve as a good example of the popular use of comics to explore adult situations. This may be a long reach but it seems to me that adult humour and naughtiness in comics could almost be a perpetuation of the 10 year old boy characterization that comics hold. 10 year old boys are little scoundrels, they are starting to question the world, are exploring dirty magazines, and getting themselves involved in multitudes of shenanigans. They are in the state of exploring adult naughtiness in a child`s perspective. The comic is also a way to aid these explorations – by reading violent tales, sex-laughs in the forms of MADlike comics, or by sketching crazy creations of their curious imaginations. Naughty adult comics carry the same feel of scandalously exploring a forbidden world. They remind the reader of the curiosity of being a child and some kind of excitement from exploring a prohibited world.

Jhonny the Homicidal Maniac - Intro comic

2009-04-25T23:49:00.003-07:00

This comic is the reason why I started reading comics. I assumed that comics were just like the Archie ones on display in the stores. I had a friend who was super into comics and lent me this one. Although the humour is childish in an intensely violent way, I find that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is an interesting display of the little monster in all of us.

I think the small 6-panel comic at the beginning of the first issue describes the humor well:

Basically if you can’t stand mindless violence, you wouldn’t like it. .

The graphic novel is a series of 7 issues. Jhonny’s dead bunny head on the wall speaks to him, while two Styrofoam dolls argue over whether or not they should get him to kill himself or not. Johnny’s mind makes them real, therefore giving them more power. Their master is the monster behind the wall that Johnny has to keep soaked in blood. After a while, about the 6^th issue, Johnny finally does commit suicide. Accidentally. So he goes to heaven, and he goes to hell, and he comes back to earth and kills a fan and tries to reconcile with his girlfriend.

This book is kind of childish with all the monsters and floating heads, but the violence sets it apart from anything my mother would have let me read. It is understood from the beginning that, though violence may be condoned in the book, that it is but an artful expression of a little demon inside.

At one point in the story of the first issue, a door-to-door survey volunteer person comes and asks questions about murders. Johnny is happy to give him his opinion about society and its deficits, that is, until the man asks a very personal question. Johnny gives him a very honest answer “ask a different question”, while throwing him out a boarded up window dismembered and bleeding. Again, childish, but having a child witness it at the end, to me, just adds that extra touch of insanity. Perhaps because he is always “thinking of the children”.

Some of the gutters are a Halloween-type font that just look like a stylized border. But upon closer inspection, they are words. The last page of every issue is one-panel, always addressed “dear diary”, and always has this border. The text inside does not always make sense by itself, but sometimes does in the context of the story. For example:

“Have some grief” “So sick” “insanity can be fun” “J.C.V.” “I’m quite unhappy” “jugular fun”. Jugular fun referring to the wall he has to paint with blood. Insanity can be fun, for obvious reasons. I’m quite unhappy, well, at one point he commits suicide, albeit accidentally.

Jhonen Vasques plays with perspective in his comics too. Albeit the layout of the panels is somewhat mundane, I enjoy the small “in-the-making” commentary. It matches well with the sharp edges in the art, which make Jhonny’s insanity all the more poignant.

I enjoy most of the art and the little things Jhonen points out, except for Happy Noodle Boy.

I personally think that it is terrible and annoying. On the whole, I think the entire book would be better without it. The art is terrible, which kind of makes sense for Johnny to not be so great at it. The plot lines rarely make sense, and are not funny in the slightest. However, in light of Johnny, it would make sense that an insane character would make such a terrible and seriously mindless-ly violent comic. Although, what does that say about Jhonen?

I guess it makes sense that this would be an intro to comic books for me. The art itself was enough to draw me in. Although it isn’t amazing, it is much more detailed than what I thought comics were. Not only that, but the nuances were pointed out to me! In any case, I think that this genre of comic is for a teen audience, or those who find pleasure in violence.

HANDIN THREAD!

2009-04-25T14:09:00.003-07:00

Hey guys! Here, as promised, is the handin thread. In the comments, please link to the posts that you'd like to have marked. You can submit either two posts, or one mega-post. They must be posted and linked by midnight tonight, or you turn into a pumpkin. Or, you know, something.

Congratulations to everyone on another semester down! Good luck on any exams that remain.

comic quiz

2009-04-25T11:48:00.007-07:00

Scanning the internet for some good comics to post for this blog I stumbled upon Cabanon Press' site which showcases the comics and artworks of Tom Gauld and Simone Lia. I think their work is great; it's simple, clever and very nicely drawn, you can check out their website at http://www.cabanonpress.com. Simone has a small series called chip and bean quizzes in which there are two characters, chip and bean – two random and ambiguous figures – who star in 3 panel strips that are not narratives but word puzzles. There is not much of a story flowing from panel to panel – for the most part each panel is self contained and has its own cheeky event. The random event images are instead linked together by the word clues which the viewer must deduct from each story. The point of the puzzle is to come up with the missing words in the strip and to figure out which common word links each of the missing words together.

I find this comic concept a lot of fun because it plays with images, stories and words not only to tell stories or make the reader laugh but also to trigger brain play by setting up a silly game. There is an added level of involvement from the reader who not only enjoys each amusing story but who must also work their mind a little in order to solve the puzzle. The comic strip plays with the juxtaposition of words and images and the idea that they must intermingle to create a story. Simone ommits some words altogether, requiring the reader to actively participate and fill in the blanks. By actively trying to solve the puzzle the reader is also active in completing the single-panel stories – a lot of the responsibility of creating the story is placed on the reader's deductions rather than the author's expression. This added involvement of the viewer is a lot of fun and changes the dynamics of story telling and authorship a little bit. The reader creates the enjoyment by getting themselves involved in the comic.

While each quiz panel could stand on it's own as a little story Simone often places connections between the three panels. In the above comic on cavemen and worm there is a caveman theme in panel one and panel three which is interjected by the image of a worm in panel 2. I love the simple and random humour of sticking a boring worm in the middle of the story of a caveman getting badgered by his brother.

The comic does not express any gender issues and this is one of the characteristics that attracted me to it – the stories and the amusement has nothing to do with being male or female – the characters are ambiguous subjects and rather than dwelling on issues of gender identity the strip can simply engage the reader in play.

Chip and Bean's Quiz is less a comic to tell a story, more one to create a sense of play. Less about sending a message and more about creating fun and enjoyment while reading the strip. The word games are pretty silly -perhaps difficult- and it is fun and sometimes misleading when coming up with your own answers. I definitely had one interpretation that was kind of dirty and I thought it was hilarious but that was my own doing, not the author's – and that is exactly what the fun is all about!

For curiosity's sake answers to above:

Ear (ring, wig, plug)

Book (club, worm, keeper)

White (wash, elephant, bait)

Girl Power ?

2009-04-25T11:43:00.005-07:00

I remembered a brief mention of Sailor Moon comics in one of our classes. It brought back a flood of memories of my 10-year-old self being a huge fan of Sailor Moon. And by huge fan, I mean reading the comic books, having t-shirts with the Sailor Scout images, trading Sailor Moon cards with my friends, rushing home everyday after school to catch the show at 3:30 p.m, and wanting every possible pencil, bag, poster, etc. Sailor Moon related.

So what made this comic so special that young girls everywhere would be so crazy over the group of school-uniformed characters?

The attention-grabber seems to be the heroic acts of these young ladies who are just normal students and friends. The comic seems to break the traditional views of women as just being pretty and feminine with the heroes being female this time. However, with further analysis, this may not be the case.

Stereotypically desirable traits girls should have and images of how girls should be are still present in the comic. There were many stereotypes of women and of the relationships between women, men, and even children.

The first would be the appearance of the Sailor Scouts. Their huge eyes, glistening hair, and the short and cute uniforms they wear when fighting evil villains who terrorize the townspeople are alluring. Who wouldn't want to be a sexy super-heroine who gets to save the day?

Secondly, although the Sailor Scouts continuously fight evil, they would sometimes run into trouble. For the more challenging monsters and villains, Tuxedo Mask comes to rescue the team of heroines who can't finish the job. This seems to reinforce the idea of the female as victim and male as hero even though this is a super heroine comic. Tuxedo Mask is unrealistically good looking, making the Sailor Scouts all wide-eyed and swoon-y every time he appears. What's funny is that every time Tuxedo Mask appears, there is a short period of time where all the fighting and cross-fire stops just so the girls can comment on how good looking or dreamy he is.

And of course, Sailor Moon, the leader of the Sailor Scouts and the heroine who usually finishes off the monsters with her special moon tiara or scepter, is paired up with the handsome mysterious caped hero who is actually an annoying nemesis during the daytime. It is a typical romantic brave- hero- gets- the- pretty- girl love story that is popular with young girls everywhere.

In the later series of the comic, Chibimoon (the young girl with pink hair at the bottom of the first picture), who is the youngest Sailor Scout appears. The young girl who annoys Sailor Moon turns out to be Sailor Moon's daughter from when they were a royal family living on the Moon. Yes, confusing but this seems like an attempt to show Sailor Moon's nurturing side as the heroine is a fighter of crime and evil but also a mother.

Lastly, an interesting character who seems to contradict the stereotypical female in this comic series is Sailor Uranus. Sailor Uranus dresses in a masculine manner and has a short tom-boy hairstyle, which is different from all the other Sailor Scouts who appear feminine. When Sailor Uranus first appeared, there was a huge debate about her gender, whether she was a man in her non-Sailor Scout attire who transformed into a woman when she changed into her heroine outfit. Sailor Uranus was also rumoured to have a lesbian relationship with her close friend, Sailor Saturn, the quite, pretty, and feminine heroine who is always by her side.

Anyway, I hope my blog has opened new areas of debate and discussion of female stereotypes and heroines in this comic for those of you who have read this comic series. For those of you who haven't, check it out or watch some of the shows that are probably up on Youtube. Some are quite entertaining and are a good laugh :)

2009-04-24T22:58:00.005-07:00

A lot of webcomics make jokes about really really niche topics. Obviously there are gaming comics, but these are so common that I don't think they can really be called a niche...
no, I mean things like XKCD which makes math, physics and computer science its bread and butter.

or Dresden Codak which does the same thing except with philosophy and futurism and tiny Carl Jung.

Or Kate Beaton who makes comics about obscure historical events and figures

Lucid TV has doctors and medicine

Anyway, the thing which basically all of these comics have in common is that the artist is intentionally making jokes which the reader won't fully get, can't fully get.
but they are still funny.
the cynic in me wants to say that they're funny specifically because the reader doesn't get them, that we laugh because we don't want to feel like we're out of the loop.
but i'm open to more positive ideas.

Pride and Prejudice Comic, WTF?

2009-04-20T18:12:00.005-07:00

So, word on the street is that Marvel is planning on putting out a Pride and Prejudice comic. Seriously. I'm really not kidding. Look here.

Now, I am not really a fan of Jane Austen at the best of times, despite being a lit geek, but this strikes me as very, very weird. And bad. Did I say that already? Let me reiterate; B.A.D. This isn't just because it is trying to modernize a classic (although, honestly, I think that's getting a little tired these days), but look at this panel.

Sure, Lydia and Kitty might be the boy-crazy girls in the book (well, hell, they're all a little boy *ahem* sorry, man crazy), but seriously? They look like airbrushed porn stars, not Victorian ladies. And Mary looks like she's about to go off to a Van Halen concert. I don't get it.

The article states that "Two-time Rita Award-Winner Nancy Butler and acclaimed artist Hugo Petrus" are the masterminds behind this. I'm not really familiar with their work, probably because I really haven't been looking at comics all that much aside from this class, but it sounds like they have some accomplishments under their belts. Still, I take their claim that they are making "your grandmother's Pride and Prejudice" with more than a little grain of salt. More than that, I believe David Gabriel's words that they are putting a "unique Marvel spin" on things. What does this mean for one of the most celebrated stories in English literature?

Again, I suppose it isn't too far of a stretch from how the girls in the story are actually portrayed, but this, I think, is one of those times that pictures would have too hard of a time expressing what words leave unsaid. The problem here is the comic genre's limitations. It would be impossible to transcribe Austin's work word for word into an illustrated comic, but to butcher her language is not an appealing option either. As I said, Pride and Prejudice is not really my cup of tea, but it is a great work of literature, nonetheless, and trying to fit her prose into speech bubbles is hardly going to do it justice.

And then there is the issue of the actual portrayal of the girls. True, I have not read the comic, only looked at these scans, but they honestly do not look like the kind of portrayal I would have chosen for young Victorian girls. No, they don't show a lot of cleavage, and no, they don't even seem to be particularly anti-feminist (other than their original counterparts already were), but the way they are drawn just doesn't seem right. They look like super heroins or models or something of that sort, and that just doesn't sit right by me.

O.K., maybe I am a little appalled that they are converting this classic into something so distinctly not classic (or, from the looks of it, even classy), but am I the only one that really has a problem with this? Don't get me wrong, I love comics, but just like peanut butter and lobster, two good things do not always go together...

"Don't be a robo-homophobe!"

2009-04-20T14:27:00.003-07:00

One of the things I love most about webcomics is that they tend to be made by amateurs. Webcomics artists, with notable exceptions, do not make any money off of their art, but pretty much anyone can publish one with minimal overhead and oversight.

Like other amateur-created, peer-targeted art forms, many webcomics represent the author's fictionalized experience, or common experiences of a social group to which the author belongs. Some examples of this are very literal: Megatokyo and Penny Arcade both (initially, at least) centred around the zany exploits of cartoon stand-ins for the authors. (There are also a plethora of journal comics, like DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary and American Elf, which encorporate fewer fantastic elements.) Others are less direct, like Questionable Content and Nothing Nice to Say, which started as vehicles for musical subculture in-jokes. Webcomics are a tool that many people use to process their realities, to construct narratives that represent their own lived experience.

In light of this, I want to point out a couple of comics in which the gendering of non-human entities is used as a comedic device. These jokes tend to follow the same progression: individual one engages in sexual acts with individual two, following which it is revealed that individual two is not of the gender assumed by individual one. Hijinx ensue.

The humour here is created by giving non-human characters human cultural norms, including heterosexist ones, and then demonstrating their absurdity. If a character -- in this case, a robot or a dinosaur -- can can get through an entire sexual encounter while remaining ignorant of their sex partner's gender, then gender must be completely and utterly arbitrary. It's my opinion that these comics reflect the influence of queer theory and the visibility of queer people on us twenty-somethings.

(Click for original page)

Ending three in the above comic, from Dinosaur Comics, is the most concise version of this device. In addition to the previously-mentioned absurdity, Utahraptor's invocation of pants-wearing is absurd for another couple of reasons. First of all, none of the dinosaurs in this comic are ever seen to wear clothing of any kind, so absence of a piece of clothing is a ridiculous criterion on which to gender this character. Secondly, while pants used to be heavily gendered masculine, they no longer are. This highlights the changeability of our own human criteria for gender performance and, thus, their arbitrariness.

The second example I want to discuss is a mini-arc in Questionable Content (QC), surrounding an AnthroPC character. In the QC world, cute little robots with advanced AI are a common way to interact with one's personal computer. AnthroPCs, as these robots are called, are kind of combination pets, roommates and laptops. The arc in question gets kicked off in the following comic:

Again, there is an overt comment about the human criteria used to gender. (In this case, pinkness.) In the followup strips, 346 to 348, it goes a bit further by explaining that an AnthroPC's gender is a user-defined parameter, and the comic's human protagonists react with some confusion over what the big deal is. This further underscores the arbitrariness of gender: while the dinosaurs presumably have a biological sex that the stubborn could associate with a gender, an AnthroPCs' gender has all the permanence and innateness of the language setting on your iPod.

Part of the humour here comes from making fun of our tendency to ascribe human gender to non-human entities. But, thinking about it, it seems that the characters in these mis-gendering jokes are always non-human because, at least in part, there is an uncomfortably violent connotation with the same situation between humans. (cf. the gay panic defence and the notion of the "deceptive transsexual". What do you guys think?

--Orange-- 20090419

2009-04-19T17:13:00.011-07:00

While browsing for the first few comics texts at Golden Age in January, I was drawn to the vibrant creamsicle cover of Xiao Pan - Benjamin’s Orange (2009).

The comicbook of O.

Being one to habitually judge books by their covers, I knew that the bold aesthetic would continue beyond page 0. The beautiful watercolored panels within did not disappoint; but as is occasionally the case with beauty, the narrative took some unsettling turns.

[SPOILER]

I first read Orange months ago, before we had encountered Fun Home and Skim as a class—but there are some superficial similarities in hindsight. The story follows a young girl in urban China, the eponymous Orange. She struggles with coming of age, asserting her chastity and non-consent with pressuring pubescent boyfriends, and entertaining thoughts of suicide. The other major character is a troubled young Chinese man named Dashu, an alcoholic artist and the building caretaker. The timeline of the comic shifts back and forth, but we eventually discover that Dashu is a sacrificial lamb of sorts, whose ultimate gift to Orange is to allow her to live. As in Fun Home, and Skim, a(n older) male figure commits suicide, while a (younger) female figure survives. As in Fun Home and Skim, there are questionable elements of adult-adolescent intimacy, as twenty-something Dashu kisses teenaged Orange in response to her crush. Dashu’s suicide, driven by artistic obstruction and urban gentrification, is also a response to feelings of self-harm that Orange expresses in a letter. She leaves it by his unconscious body in a trash-strewn building hallway. Later he holds her note—and her gaze—as he stands on the rooftop ledge, and then leaps to his death while she bears literal witness. o_0

[/SPOILER]

Dashu at the edge of oblivion.

It’s slightly alarming that watching this trauma unfold will serve as a kind of salvation for Orange, rather than a model, but that is the impression we’re left with.

I did some brief research to try and identify a feminist stance on suicide, but wasn’t able to find anything immediately relevant to my question. I did however come across Kimberley Mikich Oney’s dissertation online that explored the extent to which feminist ideology acted as a buffer to suicide ideation in women. Oney noted various worldwide statistics, such as that women are generally more likely to attempt suicide, although they are not as ‘successful’ in achieving it as men (Oney, 2006: 2)—except in actively women-oppressing states (15). The author reviews literature that explains that disparity by reference to ‘traditional’ gender scripts (17), gender-correlated measures of differential semantic association (18), attitudes towards completion (22), and correlation with abusive relationships (24). Generally, trends show that suicide is increasing globally (1).

While mindful of the diversity of feminist theories, I am curious about the critical (/or advocating?) frame in which feminism/s place the phenomenon of suicide. On the one hand, committing suicide is the ultimate act of control over ones body, a justifiable end to physical or psychological suffering; on the other, it can be seen as an internalized extension of violence against women, and a sign of otherwise inescapable powerlessness. Indeed, Oney’s research indicates that women in the middle stage of feminist identification may display pro-suicide opinions, perhaps out of increased feelings of empathy (92).

In any case, in the absence of any ideological guidance, I view suicide as a justifiable choice for a person to make for themselves, even though society, community, and family all have a responsibility to provide as much intervention as can be reasonably expected.

Thoughts on the matter?

References

Alison Bechdel. 2000. Fun Home. Mariner: New York, NY.

Kimberley Mikich Oney. 2006. Feminist characteristics as buffers to suicide attitudes and ideation. Unpublished dissertation, May 2006. University of Akron: Akron, OH.

Mariko Tamaki, & Jillian Tamaki. 1993. Skim. Groundwood: Toronto, ON.

Xiao Pan [/Benjamin]. 2009. Orange. Tokyopop: Los Angeles CA.

Comic Book Tattoos and Comic Book Recommendation

2009-04-17T16:16:00.004-07:00

I was just browsing through the trusty 'net and I found a bunch of comic-book style tattoos! Some of these are pretty insane. The ink-job...I can definitely appreciate. Especially the sketchy style of the last tattoo done by Jesse Smith Tattoos. Very unique. I don't think that comes from a specific comic book...but it's cool nevertheless.

The hellboy tattoo pictures I found from browsing miscellaneous comic forums. It's almost an exact translation of the actual comic books. Amazing.

The most unique is probably the Wonderwoman tattoo, that, as the hellboy one, I scrounged from miscellaneous comic forums. It's neat to see that the artist actually used panels, complete with speech bubbles.

Also, I'd like to recommend a comic book. It's not as much of a deep read as comics like persepolis, but it's fantastic at character development and, especially for people our age, it's REALLY relatable. I love it. It's called the Freshmen.

I'm sure you'll love it too, if you enjoy the notion of having superpowers but crave for superheroes that are more relatable. It is created by Hugh Sterbakov and Seth Green. Being a huge fan of Robot Chicken, I looked into The Freshmen the minute it was introduced to me. Actually, it was introduced by a girl I thought was kind of a psycho in a drawing and painting class I took back in high school. Turns out she has good taste in comics. I still think she's crazy.
The basic gist of the comic series is that, after an explosion in the science building, a bunch of college freshmen that were bunking in the building (due to an overload in the dorms) receive superpowers based on whatever they were thinking of at that precise moment.
So we've got a guy who can talk to plants and can hear them talk. Only downside? He's a hardcore vegan. How can you possibly continue eating vegetables when you can hear them scream as you chop them into little bits? We've got a guy who basically is a squirrel-man. His "super" powers? Unknown. He just REALLY likes acorns. And can glide like a flying squirrel, which is neat. My favourite probably has to be a guy dubbed, "Long Dong," mainly because it's just ridiculous and he doesn't really do much as of yet in the comic series. He went from way below average to...fifteen feet. After living a life of making constant sexual jokes with my friends, seeing a character with a supermassive penis is like putting the cherry on the sundae. Sundae topped with...
Sploooooodge. I'm out.

http://www.freshmencomic.com/

Comic Book Murals

2009-04-17T16:06:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone,

Drawing a comic for my final project made me think about the visual process of comic creation. I came across some neat images of comic book murals. Check them out.

The above are murals of Takehiko Inoue's comic, Vagabond. Apparently the murals were a part of promoting the author's new comics at a store across from Bryant Park in New York. The murals are actually painted by the comic artist himself!

I think it's interesting to look at the boundaries between pure art and lit-art, which is what I think comics are.

images are from comics212.net

2009-04-16T23:23:00.004-07:00

I really like how effortless this comic comes together! Looking through more strips (many which are shorter than this one – one or two pages), it reminded me of how our creative projects were outlined (write about your experiences, first bra shopping experience, etc.), and makes me wish I thought of doing something like this – and then I remembered, I’m not so eloquent with my writing...

I don’t know if effortless is the best way to describe these comics, the author/illustrator, L. Nichols definitely has a great style, and talent that not many can just whip up in a sketchbook (on the subway). I think it’s more that I find reading through them seems effortless. It is really easy to relate to the stories, especially the day-to-day activities/events. On of my favorites is how she illustrates the difference between waking up in the winter, and in the spring in four panels. Many of her comics are done in black and white, and from the ones I’ve seen so far she does lots with ink and watercolor in her moleskin sketchbook (she comments on Flickr that moleskins are a perfect size for comics). I guess the style is what kept me clicking to see more at first, but yeah okay I guess I’ll shut up about that…

‘That Horrible… Feminism,’ I think, is a basic portrayal of an experience that many people go through, can relate to, or are even sometimes afraid to relate to. I must confess that, for a long time, I’ve been saying ‘I need to read more into this feminism stuff,’ ‘what makes someone feminist,’ etc… and often when that comes up in conversations many of the people I’ve discussed it with tend to go with ‘oh I’m not a feminist!’ with the exact harsh sentiment of “[feminists are] people to be avoided” as Nichols expresses in the first panel. In three pages, Nichols relates an idea and experience that shows the complications of a word like feminism and peoples experiences with and without it, as well as the problems that come with putting stigmas on it. This just reminds me of how some people have actually used the word feminist as an insult. Like talk back to a sexist comment and the word feminist is shot back as a curse word.

Another thing I’ve noticed through the comics I’ve seen, that I find really interesting, is the fact that she seems to draw all the characters in one style, and then her and her girlfriend in another. The two characters are much more cartoon like, almost like stuffed dolls, with button eyes, as apposed to the more realistic features of the other side/extra characters. I find this really intriguing and for some reason I feel like it gives the character more emotions and own life.

On 'The Sad Truth': “Based on an incident last Thursday. True for more people than just myself. Seriously, though, I hate it when stuff like this happens. I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt and say that he wasn't saying it in the "oh, you poor girl" sort of way but more the "it's good to see a girl doing this" but still with a tinge of "what a rare amusement!" It came off rather patronizing. Sigh. I hate feeling like I need to justify doing manual labor or having the ability to actually build things simply because of what's between my legs.”

Check out more of her comics on flickr:

Feminist comics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brand-x/sets/72157603967082352/

Comics and sketchbooks: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brand-x/collections/72157601447603399/

Part 2 of 2

2009-04-16T12:52:00.002-07:00

So, post numero duo: scans_daily.

Background: Scans_daily was an extremely popular community on livejournal where comic book fans could post scans of new or old comic books, leading to discussion. They had a member count of about 8000 people, and it was common for several comic book writers to occasionally comment there too, such as Warren Ellis.

The interesting twist is that scans_daily was populated almost entirely by female fans, and was, in fact, founded with the intention of being primarily a female space - as a man could readily tell from the banner proclaiming it to be a slash-friendly community. The code of conduct which had been posted in the community info said:

"Scans Daily was founded by girl geeks, and members of slash fandom. The moderating team strives to maintain the community as a LGBT-friendly, anti-racist, anti-ableist and woman-friendly space. As such, hate speech, discrimination and harassment will not be tolerated. Democratic dialog and friendly debate however, are more than welcome." [sauce]

The moderators ensured that it remained a women-friendly space, even when the gender split began to approach 50-50. It maintained a very female-fandom vibe. One user gave a very good description:
"A friend (in a private post) grumbled today about the dismissive attitude of certain commenters ("oh well, it was full of bitching and slash anyway"), declaring that reaction to be part of a broader discomfort that many male fans have with the feminine form of fandom. In response, she more or less said 'a man in S_D feels like a woman in a comic shop.'" (from here)

Sadly, not too long ago, scans_daily got shut down for violating livejournal's terms of service. Which is fair enough, it was copyright infringement after all, but this was unexpected as it had been operating for five years unchallenged. In the words of one of the moderators:
"It's worth noting that both Livejournal and, I suspect, most of the major comics publishers have known about us for years, so it's interesting to speculate what prompted them to move against us now."

There is an interesting correlation between the fact that it was a female-fan-space and the fact that it got shut down - not to suggest that it was shut down due to discrimination, but, simply, due to the social nature of female fandom versus the reclusive nature of male fandom, it is far more difficult to hide a huge, female-fan community like scans_daily. In addition, there is the fact that female fandom is located on primarily on livejournal. In the words of Lisa Fortuner:

"In my experience, that’s where the male-female distinction seems to be. Female fans populate social network sites run by panicky male-dominated corporations who want to make money from selling advertising to women, but don’t really have the brass ovaries to deal with hosting female interaction on the internet. It’s like they expect feathered sugar with a hint of spice and are shocked to discover girls have locker room talk and smoke in the bathroom. Male fan communities seem to be owned and operated by like-minded males, the male-dominated comic company itself, the comic creator who gathers his own fans to his side, or the self-style Pirate King who set up the torrent site specifically for illegal activities and searched around for an ISP that wouldn’t check on him too closely. Livejournal’s jumpy about their fanbase. They know they need them to keep the traffic up, but they are scared to death to be held liable for what goes on on their site. There’ve been a few instances with this in the past with fanart and fanfiction, and it was only a matter of time before they freaked out about scans."
(From her article Just Past the Horizon: The male space is just better hidden)

I think that this observation is particularly apt. It seems that livejournal really doesn't know how to deal with their userbase, and there has been a lot of recent grumbling and talks of a mass migration to a different, more female-fandom-friendly site. Livejournal is a business, after all, run by men, and that their userbase is composed largely of fans is something that I'm sure they were not prepared for, and still haven't adequately supported.

The fact is, the deletion of scans_daily provides an example of the downside to female fandom becoming more known, and coming out in the open. It's rather tragic that it's gone, but it's been resurrected in two forms, at least: noscans_daily on livejournal, and scans_daily on insanejournal, a lesser known livejournal clone. I'll end this post with a quote from another comic book writer who liked the community, Gail Simone:

"The truth is, there are only a handful of comics websites that aren't run (and sometimes very heavily edited) by vested interests, like a publisher, where a sizable number of comics readers can go and share their enthusiasm about a title with a large enough audience to actually make a difference. There was a lot of dedication there, a lot of fascinating material. Yes, there was snark. Yes, some issues were panned. Who cares? The site was very heavily weighted towards books the posters really enjoyed, and served as a sample taste for many new readers. I myself have ended up buying several Marvel books in particular that I otherwise wouldn't have even stopped to look at."
(from here)

It really is a shame that such a large community of female comic book fans has disappeared.

Part 1 of 2

2009-04-16T12:43:00.003-07:00

Ok, so because I haven't posted yet and I am out of time, prepare for an epic two-parter. I was going to post the first part last night, but the blog went down for maintainance so I went to bed instead. Hope posting the day it's due isn't too late.

So, part 1:

The Difference Between Male and Female Fandom In a Tiny, Tiny Nutshell

This is a topic that I find really interesting, and, seeing as how this is a class about comic books, I think it's rather relevant. Quite honestly, books could be written on this subject, so I'm just going to give the quick version. Note that this is based on some academic essays and discussions I've read (for a crash-course, check out Henry Jenkin's blog. Btw, link goes to the archives, just search for 'gender and fan studies'), some non-academic essays and discussions I've read, and my own personal experiences.

So, female fandom. This is what is known as 'transformative' or 'derivative' fandom. These are the fans that write fan fiction, make fan videos, obsess over fictional characters rather than plots or technical details, and who are most likely to argue over whether Clark Kent should be with Lois, Lana, or Lex. Incidentally, I'm going to be focusing on fan fiction as the main creative outlet of female fans, simply because it's the most recognizable aspect of female fandom.

Male fandom. These are the fans that collect merchandise, who obsess over fictional technology and clever plots, and who are most likely to argue about whether Batman or Superman would win in a fight.

PLEASE NOTE that these are complete stereotypes - there is a tonne of cross-pollination. Lots of female fans are collectors and into plots rather than characters, and are part of the 'male fan' group, and there are male fans who are more likely to write a piece of romantic fan fiction than think about whether the concept of phasers would work in reality and so would be a part of the 'female fan' group. However, it is inarguable that the majority of fans that I've labeled 'female' are, in fact, female, and vice versa. There are plenty of exceptions, but it is important that most people, both fans and knowledgeable outsiders, see the first group as female and the second group as male.

Anyway.

On the internet, female fans are much more socially grouped than male fans. The hub of female fandom is livejournal, which allows communities, individual journals, friendslists, commenting; it it is pretty much perfect for fannish interaction, aside from some of the poor decision-making skills shown by the management from time to time, which I won't get into here.

Male fans are more spread out depending on interest, usually on message boards, although individual blogs are gaining popularity. These are perfect venues for specific discussion - if you want to argue over whether Captain Kirk or Captain Picard would win in a fight, there's probably a message board perfectly designed for that discussion.

And here's where I get on my soapbox.

Female Fandom Is Marginalized, Ask Me How!

Female fandom takes second place to male fandom in, well, just about everything. The stereotype of a 'fan' is someone like The Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, or, more sympathetically, the geeks who save the day in the film Galaxy Quest. The closest female fandom gets to being portrayed in tv and movies is the stereotypical screaming boy-band/celebrity fangirl, which is about as close to actual female fandom as obsessive sports fans are to male fandom. I can think of only one exception, and that is the recent episode of Supernatural (a show I don't watch, so I've only heard about this) which parodied its female fans in a somewhat accurate exaggeration, including activities like fan fiction writing.

In addition, there's been a recent, rather depressing trend towards complete marginalization of female fans by male fans. This has begun occurring since female fandom 'came out of the closet,' so to speak, in the past few years. I'll estimate the year 2000, as a ball-park figure, since we all know that time on the internet moves at least 100 times faster than time in real life. In any case, since female fandom moved to livejournal, the numbers have been growing and growing, and it is becoming much harder to ignore this certain type of fan. Before the internet, to find the tiny niche of female fans, one had to be in the know, seek out hand-printed collections of fan fiction, go to certain conventions where female fans accumulated, and join mailing lists.

That's not to say that known fandom was entirely composed of men before the internet - female fans existed, but they were into the same aspects of fandom as the men, that is, the detailed discussion, the collecting, that sort of thing, and I'm therefore not counting them as representations of female fandom since they were a part of male fandom.

Once the internet, and particularly livejournal, happened, female fans came out of the woodwork. This has recently led to a backlash, with many men, and some women, and most outsiders of either gender, deriding female fandom as creepy, due to the aspect of writing fan fiction and particularly the popularity of slash; worthless, as they tend to think that very, very little fan fiction is even worth reading (and while this is true due to Sturgeon's Law this is also true of everything, including published works); and oddly, often pathetic, as though writing fan fiction somehow means that female fans have less of a fulfilling life than male fans.

However, it's not all bad news. Female fandom is growing in popularity, and rapidly losing its status as a niche aspect of fandom as a whole, particularly as academic-fans (that is, fans and non-fans who study the culture academically and then write books about it, such as the aforementioned Henry Jenkins) take notice and write about the phenomenon of female fandom.

And lastly, a segue into the next part in which I actually take this argument and apply it to comic-book fandom, in an attempt to stay relevant! Stay tuned.

DISCLAIMER: both male and female fandoms are valuable aspects of fandom as a whole, and they both rock. If I sounded unfairly critical of male fandom, I apologize, but it's rather inevitable as I'm focusing on how female fandom is marginalized by male fandom.

Thinking Big When It Comes To Females…

2009-04-16T00:08:00.009-07:00

While doing research I came across this article, ‘Marvel Debuts Female Apparel and Cosmetics,’ and a following response/commentary by blogger, Karen Healy. I know this is not about a specific character or comic plot, but it says a lot about how the big commercial companies market their comics and think about their audiences.

The article is about some of the new products Marvel will be pushing onto the masses, or more specifically, ‘females.’ Apparently, for the past 70 years their bulk products and marketing has been aimed at, you guessed it, men. Wow, that’s a long time. It goes on to talk about how ‘guys,’ being their core customers, means they need to be careful not to offend them, or drive them away; “Since our core customer has always been guys, we need to be very careful when we introduce female product so that we don’t alienate our core,” a direct quote from the president of consumer products. I don’t know if it’s just me but that quote reads so wrong in so many ways. Healy’s reaction was,

What I read:

One: When introducing things specifically designed for women, we must be careful not to alienate guys. Because when it comes to things for women, it is the opinions of men that are most important.

Two: Did I say women? I meant females.

Three: Also, our core customer is lots of guys, squished together to make one super-huge dude. Subject-verb agreement is hard! Let’s go shopping!

Even if the main market was boys/ young men/ men/ male, how can some ‘female products’ be so offensive (is it because ‘female products’ sound like sanitary female products? And as Healy points out, men’s opinions are most important here. Her second point goes to the number of uses of the word ‘females,’ instead of girls, women or both. I definitely agree with how off that reads throughout the article, which Healy describes as “dehumanizing, particularly when it’s contrasted with the use of terms like ‘men’ or ‘guys,’ rather than ‘males’.” At least he didn’t refer to the new market as ‘chicks’?

The marketing article goes on to describe the type of products that have been tested, released to stores and in the works. What stood out for me was that in the beginning of the article they list some of the products they already had – “gearing the bulk of its merchandise assortment to the young men’s market, selling everything from Spider-Man comic books to Captain America business card holders and Incredible Hulk T-shirts.” Then they describe how, for the ‘female’ target audience, apparently characters alone aren’t enough. The Hulk T-shirts for boys, need a ‘go green’ slogan to work for the girls. From there, they are going into jewelry, accessories, handbags, etc. I’m sure those will work for some people, but don’t girls get business card holders? The way it is stated in the articles makes it sound like there has to be such a division between the two target audiences. Finally, I think Healy wraps it up well in saying that generally speaking products that are made to appeal to men, often also appeal to women, but the reverse is not easily the same case (“partly because of centuries of gender-specific marketing”). It is very difficult to define what works for just men, just women or both, and I can definitely see it as a challenge in marketing considering you have to able to sell your products. But it still surprises me how badly the whole article sounds in promoting this new venture with the other sex!

"You’d think Marvel’s president of consumer products would have the grace and marketing nous to realize how ugly this sounds, and refrain from baldly stating so.”

These necklaces scare me...

Marvel Divas

2009-04-15T00:59:00.004-07:00

As I was surfing the internet today, wasting time and procrastinating, I noticed an upcoming project by Marvel Comics entitled, Marvel Divas. The limited series, which will be released in July, is by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonjic and highlights some of Marvel’s best female superheroes. As Roberto explains, the comic centres around Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar and Photon, who represent a foursome of friends with similar troubles. As superheroes, they all experience a duality of identity, which represents one point of commonality among the friends. Separate from their superhero alter-egos, they also all experience “romantic trouble” and their individual attempts to navigate dating and relationships also brings the women closer together. Roberto describes the initial pitch of the series starting as a Marvel interpretation of Sex and the City and, in the preliminary description at least, there appears to be significant correlation between the popular TV show and the new series. He admits that there is a “naughty” aspect to the comic, yet claims that the comic also questions and explores what it “truly means to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns.” However, Roberto’s language in initially describing the new series seems more suited to a burlesque show, rather than an empowering female narrative. He ultimately describes the series as an attempt at “some sudsy fun” by “lift[ing] the curtain a bit and tak[ing] a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines.”

If these female superheroes are Marvel’s “best,” why aren’t the shown doing what they do best—presumably kicking ass and fighting crime—rather than bogged down by inane romantic entanglements that are likely irrelevant to the “superhero” narrative? Apparently Marvel Divas is an attempt to increase female readership, yet I personally am not interested in another Sex and the City spin-off, especially not with women drawn in such extreme and unrealistic proportions. I know I can’t relate to these characters and I am clearly not alone, as I have done some searching on the blogosphere and uncovered some similar opinions:

From Robot 6: Comic Book Resources (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/04/sex-and-the-single-marvel-super-heroine/)
Jennifer de Guzman
April 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“I’ve been trying for years to get my waist be roughly 2/3 the circumference of my thighs! And to find friends whose measurements are exactly the same as mine so we can share latex costumes! And no matter how many doctors I ask, none will agree to break my feet and realign them so they’re perpetually in the much-coveted “wearing stiletto f-me shoes” shape. What is these ladies’ secret?!”
Amy
April 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm
“What the hell is wrong with these people? Let’s just parse that little paragraph. So, for women characters to have an active sex life, they are “naughty.” And they supposedly want to really, truely explore what it means to be a woman in a male dominated industry, but at the same time it’s going to be “good hot fun”? Good, hot fun for whom exactly? The (most likely) all male writing and art staff? The all male comic fanboys this series is aimed at? Apparently these folks have not grasped the inherent contradiction between really, truly exploring what it would actually be like to be a woman hero in a testosterone and violence dominated world AND still titillating the male audience.”

Ultimately, this new series begs the question, why do female superhero characters appear to lend themselves to such mundane narratives? Do male superheroes lend themselves to such narratives?

As Hortense from Jezebel.com explains: (http://jezebel.com/5207676/marvel-divas-because-nothing-says-superhero-like-hot-sudsy-fun)
“Do you think there's a series in development that features Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker just chillin' at the Applebee's, shooting the shit about a Mets game and calling each other bro? No. And do you know why? Because it would be BORING. Just like a bunch of superheroines bitching about their love lives and waiting around for Mr. Big. The only people who are going to get excited about this series are those who want to see the ‘hot sudsy fun.’”

Bodily Harm: the corporeal feminine in art and life

2009-04-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

So lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of gender as relates to biology and physiology. As much as all of us folks claim a complete disconnect between these two things, the fact remains that way back when in our prehistoric nethers (eww), biological roles probably did inform the formation of proto-gender constructs. Not so much when it comes to things like the icky, tired and totally incomprehensible “girls suck at math” adage (or I guess in Neanderthal-speak, “wom-man grunt grunt growl”) but particularly in terms of the way childrearing and fertility are represented and conceptualized.

I mean, it seems pretty basic, right? Women, as far as cave people were concerned, were unique in that they bled at the new moon (which people with menses tend to do in the absence of artificial light, BTW), waxed and waned with pregnancy like that same moon, and bore and nurtured children. Fast-forward a few symbolic connections, and you’ve got the identification of the feminine with darkness, the supernatural, the moon, and mothering (and possible attendant womb-envy) that popped up and persisted in cultures worldwide, from ancient China to ancient Greece. And let’s not forget really simple, visceral knee-jerk associations, like the comparative roundedness of female forms (round = moon/earth = lifecycle/ birth-death-rebirth-etc. = mothering). Keeping in mind that a lot of this probably only seems intuitive because we’ve been exposed to the symbology for so long, the fact remains that the human race likes free-associations and symbols. We like to dichotomize, essentialize, and focus on differences rather than similarities. I’m not sure exactly why that is, but my psych background is yelling “vividness heuristic”, so I guess we’ll go with that.

All this doesn’t change the fact that gender constructs suck when they essentialize people and tell them what they can and can’t, or should and shouldn’t do. Bad, bad gender construct! No dessert for you! It also doesn’t mean that essentialist and reductive interpretations of gender are inevitable, natural, or need constrain anyone. What it does lead to, however, are a whole heckuva lot of interesting gender-symbolism based rituals, especially for women (ask me about Thesmophoria sometime, if you’re feeling up to being talked at). Ignoring for a moment the fact that these same rituals feed into the essentialist interpretations of gender that we’re trying to avoid, they’re pretty darn cool. But forget bizarre ritualistic piglet slayings – what does all this have to do with comics? What does this have to do with us, now?

The answer is plenty, or at least I think so. IMHO, identifications of individual women with their ‘generic’ bodies, and of those bodies with celestial/planetary bodies (heh) in turn, is still abundantly prevalent. We see it pretty clearly in the way that some “feminine hygiene products” are marketed – anyone ever hear of Luna pads? Seasonale (more on Seasonale later)? Part of this is probably fairly dismissively accounted for by branding in marketing – you want to invoke (what can be) deeply personal aspects of a consumer, like gender, to make them buy stuff. That doesn’t explain the extra-corporeal implications of women’s marketing, though, nor does it explain why men’s products aren’t really similarly identified.
Corporeal essentialism also bleeds considerably into popular culture. And from here, we move onto our exhibits:

Exhibit A – The Invisibles (Apocalipstick)

As part of her magical initiation, Lord Fanny must “bleed like a woman” since only women do magic. This identification of womanhood with the female body is interesting, given the text’s treatment of transgenderism. Despite the definition of gender by role and perception, there is a clear physiological link here that can’t be missed, even if it’s only symbolic in nature. Given Lord Fanny as a transgendered character, it seems incongruous at first that the text would highlight the reproductively-based bodily aspects of femaleness. Moreover, maybe I’m reading too much into this, but the addition of bleeding as a quality to signify womanhood without the subtraction of anything that might be seen to signify manhood feels a bit like it plays into the whole male-as-normative schema. This isn’t necessarily a problem, given that in this case the marker of femininity is presented as something desirable, but nevertheless we can continue to track the woman-as-bodily-connection imagery that we’ve talked about thus far.

Exhibit B – Sandman (A Game of You)

Hazel, Foxglove, and Thessaly take the moon’s road. Wanda, a transgendered character, must stay behind because she is not genetically female. In-text, there is an implied criticism of the arbitrary absolutes this invokes. Here, in contrast to Apocalipstick, the focus is on the more abstract body-related aspects of womanhood – moon rather than blood. Ideologically, though, the two are pretty tight-linked.

Exhibit C – Seasonale

Okay, so this one is popular culture only insofar as in the way it’s advertised. In a nutshell, for those of you who don’t know, Seasonale is a birth control pill that’s designed to be taken non-stop for a period of about 3 months, during which time you don’t bleed. It’s basically specifically marketed as a way for women to take their lives back and not let physiological stuff get in the way. This way, the website says, they can “plan events like vacations, business travel, romantic encounters, and family reunions” without having to worry about inconvenient bodily demands.

I don’t know about you guys, but this pisses me off. I’m all for people being about to have all the control they want over their bodies, but quite frankly the normative message this advertising sends scares me. It seems to be all about problematizing and medicalizing menstruation, and telling women that there’s something inconvenient and prohibitive about it. But hey, not to worry, the cure is here – now they can be just like the boys, and live worry-free. Or almost. The website for sister-pill Seasonique even has a section for men, about talking to their girlfriends about birth control. While this in and of itself is pretty good advice, I’m wary of the placement of this message on a website that advertises a pill to make women’s periods stop happening. Because obviously menstruation is gross and no self-respecting guy wants his girlfriend doing it.

I guess the bottom line is, the traditional identification of women with their bodies and related stuff troubles me (the root of the word hysteria is the same as that of…). Normatively, it seems strange that the woman-moon schema stuck around while the man-sun one didn’t, as does the focus on reproductive elements of women’s bodies as identifying factors. While I don’t think invoking these sensitively and in context is always a negative thing, I think it’s a set of images that needs to be used with caution to avoid implying that women are their bodies of should identify with them in a certain way. On the other side of the coin, I’m also irked by marketing strategies that imply that women’s bodies do icky things that should be curtailed so they can get on with their lives. Maybe it’s my own love for the uniqueness of my body talking, but I feel like the way I interpret its symbolism should be up to me, independent of overbearing normative messages. I do think this is a problem for men in the way that machismo and muscle-boundness are touted as paragons of masculinity, but I think it differs in the respect that reproductive functions aren’t targeted.

Just Wondering...

2009-04-14T19:16:00.005-07:00

In my weekly perusals of the Georgia Straight checking out upcoming concert dates and reading the Savage Love column I've stumbled across Jon Moses Leiner's comic The Midnight Inquirer. I quite like this comic for a number of reasons. One, it doesn't follow any story, each weekly instalment can be read by itself. There is no back story to get caught up on, which is always a plus for me as I seem to find these things after everyone else does. I also quite enjoy the humor, which often incorporates the use of puns, such as this one...

And other times is much more childish, and whimsical, like this one...

But really, what I find most intresting about this comic is how simply drawn it it. It looks like a child could have drawn it (okok, it would have to be a fairly talented child, but nevertheless!) But while the simplicity of the art makes it endearing, and perhaps even makes it accesible to more people I can't help but wonder what such a style suggests about comics as a whole.

Will such a style encourage the steriotype that comics are just for kids? Maybe not, considering it's in the Georgia Straight a newspaper dedicated to arts and entertainment. But then what does that say? That this comic is of a more refined nature than say the Garfield comics in The Province? I'm not convinced of that either. Maybe there is no impact. Maybe I should just stop my mind from overanalyzing the potential outcomes...Maybe I should just keep looking for it in each new issue of the Georgia Straight so that I can giggle at it while drinking my coffee. And maybe you should too!

And just because this one is amazing!

Gender presentation: Thinking outside the box in Dicebox

2009-04-14T15:42:00.003-07:00

One of my favourite ongoing-series comics has got to be Jenn Manley Lee's Dicebox – conveniently published online. Griffen, one half of the comic's protagonist duo (the other half being called Molly) is pictured left.

Hah, already after my first sentence a question's occurred to me that hasn't got much to so with what I've intended to write about. Oh blessed flakiness. But I think it's an interesting question, in line with my last post concerning comics terminology, especially with comics becoming (slowly) more widely accepted as, you know, legitimate creative output. Potential comics scholars will want to know which jargon to use and where!

I was going to say, would you refer to Dicebox as a webcomic? I mean, yes, in that it's published online. But comparing it to the types of comics usually published online, it at first glance seems to embrace the webcomic format somewhat less. There's very much a sense that, in reading it, you are as good as turning pages – and that it might as well be pictures out of a traditional, hard-copy comic scanned in. In fact, Lee is preparing the comic to be republished in book form.

I'm not going to say it isn't a webcomic, because by its nature it is. (Well, in my view.) But this reveals an interesting potential of the internet in general. Lee was in the habit of publishing one page a week – and, given the size of each of her pages, and that each is in colour, this is quite a workload. Had she planned it to be published in book format all along? Does having it on the web keep her from slacking off (as much)?

We can mull further over those questions another time. Who I'd really like to shine the spotlight on at the moment is Griffen, who may rightly "eep!" – because her gender's on the table.

I'm not sure how many of you, seeing the above image, thought Griffen was a fellow. I certainly did when I first started reading the comic. And I'm somewhat embarrassed (but more retrospectively intrigued) to admit that, upon discovering her sex, I was quite disappointed. To my credit, somewhat, I was at the time – and still am – quite fond of a type of character, hithertothen always male; the kind of rogueish, mercenary, since-male-then-correspondingly-ill-shaven (or so I imagined; these characters tended to occur in prose fiction, while Spider Jerusalem, while illustrated, has no hair at all) characters. Yet my indignance that Griffen was female gets interesting there, too, in the evidently inextricable association of type of character with sex. Fond as I am of both sexes, my tendency to find these fellows sexy should not have been a factor.

In a very short time, however, I grew to like Griffen very much, in part because she is female and presents a relatively unusual gender for women. She presented a kind of unselfconscious androgyny that I admired. I'm not sure I'd say I wanted to present it myself – that depends on my mood day-to-day, frankly – but I found and still find her no-bullshit personality even more likeable in light of her unabashed self-presentation.

Griffen is not unique in the Dicebox universe for her androgynous nature. While Griffen's androgyny occurs in the sphere of gender, several supporting characters in Dicebox are androgynous even in terms of their physical sex. One redhaired friend of Molly's appears for all intents and purposes to be female, except for bushy red sideburns that recall, of course, a man (particularly a man of the nineteenth century...).

Our curiosity as to this individual's biological sex – and even as to whether there is perhaps a third one – is unresolved by anyone else in the comic's universe; third-person pronouns in Dicebox can take the form of "ze" and "zir" and, for this person, do.

Yet another interesting plot point in the comic is the fact that Molly (the dreadlocked individual pictured above) and Griffen are married. Their dynamic suggests "partners in crime" more than "life partners," and their relationship does not appear to be sexual in nature. Thus far in the comic, Griffen and Molly have each had sex at least once, but never with each other. An as-yet unresolved question at this point in the comic is why, in fact, they are married at all. Their motives do not appear to be romantic, and there has been insufficient evidence even in terms of tantalizing authorial hints to suggest that a romance ever will burgeon between them.

Jen Manley Lee (and yes, isn't her middle name appropriate?) toys with sex and gender in one of my favourite ways in Dicebox, in that she presents sex, both as applied to individuals and as applied to relationships, and surprises us, challenges our assumptions – but does so in such a subtle, integrated way that she does not provide us answers to our initial reactions of "?!" In not providing answers, she suggests that we should not be demanding them at all.

Roz Chast: Cartooning Comic

2009-04-14T14:39:00.005-07:00

I’d like to introduce all of you to the maddening, mundane and hilarious world of Roz Chast. I can’t give you a name for her comics, though, because she’s not technically a comic artist. She’s a – gasp – cartoonist!

Never fear, however. Some of her cartoons take the form of comics, according to the McCloud definition, and they’re so thoroughly and inanely enjoyable that I feel compelled to share them.

“Maddening,” “mundane” and “inane” might seem like odd words to describe something I purport to enjoy, but that’s just what makes Chast’s cartoons and comics so enjoyable. She is the patron saint of those small things in life that seem very, very big – running out of paper towels or the gradual “cutification” of a neighbourhood. Or that widespread phenomenon of paranoia, wondering what’s happening at the party after we’ve left.

Chast has been making delightful, strange cartoons and short comics for magazines for several decades, having illustrated her first New Yorker cover in 1986 (above). Since then, she has drawn over 800 comics for the New Yorker alone, as well as publishing a variety of her works in Scientific American and similar, smaller, science-oriented publications.

Being a cartoonist who occasionally draws comics, Chast has provided me some food for thought along with the usual bewildered laughter since I read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics for this class. Because her work can occupy a kind of in-between space between the two, I revisited McCloud’s definition of comics as opposed to cartoons to see if one could, indeed, count some of Chast’s work as comics – and, if so, how much of it.

Much of Chast’s work is effectively precluded by McCloud’s assertion that a comic must contain images in sequence. Just The Family Circus is out of the running, and quite reasonably so (although I may jump to accept his opinion out of a deep-seeded dislike for Family Circus, which may make me over-eager to preclude it from as much as possible), all of Chast’s single-“panel” cartoons are kaput.

But there are still some stragglers. A fair number of her comics are like the one below, in that they contain several panels, which technically qualifies them as a comic according to McCloud. But while McCloud’s definition specifies that the panels are arranged in a deliberate sequence, some of Chast’s feature panels whose order seems to be quite arbitrary: a sequence of images that seem to occur as she thinks of them, arranged deliberately to convey absurdity, but not necessarily arranged in a deliberate sequence. Of course, we have no way of knowing how attached she is to her sequencing of panels in these particularly eccentric sets, but it makes me wonder how much arrangement to a certain end, reached logically by reading panels in a certain order, matters to McCloud’s theory.

(Click on the image to see the whole thing)

His emphasis on the importance of “deliberate sequence” would suggest that it matters quite a lot. Yet, on the very same page of Understanding Comics where he makes that definition – going so far as to depict it as written as an entry in a dictionary (c.f. page 20) – he makes a rather incongruous claim.

McCloud argues that photo strips can be seen as “picto-comics,” that is, wordless comics. I find this identification a bit of a stretch, if not something of an outright contradiction, because I certainly wouldn’t say that most photo strips are arranged in any particular order. In my experience, the sequence of a photo strip is less deliberate, more spontaneous and goofy.

Nevertheless, if we take McCloud’s argument for photostrips – the strips of pictures you get from a photobooth – which are not arranged in deliberate sequence but are intended for a specific effect (I believe the technical term would be “fun”), as valid rather than contradictory, then Chast’s more arbitrary panel arrangements can be counted as bona fide comics.

Yet there is one more problem I see with this: in both photo-strips and Chast’s multi-panel cartoons without deliberate sequence, the role of the gutter is practically absent. There is no connection to make between the two panels that isn’t denoted by the nature of the thing itself, in the photo strip’s case, or the wry titles adorning each of Chast’s multi-panel cartoons. In Nanook, for instance, there is no real progression of Nanook: the various nonsensical circumstances of him “going south” are presented as individual cases. The only closure we have to make, if it even constitutes such, is to recognize that we’re seeing the same character in each panel, and that each case we’re presented with is absurd. This lacks the imaginative engagement McCloud assigns the reader’s role in engaging with the gutter.

(Click on the image to see the whole thing)

Personally, when I see pieces of Chast’s like “Vanilla Pudding” or “Quandary,” I think of them as comics, but her more arbitrary examples as cartoons. McCloud’s contradiction in terms didn’t help me much to resolve my confusion in this, but it was interesting to discover a contribution to the comic art that is as yet difficult to classify.

What do you think?

The 99 - Islamic version of comic superheroes

2009-04-13T23:32:00.007-07:00

There isn't much known about the Islamic world let alone in comics that are dedicated to the subject matter of Islam, nor characters shaped by the religion. In most cases, it seems controversial, but I was impressed to see that someone came up with a middle-eastern version of X-men (except they're not mutants)!

Here is a quick glimpse of the synopsis:

"This is only the beginning. For soon, destiny will seek out the chosen from among those once forsaken. 99 gems containing the light of ancient wisdom lie scattered across the world waiting to be discovered. Those who possess the gems will wield untold power never before seen by mortal man. The salvation of the universe set in motion from the beginning of time lies now in the hands of those who dare to strive for it. Led by one man, a man dedicated to discovering the knowledge that was lost, these unlikely heroes and heroines must overcome great odds in their battle against the darkness, both in the outside world, and within their own souls.

They are The 99 and the fate of the known universe depends on them..."

Naif Al-Mutawa, a 36 year old from Kuwait (who got his PhD in Clinical Psychology at New York's Long Island University and his M.B.A from Columbia combined his intellectual genius and also founded as well as created a middle-eastern version of Marvel - Teshkeel Comics ) collaborated his audacious approach to this interesting concept with the best artists of Marvel and DC comics in creating a series called - The 99 - a group of superheroes whose powers come from the 99 attributes of Allah from the Koran. Not to mention, that this comic is so popular it made its way to the international front with copies currently on its way to the U.S. market, with a total of 12 editions, of which 7 will be available in North America. The main reason I am pleased to see a comic like this exist, is because it seems to serve as a more positive contributing force, in contrast to many misconceptions about Islam and its culture in the Middle-East making global headlines in recent years, which have added to a heavy negative stigma in the West to the teachings and practices and its association to fundamentalism. The world was in need of a more positive approach to the religion, shedding light to many distorted misrepresentations in relation to Islamic culture.

I have to say what really caught my interest was that, given that there aren't many representations of Muslim women, especially within the comic medium, I was impressed to see that the series delivers, by portraying female characters who are active membersand essential to the storyline, as well as the comic's impact on a new audience on the other side of the globe. In addition to these facts, I'd like to highlight on the female representation of Islam within this comic series, because I believe (despite not having personally read the comic, yet. But judging from the reviews) it is an original idea which emphasizes on a more accurate and ideal version of muslim female representation among many other themes related to socio-cultural and political factors. Here is a mini review on some of the female characters within the 99:

Noora - The Light:

The 18 year old daughter of a UAE tycoon who is kidnapped by thugs and during this ordeal discovers a gem stone that sheds light to her awaiting destiny. Her main powers are seeing the light, and allowing others to see the light. (the word "Noor" means light in arabic and also an important component in Islamic literature, as Allah (God) is seen as the light). There is a rumor that Noora's association with light is parallel to that of the prophet Muhammed and his encounter with the angel Gabriel. She is one of the first female superhero characters introduced in the series, one of its main characters and given an integral part of the storyline. (See mor e)

There are more female muslim characters to be noted:

Hayda - The Guide:

Amira Khan is a 17 year old Pakistani-British girl who is extremely adept at reading maps. She lives a double life, torn between different cultures. "Her powers give her an unnatural ability of knowing where everything is and how to get there in the fastest safest, and easiest manner. She becomes a guide to the group in more ways than one".

As for the physical representation of these characters, I was pleased to encounter that there is not too much emphasis on exaggerated proportions of the female anatomy as otherwise common in the comic medium. In fact, I like how the writers instead focused more in creating characters that present women in a positive light and can be viewed as role models. I am also happy to see that characters such as Noora and Hayda do not represent "sterotypical" muslim women with hijabs (head scarf) but instead strong-willed and independent women who are dressed modestly, yet feminine and can be taken seriously as characters, which can be appreciated by various groups of readership.

There of course are more characters such as Buran, an Iranian female who unlike the others, does depict the stereotype of muslim women much more closely, as she is wearing the hijab. In contrast to the other two I mentioned above, she is also not a gem-bearer with superpowers but serves more as a mediator who helps the others with the mission and hence in this way plays a prominant role in the series.

There are many more, in fact in total there are 99 superheroes, male and female from all over the globe. Including someone who comes from Vancouver, Canada. The heroes/heroines are almost equal in number, come with significant powers and are given enough plot and characterization to intrigue its readership and keep them interested.

I, for one, am hopeful that this comic will bring more positivity and wipe out misconceptions, stereotypes and prejudices that are sometimes encountered in this world. And finally, there is a comic series that brings highlight to muslim females, as well, because they are usually neglected unless there are matters of oppression and women's rights issues involved which then draw our attention and make us pity them.

I can honestly say, I give Al-Mutawa credit for his driven ambition to defy all negative stereotypes associated with the name "muslim" and "Islamic culture", as he fights his own battles against fatwahs (a legal opinion issued by Islamic scholars) in Saudi Arabia who banned the comic of being released as they believe some of the content in the comic series goes against the teachings of Islam. Apparently, the clashing theme of modernism and traditionalism in the middle-east is very vivid and still has a long way to go before it can be lifted. (Read more) Despite the controversial side of things, The 99 still markets exceptionally well in Kuwait and is going to be released here in North America fairly soon. I can't wait to get my hands on my first hard copy, because given that I'm a die-hard fan of X-men already, I'm sure I will have an instant new favorite that will be close to my heart, due to its relation to many aspects of my own life.

The Top 5 Rape Scenes by Alan Moore

2009-04-13T18:24:00.011-07:00

When the Watchmen movie came out there was a lot of controversy surrounding the rape scene (among other things). The complaints ranged from its simple explicitness to how the rape was trivialized and justified to how it was part of a wider trend in the movie of disempowering women.
It all led to my thinking about just how many of the comics by Alan Moore which I’ve read featured some kind of rape (all of them). And so I present to you:

The Top 5 Rape Scenes by Alan Moore
5. V for Vendetta
Two fingermen plan to rape Evey after arresting her for prostitution.
4. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1
Griffin (the invisible man) serially rapes the pupils at a private girls school.
3. The Killing Joke
The Joker paralyzes and rapes Batgirl to psychologically torture her father, Commissioner Gordon.
2. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2
Mr. Hyde violently sodomizes Griffin (the invisible man) to death.
1. Watchmen
The Comedian tries to rape the Silk Spectre

(and special recognition to From Hell which doesn’t feature any particular rape scene but is a 500+ page comic about violence against prostitutes.)

Evey tries to solicit herself to two men who turn out to be fingermen (secret police); they arrest her and are planning to rape her before V kills them. In this case the rape is primarily violent, it is an imposition of power first and foremost it is also, however, sexually motivated; presumably It was her solicitation which inspired them to rape her. The issue of sexual assault against sex workers is one which doesn’t get the consideration it deserves largely because of the perception that prostitutes who earn their living from their sexuality thereby lose agency of it and so rape is less of a crime, more akin to robbery than sexual assault. (of course, to understand this apparent tolerance of violent robbery it is necessary to consider the broader marginalization of sex workers and their issues in greater society)

Griffin is responsible for serially raping the girls who live at Miss Rosa Coote’s Correctional Academy for Wayward Gentlewomen. Because he is invisible he is not caught for some time and the disturbances and resulting pregnancies are attributed to the Holy Spirit and immaculate conception, respectively. When he is caught he is in the midst of raping Pollyanna.
This is the least violent of the listed scenes but one of the most problematic, or at least misogynistic. Because of the relative lack of violence Griffin is able to come across as more of a scoundrel than a monster, his repeated offenses mere mischief, not assaults. The comedic treatment of the whole situation trivializes rape, best seen in Pollyanna’s reaction: “Although I’ve been mishandled by a demon I’m determined to remain optimistic.”

It is actually quite ambiguous as to whether the Joker rapes Batgirl or merely brutalizes, humiliates, and paralyzes her, but for all intents and purposes the result is the same and the disturbing part about it is that she has so little agency, or even importance, in it. The rape, whether or not it actually is really rape, is almost entirely violent. The Joker rapes her not because he is sexually interested, or even because he cares about her, but rather to punish her father. She is a plot device and more concern is given to the effect it has on her father than to her.

When Mr. Hyde rapes Griffin in the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen it is a purely violent act. There is a fair bit of documentation of the phenomenon of heterosexual men raping other men, both in and out of prison; in fact, in most instances of rape between two men, the perpetrator is heterosexual. Sexuality in this case does not factor into the motivations of the perpetrator but solely into the means and this rape can be understood as a solely violent and essentially non-sexual assault.

When Sally Jupiter claims that her case is “complicated” its easy to assume that she’s just trying to justify it, the classic case of the victim who blames herself, the product of antiquated notions of sexuality and femininity. But when considered in comparison to the other examples it is clear that her case is more complex: is it possible to consider the rape as a single isolated event or is it necessary to understand it in terms of the consensual sexual relationship she later develops with her once rapist?
So why is this interesting? Rape exists in the interplay between sex and violence. This is why it is so incredibly controversial for an act which is (in the circles I frequent) so universally untolerated; there are so many possible permutations of it, each with their own specific context and complications. In some cases rape is solely violent and in other cases almost entirely sexual. It becomes even more complicated when, as in most instances, the rape is committed by a friend, family member or acquaintance. The majority of sexual assaults are not reported and trying to understand Sally Jupiter’s relationship with the Comedian makes it easier to understand why.

Anders Loves Maria

2009-04-12T15:30:00.006-07:00

Why I love “Anders loves Maria” in a nutshell: it’s entertaining. On a very basic level, I like reading this webcomic because it’s hilarious in a kind of pseudo-artsy, Swedish way. The characters are dramatic but likeable, the plot is ridiculous yet strangely plausible, and the art style is, well, let’s face it, downright cute. There are a lot of reasons to love Anders loves Maria, but it is not without its faults.

Firstly, there is the *ahem* explicit material. Now, I I’ll add a disclaimer here that this comic DOES have nudity and various sexually explicit scenes, but I, for one, don’t really have a problem with that. In fact, in many ways the events that happen in their beds are the driving force behind the plot and many of the best jokes, so I find it pretty entertaining, but I can see how that could be a problem for some. My main complaint with the sex in this comic is the way it’s sometimes portrayed. Everyone seems to want to have sex with everything. In a perfect world, maybe this would be awesome, and I realize that in fiction (especially comics) sexuality can be exaggerated, but when every character is a letch it can seem a little absurd.

Also, along the same lines, the consequences for sleeping around are interesting here. For women, the number one fear (and a very real one here, it seems) is getting pregnant. For the men, sleeping with people often seems to end in social discrimination and physical abuse. Anders has been punched at least three times and once hospitalized for his sexual activities. I’m not really sure what to make of this kind of dichotomy. On the one hand, it seems nice that the women aren’t really persecuted for having sex, but aside from one girl who falls in love with Anders after sleeping with him, none of them are really affected by their own sexual behaviours it seems. Not that they should be, but if they aren’t why are the men?

The second real problem I have is the agency of some of the major female characters in the comic, Maria included. She is portrayed as a very headstrong and independent woman, and is able to fend for herself in many situations and come out on top, but she completely crumbles after Anders cheats on her (and, not that this justifies it, but she was horrible to him before that). Her character is a bit odd that way, and seems to flip-flop between being very strong and confident to being a downright basket case. Now, I feel this might be just the way the character was meant to be portrayed, and I doubt it is some commentary by the author on the state of womanhood, but it is always good to examine the kind of message the various characters are sending.

All of these things said and done, I actually do really like this comic, simply for the aforementioned reason that it's terribly entertaining! If you're not made uncomfortable by cartoon breasts, schwanky Swedish art references, or the term 'bork', I would highly recommend giving it a look. Be warned though, it might just suck up a couple hours of your life going through the archives!

"Post-" 20090411

2009-04-11T14:37:00.010-07:00

It's timely, and neatly wraps up the 'full-circle' theme that my return to UBC has been, that we read Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. Thirteen years ago, I was enrolled in my first year at UBC, but having barely passed most of my courses, had to attend Langara College the year after. That year I failed even more horribly, passing only 2 courses; but I was also just beginning to come out of the closet, and discovering a burgeoning political voice. It was at Langara that I met two of my closest friends, whom I will call A, & O.

O was a 'fellow' student at Langara, and when my boyfriend and I needed a place to live, O noted that the apartment across the hall from hers was vacant. So we moved in there, two young fags, neighbors to two not-so-young dykes. While my boyfriend moved away a few months later, I stayed there for almost two years. My friendship with O helped shape my alternative politics, and taught me about questioning everything. A was my spiritual guide, and a model academic. At the time, I definitely identified more with these kick-ass lesbians than I did most gay men my age. And it was then that I was first introduced to the work of Alison Bechdel, in the form of Dykes To Watch Out For.

Just as I relate the themes in Fun Home to current family and personal events, there were more than a few similarities between my life and the lives represented in DTWOF. I saw a bit of myself in the opinionated, reactionary, neurotic Mo; recognized my circle of female friends in Lois, and everyone else; and perceived my neighborly living situation reflected in the cohabiting Ginger, et al. IRL, through our open, unlocked doors, our apartments seemed more like extensions of each other than discrete domiciles. I was a privileged young flamer, in that living with A & O was a tuition-free education. My next-door friends were activists and professional academics, schooled and schooling others in the complexities of gender, sex, race, and body-politics. Thus, the socially-conscious womyn of DTWOF were familiar in that the were skilled deconstructors, adept at social analysis, and making their livings challenging the status quo.

I rediscovered the gutter-framed ensemble rereading Post-Dykes To Watch Out For (2000) in January. It was an informal refresher in Bechdel's wit, style, manner, and voice, and a fitting introductory counterpoint to the somber, intimate tone of Fun Home. In the former, Bechdel references the sensationalism of the Clinton sex scandals of the 1990s (P-DTWOF, 2000: 9), and then breaks into meta-narrative regarding the ideological confusion wrought by it, inserting herself and her role as author-artist in a narrative aside (20-1). She also touches on the politics of the Taliban (9), Matthew Shepard (13), and the war in Kosovo (36-7). Aside from these and other issues, she repeatedly makes personal references to activist (sub)culture by drawing demonstration flyers laying around conspicuously in the panel background, and pokes knowing fun at perennial issues within the intersecting queer, women's and anti-establishment communities with cleverly wrought and deftly placed book titles set on coffee tables, or the shelves at Madwimmin Books. As a fag, I also particularly appreciated the visual homage she pays to Tom of Finland (25), and contemporary peer queer strip comrade Eric Orner via a workout cameo of his character Ethan Green (32)...

[excessively flowery prose]

...I await with interest in what next of her works I will find my reflection.

[/excessively flowery prose]

Afghanistani Annie

2009-04-10T19:51:00.003-07:00

1. Afghanistani Annie Has a Brush With Death

Upon my contemplation as to what I was going to post on the blog, I came across a webcomic which particularly caught my interest - known as Afghanistani Annie. There aren't many comics that portray an aspect of a muslim woman's life, especially that of an Afghan woman. In fact it may be the only one of its kind. But I found this webcomic intriguing as it is unlikely or at least uncommon to use muslim figures in satire in this medium, and I have to admit I did not expect to find a webcomic dedicated to this subject.

I find it is almost successful at suggesting an almost dark humoristic approach and its use of the symbolism through the character of "Death" (the one with the scythe) is indeed remarkable, and characteristic of its associated link with current situations to an "Afghans" plight facing death in this, occupied and war-torn country. Though, I have to say as a girl of Afghan origin, myself, I am amused by the stereotpye of Afghan women wearing a long burqa (long veil) which is used in this layout, and for the character to be named Annie (I guess because it rhymes with Afghanistani), which is not a stereotypical Afghan name. Although, it is true that the burqa has served as prototype and almost a symbolic trademark of the women and the country in general, which is kind of depressing. This is evident when you google search Afghan women, you get the women in their burqa's and therefore it becomes more clear where this image comes from, especially to outsiders who haven't the first clue what Afghan women are really like and what they are capable of, despite oppressions and helplessness faced in the current status quo. I suppose the webcomic artist/creator also possessed limted knowledge on muslim women, in general including its use of stereotypical Afghani (not Afghanistani) names, but this maybe beside the point. And the website Tuahan.com, where I got the link to this webcomic quotes the author "doesn't know a bloody thing" about the actual perception of muslim women. And yet, its attempt doesn't go unrewarded and is capable of a moment of amusement for I'm sure this was the intention.

Through it all, I thought the panels are funny although ambiguous in its representation of facial expressions and its blunt artstyle (which is not uncommon in most webcomics I've seen), I have to admit it is original. Also, the wit and humor is noteworthy in what is described in this panel and known as "1. Afghanistani Annie has a brush with Death" (image above). I almost wanted to roll over my chair in laughter, but wasn't sure if it isn't depressing that Death is involved and introduced as the only mate, in addition to its association to an Afghan girl, perhaps due to Socio-cultural factors, especially when Annie says: "No thanks, I don't show my hair" upon being offered a brush by death. I guess, when it comes to satirical references, one shouldn't resort to taking things personally, nor lierally, especially when there's an ounce of truth involved. As the saying goes: "There's a truth to every joke". To an extent, I can be content in acknowledging that at the end of the day, Afghan women can still be recognized and given a role as a comical character in this format, as well. Let's see what's in store next!

There is more to see, in case you're interested...

9. Death Relishes the Past

I thought this to be a particularly funny episode. It reminds me of when celebrities are exposed by leakage of unwanted photos roaming around the internet. Which is a predominat western theme, I find. Anyhow, I like the transition from its usual art format to a computer generated image to display Death's photo.

HER! [Girl vs Pig] - I Just Don't Like it.

2009-04-03T19:53:00.004-07:00

HER! [Girl vs Pig] is a webcomic that I find very difficult to categorize – it’s trying to be political satire at times, and at other times seems to exude the sort of apathy that approves only of inconsequential subject matter being discussed. The artist also dares to directly insult a webcomic that I commented on previously, which immediately caught my attention!

You may recall a post early in the term on A Softer World, in which I voiced my ambivalence about its value, from my subjective perspective of course. Chris Bishop, creator of Her Vs. Pig, doesn’t give A Softer World the benefit of the doubt like I did – in fact, he goes out of his way to temporarily but radically alter his comic style in order to trivialize and affront it.

(I tried to insert an image here but Blogger isn't letting me so go to this link to check out the comic: http://www.girlvspig.com/archives/her154.html)

I think this comic strip may see itself as a sardonic political and artistic commentary, and in some cases, he does produce funny pieces. However, as in the case of this second strip that mocks the supposed excess of sexual harrassment suits that have cropped up in recent years, he commits the same error that seems to appear throughout his works; I will return to this theme in a little while.

(Go to this link to check out the comic: http://www.girlvspig.com/archives/her221.html)

In the strip above, he charges the menacing bear character with the position of victim and the little girl with the responsibility of having threatened and harassed the bear. Though I can’t speak to the legitimacy of every single claim to sexual harassment, it seems to me that the recent influx of sexual harassment allegations are due to the correspondingly recent attitude change (growing over the last few decades) that considers sexual harassment unacceptable. I see this comic as undermining the fairly new societal view that objectification of women is intolerable, as opposed to just satirizing the lawsuits that are arguably a mere symptom of broader social change. In my opinion, this social change is fragile and under extreme assault from discourses ranging from medical to religious to cultural, and thus needs to be nurtured instead of parodied – but maybe I’m just a killjoy.

Having accepted by now that I AM a killjoy, I can launch into my next bitter qualm with this comic, which is the relationship established between Girl and Pig. Just as in Death to the Extremist, I found that Bishop aims to subvert stereotyped characters (for example, the innocence of a little girl) but falls short of actually criticizing these roles, turning the potential gem of satire into a juvenile gimmick. An example of this is one of the many strips that defines Girl as the dominant character and Pig as the dominated:

http://www.girlvspig.com/archives/her193.html

The cutesy way that Girl uses Pig for her selfish desires rings like the problematic relationships of Superman and Lois or Archie and Veronica, to name two of the innumerable noxious comic renderings of relationships. The reader sympathizes with the charming little girl even as she victimizes the vulnerable pig. As she defeats him physically in this strip, as well as with the authority and evidence of the law being on her side, the comic (perhaps inadvertently) normalizes and applauds the legal system and the status quo WHILE concurrently (in other strips) taking an anarchist, anti-government stance. It’s the hypocrisy that widens the magnitude of problematization that I’m inclined to deliver to this comic.

I feel like maybe my annoyance for this comic is giving it too much credit; I wonder if his readership sees his work as so weighty a political and social commentary as I lend it. I suppose I've come to the point of ignoring pop culture's entertainment value in an effort to see what sort of discourses it taps into, both willingly and unknowingly. And sometimes - ok, OFTEN - I'm unimpressed with artists' ability to live up to the holier-than-thou lethargy with which they approach social issues. If they are going to stake a claim to political commentary, they owe it to their readership to give some thought to the issues they comment on, no?

Dave Sim: Misogynist?

2009-04-03T12:57:00.004-07:00

Most people that have heard of Dave Sim, usually hear his name in the same sentence of him being a misogynist. While being a very talented cartoonist and creating one the most impressive Canadian legacies in comics, he has also managed to upset a majority of readers with a continuous onslaught of increasingly offensive diatribes.

Dave's main work, was a 300 issue series called Cerebus, which he wrote, drew and also self-published. To most, really broke with readers with his theory of Form and Void. According
to philosophy espoused in this idea of Form and Void, is that Men constitute the creative form and Male. The energy from the light and Form, according to Sim is sucked dry by the emotional Void of women, reducing and distracting men from their as Sim sees it, full potential.

This theory started popping up more than 100 issues into his series, but in reality, his discomfort with women as characters in his work, was nothing new. His main work, follows the life of Cerebus, a character that starts out as a poor mans anthropomorphic aardvark Conan. The series eventually finds it own voice, turning into a longer form commentary on politics, religion and eventually the "horrors" of a matriarchal society. For creator that focuses so much energy on critiquing women, his use of them within his own work is minimal and patronizing.

The two main female characters are Jaka, the early main love of Cerebus and Astoria, a rival to
the protagonist. The two women can be described as polar opposites that form from some kind of notion of feminine standards. They both contain characteristic faults, but instead of adding a dimension to them, it becomes who they are. Jaka is a stripper who grew up in affluence and has an expectation of being taken care of. Astoria is a power hungry "bitch" who probably is best described as resembling Rush Limbaugh's vision of Hillary Clinton. Both characters are broken down by the protagonist, Jaka breaks Cerebus's heart when she refuses to join him in his crusades. In her later life, she finds herself living in desperate conditions, in a failed relationship. Astoria eventually finds herself jailed by Cerebus, while he was "pope" of a pseudo catholic church. Dave Sim takes her character down to a primal level, and has Cerebus rape her as some kind of symbol of the victory in their power struggle.

These are not original characters in any way, and shows a level of creative laziness on Sim's part. He eventually devolves relations to odd point, where the society is transformed in to what Sim imagines as a matriarchal society. The closest similarity that could be drawn to for Sim's vision, is something like post-revolution Iran ala Satrapi's Persepolis. All the women are forced to wear a kind hajib/nuns habit type out fit, removing any personal identity with sexuality in society being reduced to a concept for need of reproduction and otherwise unwanted. Sim has an imagination of women that is a mix of some kind of fascistic unfeeling totalitarian beast. His use of female characters shows a level of his own personal unease with women.

Since finishing Cerebus, Sim has gone on to do a series called Glamourpuss, which is basically an ongoing illustrated essay that balances traced drawings of women from fashion magazine, coupled his own research into photo realistic cartooning. His use of women in Glamourpuss is so ridiculous, it's almost comical. He portrays the women in Glamourpuss as ditsy bubbleheads, only interested in getting the latest Vuitton bag.

Sim has received alot of much deserved backlash for his work and has even gotten to the point that he refuses to communicate with people, unless they are willing to go on record, stating that he is indeed, not a misogynist.

Sexuality and R. Crumb

2009-04-01T21:34:00.002-07:00

“I’ve always been a sucker for depressed intellectual white boys in glasses. Plus, he was sexually perverted in a way that appealed to me.”
– Aline Kominsky-Crumb, wife of Robert Crumb

R. Crumb’s work has always been fairly controversial, largely due to the bizarre sexual fetishes he loves to draw, and his sexist, fetishized portrayal of the female body and sexuality. Crumb fetishizes the “average woman”, one who could afford to lose a little weight and enjoys wholesome activities, by giving her a near-insatiable desire for wild sex, one that seems to only be satisfied by ugly, awkward, creepy little men, an obvious reference to Crumb himself.

There are a lot of problems with the way Crumb portrays women. Although he doesn’t draw the typical female ideal in traditional comics (that is, the beautiful damsel in distress), he refuses to stray from his own ideal figure (curvy, huge breasts with erect nipples, thick thighs) and always clothes his women in revealing, suggestive clothing (if at all). An example of this can be seen in Mystic Funnies No 2 (which I use mainly due to its proximity to me, and not because his other works do not feature equally apt examples), in which Crumb’s character, the Moron, meets his fairy godmother. In this particular panel, the Moron, wide-eyed with excitement, slips one hand up his fairy godmother’s skirt and shoves the other into her mouth. A woman he could otherwise never have is suddenly entranced with lust from his sexual prowess.

The Moron: ”You’re a goddess! I feel unworthy… I stand in awe of your perfect face and form, your magnificent proportions!”
Fairy Godmother: “That’s very sweet of you to say, but I’m far from perfect… I’m way too fat… my ass is huge and I have thick ankles… I could lose weight if only I didn’t like to eat so much! God, I love to eat! All I ever think about is food and fucking… I am strong though, ‘cause I like all kinds of sports and dancing… you should see me when I’m – ANHH!!”
The Moron: “Your exuberant wholesomeness incites in me a powerful desire to ravage you an’ do all kinds of perverted things to you!”

While this portrays the needs and interests of a woman as being strictly governed by a need to submit sexually to a man, Crumb is simply using comics to play with fantasy. Feminist writers, such as Deirdre English, have argued that Crumb’s work is pornographic, repulsive, and entirely misogynist. Crumb instead claims that his portrayal of women in this manner is “masturbatory”, yes, but also stems from a fear of powerful women that had slowly reinvented itself as fantasy. Can the women he draws not be seen as being as empowering as they are fetishized? Admittedly, it is very rare for Crumb to feature a woman who is not sexually deprived and submissive. However, his theme of women being in control of their sexual desires is something that was later picked up by female comics in the late 80s and 90s. Although his work is sometimes sexually “perverted”, it is honest. It is no more glorifying or perverting of women than superhero comics, which portray women as being equally submissive and sexually idealized, but far less in control of their bodies or sexuality.

2009-04-01T08:38:00.002-07:00

Hey Y'all. Check this out on Friday. Paul is one of my favorite cartoonists doing interesting smart fresh work.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

2009-03-28T12:32:00.008-07:00

I just found this site and lost a fair bit of time going through the strips. I like the differences in style, illustration and moods, but with similar humor throughout. The PBF comics are drawn by Nicholas Gurewitch. Go to the site (or click on the links) to view the larger versions...

Christmas Cards

Sun Love

The Pacific Council

The Trobblefoot Aquarium

A BIG blog on "Death to the Extremist"

2009-03-25T13:32:00.001-07:00

In light of my recent discovery that you don’t necessarily need an incredible affinity for visual art in order to be a decent comics artist, I’ve been on a hunt for works that are effective without employing exceptional drawing skills. When I stumbled upon “Death to the Extremist”, I immediately recognized it as the dream of comic artists everywhere who just don’t have that visual artistry part under their belt – like me!

“Death to the Extremist” uses the exact same visual layout for every comic, just changing the words – and sometimes taking the opportunity to leave several frames without words, as is the case in the example above. The consistency of the images could be perceived as gimmicky or lazy, however the textual content, combined with the comic timing of the text and the permanence of the visuals are a recipe for a unique series.

To expand a bit on my feelings toward the text, it feels as though the author doesn’t fall back on the cute layout to justify unstimulating text; rather, he subverts the ambiguity of the images by first sexing the characters, then using overtly gendered stereotypes to contrast their amorphousness. This effect is used throughout the series to highlight the potential for hilarity in typecasting - particularly apropos the world of mainstream comics.

This particular comic explores a rather embittered take on the rituals and parameters of relationships deemed socially and culturally acceptable. The first three frames showcase the absurdity of socially-enforced conventions of “declaring” love and commitment and compares these supposed acts of love with the abruptness of a business transaction. The next five frames are “silent”, leaving the reader to ponder the thoughts of the characters. Moreover, this has the effect of encouraging the reader to self-reflect; s/he likely interprets the characters’ silence to mean that there is something strange or worthy of contemplation themselves. I appreciate that this technique leaves the readers to their own thoughts as individuals with their own biases and conclusions, instead of insisting that they follow the artist’s train of thought. To me, this communicates a respect for the readers’ thoughts and opinions, as well as being a technique of humour.

Though I appreciated certain aspects of this comic, I felt wary about the way it homogenized men, women and the nature of relationships into culturally dictated structures. I felt that although the author was poking fun at these constructs, he was not necessarily critical of them, and may have even unintentionally naturalized and reinforced these ideas. Also, maybe this is just a pet peeve and I’m taking it too seriously, but I’m irritated at the comic’s implication that men in our culture get married mostly so they can have (“legitimate”) sex, and that women are the regulators of this “evil impulse” – both their own, and that of the man they must “fight off”. This comic paints men as purely sexually driven, which undermines their free choice and hypermasculinizes them, and portrays women as deniers of sexual pleasure, and arbitrators of sexual relationships. The ambiguity of the characters may even have maximized this effect, as Scott Macleod suggests that the less specified the features of a character are, the more likely we could be to identify it as similar to us.

All in all, I enjoy the format of “Death to the Extremist” and believe that many of his comics in some way humourously challenge gender stereotyping; however, I’m not convinced that this particular strip achieves that effect. I appreciate his sardonic assessment of government-regulated relationships and the social roles that we assume in conjunction with them, and look forward to reading other comics in the series that address this with a little more depth.

Images of Women in Japan and Japanese Comic Magazines

2009-03-23T16:30:00.012-07:00

I would like to talk a bit more about the topic of my article "Images of Women in Weekly Male Comic Magazines in Japan", by Kinko Ito. As I mentioned during my presentation, comic magazines are claimed to be the epitome of Japanese sexual politics because stories in the comic establish and reinforce the male ego and male social status while depicting females as sex objects. The way these Japanese comic magazines does this is by creating female characters that have a lot of sex appeal. They often show their naked bodies and scenes of undressing are common in male comic magazines.

What I found interesting was that the women considered as attractive in the Japanese comic magazines have Caucasian facial and body features. These are characteristics such as large round eyes, long eyelashes, noses and legs, thin lips, small waistlines and large breasts which contrast the small eyes, short nose, short legs, and flat breasts most Japanese women have. It is this portrayal of women in Japanese comic magazines that draw in male readers.

This is evident when comparing Mariko Tamaki's comic "Skim", which is not a comic magazine, and the covers of weekly male comic magazines such as Shukan Manga (Weekly Manga) and Yangu Janpu (Young Jump).

As you can see in Weekly Manga, the woman shown on the cover has a lot of sex appeal, dressed in lingerie and has the desirable Western traits of large eyes, breasts, and small waistline.

This is also the case for the woman in Young Jump. In addition, in reference to what Sarah said in class, the bikini the model is wearing has a United States flag pattern which is, perhaps, marking the desirable traits of the Caucasian characteristics.

However, Tamaki's female character in her comic, Skim, is similar to a typical Japanese teenage girl with the small slanted eyes, short and non-thin body figure.

Because comic magazines are very popular in Japan, Japanese women seem to have accepted the cover images and characters of these sexy and attractive women as the ideal appearance of a woman. In Kinko Ito's article, the author states that the Japanese "consider their race as unique and superior" but that many Japanese, especially women, "value Caucasian looks and yearn for them" (Ito, 84). As a result, plastic surgery is booming in Japan, and surgical procedures for eyelids and noses are becoming increasingly common. Some women are said to have surgery before a job interview as they believe good looks will guarantee desirability, popularity, and a good life. These things may indeed have been influenced by the way the 'attractive woman' image is portrayed in comic magazines.What do you guys think?

2009-03-23T13:02:00.004-07:00

The week we read The Invisibles: Apocalipstick I had an interesting argument/ discussion with someone over what it means to be a transvestite as opposed to a transgendered individual. The argument arose because the two of us were unable to agree on whether the character Lord Fanny in Apocalipstick was a transvestite or transgendered, I being the one arguing that she is transgendered. In this particular issue of The Invisibles there is a fair amount of evidence that could be sighted for either argument, and since we as a class have already discussed this comic I won’t delve into it, but what I would like to discuss is how our understanding of trans- identities is affected by their visual portrayal.

While I did argue for Lord Fanny as being transgendered I can see why she would be read as a transvestite, or a man who cross-dresses. Notably is the fact that she is drawn with the male musculature typical to superheroes, as well as a strong jaw-line. Regardless of the situation I think the need to identify someone’s sex regardless of what their preferred gender may be is problematic. In the case of Lord Fanny I think this is especially so, particularly when compared to the transgendered character Isabella in Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss.

Isabella from Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss

From the very beginning of the 5 volume manga series Yazawa makes it clear that Isabella is a transgendered character. However, unlike Grant Morrison with Lord Fanny Yazawa does not rely on the use of masculine characteristics to do so. Isabella doesn’t even reveal her “origin story” until the very end of the 4th volume, again unlike Lord Fanny whose story we learn in volume 2. Instead the reader is made aware of Isabella’s sex by the confused thoughts of the main character when first they meet. After that though, Isabella’s sex and gender go unchallenged leaving her to be who she is.

What I particularly admire about Yazawa’s portrayal of Isabella though is how she appears visually. She is beautiful, graceful, eloquent in her speech and in spite of the initial thoughts by the main character she is undetectable as a male. The care with which Isabella is depicted is stunning. She is a character who may exist outside of what is conventionally perceived to be “normal,” but nevertheless Yazawa has taken care to present her as just as human as anyone else. Most importantly, unlike Lord Fanny, it is impossible for Isabella to be seen as anything other than what she wants to be or seen as.

Saturday Morning Watchmen

2009-03-20T14:16:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered what Watchmen would be like as a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon from the '80s? Wonder no longer!

The Physicality of Female Characters in Superhero Comics

2009-03-18T01:24:00.011-07:00

After my presentation last Friday, I thought I would post a few more images that I did not get to show you, specifically concerning the female characters within superhero comics. I discussed the gender conventions that plagued male superheroes and the anxiety this created, which led to an overcompensation using hyper-masculinity. However, the article I presented only touched on the gender anxieties surrounding the female characters. Unlike the male characters, whose anxieties remain mostly separate from the judgment of female characters, the women within superhero comics of the 1950s are placed entirely under the male gaze and, accordingly, the anxieties they express mainly concern their physical appearance.

As we discussed on Friday, there are overlaps between Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen plots; specifically, the Lois Lane comic, “The Fattest Girl in Metropolis” compared to a similar Jimmy Olsen comic, “The Fat Boy in Metropolis.” While Lois Lane is ashamed of her sudden weight gain and decides she must hide it from superman, Jimmy Olsen is offered his weight in diamonds by the Maharajah and even asks Superman for his help to shed some pounds. Within the two panels from the interior of the comic, we can see that this difference is still highly pronounced. Despite Jimmy’s weight gain, he appears to be repulsed by an equally large woman (as they eat ice cream together) and refers to her as an “elephant,” despite his similar size. No wonder Lois Lane is so deeply ashamed of her weight gain, which is only emphasized by Superman describing her as “quite a load” compared his usually slender cargo, the “normal sized” Lois Lane. However, I also found a cover that shows both a fat Superboy and a fat Lana Lang and, while Lana does appear to be in the more humiliating situation considering she is stuck in a phone booth, Superboy does express some anxiety regarding his appearance as well.

I also noticed a similar pattern between the Lois Lane cover “Lois Lane Super Brain” I showed in class and the same Jimmy Olsen comic. Lois Lane is entirely concerned with the appearance of her enlarged head, despite being the smartest person in the world. Contrastingly, Jimmy Olsen’s super brain enables him to have complete power over Superman. While Lois Lane’s only capacity to have Superman “at her mercy” lies with her looks, Jimmy Olsen can actually use his super intellect—despite his enlarged head—to manipulate Superman.

Lois Lane’s main goal is to marry Superman, despite the fact that he can only be married in dream sequences or imaginary stories. Regardless of his inability to marry her, the entire premise for their potential marriage is based entirely on her looks and entirely dependant on Superman’s preference regarding her appearance. This cover questions whether Superman prefers Lois as a blonde, redhead or brunette.

A more extreme case of the emphasis on Lois' apperance and Superman's preference is the highly controversial Lois Lane comic, “I am Curious (Black)." Within this comic, Lois uses Superman’s help to become “black” for twenty-four hours in order to research a news story about African-Americans. Significantly, she repeatedly questions Superman about whether he would marry her, despite her skin colour (of course it’s still about marriage) but never receives a response…

(You can see more images and get an entire plot synopsis here: http://comicbooksrevisited.blogspot.com/2007/12/supermans-girlfriend-lois-lane-106-part.html)

What do you guys think of these images?

Independent Comix

2009-03-16T14:41:00.005-07:00

The fruits of Robin's library:

The Dream by Julie Doucet

Since her mother tried to induce her to bra-wearing at age 14, Julie Doucet has scorned bras. But does her subconscious agree?
•••

Late by Fiona Smyth

A girl recounts learning about the Virgin Mary, and how she was impregnated with God's child at His whim. Paranoia sets in — what if God decides she will be pregnant? — and reproduction doesn't seem all it's chalked up to be.
•••

Uncovered, by Carol Tyler

Baffled by her mother's dispiriting order that she wear a shirt, a young girl learns some surprising news from her older sister about why, exactly, girls have to wear shirts. She tries to turn her newfound knowledge to the family's good.
•••

Constellations, by Debbie Dreschler
Warnings: mild incest

A girls' night sleepover is ruined when the hostess's father makes inappropriate advances on his daughter.
•••

Minnie's 3rd Love, by P. Gloekner
Warnings: non-consent, drug abuse, graphic nudity

Minnie meets Tabitha, a junkie well indoctrinated in the local drug and sex trade. What she at first takes to be love soon turns into a downward spiral of drug and sex abuse.
---
NB: You can zoom in on each page with the +/- buttons on the Scribd toolbar; you also have the option of downloading each comic to your desktop, if you'd prefer to read them that way.

Comix Academics

2009-03-13T15:49:00.002-07:00

Here is a great book that is a collection of Academic essays on comics that are actually really good.

Boycott the Watchmen film!

2009-03-13T13:54:00.002-07:00

Here is an open letter from David Hayter, one of the screenwriters who adapted Watchmen for the screen. Excerpt below, emphasis mine.

"But if you haven't seen it yet? Well, I'll just say this...

"It may upset you. And it probably will upset you.

"And all along, we really meant it to.

"Because face it. All this time...You there, with the Smiley-face pin. Admit it.

"All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions. Like a fry-basket full of hot grease in the face. Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. I know, I know...

"You say you don't like it. You say you've got issues. I get it.

"And yet... You'll be thinking about this film, down the road. It'll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.

"Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally."

The character Sally, otherwise known as the first Silk Spectre, is the victim of a sexual assault. If you think this is as vile as I do, please do not give these people any more of your money. Tell your friends.

Help!

2009-03-12T19:44:00.003-07:00

Hey everyone,

I have been on a maaadd search this week to find Fun Home... but its honestly sold out everywhere. I have now been to 5 different book/comic stores, only to be offered a copy in about 3 weeks time... does anyone have a copy that I can borrow at some point before class tomorrow? I can meet you on campus anywhere!!

Thanks,
Tavia

Bechdel video

2009-03-11T14:29:00.002-07:00

I thought y'all might be interested in seeing this, in regards to this weeks topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumLU3UpcGY

Final Presentations: Schedule

2009-03-10T21:13:00.003-07:00

Final presentations are coming up in the weeks of March 27 and April 3. The schedule is as follows:

March 27
Sarah, Aislin, Katie, Dina, Jeremy, Graham, Robin, Juhee, and Kasha

April 3
Tavia, Sara, Jodie, Jessica, Sasha, Ryan, Dominique, Azhia, and Amanda

•••

Presentation: 15% of mark
Length: About 8 minutes, no more than 10.

Once again, the presentations will be a kind of abstract on your final project. Discuss what you will be doing, what idea led you to decide on it — e.g. an image, problem, or theme, how you will be going about it...

This can be done for the creative project, too: as above, why you chose it, what you hope to communicate, approaches you will take, and an image/problem/theme/other thing you plan to address.

This is to get some discussion going around your idea, which will hopefully shed some light on an angle you hadn't thought of, solve a problem you'd wondered about, show your idea's pretty much awesome, etc. Hearing others' ideas will give you ideas for what to do for your own.

There will be participation marks given in each of the two classes for a) attendance and b) oral participation.

Miriam Libicki

2009-03-02T10:40:00.002-08:00

Much of the work that we have been covering in this course so far has featured female characters from a male writers point of view. Vancouver has a wealth of women that are creating some fantastic comics. The common thread among some of my favorite local creators is that they really have nothing in common. Much of the work I have come across, avoids making any dependency on cookie cutter characters, but instead have fascinating strengths and faults that come together for a stronger package in a comic as a whole. There is on particular person, that I feel has really

Miriam Libicki’s Jobnik faithfully follows the tradition of auto-bio comics and tells a story of her life that covers the points that are important to her. Jobnik by definition is Israeli slang for a soldier that is stationed in a non-combative position. The story follows Miriam enlisting in the IDF and being stationed as a Jobnik in the IDF during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Miriam’s experience is interesting and unique. Because of her background of growing up in the United States, Miriam can probably be best described as a stranger in a strange land. There are some comparisons to the work of Joe Sacco, because of where the story takes place, but the two have little in common. Sacco’s Palestine is combination of other peoples stories, aimed at getting a collective idea of the Palestinian experience in the occupied territories.

Miriam is telling her story, without establishing her politics or making the experience based on cashing in from spillover interest. The drama of Miriam’s life is an interpersonal following of her relationships up and downs with a kind of brutal honesty one can only expect from the finest of auto-bio creators. Taking a cue from creators like Phoebe Gloeckner and Justin Green, Miriam is working with what she is comfortable with, in turn, that may make some readers uncomfortable. It would easy for Miriam to follow the lead of Joe Sacco and just focus on the political aspect of her time in the IDF, but that’s not the story she wants to tell.

One of the thinks I really love about comics is that you can really see creators at their most raw and exposed. Miriam is no exception. She relays her mistakes and pitfalls with a striking honesty that most people hide to themselves. When a cartoonist is so honest, it helps to create connection for readers who may be able to identify with Miriam’s experience, fleshing out a better understanding in a personal context.

I am interested in seeing where Miriam goes with her work. She is still relatively young, but with each new issue of her Jobnik series, her strength as a cartoonist is more fleshed out. She has been accompanying her ongoing narrative with a series of interesting illustrated essay’s that explore issues ranging from the fetishising of a military uniform, to the Jewish literary tradition of self exposure through brutally honest autobiography.

If you want to check out Miriam’s work, go to her website here or go meet her at the next comic convention.

Presentation Marking Scheme:

2009-02-27T13:55:00.002-08:00

Presentation /5
Preparation /5
Content /5 x 2

Total /20

Reading What? and Who Wears the Pants in Batcomics

2009-02-24T23:09:00.006-08:00

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a great reading break! If it seemed to go by too fast, do console yourselves in the fact that next year's will be two weeks long. God bless the Olympics.

She said, controversially.

Next class, we've got presentations by Aislin and Katie, as well as a discussion of Strangers in Paradise! If you're having trouble finding a copy, as I did, there is a torrent available for download at Z-Cult FM. I've actually downloaded it, so if you contact me I should be able to send you the volume 1 readings (but don't quote me on that — let me know if you're interested, and we'll find out). Otherwise, go through the registration process there and get yourself a copy.

I'll also throw out a mention of another comic shop in town, which I hadn't posted on the original list of places to find comics, but where I found Strangers in Paradise volume one, and thus heartily deserves mention:

Elfsar Games and Comics, 1007 Hamilton St. It's at Hamilton and Nelson; one way of getting there is to catch the 17 or 7, get off at Nelson, and walk a few blocks (3?) south.

And remember: if you like Strangers, buy it — especially 'cos it's a self-published work (or was at the outset, not sure if a publisher's picked it up).

•••

Something interesting nabbed from When Fangirls Attack:

This image (I don't think you can see the entire thing above because of the blog layout.)

This is a free promo poster for "the 2008 comic convention" (presumably ComicCon?), by Adam Hughes. I'll be the first to say it's pretty sexy — well, except I'm probably the 990th to say so, at this point — and that the costumes are pretty boss in being stylish and appropriate to the superpowers/schtick of everyone in the image, but there are a couple of beefs folks have with it.

Beef the first: Where is Lois Lane? She's no superhero (as we have discovered), but she's arguably the first mainstream female comics character, or one of the earliest, and her presence irks some.

Beef the second: Recently, Batwoman was (rather tokenishly) "outed" as a lesbian — a lipstick lesbian, of course. For those of you not too familiar with the DC/Marvel/superheroverse at large, I challenge you to locate her in the image. Your hint is that she's a lesbian.

Yes! She is the only one wearing pants!

Now, I'm kind of shooting myself in the foot by saying I really like her ensemble — and I don't think Hughes should necessarily be demonized for slapping some slacks on her — but the fact that everyone else is more or less Oscar gowned, it's a little conspicuous. There's a line between lipstick lesbians and Ellen Degeneres, and the latter's who the ensemble makes me think of.

And because I totally hotlinked that image, here's the webpage from whence it was ganked.

Look forward to seeing you all this Friday!

For those of you who missed it last time...the next Comicon ...

2009-02-20T00:52:00.003-08:00

Hey guys,

Just wanted to mention that in case you missed the last comic convention, the next one will be held on:

Sunday, March 15th, 2009
11am to 5pm

Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street, Vancouver, BC

Special Guests:

    * Howard Chaykin (American Flagg!, Wolverine, Punisher War, etc)
    * David Boswell (Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman)
    * Robin Bougie (Cinema Sewer)
    * Kelly Everaert (Jungle Tales, Trilogy of Terror)
    * Forg (Birth of Jazz)
    * Miriam Libicki (Jobnik)
    * Mike Myhre (Space Jet Comics)
    * Andrew Salmon (Secret Agent X)
    * Robin Thompson (Champions of Hell, Hemp Island)
    * Verne Andru
    * Rusty Beach
    * Jordyn Bochon & Tim Carpenter
    * Laura Eveleigh
    * Donald King
    * Steven Snyder

Dealer Tables: $50/centre; $60/wall

Admission: $4.00
Kids under 14: Free

Hourly door prizes, including Monsters vs Aliens movie passes!

For more information about this show, please email
lswong@uniserve.com or call 604-322-6412.

2009-02-18T16:41:00.002-08:00

Hey everyone,

I just read about a new art exhibit that is going to be happening soon in Vancouver and I thought some of you might be interested because it sort of pertains to the class (and because so many of us are either English, Art History or Women's Studies majors/minors). Although its not about comics... it is about women-centred visual imagery, specifically a female response to historical and literary passages of text (I also loved the name of the show).

Here is a little blurb from the article:
"In a series of new drawings, Vancouver artists, feminist and activist Cherise Clarke visualizes passages of writing through symbolic illustrations. In FEMINSTRATION: You Draw Like A Girl, Clarke takes the term "herstory" to heart by illustrating her experiences and emotional impressions as protagonist in her own life story."

Where: Gallery Gachet
--88 East Cordova Street, Vancouver, B.C.
--http://www.gachet.org
When: March 7-29th, 2009
--Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 12-6pm.

2009-02-06T15:01:00.002-08:00

Ok, after asserting that flipping pages is superior to reading on a computer screen, and y'all should actually buy any comics you like when you find them...

http://comicsworld.wordpress.com/

Perfect for anyone who doesn't like torrents (the sharing site they use is rapidshare.com, at least for the most part).

You'll need a comic viewer to see the files, which you can find (legally!) here:
http://www.geocities.com/davidayton/CDisplay

Remember, support the comic industry and actually buy things too!

Comics Online!

2009-02-03T14:02:00.003-08:00

Last class, I mentioned that there were some comics that could be downloaded, if people could not find them in the stores. I have compiled a list of the ones I've found. They are torrents, so you'll have to have a torrent program for it. And some of them have the entire series, or all of the artist's work, but you can choose just the ones that we had for class, so that the file isn't something crazy like 2Gigs or something. Also, some of them are in .cbz format, which also means that you'll have to download a viewer for it. But don't worry, all of it is free, and compatible with macs and pcs (I'm not sure about linux though, sorry guys), and you just have to search it on google to find the program. Anyway, without further delay, here are the links to the torrents that I've found for the comics!

The Invisibles

Sandman

Persepolis

And if you want a continuation of some of the ones we've read already:

Y - The Last Man

Frank Miller - Sin City, Daredevil, Elektra, Hard Boiled, Dark Knight

If you need some help with figuring out torrent files, or you don't know how to find the .cbz file viewer thing, let me know. I'll help you out.

Read The Invisibles online?

2009-02-02T23:52:00.002-08:00

Is it too good to be true? I thought I heard someone say last class that you could download or view the comic online at some fancy website. Help!

Jessica

Presentation Sign-Up

2009-01-27T21:35:00.021-08:00

The time for presentation sign-up has arrived!
From this week onward, each class will feature at least two theory presentations on articles relevant to the week's readings or to the class as whole. The purpose of these presentations is for everyone to get a good grounding in theories about comics, art, gender and culture without each person having to study each article in detail.

How to sign up
There are 3 presentation slots allotted per day. Choose the article you'd like to present, the date you'd like to present it, and leave a comment to this post.

Example: "February 13 - 'The Exotic Other Scripted.'"

You do not need to put your name in the comment, as that will show up automatically.

Wait, what's with all the asterisks?
For most dates, you can choose any available article and present it at any available time. The "*" directs you to a list of miscellaneous theory articles covering all sorts of topics. So, any article under that list can be presented in any time slot with a "*" beside it.

However, there are articles that pertain to specific works we'll be studying on certain dates. For instance, because we'll be studying Neil Gaiman's The Sandman on February 13th, the Sandman article will be presented that class. Similarly, all the articles relevant to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis will be presented on March 6th, when we study Persepolis. Ditto Lost Girls and any manga we cover.

Example:
If you choose to present on "Bibles, Guns, and… Comic Books?", you can choose any available date. However, if you choose "Closing the Gap in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home," you must sign up for one of the time slots on March 13th.

***Please check to make sure that the article you're about to go for hasn't already been signed up for. There are plenty of excellent (interesting, weird, funny, mind-blowing) articles to choose from. Aislin and I will even be nice and pick from the leftovers! Also, please do not sign up for a date if three people have already signed up for it. (Mar 6 is an exception.)

All right, thanks for slogging through all that! Article descriptions are at the bottom of the page. Go crazy! As soon as you sign up, I'll e-mail you your article

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Feb 6 - The Invisibles: Apocalipstick by Grant Morrisson
1) Jeremy - "Porn Comics: a Content Analysis"
2) Sasha - "Bibles, Guns and ... Comic Books?"
3) *

Feb 13 - Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman; Lost Girls by Alan Moore
1) Azhia - "'Being' Decentered in Sandman"
2) Kasha - "Lost Girls" Roundtable
3) Sara - "Women in Comic Books"

Feb 27 - Strangers in Paradise (vol 1) by Terry Moore
1) Katie - "Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero"
2) Aislin - "Webcomics: the Influence and Continuation of the Comix Revolution"
3) *

Mar 6 - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
1) "Teaching and Research in Unavailable Intersections" by Afsaneh Najmabadi or "Feminism, Democracy, and Empire: Islam and the War of Terror" by Saba Mahmood
2) Dina - "Estranging the Familiar: 'East' and 'West' in Satrapi's Persepolis" by Nima Naghibi and Andrew O'Malley
3) Sarah - "Unveiling: Persepolis as Embodied Performance" by Jennifer Worth
4) Mandy - "Fighting and Flying: Archival Analysis of Threat, Authoritarianism, and the North American Comic Book"

Mar 13 - Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; excerpt from V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
1) Ryan - "Closing the Gap in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home" by Jennifer Lemberg
2) Robin - "Of Maus and memory"
3) Tavia - "Domesticity, Homosociality and Male Power"

Mar 20 - Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki; student-choice manga
1) Jodie - "Images of Women in Weekly Male Comic Magazines in Japan"
2) "Female Subjectivity [...] in Ladies' Comics and Young Ladies' Comics" by Fusami Ogi
3) Juhee - "Manga story-telling/showing" by Aarnoud Rommens

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*Choose from any of:
~~• "Bibles, Guns, and... Comic Books?" (choose 1 or 2 sections) by Derek J. Maisonville~~
~~• "Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero" by Jeffrey A Brown~~
~~• "Of Maus and memory: the structure of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel of the Holocaust" by Stephen E. Tabachnick~~
~~•"Domesticity, Homosociality, and Male Power in Superhero Comics of the 1950s" by Mark Best~~
~~• "Women in Comic Books" by Michael R. Lavin~~
~~• "Webcomics: the Influence and Continuation of the Comix Revolution" by The UF Visual Rhetoric Research Group: Sean Fenty, Trena Houp and Laurie Taylor~~
~~• "Introduction: Graphic Narrative" by Hillary Chute and Marianne DeKoven~~
• "Fighting and Flying: Archival Analysis of Threat, Authoritarianism, and the North American Comic Book" by Bill E. Peterson and Emily D. Gerstein
~~• "Porn Comics: A Content Analysis" by C. Eddie Palmer~~
• "The Exotic Other Scripted: Identity and Metamorphosis in David Mack’s Kabuki" by Jim Casey and Stefan Hall

Sandman and Lost Girls:
~~• "'Being' Decentered in~~ ~~Sandman: History, Dreams, Gender, and the 'Prince of Metaphor and Allusion'" by Rodney Sharkey~~
~~• "ImageSexT: a Roundtable on Lost Girls" by Meredith Collins~~

Persepolis:
• "Teaching and Research in Unavailable Intersections" by Afsaneh Najmabadi
• "Feminism, Democracy, and Empire: Islam and the War of Terror" by Saba Mahmood
~~• "Estranging the Familiar: 'East' and 'West' in Satrapi's Persepolis" by Nima Naghibi and Andrew O'Malley~~
~~• "Unveiling: Persepolis as Embodied Performance" by Jennifer Worth~~

Fun Home:
• ~~"Closing the Gap in Alison Bechdel's~~ Fun Home~~" by Jennifer Lemberg~~

Skim and manga:
~~• "Images of Women in Weekly Male Comic Magazines in Japan" by Kinko Ito~~
• "Female Subjectivity and Shoujo (Girls) Manga (Japanese Comics): Shoujo in Ladies' Comics and Young Ladies' Comics" by Fusami Ogi
• ~~"Manga story-telling/showing" by Aarnoud Rommens~~

Later, Comics

2009-01-26T23:40:00.004-08:00

I wanted to put this up for everyone to see. "Later," is a web comic created by a former UBC English student named Darcie.

It takes place in a kind of post apocalyptic (yet strangely not dystopian) world which I'm still trying to figure out, but it has some interesting stuff. I don't intend to write a piece on this, but thought everyone might enjoy seeing it. Check it out at www.latercomics.com

"Skim" by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

2009-01-24T14:55:00.006-08:00

Hey all,

I've ordered in 18 copies of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's "Skim" to Vancouver Kidsbooks. The copies should be in 2 or 3 weeks from now, well in advance of when we'll be reading it. So, in 3 weeks or so, do trot over there and pick up a copy -- just give them my name (Sarah-Nelle Jackson) as the ordering party, and you'll be good to go!

Kidsbooks lives at 3083 W Broadway; you can take the 9, 99 or 17 buses.
More contact info: http://www.kidsbooks.ca/locations.htm?

Cheers,
Sarah J

Thoughts on A Softer World

2009-01-23T11:55:00.004-08:00

In short, I can't decide if I like this comic. It may be the case of the unrefined eye looking at some brilliant Kandinsky and sneering "My toddler could do that". That said, in analyzing the way this comic is put together, it seems that the unchanging three-frame strip relies mostly on blurry, obscure photos juxtaposed against some sparse but vaguely ironic text to make it appear "deep". Though this may very well belong in Scott McCleod's comic category, I just don't know how much of an original contribution it makes to the comic world.

Taking the devil's advocate to myself however, I do appreciate the minimalistic approach that contrasts so much with the usual detail that comic artists so meticulously apply to their drawings. Ambiguity can be inspiring to the reader, who, according to McCleod's book may be able to identify better with the happy face symbol than the photo-realistic face. Given that the frames ARE photographs, I enjoy the way the artists have chosen to obscure what is usually such a realistic medium.

I'm trying to post a link to one strip in particular that I think relies too much on obviously juxtaposing images to make it seem artistic, but I'm not really computer literate so I don't know if it will work? I hear that their statements are often insightful, I just wonder how much readers are intended to make up their own stories, and maybe that is the main purpose of the comic.

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=17

Reading schedule

2009-01-16T13:49:00.003-08:00

Hey guys! Here's the schedule we agreed on last week:

Week 1 - introduction, finalizing course readings
Week 2 - Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics; excerpts from Golden-Age Lois Lane issues and Betty and Veronica.
Week 3 - Y: the Last Man (vol. 1) by Brian K. Vaughan
Week 4 - Sin City: Big Fat Kill by Frank Miller
Week 5 - The Invisibles: Apocalipstick by Grant Morrisson
Week 6 - Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman
Week 7 - Strangers in Paradise (vol 1) by Terry Moore
Week 8 - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Week 9 - Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; excerpt from V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
Week 10 - Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki
Week 11 - TBA: class choice
Week 12 - Final presentations
Week 13 - Final presentations

Happy reading!

Vancouver Comicon

2009-01-15T11:19:00.002-08:00

Hey everyone, I just noticed this in the entertainment section of my newspaper and I thought some of you might be interested:

Vancouver Comicon
"Comic and graphic-novel fanboys and girls gather for a one-day comic convention, where they can meet comic artists such as Matthew Clark and Camilla D'Errico"
When: Sunday, January 18th; between 11am and 5pm
Where: Heritage Hall, Main Street
Admission: $4

Golden Age "Lois Lane," and other items of interest

2009-01-11T03:35:00.004-08:00

Hey everyone,

As promised, I've uploaded excerpts from three sixties-era "Lois Lane" comics. They won't take long to read — we're not exactly dealing with deep and meaningful, here — and they're pretty fun reads (or so I think) sheerly for that retro North American comics feel. These and the Betty and Veronica tomes I handed out last class will provide some introductory fodder for the class. Cookie-cut female roles with very little complexity: a perfect jumping-off point!

***Instructions for download: Click on the link provided, then click the button that says "Download." You should also be able to read the comic online, but downloading will probably make the reading experience easier (as you'll probably want to zoom in).

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"Lois Lane" #86 - A Contract with the Devil
Lois finally has her chance to marry Superman, but has to sign away her soul to do it. Is he worth it? And what's really going on? Note the cover: "80-page All-Wedding Issue!"

"Lois Lane" #104 - The Super-Prisoner of Amazon Island
The Super-Sorority, an all-girl Superman fanclub, gets stranded on a desert island. Ruling the island: Amazons — and they're out to kill! Or, rather, they're out to marry. Trapping Superman, each woman, sorority sister and Amazon alike, competes for Superman's hand in marriage.

"Lois Lane" #66 - Lois Lane, Witch Doctor!
Oh man, I don't even know what to say about this one. Lois Lane's a witch doctor in the tropics (Amazon basin?), but also working on a newspaper assignment with coworker and romantic rival Lana Lang. Tropical diseases, hallucinations, magical amulets and Superman all figure into this politically incorrect, arguably romantic romp.

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To complement these readings, and to prepare for Friday's class, please also read the following short excerpt from Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes:

…Besides, for the alert reader there were other fields of interest. It seems that among Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and Superman there existed a schizoid and chaste ménage à trois. Clark Kent loved but felt abashed with Lois Lane; Superman saved Lois Lane when she was in trouble, found her a pest the rest of the time. Since Superman and Clark Kent were the same person this behavior demands explanation. It can't be that Kent wanted Lois to respect him for himself, since himself was Superman. Then, it appears, he wanted Lois to respect him for his fake self, to love him when he acted the coward, to be thre when he pretended he needed her. She never was—so, of course, he loved her. A typical American romance. Superman never needed her, never needed anybody—in any event, Lois chased him—so, of course, he didn't love her. He had contempt for her. Another typical American Romance.

Love is really the pursuit of a desired object, not pursuit by it. Once you've caught the object there is no longer any reason to love it, to have it hanging around. There must be other desirable objects out there, somewhere. So Clark Kent acted as the control for Superman. What Kent wanted was just that which Superman didn't want to be bothered with. Kent wanted Lois, Superman didn't—thus marking the difference between a sissy and a man. A sissy wanted girls who scorned him; a man scorned girls who wanted him. Our cultural opposite of the man who didn't make out with women has never been the man who did—but rather the man who could if he wanted to, but still didn't. The ideal of masculine strength, whether Gary Cooper's, Lil Abner's, or Superman's, was for one to be so virile and handsome, to be in such a position of strength, that he need never go near girls. Except to help them. And then get the hell out. Real rapport was not for women. It was for villains. That's why they got hit so hard.
- pp20-21, The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer, ©1965, The Dial Press: New York

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And, since it was brought up last class—

Obtaining Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics
1) The Chapters at Broadway and Granville has a copy, and can order in up to three more from its other stores (I gather this from the stock numbers given on the website) - 604-731-7822
2) The Comicshop - 2089 W4th ave - 604-738-8122
3) RX Comics - 2418 Main St - 604-454-5099
4) Golden Age Collectibles - 852 Granville St - 604-683-2819
5) Vancouver Kidsbooks - 3083 W Broadway - 604-738-5335
6) Pulpfiction Books (used bookstore with substantial comics section) - 2422 Main St - 604-876-4311
7) Craigslist, apparently .
8) Me! I have a brand-new, never-read, day-old copy. - banana.imparfait@gmail.com

All of the above either definitely (if comic shops) or very likely have at least one copy of Understanding Comics. This is all I could think of off the top of my head, but if you do some Googling yourself, perhaps you'll find more!

Feel free to go halfsies on the price with someone else in the class, and arrange for one of you to read it first and then pass it on partway through the week.

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40% off books?!

I got the percentage wrong last class — I believe I actually get 40% off books at Kidsbooks, as an erstwhile employee. I can order in any of the comic books we've yet to read in class, but we should allow at least two weeks for any orders to arrive.

If you would be interested in obtaining any of the course material this way, please let me know in a comment to this entry and I'll contact you all by e-mail. I will have to double-check to make sure the discount still applies when I order a bunch of copies of a thing — but I've ordered in a heap of stuff before (mmm, schoolbooks) and it was totally kosher.

Welcome & guidelines

2009-01-08T13:18:00.003-08:00

From xkcd by Randall Munroe

Welcome to WMST 425B! This is your class blog, where all short writing assignments will be posted. You will also be assigned participation marks for posting or commenting on other people's posts.

So, in effect, this will be an online class space. As such, all our class safe space policies will be operative here: personal attacks, especially those aimed at religious, ethnic or other kinds of minority, will not be tolerated. We encourage all participants to question and challenge their peers' ideas while respecting their experiences, voices and humanity. These policies apply to those who are not posters here, as well as those who are, and comments violating these policies are subject to disemvoweling or replacement by bunny videos.

With that said, the links at the sidebar should get you started with online materials. If you know about or find any additional websites that you find helpful, link in the comments to this entry and they'll be added. I look forward to learning from and with all of you this semester!