Girls Do Too Like Comics! I Just Proved It!

[beccatoria]

So, something awesome happened today that I am going to share with YOU, interwebs, because I love you.

A friend's been dating this awesome person for a while which is great, because when your friends date awesome people, you get to make new awesome friends. Now, this person is pretty quiet, likes to listen to everyone else more than to herself, but from a few comments, I knew that she wasn't really a big fan of comics, they made her kinda uncomfortable - I am pretty sure she classed them in the same category as lad's mags other stuff that's basically porn you can read on the train. Like I said, she's a quiet person, a few comments from her constituted a forceful opinion.

The thing that's interesting to me about this, though, is that her opinion wasn't formed in a vacuum. It's not like she had a media stereotype in her head. The guy she's dating - our friend - reads a lot of comics we lend him and doesn't read a huge amount of books beyond that. I haaaate gratuitous cheesecake and shitty depictions of women in mainstream cape books, and the books our mate was reading reflect that - but we were mostly lending him mainstream cape books, and it made me realise how numbed I am to how they look.

And damn, man, it just made me sad. And also nostalgic for those days when I didn't really read cape books, I read whatever trades were available at the library because I was a broke teenage girl and didn't even know where the local comic shop was. And honestly, it's rose-tinted spectacles of enormity if I say that none of that shit made me uncomfortable or made me wonder why I was reading it or didn't have shitty depictions of women - not to mention how confusing it is to read like ONE trade from near the end of Marvelman, because hell if I knew what order things were sposed to be in - but...that's when I fell in love with the medium, even though I spent the ten years after that wandering in and out.

And I wanted to do that for my new friend. So when it was her birthday, just recently, I thought to myself, fuck it. I am going to buy her a comic. I am going to buy her a comic that a) features a woman as a main character, b) is not drawn in an exploitative manner (and that will be defined broadly), and c) is self-contained.

So first I went and got depressed at how difficult this was. I basically had to write off superhero stuff entirely except for possibly Batwoman but I felt even that had too many ties to the wider DCU to be an easy entry point and besides, I wanted to show her that it's not all a genre where spandex is an entry requirement.

In the end I settled on the first volume of Fables. When I gave it to her I said, more or less, "this is a comic that will not make you feel like you need a shower." I honestly thought that would be an end to it - perhaps I'd get a polite "Oh, it was fun!" in a few weeks. I honestly suspected it might sit on her shelf gathering dust forever, and I would not have judged her for it.

Instead, I started getting texts about how much she liked it - how easy it was to read, how she wasn't expecting to be so engrossed she finished it in one sitting, how much fun it was and what should she read next.

Today she dragged her boyfriend shopping for new comics; I got a panicked text from him - they didn't have the next Fables! What did I suggest instead! - I missed out on answering because I was at my new job where I'm still nervous enough I don't let myself check my phone unless I'm on break - but apparently she bought the first volume of Madame Xanadu because she thought it looked cool.

And that's my story, interwebs. Just one more of the million examples of how it's not that chicks don't dig comics, they just don't dig exploitation.

Comments

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

That is way cool! :D

[redjaywrites.livejournal.com]

Well done you! :D Awesome story; the love should be shared.

And... while I see your point I do also have a soft spot for Empowered...

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

Oooh! (Early) “Fables” is an awesome entry into comics. It motivated my reentry into comics after I had drifted away and not read any for years and was pretty much also my first exposure to non-superhero comics, I believe.

I almost recced Simone’s “Birds of Prey” as a good stand-alone comic entry (it’s the only DC I read, and I wasn’t lost or confused by any of it), but then remembered the horrid cheesecakey art, so I think we all sort of…become immune to it after a while? I hate it sooo much, but I have to say that on a list of things I find objectionable, if that’s the ONLY thing and it comes with awesome women and a good story, I am ridiculously willing to handwave it. Which I feel bad about, but sigh, the line has to be drawn somewhere or I’ll never read/watch anything.

But anyway, my experiences in converting women have been similar. You just have to find the right book, because just like with every medium ever? Most of it will be exploitative and/or offensive.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

SO true. I have been eaten by Marvel comics since December, but I haven't been able to write about any of it, because before I can get to any of the good stuff, I get distracted into HUGE ENORMOUS RANTS about the disgusting sexist art and incredibly narrow (and to me quite ugly) beauty standards.

[goodbyebird]

Oh yay, awesome story! (I randomly check your journal :p) Nothing thoughtful to add, just \o/

(oh, I did just read that Amy Reeder got replaced on the Batwoman run. Bummed about that.)

Imma go back to playing Mass Effect now. How much do I love that I get to play a female character in a scifi shooter? THIS MUCH.

[metatxt.livejournal.com]

You're totally the Ambassador of comics! I play a dumb and compulsive but pretty iphone game called TinyTower, and finally opened a comic store while Kayla was here; upon very quick consultation it was decreed that it would be called a/the "Beccatorium"