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beccatoriaSo, 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.
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.
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Date: 2012-03-08 06:40 pm (UTC)Also that quote is just...fucking brilliant. So true and so powerful, and so succinctly captures the nature of a landscape that is as much about the power of inconsistencies and irreconcileable tales still being true as it is about facts.
I adore Wonder Woman, like, immensely, which I never did before sitting down and reading some complete runs. My favourite stuff is probably either Rucka's run or Simone's. I know you like both writers. I found Rucka's run was...slow to start, and quite honestly it took me some time to grasp her character because it felt (and I hate to say this because this is harsher and more unfair than I intend it to sound) more like a goodie-two-shoes slightly disney princess, zen-peace-and-love version of her character. Which it later became clear was intentional as Rucka, over the course of his five trades, starts with a deliberately distant view of her; how others see her, and then slowly, as he strips more and more away from her character and we get closer and closer to her, until she's left with nothing but blood on her hands and internal integrity. It's really pretty beautiful, but it's the third, fourth and fifth trades in his series that are the best, and best illustrate the deftness of his writing. There's so much in there about truth and perception as we follow Diana between two unwittingly televised fights, identical in many ways, but one makes her a hero and the other damns her. It's just great stuff.
I also particularly love Simone's first trade, The Circle.
I really need to read Cry for Blood at some point - I've been meaning to check out more Huntress stuff since listening to the audio drama. (Speaking of, I really hope you enjoy it if you listen, but I feel I should warn you that while Babs and Helena have large roles, they don't interact with each other very much at all, though when they do it's powerful stuff. Probably my favourite section in the whole thing is the first time Babs sees Helena in the Batgirl costume and the effect that has on her).
And absolutely no worries about not commenting - as I said, I'm in a different position to most. I completely understand where you're coming from; I would be throwing a similar fit of bitterness and potential separation before reintroduction if this were one of my OTCs. Hell, I'm still desperate for confirmation that the Secret Six are still around. :(
Anyways, Helena Bertinelli: boss king of the universe and fierce, fierce, fierce.