This question has been running over and over in my mind for the past few months. Does Feminism even exist in comics? I went in to a comic shop yesterday and asked the owner if he knew of any comics which I could use for my thesis on Feminism in DC Comics, and he pretty much laughed in my face. The conversation pretty much went like this:
Me: But Wonder Woman was created by William Marston to be a feminist hero.
Dumbass: Yeah but she's been drawn by horny losers like me since that guy died! (His horrible laugh was made worse by the jiggling of his many chins...)
Me: So are there any feminist superheroes these days??
Dumbass: Yeah there's a few but I don't stock them. (I clearly came to the right place)
Me: Well do you have anything in here with feminist type characters?
Dumbass: Uh.... Here! (Hands me Batman: Arkham Asylum) The psychiatrist in this is a right bitch. Total feminist!
It was at that point that I figured I should just not use the F word anymore. Feminist = Evil bitch man hater. At least that what Dumbass thought. Anyway, he just annoyed me. I didn't buy anything from him though, I went to Easons and bought Arkham Asylum there instead :P
So what I'd love to know is, in modern comics or in older ones, where are all the feminist superheroes?? Should I be looking at Marvel instead of DC? Or should I just give up now and change my thesis question to something boring? Can anyone help?
Ok, I mostly read DC, but off the top of my head I reccomend you try:
ReplyDeleteHuntress Year 1
Wonder Woman: The Hikietaia
Promethea - try vol 1 then see if you like the rest
JLA year 1
Detective Comics as of this week, which features Kate Kane as a lesbian batwoaman and is written by Greg Rucka.
you could try supergirl: wings, or, many happy returns
Gail Simone's Birds of Prey run
Supergirl cosmic adventures in the 8th grade
Then there's Y the last man.
these are all ones which didn't offend me, but hey could well offend someone else.
It depends what you want - your feminism won't be the same as other people's feminism. but that's half the fun!
Marvel have recently done Marvel Divas and has displayed absolutely shocking sexism in the marketing of it, so really DC and Marvel are as bad as each other.
I'd really reccomend looking up project girl Wonder and also trawling through the When fangirls attack archives. that will give you a taste of what is out there. I consider all the comic sites I link to to be feminist, but the writers may not. they are not neccessarily overtly feminist, but in my opinion by merely talking about women in comics you are being feminist.
oh, and check our Empowered.
spoiler is a feminist superhero. and awesome. so is ravager.
ReplyDeleteWow thanks for all that! I'll definately look into all of that. It'll keep me busy for awhile :P
ReplyDeleteIt's not really true WW's drawn by horny losers these days- at least, not in her own title. Aaron Lopresti is the current artist of Wondy and he draws her very strong. Before that we had Drew Johnson and Terry Dodson, who weren't bad as all. I agree with Saranga you should check out Greg Rucka's WW run. It begins with the trade "Down to Earth". You should find someone to help you find all the trades.
ReplyDeleteThere's also George Perez's WW, which is lovely and very feminist. Trades are: "Gods and Mortals", "Challenge of the Gods", "Beauty and the Beasts" and "Destiny Calling." Great non-explotative art and it explores feminist issues a lot.
Gail Simone's current run is also great. Like I said, the art is non-skeevy and bautiful, and Gail doesn't try to hide that Wondy is a feminist. There's the great line "Why do people think empowerment of women means hatred of men?" It's Wonder Woman v3 #14-current. It's in trade so far as "The Circle" and "Ends of the Earth".
There's also Secret Six, with some nice lesbian anti-heroes and the current Supergirl run (DO NOT read anything before #34) is pretty good.
Over at Marvel, Runaways has some great female heroes, and Gert Yorkes always struck me as the feminist of the team.
I second all of Saranga's recs as well!
Ed Brubaker's Catwoman run is a perennial favorite of mine.
ReplyDeleteOver at Marvel you should check out Bendis's Alias.
And if you want to maybe slip in a comparison to Vertigo, Preacher has the ever bad-ass Tulip O'Hare. Not to mention, early-ish in the series Tulip and her boyfriend Jesse (the main character) have an open discussion about feminism where he even admits that any inner conflict he feels about feminism is because of his male privilege and he knows he needs to get over it.
You might also try the Giffen-DeMatteis run on Justice League, particularly Black Canary in the early issues. Also Power Girl in the pages of JLE, although Power Girl was definitely written as being very anger-prone and difficult to get along with for much of that time (and that was played for humor), from which some might infer a criticism of feminism.
ReplyDeletePower Girl is an interesting one because, so far as i can tell, she's never taken any shit from anyone, about anything, and she absolutely won't be sidelined cos she's female, yet she has the massive breast and the window. yet there have been attempts in the comics to have her 'own' the window and make it less exploitative.
ReplyDeleteEmpowered is another good one - don't let the covers throw you, it's incredibly clever, and has a lot to say about the issues you're thinking about.
ReplyDeleteFYI There are comics that don't focus specifically on women or "feminism", but are simply written well, in the sense that both genders are portrayed as well developed characters - those are the ones I personally seek out. Obviously anything by Alan Moore (From Hell is particularly interesting for its take on Victorian sexuality and prostitution), and definitely Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which has excellent likeable AND unlikeable female characters.
In my opinion the best writers have something interesting to say about both sexes, not just one or the other.
Saranga, Power Girl didn't have the window in JLE; she started out, granted, with a fairly low-cut costume, but that got replaced with a full-body jumpsuit at some point.
ReplyDeleteHorticulturist: Good point. I don't think I read your comment properly before responding as I thought you said Peej was for feminism. Damn hangover. Sorry bout that.
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