When most people think of comics and comic books, they think of superheroes and boys. For a long time strong male characters have been the face of comic books; Superman, Batman, Captain America, Thor… you get the idea. When Wonder Woman was introduced she offered something that comics had lacked up until that point; a female protagonist. Many people have fought over whether or not Wonder Woman can be considered a proper feminist icon; she’s a strong female sure, but does she actually portray a female that young girls can aspire to be like? No matter which side of the argument you’re on you can’t argue with the fact that she was the first female protagonist in comics and the oldest continuously drawn female superhero in history.
While superheroes may have been the start for comics they have come a long way since their beginnings and actually offer quite a bit in the form of strong female characters (Wonder Woman and other female superheroes aside). This is actually a pretty heady subject, a lot of people have written about it and held entire panels at conventions about it. Recently I’ve started to dive head first into graphic novels, starting at first with the Walking Dead series (because they’re amazing) and moving my way into series like Locke & Key, Saga, The Runaways, Chew, and a whole lot of video game series (like Gears of War, because I’m a total fan girl). What I’ve started to really enjoy about these comics are the female characters in them and how they are true characters, not just Barbie doll idealistic sex symbols. Chew, in particular, features on female character that blew me away, but for spoiler reasons I won’t discuss why.
(seriously, go read Chew)
While doing all this reading I decided to do a little research and see what people are saying about females in comics; is the situation similar to how women are treated in the video game world? Well, it turns out that women in the comic book world have been fighting the good fight for a long time; strides have been made but it certainly isn’t perfect. While doing this research I stumbled on an article posted on IGN by Jill Pantozzi Hey, That’s My Cape!: Women and Comic Books in 2013 which covers where comics are at on the feminist movement front. The good news? Comics seem to be making quite the stride in 2013. Fables was mentioned in an episode of The Big Bang Theory where the three main female characters go into a comic book shop and a lot of comics are coming out where original stories are being re-done in the eyes of female protagonists, Star Wars from Leia’s perspective and an all-female X-Men reboot.
The bad news? Those small things seem to be big steps forward. Pantozzi verbalizes her frustrations in a way that I feel is quite similar to how we feel as women in the video game industry. I would love to summarize what she says, but her words are best:
“While I can’t be certain as to why any of these recent occurrences have happened or what decisions led them to be made, I’m grateful. It’s exhausting having to proverbially shout all the time and it’s nice to see that some people get it or are at least listening intently. Not just that, but some higher-ups are willing to let creators follow through. For comics especially, we need to veer away from the ‘this is the way it’s done’ rulebook and head toward ‘how we can change things for the better to widen our audience.’
In our society, TV shows, films, and comic books are filled with mostly men by default with one or two token women thrown in just like most are filled with white men with one or two minorities thrown in. It doesn’t have to be like this. It’s not that media consumers dislike women characters in the lead (okay, yes, some people do), it’s that they aren’t given enough opportunities to experience something that should have been the norm a long time ago – not simply ‘equality’ but an accurate representation of our world in our media.”
I can’t wait for the day when such a small thing feels like a huge win. When I say these are small wins, I’m not diminishing the importance of them, they are A STEP FORWARD and every inch counts. I feel an overwhelming sense of kinship knowing that women’s struggles in the comic book industry are the same as the ones I experience in the video game industry, I also feel a sense of relief knowing that steps are being taken to make the changes to give females are more permanent presence in a stronger protagonist role in comic books and the media that surrounds them.
While doing this digging, I also found a wonderful source where you can find comics that feature strong female characters or were written/illustrated by women: Graphic Novels 4 Girls. Take a look and throw some money at the cause because as we all know, money speaks much louder than words.
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