Alex goes to the comic shop, pt 2

[terra]

So sometimes I post on those giant comics messageboards. It can be cool, I've had discussions with creators/had Ed Brubaker tell me to stop being so continuity-obsessive, but oftentimes it reminds me what a cesspit of racism and misogyny the comics fandom can be. Like, yesterday, when I stumbled upon this gem of a post:

Marvel is loaded with strong and aggressive SuperHeroines. The negative quality of the Sue Storm's leadership is that portraying her as aggressive and extremely powerful makes her just another Marvel SuperHeroine. Some of us old timer guys still think that Sue is most effective when she emphasizes her traditional feminine qualities that she excelled at during the Silver Age (or should I say "Golden Age" of Stan and Jack), such as crying, screaming, acting afraid, being a wonderful mother, looking gorgeous, having to be saved by the men a lot, etc.

Yeah, this guy is confirmed not a troll, and several people either flat-out agreed with him, or parrotted his general thesis in slightly less blatantly offensive terms. (It's not that Sue can't lead because of her gender, it's because she's too much like a overemotional adulterous single mom!!) A fair number of sane people pointed out...you know, that this stuff is crazy sexist. But it just reminded me that one of the (many) reasons women are underrepresented in comics is because quite a few comics fans are misogynist toolbags. And one thing I can personally do to help counter this phenomenon is to buy a ton of comics featuring the ladies.

tl;dr rec me some comics involving womenfolk

Comments

[terra]

Yeah some aspects of geek culture are a real haven for misogyny. I am a big gamer, too, so I've had some... interesting encounters there. When I play tabletop I do so with a largely female group so that's been nice. But when I went to a demo-game at the local shop they separated our heavily female group into a special beginners section.

I'm a big fan of the current Black Widow run if you are looking for something from Marvel. Female lead with a female writer. But I might be...extremely biased.

I've been following BoP from the relaunch, but is there any particular BoP trade you would recommend?

I made a post about WONDER WOMAN IN PANTS. But I've been thinking of trying to find the Rucka run for a while. I like Diana in a badass leather skirt personally! I did buy issue 600. I really liked the story with the cat.

[iamjaimesommers.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? A beginners section? Okay, I'm lucky not to have that at our FLGS--still a lot of guys there, but we don't get segregated. Then again I'm lucky to have known the owner for a long time (but I stayed a regular customer that long because they weren't condescending).

You know, I have heard good things about Black Widow, I will take a look.

Regarding BoP trades, oddly I might recommend the last one first -- Vol 7, Dead of Winter, was really good as I recall (although off the top of my head, I don't know how accessible it is if you start with that). All of them are good, my only caveat might be that I am not entirely comfortable with how Huntress was handled in Vol 1 ("Of Like Minds") or so, but Gail was trying to slowly undo Huntress's unearned reputation as someone promiscuous--I didn't like the way she went about doing it, but once that sub-plot ended, her characterization of Helena improved dramatically (and she DID at least accomplish what she set out to do).

Where's your post re# 600? I'd love to see it. Someone did a cool 3D render once of Wonder Woman in a take of a hoplite's leather cuirass, with blue "kilt"--it looked like a Xena-esque piece of armor and was pretty well done, holding to the red white and blue "Tradition" while invoking the Greek mythology, etc.

Here is one of Rucka's WW trades: http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Gorgon-Greg-Rucka/dp/1401207979/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279141995&sr=1-5

[terra]

It was not the greatest day for D&D. Luckily I have tons of gamer friends who aren't like that. (And the comic shop I go to most is staffed by a woman.)

Don't accidentally buy the recent Black Widow: Deadly Origins mini, whatever you do. Start with #1 of the current series. There are only three issues, and you can actually jump on with #2 as well.

Excellent, thank you for the information about BoP. I'm more of a Marvel reader as...generally you start with one or the other, not both, so it's definitely helpful.

Oh, it's just in this community, here. I've seen that render, I think. One of my major beefs with the redesign is that it doesn't look like Diana— I think you can not dress her in a thong while still retaining her iconic recognizability.

[iamjaimesommers.livejournal.com]

Duly noted re: Black Widow. I gotta pick up this week's subscriptions so I'll check it out.

I agree about the Wonder Woman costume design--it looks more like Donna Troy got a makeover more than Diana. I think if they got rid of the jacket and gave her back the red boots, it might work.