Research Task:Female Comic Creators

For this research task, I am going to be exploring how women were traditionally shown in comics, discuss my thoughts about what comics are then and now; then I'll explore a wide variety of female comic artists that have shaped the comic industry-- picking three to look into them further.

Women in comics throughout the 1950s to the 1990s depicted women as hypersexualized and used as plot devices to enhance the male characters story/character/ego. In the 1930-1950s, a few women characters cropped up, but it wasn't until William Marston and his wife Elisabeth created Wonder Woman with inspiration from Olive Burn their companion.

This was the stepping stone to showing the potential future of the comic industry, however after the death of William his wife attempted to pick up the character as a writer for the comic-- but was of course shut down by DC and a man stepped in to take over, which would then cause the downfall of Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman was pivotal in her design, showcasing the feminism movement through her design and her actions, and with this new writer came a lot of questionable behaviors and stories of the character-- making Wonder Woman weaker and even making her revert to "feminine" tasks such as "baby-sitting" and a "certified receptionist". It set the standard for what women were in comics during that time. 1

Mention of rape; triggering. Please skip to the bold text.

This wasn't the only time that a superhero was reduced to a male gaze ideology, Ms Marvel was created and showed true potential by Marvel in creating a strong female character, however, her first storyline involved her getting raped, giving birth to the rapists child, falls in love with her rapists and ends up having a future with him.

Hearing of this, I can imagine just how women felt when they picked up to read this, its dehumanizing and degrading. Utterly disgusting. 1

Coming across my research was a video by some podcasters, I will not name them, but will link them to this text as I reference them. It seems that some men today look at the comics from those times as good for their time, even to say that comics are for boys. That the storylines were to big up the man, give them what they want, let the woman be weak and be saved by a man.

They blame the terrible writing to just being the times, that the gender roles have now been "overcorrected" and doesn't reflect "genetics".

However, looking at how they react to when a man is being saved, defensiveness, makes me think that they're feeling like less of a man because a woman is saving them. Hence their point of view being that the man has "testosterone" so men want women to be dominated-- it makes them feel good that a woman is weaker. 2

But as a woman, I can understand that anyone wants to feel needed or desired, but at what cost is that going to come when all you had shown was women being inferior with little character, regardless if they're the strongest on the team they won't use their powers so not to make them men of the group feel little.

I feel like I'm going on a bit, but I feel like this reflects how "controversial" women in comics are. There are sides to audiences of the comic industry that have different thoughts and feelings about it, some are for the new narratives and some are against.

And it's not like women superheroes weren't representing women, an artist came along and created plenty of strong powerful women that were consistently throughout the comics just that, and they are called the "Claremont Women". It brought more women into reading the comics and these comics became extremely successful.

Underground Women Artists came together to create a comic that showed women as they are, uplifting women rather than stereotyping them. Many comics came around with the most successful one being "Tits and Clits"; it was showing liberation for women, showcasing women experiences and politics-- this comic offended people but it was true, it was women experiences which needed to be heard. (I'll be reading this after this research task!) 3

Next step

For this next part of the research task, I had to look through the list of woman artists and decide if it was reinforcing traditional stereotypes or challenging them. What I found empowered me, all the artists were challenging the stereotype narrative; those artists are:

• Liang Baibo

• Alison Bechdel

• Tara Booth

• Claire Bretécher

• Eleanor Davis

• Julie Doucet

• Debbie Drechsler

• Anke Feuchtenberger

• Phoebe Gloeckner

• Aline Kominsky-Crumb

• Marjane Satrapi

• Robyn Smith

• Jillian Tamaki

• Lamia Ziadé

Looking through their work was incredible, each of them show vulnerability, and the topics highlight inequalities, challenging experiences, trauma, womanhood and so much more. Even if a few of the artists showed traditional roles, it was to show irony and satire of the stereotypes.

These women have shown the world that there is a space for discussions like this, despite animosity from some audiences saying that comics are for boys...

The next part of this research task is to choose three artist and reflect on their style, narrative and focus.

Tara Booth

Tara Booth found her charming style after her years at art school, she gave art a breather after feeling heavy criticism had made her relationship with art difficult. When she got back into it she slowly found what she enjoyed and became more open about her style. 4

The topics of her work usually relate to her experiences, thoughts and feelings as a woman. She found that opening up about these things like addiction, insecurity, etc. had been therapeutic for her and allowed her to create a community of like-minded people. She drew inspirations from her diary drawings which she then opened up to the public through her comics.

Looking into her work, her narrative style is very comedic and endearing, even though its about a sensitive topic, it's approached in a way that makes it feel like the topic is very open to discussion which most wouldn't take to it that way. Tara sees her work as an outlet for her frustrations, anxieties and uncomfortableness; which is reflect in her style and her narrative. 5 Reflecting on her work, you can see a lot of artistic freedom and I admire her work for being so freeing.

Phoebe Gloeckner

Phoebe Gloeckner was my next artists and I chose her because I was intrigued with her art style and her narrative topics; reading up on her interviews I found that she drew on what she had experienced in her younger years to create the influences of her books.

Her books contain sensitive topics and the narrative of her comics were a reflection of her life but not a direct copy of it, typically she comes up with the narrative afterwards, she will draw up what she likes without really planning the comic. None of the narrative is truly censored in her eyes, only a representation of what she conceived as to what happened throughout that time the result of that is a rare piece of narrative that is inherently dark.

In terms of style, she has said that she likes the fill her page up with textures and patterns since she doesn't like a blank piece unless intended-- drawing your eyes to the areas of light and letting your eyes explore the pages. 6 Observing her work, a lot of her comics feature large heads and an interesting texturing that almost makes the drawing semi-real; there isn't a typical "pretty-ness" to her drawings, for example in her more "controversial" drawings, it becomes more detailed a realistic to the cartoony style.

Robyn Smith

When researching Robyn Smith, I found that some of her work was co-produced with Jamila Rowser, and published several comics centering black women; the gorgeously designed comics show underrepresented community and looks to change the narrative. I was really drawn to the fresh new narrative that hasn't been told much before throughout comics, telling stories of friendship and self love in the "Bronx neighborhood". 7

Looking at how Robyn Smith creates her work, there is a lot of fluidity in her characters and scenes, the colour-scheme of her collaboration projects show beautiful pinks and purples which makes her characters stand out and feel more girly. In her independent projects, the monochromatic comics show lots of interesting textures and mark-making, which draw you eyes to the light/negative spaces.

There is a lot of focus on women empowerment, friendships and as well showcasing what we don't see in the media of the black women community; seeing all the beautiful hairstyles and different hair textures in her works educates people while representing a community.

Reflection

For this research task I had to look into how women were perceived in comic book, look into women comic artists and choose three to look into; looking at their narratives, artistic style and focus.

I found this research task a little difficult, but not because of the topic itself, but I think I'm just a bit burnt out! Haha! I really loved looking at all the artists and I felt really inspired, seeing the endless possibilities that are available to me as an artist. I may have gotten carried away after encountering a video that spoke about how marvel women were written for that time which meant it was acceptable. After hearing that Ms Marvel had a horrendous storyline, I couldn't understand the thought-process behind the podcasters.

I intended to understand how far women in comics and women comic artists have come since comics became widely distributed, and it's really nice to see that there is a lot more content out there for women. That comics aren't just for boys.

I found Tara Booth's style really inspiring, I loved the looseness of her work and the confidence too, it's really shows in her work. I loved the narrative style from Phoebe Gloeckner and it also ties in with her art style too since she works off of her drawings first and narrative second. Robyn Smith's lively style is really beautiful, along with the narrative and focus it all ties together really beautifully.

This probably isn't my best research task, but I felt inspired non-the-less.

1 John Brinkley, YouTube 'How Women Are Treated In Comics', May 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plp55yIBUcI Accessed May 3, 2025.

2 From the longbox, YouTube 'Silver Age Comics Sucked 'Cause Female Representation', Sept 12, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7evFNnas2U Accessed May 3, 2025.

3 John Brinkley, YouTube 'How Women Are Treated In Comics', May 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plp55yIBUcI Accessed May 3, 2025.

4 Regan Wojick, amadeus 'NO RULES, NO IMITATION: ARTIST TATA BOOTH'S ROAD TO AUTHENIC CREATION', Apr 3, 2019. https://amadeusmag.com/blog/tara-booth-illustrator-authentic/ Accessed May 6, 2025.

5 Rebecca Fulleylove, Its Nice That '"I never, ever thought I'd end up sharing drawings publicly" Tara Booth on opening up', Oct 10, 2017. https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/tara-booth-illustration-world-mental-health-day-2017-101017 Accessed May 6, 2025.

6 G Groth, The Comics Journal 'THE PHOEBE GLOECKNER INTERVIEW', Feb 6, 2011. https://www.tcj.com/phoebe-gloeckner-2/ Accessed May 6, 2025.

7 Safire R. Sostre, Essence 'Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith Are Centering Black Women In Comic Books', Sept 25, 2022. https://www.essence.com/culture/wash-days-diaries-comic/ Accessed May 6, 2025.