Anthology interrupts sexist comic trends

Over the weekend at the WonderCon 2012 comic book convention, IDW Publishing announced that the series Womanthology — which just put out a Kickstarter-funded 300-page graphic novel — is going to become an ongoing anthology series. The book, and the new series, is made up of stories, essays and comic-making tips from an all-female creative team.

It’s a great book and an exciting project — anthology series are rare these days — but it also comes at the same time of some unsettling controversy about sexism in mainstream comics.

When DC Comics started its New 52 relaunch of its main titles, the creative teams were short on female writers and artists.

Many popular female creators, such as Nicola Scott and Amanda Conner, were working on secret projects such as Earth 2 and Before Watchmen, but the initial announcement was met with questions and criticism.

Then there’s the depiction of women in comics. Some of the initial New 52 characters, such as Catwoman or Starfire, were heavily sexualized without any merit to the plot. This goes hand in hand with ongoing criticism of the appearance of female characters in comics, and it’s a bad mess for the industry.

There is an unfortunate mentality against women in comics. Comics are viewed as a male-centric medium. That is not true; there are a number of female creators as well as a strong female audience.

I’ve seen women eagerly talk about the latest issues of Captain America in comic book stores and enthusiastically buy tickets to WonderCon and Comic-Con. Yet the stereotypical image of the comic scene is a “no girls allowed” club, which hurts the industry and fans. This mentality alienates a large number of potential readers while belittling or dismissing women who already read comics.

Comics are steeped in the tradition of pulp magazines, horror novels, sci-fi B-movies and World War II patriotism. Sometimes they’re flat-out sensational, as in Frank Miller’s Sin City, and other times they are a slice of life, such as Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor.

But in the mainstream, that sensationalism tends to manifest itself in skimpy costumes for superheroines or sexually suggestive situations. Granted, the superhero genre has musclebound men on panel in skintight uniforms, but that never reaches the extent to which women are portrayed. It’s an attempt at titillation and often times is more distracting than appealing.

The sad thing is that this shouldn’t be an issue at all. Yes, there tend to be more men than women reading comics, but women are not a miniscule minority. But whether it’s companies or creators initiating this idea, there is still a strange delusion that it’s a boys’ club and women are an anomaly among readers.

Comics deserve a slap in the face. Women read and create comics and there shouldn’t be some great shock or awe over this. This doesn’t happen in any other medium: no one looks at TV and says that it isn’t a girls’ thing.

That, however, shouldn’t turn women away from comics. Dozens of books out there aren’t sexualized and amazing female creators are working on new books. The prolific and genre-hopping Becky Cloonan is bringing Brian Wood’s Conan series to life, while Fiona Staples just released Saga, her collaboration with Brian K. Vaughan, which looks to be one of the year’s best titles.

And it’s not to say that all guys reading comics are freaked out by women joining in — they aren’t. But this is a medium that has been socially marginalized throughout the last few decades and went through a sensational boom in the 1990s, when things had to be bigger, hotter and more extreme. Like it or not, comic book fans adopted parts of the stereotypical view non-readers have of comics.

Will things radically change? It’s not likely that every superhero costume will become modest — imagine Superman and Wonder Woman running around in baggy coveralls. The idea doesn’t really work, does it? But comics need to stop sexualizing female characters solely to be provocative. It doesn’t add to the story and is more of a distraction.

Titles like Womanthology amaze, both in terms of content and showcasing the multitude of female talent in comics. The new ongoing version of the anthology is going to be great. It’s just a shame that the perception of comics as a male’s medium persists.

But that perception is changing and looks to be near its breaking point.

Nicholas Slayton is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism. His column “Panel to Panel” runs Thursdays.