[Maeniel]

So I'm pretty sure this topic would go over swell at Tomgeeks - but I thought I'd post it here.

Article:

The story goes that DC Comics announced that they were firing almost all of their female staff - going from 12% to 1%.

If you can, listen to the clip; below is an overview.

A fan asked "Why did you go from 12% to 1% for women on creative teams?"

The publisher responded: "Who should we be hiring? Tell me right now." I thought he was actually kind of mean about it.

So, fellow fans of a woman-led comic - what are your thoughts? Was DC being genuinely concerned about the numbers, or do you think that they were being sarcastic and belligerent?

EDIT by Tinalles: fixed the links.
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Keeper of Zaebos' and Jormand's powers.

[Ravenna]

Given that Grant Morrison only made quips about looking good in a dress - this was his contribution - and the obvious agression and privledge-denying coming from other staffers on the panel, I'd say that DC doesn't care. Even though they play home to some fantastic heroines and Gail Simone, they just don't care.

Blogs have been going wild over this material for over a week now, compounded by earlier revelations regarding the retconn of Barbara Gordon as Oracle. As a comic fan and a writer who is female, the boys club attitude and Didio's behaviour horrifies me.

I've signed the petition, and will probably write a more in-depth post after Battle Los Angeles.
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Bernard [about the job]: The pay's not great, but the work is hard.
~ Black Books ~

[YatesOfYore]

I've read a few things about it so far.

Part of my mind originally wanted to be "well, they just hire who writes/draws the best, maybe that just happened to be men this time" but then when you get to the part where they're firing all but one of their women staffers... that's when I think they're full of crap.

What, did the female writers not want all the female characters to wear a Vampirella get up? Did they actually want to write a respectable character with a personality instead of just another pin up?

Aside from the fact that someone actually included little ol' me on that list of women they should hire (which is flattering to the extreme), I do care about women being portrayed well in comics (shocking, I'm sure). They're not just token sex symbols to be tossed in there to mix things up a bit.

We need to start exposing young boys to the idea that they can RELATE to a girl character, not just observe her. And comics are a great place to start doing this.
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Keeper of Nanashi's Vambraces and the Amethyst Trees.

PS: Don't panic! I changed my username - I'm not an impostor!

[Tinalles]

Signed!

[YatesOfYore]

By writing comics with females that are either main characters or are characters that are important to the plot in some manner other than being a sexual exploit. And maybe actually wear some clothes too.

OH WAIT I'm already doing that ~~~~


(PS yes, I know there are lots of awesome comic ladies out there. They just seem out numbered by the centerfold characters, y'know?)
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Keeper of Nanashi's Vambraces and the Amethyst Trees.

PS: Don't panic! I changed my username - I'm not an impostor!

[Tenshi]

Signed this, by the way.

I think that strong female characters are important. There are some recent reinventions of female characters that I heartily approve of. Kitty Pride and Rogue from the X-Men series are far less sex symbol, and far more easy to relate to as people. Not quite on the level that most of the ES Heroines are, though. I think that the industry giants are coming along in that matter, but so long as the people from 40-50 years ago are still the main figureheads, and they're the ones deciding what people want, we're still going to struggle.

From everything I've read from dozens of people close to the comic industry, it's not the most progressive place. Hopefully that will change in the coming years.
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. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton

[Nem]

“That character’s just there to be eye candy.” Yeah, them and pretty much every other comic book character, regardless of sex.

Most comic book characters have the emotional and intellectual depth of a puddle in a heat wave. The men are muscle bound killers the women are athletic supermodels. Is it a sexualised image? Yes. Both of them. What you think muscles aren’t sexy? Given a choice between the guy with the washboard abs and the fat man from his mother’s basement I wonder which one the female hero would take?... (Not really, I think I know.)

That said, archetypes are not necessarily meant to be direct representations of reality. Many of them are essentially packets of social signalling information, stripped of any real depth or interaction with context. The superhero of the comic books, the gods of certain elder mythologies, the characters of some books. These are not realistic figures with which anyone, I think, really identifies. Boys do not seriously want to be Space Marines when they grow up. All ‘RAR STOMPY ARMOUR AND KILLING HERETICS’? Please.

It is important to have, among your images of women, a sexual one; preferably one that women know you have – so that they can knowingly move in and out of the reference class. Of course it’s not desirable for that to be the ONLY image of women that someone has, the only reference class, but if all your information on women comes from comic books frankly I think your odds of meeting one in real life are fairly remote.... <_<

It’s similar at sporting matches. Take football for instance – if you want to avoid football violence bring a team scarf and a fluffy hat, and preferably your family. Congratulations you’re now a civilian – most violent people will leave you alone, they’re there for a fight, not to harass the civies.

Are strong female characters important? Well, strong, intelligent characters in general are important; female characters being a subset of the human characters of course they are. I don’t believe that extends to essentially an enforced conservative dress code for women in comics - and if that's all people have to talk about when it comes to their portrayal I'm not going to have much time for them....

-shrug-

Basically the state of women in comics is much like the state of men in comics. Rub out Batman and put in Catwoman - rub out Catwoman and put in Batman - has much changed? I think not.

One cookie cutter character wanted for violent leading role: [s/he] delete as appropriate.

The firings themselves do seem to be motivated by prejudice. I doubt very much that they fired the majority of their female staff on the grounds that they were the untalented ones. It's very unlikely. It MIGHT have just happened that way but... even if it did they have to have known how it would look.
_________________
Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Tenshi]

Comparing Batman and Catwoman is pretty close - they're both agile, rather attractive, but very intelligent characters. Instead compare Batman to Superman, or either of the above two to Spiderman. Peter Parker is kind of a wimp! There are similar lines in female heroes, I'm sure. Jean Grey/Phoenix is pretty highly sexualized, and pretty much every female hero of a Dark Horse comic is all T&A, little clothing. At least all the ones I had read.

Which isn't to say I read a lot of comics, to tell the truth. There are a few artists I follow (Frank Miller being one of them), because they like to explore things that interest me. The Psychology and Philosophy of the superhero is interesting to me. I don't need them to look amazing, grizzled is quite fine. A little pudgy and imperfect is great.

Actually, I tend to not like plot holes. I avoid comics most of the time for that very reason. Too often was a story line written into a dead end, and it all turned out to be a dream, or a simulation, or something a parallel universe or something. That bothers me..

I digress. I would like to see some of the talented female webcomic authors I know given a crack at the big time, regardless of the comic industry's flaws. Lady Yates and Sarah Ellerton, particularly. In my experience, both of them can tell a decent story, and I would love love love love love really awesome stories in comics.
_________________
. Dubbed "Usagi" by AsA .
Keeper of the Siderean Swords

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well, and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."
Red Skelton

[Ravenna]

Afraid I disagree with you Nem - while male characters are idealised in comics as well, it doesn't erase nor lessen the marginalisation of women as characters and contributors in the comics industry. It's certainly no excuse, and ust derailment of the issue at hand. I've always felt like that this is a very weak defense.

While male supers tend to be ripped, there are plenty of male supers who do not fit this and make the front cover: Spider-Man (who was intended to appear 'weedy'), Mr Fantastic, Professor X, Beast Boy... the list can go on. Even Moira McTaggert and Kavita Rao, who do not regularly make it onto the covers, are dressed and pencilled perfectly and no bigger than a UK 10.

Here's a link to Women in the Refridgerator, a video which looks at how and why female characters get killed off in comics, and other media. I thought I would link to it since it deals mainly with characters from DC comics, although Marvel are also mentioned. It's relevant to this topic in terms of women as characters and how they are portrayed.

Women In The Refridgerator

There is no inappropriate language or explicit material, but it does discuss the violent deaths of some characters, so if you are very sensitive, that is in there.
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Bernard [about the job]: The pay's not great, but the work is hard.
~ Black Books ~

[Nem]

Well, you see ... I’m not sure how far that’s true anymore, Rav. The representation in the list doesn’t line up with what I remember from comics when I was growing up. I’ve gone through the first 19 or so items on the list and only one of them seems like it has a high probability of having occured within the last ten years. – Even then it’s iffy as to whether the event in question occurred during the last ten years, and the comic was cancelled shortly after the reboot anyway.

Squeamishness warning for following list dump: Iffy things beneath, proceed to next bolded text to skip.

All of Savage Dragon's girlfriends (dead)
IIRWC (If I read wikipedia correctly) he had two, the second of which died in issue #43 which'd put this in ... '97? I think.
0

Alysande Stuart (dead)
'92 Excalibur #55
0

Amethyst (blinded, merged with Gemworld, destroyed in LSH; became a power-hungry witch in Book of Fate)
Cancelled sometime before the 90s anime boom. Not specific on when. Also had a man giving 'birth' to his father and dying .... Yeah.
0

Apparition (one of her three bodies dead, soul bound to boyfriend)
Sometime in the past, not clear on when. Series rebooted in 2005 then cancelled. Neh, we’ll count it – even if it didn’t prove viable in the industry at that time.
1

Aquagirl (dead)
'86 I believe
1

Arisia (dead)
Can't find. Brought back to life in any case.
1

Aurora (Multiple Personality Disorder, depowered)
Powers altered in ‘84. Mind restored in 2007. Can’t find details about when mind was messed up
1

Batgirl I (paralyzed)
I take it it means Barbara Gordon. In which case ’88
1

Batwoman (dead)
’64 I believe.
1

Betty Banner (abused, changed into a harpy, multiple miscarriages, dead)
Didn’t really die, came back as one of them Hulk thingies. Dates on rest difficult to find.
1

Mrs. Brian Banner, Bruce's mother (murdered by her abusive husband)
First appeared in 1982 – secondary character, date of death not available.
1

Black Canary I (dead)
Dunno, I assume earlier than her daughter. Which’d be before ’90
1

Black Canary II (tortured, made infertile, depowered)
‘90
1

Blink (dead)
Resurrected.
1

Bluebird (dead)
‘96
1

Buf from X-Man (crippled)
Only reference I can find is to an Arlee Hicks in a ’96 film, which doesn’t say what happened.
1

Candy Southern (dead)
‘93
1

Captain Marvel II/Photon (depowered, ceded code name to a male hero)
The first one (male) died for her to get the name as I recall. Also repowered later on.
1

Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire (turned into a villain by the Zamarons, possessed by the Predator)
And then de-possessed. Date not available.
1

Celsius (insane, dead, called delusional liar)
‘88
1

End squeamish warning.

I think the full list is about a hundred items so 19 items is probably a fairly representative sample. It's a fair bit of work to keep checking these things in any case. Would have just taken a random sample across the list but then you'd only have my word that it really was random - I could have just picked 19 that agreed with me - whereas you can verify quite easily that those are just the first 19 or so entries.

If the idea is it sucked to be a female character in the 80s through to late 90s – well, yeah. They were doing the 'grim gritty' thing then and often that just turns into a rather trite attempt to abuse issues and characters for some cheap drama.

How far something ten years ago represents the state of the industry today however. -shrug- Lots can change in ten years.

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The weedy characters you mention are rather muscle-bound.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BeastboyOYL.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xav-lopr.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Spider-Man.jpg

Uh...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reedr.jpg

O_o Well, anyway, they're the first images on the relevant characters' wikipedia pages.

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Of course the wrongdoings - as such - against one particular group do not excuse wrongdoings against another, they just make it a more general problem. Whether you want to take that as a defence or not... -shrug- :/

It's certainly not a defence against firing most of your female staff for no readily discernible reason.
_________________
Never forget,
We stroll along the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers.
- Issa

[Tinalles]

Any of you get a defensive sounding email from DC?
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Keeper of The Remnant Minuon (cognomen Lucy, the Eaten One) and the Emissary Caeli

[YatesOfYore]

Um, no. Did you write them about the issue?
_________________
Keeper of Nanashi's Vambraces and the Amethyst Trees.

PS: Don't panic! I changed my username - I'm not an impostor!

[Tinalles]

All I did was sign the petition. I think DC got sent a list of the email addresses of everyone who filled in the form. Or maybe not? Anyway, I got this:

[YatesOfYore]

Interesting. And nope, I did not get that email, though I did sign the petition. Perhaps my junk filter ate it.
_________________
Keeper of Nanashi's Vambraces and the Amethyst Trees.

PS: Don't panic! I changed my username - I'm not an impostor!

[Ravenna]

I received the rather transparent e-mail as well. It's interesting they don't mention anyone who has worked on a creative team, but only the financial/administrative side!

EDIT: I think there was some kind of option for hiding your details or e-mail address. Perhaps that's why you didn't get one?
_________________
Bernard [about the job]: The pay's not great, but the work is hard.
~ Black Books ~