Writer Matt Fraction and artist Chip Zdarsky have created a warm and intelligent comic with an overtly pro-feminist take on sex and relationships. Don’t let the fact that it’s called Sex Criminals put you off – the title is a play on words and refers to the main characters’ ability to literally stop time when they have sex, which they use to carry out bank robberies.

It’s a surreal concept, and one which is difficult to write well, but Fraction has built a successful career out of telling these kinds of stories, and is skilled in persuading readers to suspend their disbelief.

In Sex Criminals, time is not presented as strictly linear: events are shown out of sequence, and the adult version of the lead character Suzie narrates scenes from her adolescence, sometimes even appearing next to her younger self on the page. This time-travel effect makes it easier for the reader to accept Suzie’s time-stopping powers, while also establishing her as our link to the story.

By choosing a female lead character, writer Fraction is challenging popular culture’s tendency to shy away from female leads, as well as the relative taboo of women’s sexuality.

In particular, his willingness to discuss female masturbation is refreshing because, while male wanking is openly discussed, joked about, and accepted as a fact of life, there’s still a lingering sense that it’s dirty when women do it.

Early on in the comic, we see young Suzie discovering the Greatest Love of All in the bath, and it’s dealt with in a sensitive, not overtly-eroticised way – adult Suzie, narrating while fully clothed and perched on the edge of the bathtub, is the focus of the panel.

Although we are aware that young Suzie is masturbating in this scene, the aim is not to sexualise her but to introduce her orgasm-related superpower, so the masturbation is less important than what happens immediately afterwards. In a pastiche of the old comics trope of an ordinary kid acquiring superpowers when they hit puberty, Suzie realises that time stops when she comes. Here, Fraction takes an inspired dig at the state of sex education in American schools, because Suzie has no idea whether her experience is normal, and she’s forced to rely on the dubious wisdom of a classmate when the adults won’t answer her questions.

Despite this, Suzie eventually becomes more confident about sex, and it’s made very clear to the reader that when she has sex with a partner it’s her choice to do so. As the narrator, she informs us that the first time she slept with her high school boyfriend Craig she had decided to do so in advance, and we see her enjoy the experience, even though it doesn’t live up to her expectation that it would be a profound, life-changing event. From a feminist point of view, the most interesting of the comic’s sex scenes is Suzie’s first encounter with Jon, who has just been introduced as the love interest. Jon explicitly checks for consent before initiating physical contact, in a way that seems natural, relaxed, and pretty damn sexy.

The admirable gender politics of the writing are perfectly complemented by Zdarsky’s art, which fits perfectly with a comic which is played for laughs as much as for titillation. It isn’t drawn in an overtly erotic style, and there isn’t as much nudity as you might expect. The fact that the art isn’t wank-bank material in and of itself highlights the more cerebral aspects of Suzie’s attraction to Jon; they fancy one another, but their interest is sparked by shared interests over looks.

The art is also key to conveying the comic’s humour, whether it’s in Craig’s ridiculous gurning expression when he’s frozen in time right at the point of orgasm, or the crude drawings of nonsensical sex acts that Rachelle uses to explain “the real raw sex shit” to teenage Suzie. There are also a range of less obvious visual gags worked into the art in backgrounds or on characters’ clothes, including numerous references to a celebrity called “Sexual Gary” who appears to be a pin-up figure for teenage girls.

Although Sex Criminals is a very funny comic, it also has emotional depth. The scenes from Suzie’s adolescence aren’t solely about her sexual development, but also deal with her father’s sudden death and her mother’s difficulty in coping afterwards. Young Suzie’s reactions are balanced by the narration from her adult self, creating a richer and more satisfying narrative.

Sex comedies can often disappoint feminists, but Sex Criminals shows that writers don’t have to rely on tired sexist stereotypes when writing jokes about sex, and that decent gender politics don’t have to be po-faced and humourless. Whether you’re a devoted comics fan or simply curious, this one is definitely worth a look.

Sex Criminals is available now from Image Comics for digital download and from, ahem, specialist retailers.

• At night Alyson Macdonald dons a cape and tights to fight sexism and the Tory government on the internet. She mostly blogs at Bright Green and tweets as @textuallimits.

Strong Female Protagonist

Yes, I found this by doing a lazy Google search after “decent webcomics that won’t make me scream” didn’t turn up anything useful. But it worked, and here we are. Strong Female Protagonist by Brennan Lee Mulligan (writer) and Molly Ostertag (art) is a superheroine comic about an American teenager trying to deal with being an ex-superhero, her former comrades and enemies, and going to university whilst still having epic superpowers.

There’s an X-Men-esque backdrop of mutation-hatred, and so she exists, like many superheroes, in a world that is not entirely happy about having superheroes. The black and white thick line art is really nice, I like the emphasis on characters’ faces and expressions rather than bodies, and the themes of power, responsibility and morality are something I think the “super” genre is well-placed to tackle.

The main exploration is, naturally enough, about what it means to be a Strong Female Protagonist, and links neatly to this nice article on the subject in the New Statesman recently. Yes, the lead character is “strong” – she’s a physical powerhouse, and strong-minded too. Her strength isn’t just physical, but also emerges in terms of her blunt decision-making and clearly held beliefs about right and wrong. Strength ostensibly defines her, but the comic is about the questions and complications behind what that might mean.

Delilah Dirk

I was absolutely bowled over by the quality of the artwork in Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant. The colouration is superb, and the detail in each of the panels makes the whole thing look absolutely lush: there’s a “classic story” feel to the whole piece, and the pages, like our titular heroine, are full of life and activity.

The comic is set in (sort of) Constantinople in 1805, and is very much in the style of The Mummy and Adele Blanc-Sec (watch the movie now, if you haven’t). I won’t lie, I do like a good swashbuckling, wisecracking character in a gung-ho Sinbad the Sailor-style universe, where bad guys are bad and the goodies might do slightly naughty things, but it’s all in a Robin Hood sort of way.

This is one of those narratives: Delilah is half English, half Greek, all Action Famous Adventure Lady, and all tongues should remain in cheeks, except when they’re lolling at the beautiful landscapes of Tony Cliff, whose work has also graced Flight. It’s not particularly deep or meaningful, but hey, not all narratives with female characters need to be about what it is to be a female character, right? It’s definitely a damn good yarn, and worth a look for the art if nothing else.

The Fox Sister

A fox-spirit comic? I don’t mind if I do.

Rather than the more familiar Japanese shapeshifter, The Fox Sister is about the Korean Kumiho. It’s another gorgeously-drawn webcomic and the product of a very welcome collaboration between Jayd Aït-Kaci and Christina Strain, who is departing from her usual colourist work to write this modern fairytale of two sisters.

The thick line-brush work and open panels sit well with the thoughtful, slow-paced writing in a landscape of snow and secrets. I love the way the fox spirit steps out of the panel on the page I’ve included here.

Something about the artwork reminds me of a pre-Blu-ray cleanup Disney’s 101 Dalmations, especially in the colour palette and faces of characters, but this is not a Disney story, though the elements make it appear like it might be – we have an all-American hero, and his ongoing terrible attempts at both speaking Korean and trying to get romantic with our heroine, Yun Mee, who is far more interested in fighting the fox-demon that took over her elder sister’s life.

Gunnerkrigg Court

A mysterious school, in a mysterious city, by a mysterious forest, separated by a large (mysterious) moat. This is a webcomic of teenagers, demons, spirits, folktales, ghosts, robots and the usual school-related growing pains. Gunnerkrigg Court is Harry Potter meets Malory Towers meets something deeper and darker altogether.

It’s a huge, sprawling world, crammed full of interesting female characters. The story focuses on the central pair of Antimony and Katriona, who are best friends, and their experiences going to school and becoming part of a magical/technological war which is threatening to move from cold to hot.

The comic is subtle, curious, funny and strange, with tones of Gloom Cookie, although the art is cleaner and more colourful; slightly French and manga-esque in feel. I particularly like the fact that the world has rules that are revealed as you go along, and how many things (and people) are left unexplained and without immediate resolution. Relationships are equally complicated – this is a world where love and feelings are explored in detail.

That’s all for the moment – more in the next post. Please share any webcomics you find with the team here, as we’re always looking for more reading material. For bonus points, here’s a link from the Mary Sue on Gail Simone’s griping about writing those troublesome male characters. Because it made me laugh this afternoon.

One of the most amazing things I saw was, without question, the screening of the Wonder Women! : the Untold Story of American Heroines documentary.

I’d never heard of it before to be honest, which is hardly surprising as it’s an independent release (no screening near you? Organise one – there’s a link at the bottom of this post!). It’s basically a visual look at the intersections of Women Woman iconography and certain aspects of Second Wave American feminism.

Did you know that Wonder Woman was regarded by quite a few feminists as the ‘face’of Second Wave American feminism? Neither did I. Quite frankly, being a Marvel girl rather than DC, I’d always thought of Wonder Woman as one of the more tame, conservative superheroes. Didn’t she spend most of her time being tied up?

Image from Flickr.com user bbaltimore, used under Creative Commons.

I’m now going to recount my new and shiny understanding of Wonder Woman, as gleaned from the documentary through a vague haze of alcohol. Bear with me.

The iconography of Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman, it turns out, is fairly awesome. She was developed during World War II, and was therefore off fighting the Nazis (alongside Captain America? That bit wasn’t very clear) after realising that she had to go off and save America. Because that’s what awesome heroes did. She even had to win some sort of Olympiad before she was able to do it! And then she fought some Nazis, and some criminals, and in the 50s this was deemed to be DREADFUL. So she was rewritten as having given up her powers. During this period she found she wanted to make cakes, and opened a beauty parlour. OF COURSE. Because nothing says ‘superhero’ like CUPCAKES!

Anyway, along came Second Wave feminism, looking for a face for the recently-launched Ms magazine. And there was poor Wonder Woman, an icon in need of reclaiming. Off came the apron and on went on the magic bracelets!

SURELY IT IS TIME FOR THE 70S?

I won’t recount the entire documentary. Suffice to say that when the 1970s and 1980s kicked off, along with them came a whole slew of female heroines, from Cagney and Lacey, Charlie’s Angels and Bionic Woman, straight through to the live-action Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter.

Here, have a photo of her being awesome:

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. Photo from Flicker user shaunwong.

Here are some other 1970s (& 1980s) heroines.

Cagney & Lacey. Image from kaksplus.fi.

Charlie’s Angels, 1977. Image from Wikimedia Commons .

Notice anything?

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. Image from sabotagetimes.com.

Ripley vs Van Damme

The 1980s also gave us hyper-masculinity along the lines of Van Damme, Schwarzenegger and Stallone. It also gave us Ellen Ripley and (in 1991 admittedly, therefore just in the 1990s) Sarah Connor. There are a bunch of others. The 1980s were pretty awesome for strong female heroines, which is a sentence I never thought I’d be writing. When I first saw Terminator 2 as a little girl, I didn’t even know that women could do chin-ups!

Grrrl Power dominoes

As well as the iconography of Wonder Woman herself, the documentary looked at the development of Grrrl Power. We are taken through the original use of the term through interviews with Kathleen Hanna, starting back with Riot Grrrl, and its appropriation by the Spice Girls into something commercial.

I’m not going to depress you by taking you through the deaths of all the ‘strong female characters’ on television in 2001. I think those of us in the UK were somewhat sheltered through the impact of that, having our reception of those shows delayed by several weeks or even months. We therefore did not experience their deaths as the American viewers would have: one after the other, falling down like dominoes in 2001.

Back to Wonder Woman…

Like this, only AWESOME.

… and to her fans, ages 2–99. In the documentary, there are interviews with small children and the role Wonder Woman has played in their lives. There are interviews with activists – up to and including Gloria Steinem – and their perspectives on how Wonder Woman influenced Second Wave (and in some case Third Wave) feminism – and vice versa. There are perspectives on women-saving-women and the creation of Wonder Woman Day. There’s even a Wonder-Woman-on-a-string-with-motor, making her fly around and around on a child’s ceiling. How awesome is that? I want one!

Not your grandmother’s feminism

Now let’s talk about what wasn’t there. The film isn’t marketed as a history of Second Wave Feminism, nor even the (entire) history of Wonder Woman. That’s important, because the intersections the film is talking about are intersections with white, heterosexual, cis feminism. It therefore falls down significantly on the feminism movement outside of that pretty narrowly defined range.

It was also a bit dispiriting to not have at least a mention that the original name for Ms. magazine was Sojourner. There is also little mention of the subversion of the Wonder Woman image and iconography outside of radfem activism.

That said, the film doesn’t pretend that it is in any way comprehensive, or representative of all feminism movements. And, as a look at the history of Wonder Woman and how she was reclaimed in the radfem part of Second (and Third) Wave American feminism… well, it’s pretty awesome.

Frankly, it’s worth watching for the interviews with her tiny modern-day fans alone. There is something deeply heartening about hearing a child draw strength from a feminist icon, however corrupted and reinterpreted that image has been over the years.

Not convinced? Have a look at the trailer:

See? Awesome.

• In the highly likely event that there are no screenings near you, you can contact the Outreach Coordinator at Wonder Women to arrange one.

It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a paper comic. I was deeply in love with comics at one point in my life. I swore off them a while ago for reasons of both taste – I’d run out of titles with female characters that I was interested in – and budget: it was one too many expensive habits for a theatre professional, and in the end, red wine won the day.

I’ve kept a weather eye on the comics world, and the announcement of an all-female line-up for X-Men was enough to send me to Forbidden Planet. But what made me actually buy the thing despite the £3 price tag was writer Brian Wood (DMZ, Channel Zero and Northlanders) and colourist Laura Martin (Planetary, Authority and JLA Earth 2, which all sit beautiful and bold on my shelves thanks in part to her palette choices and ability to make heroes look truly heroic).

Marvel introduce the issue on their website as follows:

Because you demanded it! The X-Women finally get their own book!

So, a fan-based revolution in the world of comics? Perhaps. The title is part of Marvel NOW, the 2012 relaunch of the brand aiming to bring new readers into the market, or in my case, perhaps to bring readers back into the fold and into comic stores.

Could it be that the comic industry is  tackling the gap in the market for mainstream titles that are interesting to women? I’m heartened by the weight put behind this comic; it doesn’t seem to be a gimmick or an afterthought. The issue was heavily trailed with an XX teaser campaign, which was hard not to notice. And what I’ve also been interested to note is the supportive voices around the line-up, with Bleeding Cool praising Marvel for “raising their game in this regard” and other commentators using the launch as an opportunity to dedicate space to interviews with women in the industry, and to the importance of more titles about women, for women.

There’s a good piece here in Clutch, an interview with editor Jeanine Schafer over at The Mary Sue, and another piece here at Bitch magazine.

To me, my reviewers!

The series features an all-female team including Storm, Jubilee, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey (daughter of Scott and Jean) and Psylocke. They’re based at Jean Grey’s School for the Gifted and pitted against runaway trains, teenage tantrums in the hallway, and the arrival of John Sublime with a request for help.

I’m very pleased to see Storm’s mowhawk back in business, and Jubilee was always a favourite of mine from the TV series, even if she was often cast as a mutant girl version of Snarf. She spoke to me of teenage wish-fulfilment, her mutant power always waiting in the wings for the right moment to shine, exactly like mine. Except my mutant power hasn’t developed yet. I’m sure it will.

What’s good about it? Lots. Lots and lots. The storyline moves on nicely, with a strong introduction that sets up future intrigue. It’s issue one, so I’ve not got a lot to go on, but so far it feels well-paced and with good action scenes and themes of homecoming (positive and negative) alongside the usual “outsider” politics that have always been a solid foundation for mutant-related plot.

The main characters get set up nicely and all showcase their abilities, personalities and range of powers. Jubilee and Kitty are set at a similar age and look like they are set to play out the roles of younger, naive/vulnerable characters, although there are two pupils at the school who look like they might also fill that position, so we’ll see. In terms of more experienced or older figures, Storm takes centre stage on the cover and is the team leader and headmistress with Rachel Grey as her second-in-command. Rogue is the powerhouse, and is shown enjoying herself being gung-ho in saving the day during a classic runaway train sequence, whilst Psylocke is pleasingly intimidating in the role of bad cop when Rachel interviews John Sublime.

There’s the usual balance of action/adventure with high school drama, much as you might expect, so in the future I’m hoping for something along the lines of Grant Morrison’s New X Men. This is referenced clearly through the young people at the school, so in those panels you can play a fun game of Guess Who? Mutant High Edition. This does also tend to lead on to a less fun game of Where Are We In What Passes For Continuity Around Here, but generally I take the Doctor Who approach on that one, so try not to get cross-eyed, basically.

I can’t write this review without talking about how the characters look, partly because comics are a visual medium, but also because it’s so good to see a lot of the traditional problems of female representation overturned here. We have two non-white characters in the line-up, neither of whom are the xenophilia standard sexy blue lady. Almost all of the outfits in Olivier Coipel’s artwork are really nicely, thoughtfully designed and look very practical, including Rogue’s costume which comes complete with a hooded top. No spiked heels – or any of the break-your-legs Girl Power stacks of Frank Quitely – are in evidence. Everyone’s zippers go all the way up, with the sad exception of Storm who, in the words of a friend of mine, seems to have developed a secondary mutation allowing her outfit to stick to her breasts despite flying at speed. She’s clearly the Emma Frost replacement in the line-up.

I’m going to be charitable and say that the instances of female characters doing needlessly sexy poses is fairly low, but having passed the issue around a few friends (male and female) the mileage varies. That said, it’s certainly way below what I would have expected and certainly nowhere near the awful debacle that is DC’s recent treatment of Starfire. I could easily imagine a world in which an all-female X-Men line up could have been all bikinis, all the time…

If I’m being uncharitable, I could say that it’s sad all the women are quite so perfect in how they look. Mutation offers such a variety of bodies to the writer and artist that it would have been good to see a character who subverted traditional expectations of what heroic women in comics should look like. A woman with the glorious curves of Morrison’s Angel Salvadore before she got reworked into a “prettier” version. Similarly, it’s a shame not to have an older female character to give something of the sagacity of Professor Xavier (can we make Helen Mirren a mutant already?), not to mention the fact that without him and without Cyclops the line-up could perhaps be seen as somewhat ableist compared to other line-ups.

All said and done though, this is only the beginning, and only a few pages. And in case it wasn’t clear: I really enjoyed it. I’ll spend money on the next one. A slim volume cannot hope to achieve everything that I might have wanted from a comic, but even if it weren’t an engaging start that has me hooked, it has already done an awful lot to show what female superheroes can do when well-written and well-drawn: tell a fantastic story that makes you wish your mutant powers would hurry up and kick in…

Does this herald a much-needed change and a step in the right direction for the future of comics? I hope so. But I’m hedging my bets, just in case I’m once again entirely cut off from my source of illustrative imaginings. Instead, I’ve been out on the wild plains of internet comics, on the hunt for decent female protagonists and generally doing pretty well – more on that in another post. Watch this panel.

In the meantime, I leave you with this quote I found in the slew of Google searches that I pass off as “research”:

For a bulky segment of a century, I have been an avid follower of comic strips – all comic strips (…) I cannot remember how the habit started, and I am presently unable to explain why it persists. I only know that I’m hooked, by now, that’s all.

– Dorothy Parker, 1943

Hopey and Maggie, Jaime Hernandez 1990

Love. And. Rockets.

If you’re at all interested in comics or graphic novels you’ve probably heard of Love & Rockets, and you’ve probably had someone like me tell you about how amazing it is and how you should read it immediately. I’ll try not to labour the point, but it is really, really worth having a look.

The scope of the series, which ran from 1981-1996 – with further stories being added since 2001 – can be a bit daunting, which is why Fantagraphics have produced a guide to how to read Love & Rockets.

In brief: the Love & Rockets title encompasses two separate but slenderly-connected worlds, with Gilbert Hernandez writing about the fictional Central American village Palomar and its inhabitants, and brother Jaime Hernandez writing about the adventures of two punkeras in 1980s California.

Both sets of stories span decades, with meandering plots, sprawling casts, and for my money, the emotional depth and philosophical reach of any ‘great’ work of literature. There are touches of magic realism, and sex and violence feature prominently, although they are hardly glamourised. If anything, the comics focus on the mundane, everyday details of two tangles of human lives with the occasional connecting thread.

Women and humans

What makes each half of the series so compelling (and they are – I have pulled more than one all-nighter working my way to the end of a story arc) is the incredible ability of both artists to give their characters life. And more than that, to make them human, with all the cruelty, confusion and compassion that that involves. I’m trying to pick my way through a bog of clichés here, but for me the Hernandez brothers are up there with Shakespeare and George Eliot in their characterization.

And a hugely important part of that for me is that both worlds have magnificent, believable, complex, varied and interesting female characters. Tons and tons of them, and they get plot. In fact, they get the bulk of the plot. Some are ‘strong female characters’ in the most literal sense (rather than the hilarious Hark! A Vagrant sense) as the cast includes a number of women wrestlers and superheroes. That may sound ridiculous, but trust me, they pull it off.

There’s no way I could do justice to the whole series in a single post (but Colourlines has a good introduction) so I’m going to zoom in on my favourite, the ‘Locas’ stories by Jaime Hernandez, starring two of the most brilliant comic book heroines of all time: kind, adventure-prone Maggie the Mechanic, and spiky, compulsively subversive Hopey Glass.

Maggie and Hopey

Jaime Hernandez, 2000

We meet best friends and occasional lovers Maggie and Hopey in their late teens, in the fictional town of Hoppers in California. The fact that the two main protagonists in this world-famous, best-selling comic book series are queer latinas is almost enough on its own to recommend reading it as I’m sure you’ve noticed that the comics world isn’t exactly overflowing with such characters. Incidentally, Geek Feminism has a short list of comics featuring women of colour.

At the start Maggie takes a job as a ‘pro-solar’ engineer, and her early stories feature spaceships, dinosaurs and female wrestlers who moonlight as superheroes (there are a lot of these) but when she returns to Hoppers the story sheds a lot of the B-movie trappings and focuses on more earthbound challenges, including love requited and unrequited, friends, enemies, and age.

We follow them, together and apart, over the next 30 years, during which time they change considerably, including their appearance. Most famously, Maggie puts on a lot of weight.

Bodies and sex

At the Comica event Hernandez spoke at recently, he was asked how he responded to some fans’ complaints about Maggie’s weight and their persistent hope that she would lose it and get ‘pretty’ again. He replied: “Oh, I just have to say ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’. Maggie is heavy. She is the only heavy person in comics, still. Why is she the only heavy person in comics?”

While Maggie does worry a little about her weight, it never bothers her lovers, and she is not ostracised or ridiculed or any of the other things we are taught to fear may befall us if we get fat.

That’s something else I love about the Locas stories: they can be a good antidote to body image argh, not just because there’s a huge range of body types on show (there is a lot of nudity – again, it doesn’t tend to be glamorous) but because they are drawn with such skill and honesty that it is impossible to be ashamed.

And, well, the comics are sexy. Not in a brittle, cookie-cutter, performative way (although that is examined too when some of the characters begin working in a strip club¹ ) but in the way that real people are sexy.

At the Comica event, Hernandez said he aims to treat sex just like anything else in the stories “because that’s how life is: you have sex, then make a sandwich. It’s that stream of life thing.” He added that even now he can’t draw a ‘pin up’ or deliberately ‘sexy’ female character without knowing anything about her.

Representation and truth

OMG OMG

This sensitivity and radical theme of ‘women as humans’ was continued in Hernandez’ comments about the decision to make Maggie and Hopey lovers.

At the start, the comic was in ‘freefall’, breaking all then rules and comic conventions, so it was about doing something different. But he explained that “I knew I had to back it up – I could put in as many Latinos as I wanted because I am one, I know that world. But with relationships between women I was aware of my responsibility to listen and understand.”

I’m just going to end up fangirling all over the shop, so I’ll end the post here. But really, seriously, get hold of a copy of the Locas stories; you won’t regret it. As Jaime said, Love & Rockets doesn’t aim to be realistic, but truthful.

1. YES, that’s right, it even portrays sex workers as real people!

Sponsored by the US-based Viscera Film Festival, WiHM has really taken off since we covered it in 2011, and we’re very proud to be WiHM Ambassadors – check us out on the list!

We recently kicked off a set of posts on Women in Horror with a return to our soapbox by Irish horror author Maura McHugh, who returned to BadRep Towers to spotlights some women she admired working in the genre across a range of media.

Before we go further, though, we’d like to share the Women in Horror Month Mission statement.

This Mission Statement is taken from the Women in Horror Recognition Month website. They’ve asked that it be shared, quoted and spread about as much as possible, so we’re giving it the spotlight in itself for a moment, before we get down with our horror-nerdy selves in these pages.

***

The Mission

Women in Horror Recognition Month (WiHM) assists underrepresented female genre artists in gaining opportunities, exposure, and education through altruistic events, printed material, articles, interviews, and online support. WiHM seeks to expose and break down social constructs and miscommunication between female professionals while simultaneously educating the public about discrimination and how they can assist the female gender in reaching equality.

The Vision

A world in which all individuals are equally given the opportunity to create, share, and exploit their concept of life, pain, and freedom of expression.

IT’S THE YEAR 2012, NOT THE 1950s. IS THERE REALLY A NEED FOR WiHM?

Absolutely. Otherwise, WiHM would not exist. Women are still not offered the same pay and opportunities as their male colleagues in many industries, particularly the arts. Discrimination runs rampant in Hollywood and it’s very difficult for females (even well-known actresses) to get their films funded by major studios.

Statistics prove that women are still not offered the same opportunities as men due to an array of reasons, from discrimination to female professionals accepting less than they are worth in order to receive the same opportunities as their male colleagues.

In other parts of the world, women are still stoned to death for speaking their minds, excommunicated when they are sexually violated, and not offered proper education. Atrocities continue to happen that force the female gender to be subservient to a patriarchal system that tells them how to dress, who to marry, and what they should do with their lives. All discrimination must be exposed and obliterated for the female gender to truly achieve equality.

WiHM focuses on supporting the achievements of women who utilize the most extreme mirror available in storytelling: horror. We encourage women to explore and represent these horrors constructively, in positive environments.

WHAT ARE THE INDUSTRY’S STATISTICS?

• In the 1920s there were no more than 10 women working in Hollywood in leadership positions.
• In 2009, the mainstream film industry’s ratio was 16% women to 84% men.
• In 2011, women made up only 5% of directors working in Hollywood.

SO WiHM IS ALL ABOUT WOMEN. WHAT ABOUT MEN?

WiHM was created with no exclusion. Men play a vital part in the female gender reaching equality. There are many male WiHM Ambassadors and artists who choose to assist and work with professional and talented underrepresented female practitioners. Be a guiding example of a man who respects both genders equally.¹

WHAT CAN THE PUBLIC DO TO ASSIST WOMEN?

Personal Responsibility

We all must take personal responsibility for our beliefs, values, and actions. Participating in positive, constructive environments that encourage and provide a safe platform for women to share and explore is vital.

Education

Education is essential. Knowledge is power. Understanding history and where that puts us today, politically and socially, demonstrates how we are interpreting each other and ourselves.

Work with Women

Finding professional women to work with in leadership positions is one of the most important actions you can take to assist the movement. Don’t just work with a woman because of her gender, work with her because she has a lot to bring to the table.

Banish social constrictions

Stereotyping, judging, cattiness, competitiveness, comparing, and gossip – all of these actions hurt men and women. We are all on our own path in life, careers, and personal relationships. We are encouraged to play into these cultural expectations when we are young, which can create judgment of those who are different. Stop it.

Be a WiHM Ambassador

Every February, WiHM Ambassadors host charity events (blood drives, film screenings, art shows), write blogs and articles, conduct interviews, and create videos and podcasts for mass consumption. All of these events and content specifically represent and assist the underrepresented female genre artist and are for philanthrpopic reasons only. No profit is made from WiHM, or the Viscera organization.

Participate

Go to the events, read the articles, watch the videos. Be conscious of the fact that you are consuming different perspectives of a movement that is assisting a struggle that women have experienced for at least the last four thousand years: equality. We have incredible potential right now to destroy discrimination. It deserves your attention.

Donate

Donate to WiHM. All funds go directly into the organization to improve the events, materials, and outreach. WiHM needs the support of the public.

Support other organisations

Organisations such as CARE, Women for Women International, RAINN, and WIF. All these organisations work hard all year round to assist women in achieving equality. Visit their websites and educate yourself.

The Board

The Board of Directors for WiHM is comprised of women from all facets of the horror film industry, including WiHM founder Hannah Forman, Debbie Rochon, Jovanka Vuckovic, Heidi Honeycutt, Jen and Sylvia Soska, and Shannon Lark.

The Organisation

WiHM is a service provided by the Viscera Organization, a 501(c)3 non profit organization expanding opportunities for contemporary female genre filmmakers and artists by raising awareness about the changing roles for women in the film industry.

• www.womeninhorrormonth.com
• www.viscerafilmfestival.com
• www.facebook.com/WomenInHorrorMonth
• womeninhorrormonth.tumblr.com
1. Ed’s Tiny Note: Our team are in full support of this; given the diverse make-up of our own team’s, we would likely expand this phrase where it occurs to “all genders” and “all gender identities, presentations and expressions”.
]]> /2013/02/17/women-in-horror-recognition-month-at-badrep-towers/feed/ 0 13152 /2013/01/31/guest-post-young-avengers-1-sex-and-the-female-gaze/ /2013/01/31/guest-post-young-avengers-1-sex-and-the-female-gaze/#comments Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:16:09 +0000 http://www.badreputation.org.uk/?p=13059
• Alyson Macdonald, who blogs for Bright Green, sent us this post. Do you have a guest post brewing in your brain? You know the drill: email us on [email protected].

Last week’s long-awaited, big-release comic was Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers #1, a classic coming-of-age story about a group of 18-year-olds who just happen to be superheroes.

While many mainstream comics are still producing the kind of material that gets sent up on Escher Girls and The Hawkeye Initiative, Gillen and McKelvie actively reject the kind of objectification that gives the genre such a bad reputation amongst feminists. In contrast to the stereotypical tits-and-ass fare, the opening sequence of Young Avengers provides the reader with a three-page essay on the (straight/bi) female gaze. In a medium that overwhelmingly caters for straight male desires, this is a rare demonstration of how to do a sexy scene with decent gender politics.

On page one, Kate Bishop wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, having just hooked up with a man whose name she can’t quite remember. At this point anyone who’s familiar with comics, or popular culture in general, would expect to see some slut-shaming, or at least some titillating semi-nudity, but we get neither. Kate is dressed in a t-shirt which comes down to her mid-thigh, and it’s clear that she has no regrets, thinking: For a second, some part of me thinks, “I should be ashamed.” I think that part of me is really stupid.

In the fourth panel we even see Kate smiling as she thinks back to the earlier part of her evening, and it’s the smile of someone who has just got laid and is pretty damned pleased with herself.
The second page introduces us to Noh-Varr, whose bed Kate has woken up in, and this is where we see another convention subverted, because he’s the one in nothing but his underwear. In an interview with Comics Alliance, artist Jamie McKelvie explains the idea behind this scene:

We’ve long had a problem in comics where the women are “sexy” (in a sexist fashion) and the men aren’t. Time to redress the balance. And there’s a big difference between sexist and sexy.

Although male superheroes are usually drawn with extremely muscular physiques, it’s not normally sexualised in this way – the reader is supposed to want to be them, not have sex with them. This is a rare acknowledgement that people who fancy men read superhero comics too.

But rather than providing equality of objectification, the aim here is to have a sexy scene which enhances the story and doesn’t devalue either of the characters. If you’re enjoying the view of Noh-Varr in his underwear, it’s just a bonus, not the entire point of the sequence; if you’re not into it, his lack of clothes is incidental. As Gillen puts it in an introduction to the character of Noh-Varr on his Tumblr:

…characters being sexy is cool but objectification in the process is bullshit. An inability to see the difference is a fundamental weakness. My wife’s in the next room watching Lord of the Rings, and I guarantee she’s thinking sexy thoughts about Aragorn. But that works without anything which annihilates him as a character, y’know?

The reader is supposed to see this scene through Kate’s eyes, and as she watches Noh-Varr dancing around in his pants, it acknowledges the existence of the female gaze, both through Kate’s interest in watching him, and the fanservice of the artwork.

Noh-Varr has a masculine appearance, but – perhaps because he’s an alien from another dimension – he doesn’t appear to be burdened with ideas of conventional masculinity, as we can see from his music choices. The comic’s title page states that the record he puts on is ‘Be My Baby’ by the Ronettes (incidentally, this is the track played over the opening titles of the film Dirty Dancing, which is also about female sexual awakening), and he talks about his enthusiasm for “close harmony girl groups” in a way that a heterosexual Earth man probably wouldn’t, because he’d be afraid of seeming effeminate. The play on gender roles is, of course, entirely deliberate, as one of the major influences in this version of the character is David Bowie during his androgynous, bisexual-identifying period in the early 1970s.

As Kate watches Noh-Varr, the scene is interrupted by a Skrull attack (Skrulls are a species of warrior aliens that occasionally pop up in the Marvel Universe to attack either Earth or Noh-Varr’s species of warrior aliens). If this was a horror movie, this would be the moment where Kate’s decision to go back to Noh-Varr’s place for sexytimes gets her killed in a disgustingly graphic way, but rather than being punished for her naughty behaviour, Kate is rewarded with another adventure, when she pilots the space ship.

As well as understanding what many female fans want to see, Gillen also accepts that sometimes our appreciation goes beyond what’s on the page:

Ever since our work on Phonogram, Jamie have [sic] strove to make our comics – for want of a better phrase – slash-fic-able. If you’re working in certain heroic fantasy genres, that’s part of the emotional churn.

(taken from Gillen’s tumblr post on Noh-Varr)

Recent comic book adaptation movies like Avengers Assemble and X-Men:First Class have been gleefully adopted by fanfiction writers, who find that the gender imbalances and close friendships between male characters give them plenty of material to work with. While slash has sometimes been treated as fandom’s dirty secret, Gillen and McKelvie are obviously quite comfortable with it. The title page even provides a nod to fangirl culture by adopting their language: editors Jake Thomas and Lauren Sankovitch are credited with “LOLs” and “feels” respectively – that’s “humour” and “emotions” to anyone who isn’t up-to-date on their internet memes.

Young Avengers clearly demonstrates something which I’ve long suspected to be true: it really is possible for male writers to “get” female fans. Although there are female comics creators producing work that doesn’t make women cringe – even with big publishers like Marvel and DC – it doesn’t mean that their male colleagues should have a free pass to be obnoxiously sexist. We should be holding more men to the pro-feminist standard that Gillen and McKelvie have set, not just in comics, but in all forms of pop culture.

• At night Alyson Macdonald dons a cape and tights to fight sexism and the Tory government on the internet. She mostly blogs at Bright Green and tweets as @textuallimits.

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Lately, though, something has been stirring in the Tumblsphere (which is definitely a word shut up SHUT UP). Comic portrayals of female characters have been questioned, dissected, and found to be both objectification-tastic, and downright anatomically impossible.

Now, if there’s anything that Tumblr loves, it’s mixing up social justice with fandom.

Thus, The Hawkeye Initiative was born. The rules are simple: find a female character in comics being portrayed as an object and/or in a position that human anatomy would simply laugh at, then redraw Hawkeye in that pose, wearing the same outfit.

It is a thing of beauty. Let me show you what I mean. Click a thumbnail to open each image without leaving this page.

[See image gallery at badreputation.org.uk]

If you’re a Tumblr user, The Hawkeye Initiative is a Tumblr despite its domain, and can be followed like any other. If you have a sense of humour and an understanding workplace, I think it’s unlikely that you’ll regret doing so.

You may also be aware of the FREE HUGS meme. It’s quite sweet: you hold a sign with “FREE HUGS” on it, and people can come to you to claim their free hug. Because free things are nice, hugs shouldn’t be charged for, and aaahhh and d’awww and other such sentiments. FREE HUGSing is very prevalent at comic conventions.

Having set that up, let me tell you a tale.

The scene: a large and popular comic convention held in a large and popular UK city. It’s spring, verging on summer, and it’s warm.

Cosplayers roam the convention with absurdly large props and wigs, and excited teenagers clutch bags of stash from their favourite webcomic artists, faces flushed with glee. Someone is dressed as a cardboard box. Someone else has a large plush Totoro. Gangs of Stormtroopers march about, videogame demos blare and cameras flash.

Numerous people saunter about, idly holding scraps of paper with “FREE HUGS” scrawled on them in pen, either because it’s what everyone is doing, or because they hope for a tiny scrap of human affection in this amazing sea of other people’s playtime.

Something terrible jingles past.

A long, thin, white jingling thing, with no real face and long tentacular horns. It has claws and hooves and no eyes and… a FREE HUGS sign all of its own.

Jingle, jingle, slrrrrrrrp.

Do you hug it?

My costume monster, Babylon, is a non-gendered-but-femme creature, with no anthropomorphic secondary sex characteristics, but with performatively femme behaviour.

Now, as it is rare for women to “perform” their femininity, performative femininity generally tends to be the preserve of people that don’t identify as women – because “performance” indicates a degree of “artifice”, and it is unusual for someone to “put on” the presentation that’s generally considered “appropriate” for their identity.

(But of course, it does happen, because everything does, and identity and presentation are two different things and being a woman doesn’t make your presentation femme by default, so of course one can identify as female and also perform your femininity. That’s a thing that happens too. I don’t need to explain these things to you: you know about stuff, you’re all down with this. Back to telling the tale.)

So. Big, sparkly performance femme-ness is A Thing and a grand one at that – just, not necessarily tethered to a gender identity.  So Babylon is very hard to read. It’s too over-the-top femme to be a girl, but surely boy monsters are big and spiky, right?

Obviously, the answer is that Babylon is non-binary, but our average member of the public in need of a full Gender 101 isn’t going to assume that.

I had lots of fun wearing Babylon during the convention, mostly because it is nice to dress as a monster, but also because I discovered a few interesting things about how people interact with an ungenderable non-human costume.

• Teenage girls with stripy armwarmers shrieked with delight at Babylon, largely gendered it male, and happily gave it hugs.
• Women my age wanted photographs and loved Babylon’s boots.
• Older steampunk gentlemen gendered it female and wanted photographs.

But the most hilarious demographic by far was teenage boys, and other men in costumes.

Teenage boys roam in knots about conventions, all holding papery requests for hugs. Their knuckles blanched as their grip on their FREE HUGS signs tightened when Babylon indicated that their desire for hugs was the same, and came over to hug them.

Oh, they didn’t like it. Oh, teenage boys didn’t like the Babylon. Oh no.

“What is it?” they said.
“Urgh,” they said.
“Oh man, it’s a bloke, mate,” they said.

Babylon is not a bloke. I’m a bloke; Babylon is a Babylon. They didn’t want photographs.

slrrrrrrrpp

You probably see where I’m going with this. My next example is brilliant.

I Babyloned up to a group of Star Wars Stormtroopers. Now, I rather like masks and men in uniform, so I saw this as a brilliant opportunity to put the “play” into “cosplay” and be an alien at them. Which is what I did.

Babylon jingled everywhere and posed for photographs, and one of the chaps, reading Babylon as female, got a bit saucy with it. This is fine, and Babylon, of course, sauced right back, all jingly silver bits and long talons – and then the Stormtrooper asked us, “Getting a bit hot are we, ma’am?”

Babylon made a surprised gesture (it doesn’t have a mouth) and indicated that he was wrong, and it wasn’t a “ma’am.”

The Stormtrooper, who had been happily playing moments before, rasped, “Oh my god, you’re a dude,” and immediately stopped playing. He backed right off.

I wondered if this was the first time in his life that he had ever had anyone he had not been sexually interested in being flirtatious and forward at him.

I idly thought about all the times I’ve been out with lady friends of mine who’ve experienced street harassment. Random strangers making sexual advances they weren’t comfortable with. I suppressed the urge to tear off my monster mask and bellow, “HUURARRRGGH, FEMINISM, NYERRRGH” and spray liquid feminism at him from my nipples.

Remembering that I’ve been told that sort of behaviour “hurts the cause”, I kept my mask on and flounced off elsewhere.

What’s the moral to this post? There isn’t one, really. It was just an amazing, beautiful, interesting and inspirational experience to be both fully androgynous and have no face.

I’m androgynous myself in presentation and I get gendered more-or-less randomly, but I have a human face, and this means I get treated differently from if I don’t. Some of the roughest transphobia I’ve ever had was when I was masked, and I don’t think that was a coincidence. Babylon doesn’t have anything like a human face: just two slits with emergent tentacles, and this simultaneously intimidates people and makes them feel more free to loudly express their opinion of it.

I’ll be at the large, popular comic convention again at the end of October. If you’re going too this Hallowe’en, come and find us and give us a hug!

First photograph used with permission of the owner; second picture courtesy of the artist. Stormtrooper image Creative Commons, from Wikipedia. 

A Toast to Glorious Awkwardness: Issa Rae

I bet she’s less awkward in real life. Either way, meeting the creative powerhouse behind the US web series Awkward Black Girl would surely make me spill the wine, partway through mumbling “If you ever need an awkward British cameo…” and accidentally spraying her with vol-au-vent crumbs¹ in my enthusiasm.

You know that whole Mary Sue adorkable adoraklutz trope we have going in Hollywood at the mo as a lazy way to round out female protagonists who have almost no other flaws (hi, Bella Swan, hi New Girl)? Awkward Black Girl is not like that. Nor is it Manic Pixie Dream Girl fodder (although in terms of what that archetype tends to look like, “who is the black Zooey Deschanel?” is certainly a question you might ask. Rae is not, FYI, the black Zooey Deschanel; indeed, she is not the [adjective] anything except “the awesome”, but that Racialicious post is, tangentially, an article very much worth your time).

Anyway, Issa’s hilarious, and her work is full of wryly-observed appeal.

Watch it here!

Don’t Mention the Moles: Sally Outen

Although, since we’ve documented that I’ll have spilled everything all over the table in a fit of awkward admiration when Issa arrives, why not mention the moles to divert everybody while I’m trying to find the kitchen roll? Sally Outen’s 2011 show Non-Bio, with its simultaneously side-splitting and toe-curling exploration of what happens when your first bit of sex-ed comes from Duncton Wood, was an Edinburgh Fringe must-see which I caught in a London bar with feminist burlesquers Lashings of Ginger Beer Time, with whom Sally often also performs, on her return. She came bounding onto the stage, radiating charisma, and proceeded to destroy my diaphragm. But it’s not all randy talpidae; Sally has a razor-sharp dig, drawing on her lived experiences, at transphobia and sexist bigotry. Frankie Boyle could learn a thing or two.

More about Sally!

Rock ‘n’ Roll Emboidery: Marjane Satrapi

I saw the animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis at the cinema and bawled my face off. But one reason why, by the end, I was blubbing away with such unfettered gusto and with no care for the integrity of the Barbican Centre’s upholstery was the deft, smart humour with which Satrapi introduces her memoir of growing up in Iran, deciding PUNK IS NOT DED, and dreaming of being either a prophet or the next Bruce Lee. Her art is instantly recognisable, all thick, clean, expressive lines and playful simplicity. Embroideries, her tribute to the women of her family and the stories they share, is just as beautiful and eye-opening.

An interview with Marjane!

Of Hurricanes and Wise Words: Grace Nichols

We’ve reached the midpoint of our dinner. This means I am probably drunk. On a thimbleful of wine. And about to begin clutching people’s sleeves, clumsily talking over them, apologising for being born, and going “YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, RIGHT?”.

Guyanese poet Grace Nichols is probably the unfortunate recipient of the non-negotiable Soppy Speech, because I grew up reading her work in the classroom and at home (my mum taught at primary level for 40-odd years and used her as a literacy resource). Her humour in her writing for children isn’t so much punchy as it is gentle and cheering; moodygoth teenage me allowed herself a little moment of respite from body image fretting, aged 16, when my mum blu-tacked a copy of one of her children’s poems, Give Yourself A Hug, to the wall near my mirror. But I think the reason she’s so appealing has lots to do with the way she balances contemplative work like Hurricane Hits England with the sharply observed, dry indictment at the intersection of racism, sexism and sizeism of, say, The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping, in which “The fat black woman could only conclude / that when it come to fashion / the choice is lean”.(I know I’m overusing “wry” and “warm” in this post but whatever, she’s a master of both, and MY PARTY, etc.)

What I’m basically getting at here is: she’s brill.

Big list of Grace’s work!

“Take That Ironic Shit Off”: Kate Beaton

The final implosion of my party into a maelstrom of inebriation and repeated burbling of “I want to be you” into the trifle. Webcomic Hark! A Vagrant: the premier resource for anyone who wishes to see me cracking up at my desk. I love it for its heady cocktail of imaginative historical detail (what if the Bronte sisters subscribed to Brooding Hunks magazine?), affection for Nancy Drew, clever lampooning of “straw feminism” (YOU DON’T NEED A TRAINER BRA LITTLE GIRL, COME WITH US TO THE MOON) and, er, the episodes of small round ponies eating indignant ghosts. Oh, and the younger-version-of-the-author comics. BOAT!

Hark! A Vagrant!

…. and there you have it. That’s my “Funny Women” party.

I wonder what your table looks like? Maybe you have a political figures table, or a women-from-the-ancient-world table, or a musical table. MANY TABLES THERE ARE, IN THE GRAND CAFE OF FEMINIST BLOGGING. LIKE VALHALLA BUT WITHOUT ALL THAT PHALLOCENTR-

– wait, this is the phase of the evening where I yell in capslock before collapsing. I think I’m partied out. Anyone got any Anadin? See you in the morning.

1. I can apparently make vol-au-vents in this little fantasia. In real life, these are in fact Ryvitas.