Astronomer and physicist Carl Sagan wrote in 1981 to an organisation called “The Explorers Club”. Some history is needed here: this was a group founded in 1905 in New York, as a club for those who pursue “Scientific Exploration” (including both Explorers and Scientists). A letterhead he mentions in the note says To the conquest of the unknown and the advancement of knowledge. Back around 1900, the idea that women could be part of either of those professions or join the club wasn’t considered. The club then remained men-only for decades in the name of tradition.

Sagan was adding his voice to others in the early 1980s asking that women should be allowed to be members. His letter is polite, but one middle paragraph is a brilliant list of women who have contributed to the pursuit of new knowledge:

There are several women astronauts. The earliest footprints — 3.6 million years old — made by a member of the human family have been found in a volcanic ash flow in Tanzania by Mary Leakey. Trailblazing studies of the behavior of primates in the wild have been performed by dozens of young women, each spending years with a different primate species. Jane Goodall‘s studies of the chimpanzee are the best known of the investigations which illuminate human origins. The undersea depth record is held by Sylvia Earle [pictured below]. The solar wind was first measured in situ by Marcia Neugebauer, using the Mariner 2 spacecraft. The first active volcanoes beyond the Earth were discovered on the Jovian moon Io by Linda Morabito, using the Voyager 1 spacecraft. These examples of modern exploration and discovery could be multiplied a hundredfold.

The Explorers Club changed their policy later that year, and now do not restrict based on gender.

But that’s not the part which gives me hope.

If you read the rest of Sagan’s letter, the extraordinary thing today is how reasonable he’s being. He’s genuinely trying to convince the Club, using facts and appealing to logic, that they should make this change. There’s no hint of anger or appeal to fairness. He doesn’t say women deserve equality, and only calmly points out that if you want a ‘social club for the boys’ you shouldn’t claim to represent all scientists and explorers in 1981. In fact he (as a member) acts as though they could have every right to exclude women because of tradition, but that they’re mistaken and women should in fact qualify under their own rules. (I’m not saying Sagan wasn’t passionate about equality, at all – his belief in it comes through clearly in many of his books and documentaries, and he’s an absolute hero. I think he was being deliberately polite.)

However, I expect that someone writing to the Explorers Club today might send a very different message. A message which includes the questions “What do you think you’re doing?” and “Why are you being so incredibly blinkered?”. I can well believe that there was prejudice against the quality of women’s roles in science in 1981: there’s prejudice now. But I think the average expectation of what is normal and fair has genuinely shifted, to the point that Sagan’s letter reads as quite oddly passive today.

In the week when Google celebrated Marie Curie’s 144th birthday, I enjoy anything which reminds us that we need to move away from the token lady scientist when looking at women’s roles in the discovery of new frontiers. This letter is, I hope, an anachronism today. I also dearly hope it won’t seem normal again in the future.

Ah, comics. Or graphic novels, if they are trying to seduce me across a pseudy coffee bar in Edinburgh, which they did – more on that later.

Dear reader, this is a tale of a long, passionate, but fractious love affair.

It started early. I noticed them, but they never seemed to be the right one for me, stocked as they were in the “boys’ section” of the magazine racks. I kept myself busy with the garish colours of the (probably) gender neutral Dandy and the Beano. Whilst being amused but ultimately concerned by the levels of naughtiness from Minnie the Minx (I was a very conscientious child), I found myself captured by a few sections from the pages of hand-me-down copies of the now-defunct “girls’ own” annual Bunty. Looking back on it, the artwork was poor and the storylines were hammy with a sprinkling of schmaltz, but some stood out: tales of mystery, adventure, aliens and heroines were hidden amidst the pages of dreary “girl stuff”. Now we’re talking!

Cover Art for GloomCookie Issue 7

Flash forward, and I’m at university in Edinburgh with actual money in my pocket. I’ve caught flickers of images in such hallowed sanctuaries as Forbidden Planet, which is exciting but mostly full of plastic models. Deadhead, lurking on the crooked medieval road across from the pub where I’ve just earned my actual money, is poky and rammed with paper; pleasingly reminiscment in layout and smell of old bookshops.

On the shelves I spot a beautifully painted (thank you Duncan Fegredo) issue of Mike Carey’s Lucifer, where a winged schoolgirl escapes the giant maw of a fiery demon; the first of the new Catwoman where Selina Kyle is resplendent and powerful in a jumpsuit and combat boots; and the gothic lusciousness of Serena Valentino’s GloomCookie. And that was just the covers!

Ed Brubaker's 2001 Emma Peel inspired Catwoman

The stories, oh, oh, oh the stories. Magical, fantastical, intricate and complex tales of all kinds with interesting and varied female characters being just as magical, just as fantastically intricate and complex as their male counterparts.

I am doing my level best to just not list all of them because that would be a little tedious – check the Wiki articles or better yet come round and read them – my point is that they were there, and they were so far removed from any other female heroes (or anti-heroes, or villains) that I had ever seen before, and there were just SO MANY of them.

Over the next many years I spent a lot of time and money on comics. I was in love.  Besotted. I compulsively collected every issue of the jaw-dropping Fables and Y: The Last Man (a must for any comic collection). As I tend to be when in love, I was somewhat obsessed. I wrote my dissertation on postmodernist structuralism in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles (I know better now, it should have been postmodern superhero archetypes in Doom Patrol).

I found the most perfect fairy tale ever told in the form of Jeff Smith’s independent offering Bone. This is an epic adventure of derring do, lost princesses who need to save the kingdom, war, friendship, quiche and dragons. I cannot recommend it enough.

Grandma Ben in action against the famously stupid, stupid rat creatures

The character of Grandma Ben blasts away so many female stereotypes. She is mysterious, strong, forthright, takes no nonsense and just plain funny.  She also races cows. As in, races against them. I aim to also do this when I am her age (which she refuses to tell anyone, of course).

But as I read my way through everything that caught my eye, I was spotting a change.

Filthy Assistant number two Yelena Rossini romped her way through Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan and stole my heart somewhat with her hard smoking, futuristic gumshoe gonzo journalism and attack womb. Zee Hernandez from Brian Wood’s spectacular DMZ played Beatrice to the lost photographer and guided both him and the reader through a ghastly vision of New York as the Gaza Strip.

Yelena Rossini from Transmetropolitan

These women were still good, still interesting, but they were second fiddle, playing traditional (albeit revamped and turbo-boosted) support roles such as healers and helpmeets whilst also filling the “minority quota”, especially in the case of Zee who is both non-white and non-male. Naturally all of them end up sleeping with or as love interests for the male protagonists, although at least the storylines of those titles made up for the stereotypes.

Somewhere along the way, it started to go wrong. Bit by bit by bit, even these characters faded away. The series that I loved ended (I cried at the end of Lucifer) and were replaced with weaker, less interesting versions. Costumes became smaller, boobs bigger. I started my “never buy a comic where the cover art has a woman with breasts bigger than her head” campaign, and found myself wealthier but with a lot less comics.

Female characters and their stories became less widely available. There were still some bright sparks but these were increasingly ghettoised in the narrow “independent” section of the store or as part of autobiographical works such as the excellent Persepolis. The lack of new work meant that shops began pushing long-standing books like Strangers in Paradise or reprints of classics  obviously aimed at women such as Dykes to Watch Out For.

There were still good stories in comic book world, with great artwork, but the women I had come to love had gone missing from the mainstream. Titles such as Wonder Woman or Lady Death looked like bad pornography, and the artwork for some of my favourite writers became downright ridiculous to the point of offensive. My relationship with comics was getting rocky.

I can pinpoint the exact moment that caused us to break up. It was Ignition City by Warren Ellis, specifically the way that almost every page had a massive pair of tits or tight (female) bottom in it, regardless of whether that was particularly appropriate or relevant. The male characters, of course, could be as fat, wrinkly, gross, old, multicultural and multidimensional as actual people. The female characters only existed to ensure that there were toned body parts for the consumption of the reader (who obviously wasn’t meant to be me).

What happened to my love?  What changed? I don’t know. I have moved to pastures new – online comics such as Freak Angels, Girl Genius, Sinfest and XKCD fulfill my panel-related addiction, but every now and then I look longingly at my groaning bookshelf with all those beautiful trade paperbacks, wondering when, if ever, there might be a return to form.

Come back, baby. I miss you.