Pen-Elayne on the Web

Celebrating Women - 3 March 2004

Every time I express personal discomfort with, and disappointment at, the continued objectification and fetishizing of female characters in American comic book art (compounded by the double standard of the near-absence of same for male characters) and elicit a response to the effect of "well, you obviously think the human body is evil" or somesuch (sound familiar to those of you who are told you "hate America" because you want to see more equality and justice in this country?), I'm grateful for all the work Friends of Lulu has done in helping raise the public consciousness in and about the comic book industry. Today there are more celebrated female writers and artists than ever before in the US market, thousands of women working on manga in Japan who have huge worldwide followings (including millions of female readers), and growing appreciation among comics cognoscenti for good storytelling over pin-up art, and for female protagonists who are interesting and active (like their male counterparts) rather than static and posed and in the story only to be drooled at. Granted, there's still a long way to go before gratuitous crotch-shots and exaggerated boobs-and-butts fall by the wayside entirely - after all, it's always easier to draw objectification art than to actually succeed at visual storytelling - but I prefer to look at how far we've come already in just a few short years. And the gals at Sequential Tart are also in the forefront of this new consciousness, in addition to putting out one hell of a spiffy monthly online comics zine.