So, I feel that I have to start with a declaration. Despite the fact that I go by ‘Sam’ and like comics, I am a woman. Raise your hand if you didn’t know that. See, you learned something today, good for you.
As I have read all the back and forth regarding the reaction of one comic retailer to one comic book somewhere out West, I have been appalled. Last week word spread down the comic-sphere that an employee of Comics Ink in California ripped up a copy of “Pretty Deadly” #1 from Image Comics by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios (feel free to read all about that incident here). Do I think what that retailer did was in poor taste? Sure. I also think that outfit the barista at my coffee shop was wearing today was in poor taste, but you don’t see me blowing up the internet over it. If we react this way every time someone has a negative opinion about a book we will all be exhausted within a week. This kind of outrage is unsustainable.
But, I didn’t come here to talk about the art of picking your battles. That is a Miss Manners topic for another day, and a lot of wasted breath, I would imagine.
I wanted to speak up on the topic because of a certain phrase that is being bandied about in regard to the incident: this retailer is being called a misogynist. That seems a touch extreme. Let’s start by defining the word: misogyny is simply the dislike, distrust or hatred of women. That’s a lot of accusation to toss someone’s way because of the way he reacted to art, which is, at its core, subjective.
First of all, do you know what I would give for something I wrote to inspire enough passion in someone for them to literally rip it apart? Art should provoke, and that kind of rage beats the hell out of ambivalence any day. It seems to me that what he was saying by showing that kind anger was that he expected more from the book; that would mean that he knew the creative team and the subject matter ahead of time, and found that the work did not meet his expectations. Let’s pretend that is what happened, just for a moment: if that were the case it would directly undermine the idea that this fellow hated women, because he expected the book to satisfy his reading needs. If he thought that the title was going to be terrible and after reading the book determined that he had correctly anticipated his own reaction, the display would have probably been much less intense. By having high expectations he voted confidently for the team, and felt upset when he didn’t get what he wanted. Of course, we don’t know if that was the case, but it’s every bit as likely as the notion that he tore up the issue because he was a member of the he-man woman hater’s club.
Aside from having no idea if the claims about this fellow’s stance on the fairer sex are true and the fact that we have little to no information to support that theory, I have a bigger problem with the dialogue that this incident has inspired. Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios, and Jordie Bellaire are warriors in the comic world; I don’t think they need a bunch of white knights riding to their rescue to save them from some harsh criticism. Anyone tough enough to climb through the labyrinth of comic book publishing and come out with a creator owned comic book that sold out a first printing of 57,000 copies can take care of themselves. Deconnick actually wrote that this single incident did not tell the story of this book’s reception, and the supporters who accuse this retailer of misogyny are introducing the aspect of gender to an argument in which it has no place.
Guys, we are fighting tooth and nail to play in your sandbox. We have been ripping down no-girls-allowed signs for longer than you have known they existed. We’ve been asked if we like “Batgirl” every time we try to talk comics in new company. We came to terms with the fact that we will never get to write or draw “Batman,” and have been pleasantly surprised by Margueritte Bennet and Becky Cloonan barging in there like gangbusters and getting their names on the cover. We’ve been looking at female super heroes in skimpy costumes for years, wasting valuable time pondering the logistics of toupee tape and the insane waxing schedules that they must keep.
Continued belowWe’ve been at this a while, thinking twice as hard as we need to about our tone, persona, wardrobe, and every aspect of how we carry ourselves, or present ourselves publicly. Balancing femininity with toughness, proving that we can keep up with the jokes, and the violence, and the ever popular ballsiness (why is that word all over the place when talking about female comic writers or artists who are talented? Another piece for another day, I guess) that the establishment expects.
Do you know what we want? At least the women in, or around, the comic industry?
We want some guy to rip our book (or review, or opinion piece for that matter) because he sees us as the same as every other comic creator (or comic journalist) out there. To try and say that women in the comic field get more criticism than their male counterparts is ludicrous. Everyone hates everything, they just do. Fans complain about casting decisions in comic book movies. People went to the trouble of creating anti-Batfleck t-shirts which were all over NYCC. We whine when creative teams change up, and suspect foul play more often than not. Even the most well-received books inspire dissent in the ranks; Scott Snyder talked about getting death threats on the a recent “Fatman on Batman” podcast hosted by Kevin Smith, and lets face it, “Batman” is probably the least ‘feminine‘ book on the market. It’s manliness with a side of testosterone soup. The creative team on “Pretty Deadly” has earned the right to have people throw out criticism and venom at their work, just like everyone else. They’ve worked hard for it, dammit. To say that they haven’t earned that right is sort of anti-feminist in itself.
The rhetoric needs to change. Overzealous criticism would be dismissed as silliness if the creative team were made up of straight, white men. It is not our job to challenge that perception of absurdity if the creators do not align perfectly with that archetype. Doing so does not make you enlightened, or heroic, or brave. It makes you one more person continuing the discourse of inequality, albeit you are probably doing so with all the best intentions in the world.
So, I am asking you all to consider the possibility that this guy is just kind of an ass, and stop trying to defend the damsels who don’t seem all that distressed, that can obviously take care of themselves.
(Oh, one more thing: those out there who assume that ‘spooky psycho babble‘ is somehow related to the creative team being mostly female… are you SERIOUS? Do you think that is helping, at all? It’s like telling on a friend who said a curse word in first grade and saying the same bad word. When you draw the connections, even if you do so to explain someone else’s actions, you are still putting that out there. Stop it. There is nothing uniquely female about critics saying your writing is ‘spooky psycho babble.‘ I am sure Grant Morrison would agree, and I can think of worse writers to be compared to, I’m just sayin’.)
I am slightly encouraged by this entire debacle. It seems like the discourse surrounding women in comics has shifted somewhat, from the way that female characters are portrayed to the need for more female creators and what their role in the industry should be. However, I do not like the fact that the majority of comments that I have seen on the topic are coming from men who. despite the fact that they are calling for more women in the industry, seem to have no qualms about telling these hypothetical women what kind of stories they should be telling.
Brandon Graham, a particularly vocal critic of, well, everyone stated on Twitter that he was less interested in seeing women on established titles and more interested in having them tell their own stories. This is not as revolutionary as Graham and other like-minded professionals would like to think; women have always been brought in to handle female characters, and tell ‘their own stories.’ Way back in 1969, Linda Fite was brought onto “X-Men” to write a back up for issue #57 called ‘The Female of the Species,’ featuring Jean Grey using her telekinesis to do — wait for it — housework. A woman’s presence in the driver’s seat did little to bolster equality in that case. There were also many women working on various romance comics during this time, and again, this was did little to level the playing field. Women telling stories about women for women does little to give us equal stake in the comic genre, since the readership remains mostly male. This idea that women should be telling stories that center on the female experience isn’t going to make things any better, for anyone.
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Graham also stated that men writing female characters was doing nothing to bolster the status of women within the comic realm, but I think he is wrong about that. Without comics like “Y: The Last Man,” and “American Vampire,” I don’t know if publishers would have realized that female characters with depth and truly unique voices would play with comic readers, and I certainly don’t think as many doors would be open for female creators.
Graham’s criticisms sparked a lot of conversation. In response to Graham’s online discussion, Tess Fowler commented saying that her experience with an unnamed male writer mirrored some of the accusations that Graham was making about writers in the industry, but I wonder if this was truly a result of the creator’s genders or a personal difference? I do not wish to denigrate Fowler’s claims or the trials she underwent on her way to success, but I do wonder if the entire thing should be seen through the lens of gender, or exemplary of the standard attitudes of the entire industry.
I do have limited personal experience as a woman in the industry. In addition to my work with Multiversity, I work with an independent comic publisher as an editor and media relations manager. I am the only woman on staff. The men I work with there (and on this site for that matter) have always been open to listening to my ideas and treated me with respect. I should say here that my idea of being treated with respect is being treated like everyone else, so of course we joke around and pick on each other, which I prefer infinitely to being handled with kid gloves. I also have to say that in my time with that publisher, I have only seen one pitch come in from a female writer, compared to the many, many all-male teams who have submitted work. It seems to me that there really are fewer women trying to break in than men, and that perhaps the fraction of books by female teams is representative of that, not an industry-wide conspiracy.
There is no doubt that comic books are a boys club. Of course they are, but is that intentional, or just something that keeps happening? I don’t want Jane Crow comic policies. Separate-but-equal never works. I read comics because I love what they are about, I love the heroes and villains, the trials and tribulations, the adventure and subtext; I do not love comics because they are books with pictures. I don’t have any desire to read a book about women’s issues if it has to be detached from that world, and I surely would not want to write one.
“Pretty Deadly” is a story that can matter to anyone, that happens to feature a female protagonist and happens to be written, drawn, and colored by women. That’s the kind of book I would like to think represents where women are going in this industry. You know what made that book happen? Hard work. Not some misguided affirmative action-y statute (like the one featured in this year’s Top Cow Talent Hunt). Instead of talking about why books like “Pretty Deadly” haven’t been published sooner, or in higher volumes, let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that it happened at all, and that the entire comic universe stood still for a few minutes to weigh in on it. Who knows where this might lead?
