Comments for Fantastic Fangirls: Comics and Culture

Comment on Q&A #81: Write The End for the character of your choice. by Revil Fox

Revil Fox — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:11:18 +0000

All of these are great, but I’m particularly impressed with Anika’s, because she took one caracter I never think about (Franklin) and one character I often forget even exists (Valeria) and created the idea for a story that was more emotional than any comic I’ve read in…I’m not even sure how long. Amazing.

Comment on Q&A #81: Write The End for the character of your choice. by Jenn

Jenn — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:54:11 +0000

I love these, and obviously I love Anika’s to itty bitty pieces.

Comment on Q&A #81: Write The End for the character of your choice. by Jen

Jen — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:46:32 +0000

I seriously love all of these ideas, and I’m not even (much of a) Marvel reader.

Comment on Q&A #81: Write The End for the character of your choice. by Anika

Anika — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:36:07 +0000

@Caroline, that’s House of M Magneto — that picture (in black&white sketch form) was the first thing released to promo/prevue House of M. I still have it. (Captain Von Trapp Magneto is from Avengers Children’s Crusade and is *literally* Captain Von Trapp Magneto)

@Uranian Thank you, I really appreciate you commenting!

Comment on Stumptown by Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:39:09 +0000

I promise I *will* write my Jinx article once I’m done with the Dark Phoenix one .

Comment on Stumptown by sigrid

sigrid — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:38:09 +0000

It is a most excellent conversation, but we can table it here and you can write your essay instead! I look forward to babbling all over your comments at that point.

Comment on Stumptown by Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:36:16 +0000

You are reminding me that I said a long time ago I wanted to write a bunch of stuff about crime comics, which I clearly haven’t done, and as such I am shamed & babbling at you in your comments. Sorry!

Comment on Stumptown by sigrid

sigrid — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:33:54 +0000

I think that — okay, I can’t possibly speak for Bendis and Rucka. But I have read almost everything this guys have written. And it is my opinion that they choose female protagonists, and write supporting female characters, because they genuinely like women. Whatever the opposite of misogynist is, and I think that is feminist, those two guys are that thing. The women they write, regardless of the size of the part, are the equal of a male character with a similarly structured part.

I haven’t read many of Brubaker’s crime comics, but with Bendis writing Powers and Scarlet and Jinx and Torso, and Rucka on Stumptown and Gotham Central and Whiteout and Queen and Country, the crime subdivision of the comics medium is gender balanced. Moreover, I would argue that these two writers make crime comics feminist — for the value of feminist that says women are people fully as human and deserving of respect as men. (And that’s not even addressing the artists, such as Lieber, McNeil, Southworth, Lark, and Oeming, who draw women as individuals and not as objects.)

Comment on Stumptown by Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:23:36 +0000

I have no problem calling Walter Mosley both “modern classic noir” and “modern noir classic”. And I say that not just because his books have stood up to the test of time but because he was really doing something transformative with the genre, by subverting a lot of its racial and class assumptions. (Not that he was the first African-American noir writer *either*, of course.)

And I definitely think there’s still a strong macho/privileged vibe to the genre, but the male default has been under challenge *at least* since Marcia Muller started publishing in the 70s (and the white default at least since Mosley). It’s interesting to think about whether crime *comics* are generally more male dominated than other media, but since Rucka and Bendis are a couple of the first who come to mind, and they’re both very notable for their female protagonists, I’m not sure.

Comment on Stumptown by sigrid

sigrid — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:13:12 +0000

Oh, no, I don’t think he invented the female protagonist! Speaking of more recent noir protagonists, do you count Devil in a Blue Dress as a modern noir? (Wait, this conversation is verging close to the What Is Noir conversation. Ooops!) That’s another fairly transformative use of the genre, in my view.

Another thing I like about Stumptown is the use of sexuality. The comic has large doses of it, but it’s not part of Dex’s focus — she notices it as more information about the people around her.