Female force - Jezebel

posts about #femaleforce more →
Twilight: Unbound In Online Video Comic
Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Stephenie Meyer Joins The Female Force
"Female Force" Comics Will Feature Baba, Oprah
Sarah Palin And Hillary Clinton Are Comic Book Heroes

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Lymed
11/05/09

In reply to Twilight: Unbound In Online Video Comic
Somewhere, somebody has to have a video of Buffy kicking sparkling vampire ass and I want to see it. #stepheniemeyercomicbook
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hovy
11/05/09

@Lymed: Ask and thy shall receive. #stepheniemeyercomicbook
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Lymed
11/05/09

@hovy: Thanks. I really needed that. #stepheniemeyercomicbook
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LikeChai
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
If the comic is about Stephenie Meyer, the Stephenie Meyer character should look like Stephenie Meyer.
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Red-headed bookworm promoted this comment LikeChai was starred LikeChai was unstarred

Red-headed bookworm
10/12/09

@LikeChai: I agree. I understand that since it's a drawing, it will be stylized, but at least attempt to make the character's body look close to what she really looks like.
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lepas
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
As a woman who DRAWS comic books, it's always important to me to depict characters (women and men included) of different body types. And when drawing actual people, it's even more imperative to draw them how they actually look. Clearly they picked a rather 'B' artist to handle this project, so it's hard to say if the decision came from the editor 'oh, no. Draw her thin. We want to sell this to girls.' or an immature artist who doesn't like drawing a variety of body types.

Regardless, it's pretty clear to see it's a bad project. I'm not even sure what's happening in that first panel. Is she shitting sparkly tendrils? Probably.
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
What, no DD boobs?
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sandrastewart
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
First off, "biographical comic books"? Is that actually a genre? Second, um yes, they should draw her true to size please, thanks. It really isn't that much of a challenge, look at Coop for inspiration, even if she isn't that hot.
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cate3710 promoted this comment sandrastewart was starred sandrastewart was unstarred

cate3710
10/12/09

@sandrastewart: There are many comic books/graphic novels that are biographical. In addition to this Female Force series, there are autobiographical comics by people like Ariel Schrag, Marjane Satrapi (of Peresopolis fame), and Art Spiegelman.
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tiredfairy
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
First, I think there was about as much thought behind how they were presenting her visually as there was in the overall line. Which is to say, not a lot. They put out comics quick and cheap and it shows. I'm not knocking that...it's clearly working for them. But I highly doubt there was much consideration for what they were presenting.

That said, comics is not one monolithic industry. I've worked in it for the better part of 10 years and there are as many genre's in comics as there are in lit or film. It's really and truly not all superhero's. And in most independent comics, or comics that are not supehero oriented, you'll find lots of different body types...not to mention ethnicities, sexual orientations, and types of characters. Strangers in Paradise, Scott Pilgrim, Fun Home, the work of the Hernandez brothers, Jill Thompson, Colleen Doran, Linda Medley, Faith Erin Hicks, Peter Gross, Amanda Connor...and many others.

One of my favorite artists, Ross Campbell, does some of the most diverse looking characters in the medium...check out Wet Moon. Curvy, slim, black, white, shaved heads, pink hair, lost limbs, etc.

So, to be frank, there's no excuse for this comic to have this kind of "idealized" figure type, especially when the target audience must be girls, and the genre its in has a long history of being way more diverse.
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Edited by tiredfairy at 10/11/09 10:39 PM tiredfairy was starred tiredfairy was unstarred

belle TL
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
My husband has always been a huge fan of Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise" series, and when I showed him this post, he pointed out why--it's a female-led series with women of different body types--one embodies more of what you'd expect in a graphic novel, but both are shown with lumps and bumps that are inherent to any woman. It's certainly a nice alternative to buying into this stuff, even if it is celebrating successes of real women...

Seeing this makes me want to a.) buy him the whole series and then b.) read it for myself.
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Dictator for Life
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
I just clicked on the link to her "actual size" photo, and she's wearing the same dress one of the bridesmaids in my wedding will be wearing. I don't know how to feel about that.
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starke
10/11/09

@Dictator for Life: bridezilla alert!
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Dictator for Life
10/11/09

@starke: No, she picked it out herself.
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Little Time Bomb
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Looking at the photo in the link she's very pretty. She's also in bed with a dude in the panel shown. I think it's a missed opportunity that a comic meant to inspire teen girls couldn't show a great thing. In real life girls of all sizes are found attractive and find meaningful relationships.
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CassandraSays
10/12/09

@Little Time Bomb: This is part of what's bothering me. It's not even like they "made over" a woman who's not at all conventionally attractive - Meyer IS conventionally attractive, she's just shaped like a 30-something American mom and not Wonder Woman. Why is that so unacceptable?
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Red-headed bookworm promoted this comment CassandraSays was starred CassandraSays was unstarred

Red-headed bookworm
10/12/09

@CassandraSays: Well, I wouldn't say she's shaped like a "30-something American mom" as not all moms have that shape, some are thinner, some are bigger. She's shaped like herself, but yeah, she's pretty and they should have stuck closer to her real figure.
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CassandraSays
10/12/09

@Red-headed bookworm: I'm just not seeing any reason why a comic about a famous person can't have the character look like that actual person. So she's not what comic artists think of as the ideal woman - so what? She's meant to be an author, not a superhero.
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Lizard in the Wires now with even MORE metal in the face!
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Draw her however you want the fact that the people in charge of "Female Force" think Stephenie Meyer is the most empowering woman around is much more vomit inducing.
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Cimorene
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Ugh, this is annoying. And, at least from my culturally extremely-critical perspective, dangerous at worst, offensive at best.
Dangerous because it's further cementing the notion that no matter what--even if you invent sparkly vampires--you're only worth attention if you're pretty*, and if you're not pretty then you're not worth attention. That's a large part of why younger and younger women (and older women too) have such tortured relationships with their bodies, and I've seen too many women's lives get fucked up by eating disorders not to be highly critical of subtle cultural cues that enforce misogynist, unhealthy standards. Offensive because it's "correcting" Meyer's body--but there isn't anything wrong with her body.

*I'm using "pretty" here in the most normative, and thus anti-fat, way imaginable, not unlike comic book versions of the female body.
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annebreal
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Ummm...isn't that kind of Stephanie Myers's gig? Painting everything in the rosy hues that she deems ideal? I mean her vampires sparkle in sunlight and don't have pre-marital sex...Mary Sue-ing herself doesn't remotely surprise me, she certainly made her living with the same MO in her fiction that reads a lot like fanfiction.

By the same token, she's drawn the same way pretty much all Marvel comic women are, isn't she? Big boobs, small waist, shiny, shiny hair.
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Vivien Smith-Smythe-Smith promoted this comment Edited by annebreal at 10/11/09 6:29 PM annebreal was starred annebreal was unstarred

CanyonCareIsTimeConsuming
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
I'm not sure if we should look to the woman who wrote a book where a girl falls for a boy who will devour her if she sleeps with him as the new empowering figure of teenage feminism.
Although, to be fair, I didn't read the books. Maybe Bella kicks major ass eventually? I hope so.
And I also still love Buffy, who was similar in the aspect of loving someone who wants to kill her, but for some reason she just oozes empowerment to me.
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Cimorene
10/11/09

@CanyonCareIsTimeConsuming: Well, Buffy didn't really love someone who wanted to kill her. Angelus wanted to kill her, but she didn't love a de-souled vampire. She loved Angel, who essentially died after sleeping with her (only to be born again somehow a couple months/eons in a hell dimension later).
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goldcat
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
This is something I think about a good deal as a comic book draw-er who often depicts herself and her friends. I think its fair to enhance, but not necessarily to lie. Like i'm not gonna draw someone to 'comic book female' proportions if they are not, but I'm not gonna sit there drawing individual cellulite dimples and nose hairs either. You need a certain amount of frankness in a depiction of someone specific, or else they won't be recognizable, they'll just look like stock characters. Which is why I resist giving my drawn self bigger boobs and I keep my giant eyebrows.
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sumotuwe
10/11/09

In reply to Do Biographical Comic Books Have A Responsibility To Depict Weight Honestly?
Interestingly, nobody felt the need to draw hair on Harvey Pekar or take away his wrinkles for the comics drawn for his 70th birthday:
[www.smithmag.net]
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Rooo sez BISH PLZ promoted this comment sumotuwe was starred sumotuwe was unstarred

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