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Princeless came from a confluence of issues I had.  I’ve always had a lot of close geek girl friends and I’m always looking for strong female characters in comics to share with them.  I think there just aren’t enough.  When I married my wife, I got to know her younger sisters and some of her cousins.  As young girls of color none of them had ever picked up a comic book (except my wife) and why should they?  I can count on one hand the number of black women you can find on your comic book stand right now, not to mention the number who are positive portrayals.  The same holds true for women of color in fantasy stories.  I wanted my daughter to have comic books she could love the same way I’ve loved mine.  Not to mention, I’m a little leery about the princess culture and what it actually teaches girls.

-Princeless creator Jeremy Whitley x

oooh, i wanna read it

did anyone read crossgen’s Meridian or was i the only one? it seems to me at least when people make the argument of ‘few strong, female characters’ they never want to venture outside of the boundaries of the mainstream market, or even america’s independent comics market. the characters are there, it is just that we, as comics fans, don’t do enough to share them with other people, or to hype them enough so that other people become interested. and quite frankly? i’m tired of the complaints. you want strong, female characters? here are some comics that may interest you

Jeff Smith’s Bone (the later half of the series revolves around a young girl named Thorn and her battle against the Lord of the Locusts)

The Herandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets (although Gilbert’s stories tend to be over sexualized, it is never done in poor taste. Maggie & Hopey and the rest of the women from Palomar are very dynamic and well-written, with a lot of them achieving more than their male counterparts)

Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise (Moore has been praised for years on his female characters)

Alison Bechdel’s Dyke to Watch Out For and Fun Home (one of the first lesbian comics and the source of The Bechdel Test. I’ve read some of Fun Home and I can say that she’s also an excellent memoirist, as well as a well-read person in general)

Greg Rucka’s For Queen & Country (an excellent espionage comic that doesn’t pander to the “femme fatale” trope. Tara Chase is one tough chick and she’s very three-dimensional in terms of characterization)

Barabara Kesel’s Meridian (it focuses on a young girl who becomes minister of her own floating island’s city-state and herwar against her uncle who wishes to take over and kill her. It never got an appropriate ending since CrossGen comics went belly-up. It is still a great, overlooked comic and it pains me when people tell me they haven’t heard of it)

and of course, since this blog is called HIKIKOMORI GANG LIFE, have some manga to go along with it

Yumi Tamara’s Basara (a twin sister takes her brother’s place as “the child of destiny” and does a kick-ass job at it)

Studio Sunrise’s anime The Vision of Escaflowne (Hitomi doesn’t just sit back and relax and get in trouble all the time. Despite her not wielding a sword, or piloting a mech, she is an integral character and has more uses than “oh i can tell the future. The manga is decent from what I have heard)

Twelve Kingdoms (it’s all about a young girl from Japan being transported to a fantasy realm to learn that she is the queen of an entire country. She starts off shy, self-defeating and weak but ends up blossoming into a strong warrior and a capable ruler. It really is one of my favorite novels/animes and it really needs to be in everyone’s library)

The Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit franchise revolves around a wandering spearwoman and her task of guarding a young noble who is wanted dead by the emperor, the noble’s father. There’s plenty of fantasy action that will capture the interest of any young person, male or female.

Nadia: Secret of Blue Water (don’t even talk to me if you haven’t seen this i’m not kidding just watch this)

i mean really. the characters are out there. you just have to go and look for them. the mainstream market is always going to be the mainstream market. You have to stop looking for answers there. you have to be subversive and leave it behind and become kind of an enemy to it if you want to support your ideals in a medium that’s primary goal is financial gain!!!! i encourage those who want to write their own stories and use strong, female characters as protagonists, but it is 2k12 everyone it’s the internet age and we’ve become a lot more diverse. if anything, SOPA and PIPA show just how much of a threat the internet has become to the entertainment industry, because it allows those who may be interested in things that the dominant market cannot offer an avenue for purchase.

so please

let’s put this argument to bed already it is just annoying for me

rebagel for hate it feeds my heart machine

I am troubled by your list of positive female portrayals in comics—not because they’re bad examples, but because they’re the ONLY examples that people ever seem to cite on this subject! You say you’re “tired of complaints” on this issue, and so am I—but I don’t think forcing ourselves to be content with the aforementioned token feminist comics is much of a solution.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where Jaime Hernandez and Alison Bechdel aren’t brought up in EVERY discussion that attempts to defend the absence of realistic, non-exploited female characters in comics?

Pretending there isn’t a problem is never the solution to a problem. Especially when it then causes you to dismiss another person’s attempt to challenge that problem.

I guess I think we should always be receptive when cartoonists like Jeremy Whitley make an effort to balance the gender ratio a little more, even if that attempt looks kind of … dumb. (Although I do dig the non-sexualized armor on the latter two images).

Reblogging because catsnrats’ commentary is SO GOOD. Like, yes, I like Love and Rockets and Dykes to Watch Out For and plenty amazing underground comics that are wonderfully written, fantastically drawn, and totally engrossing — but the reality is that A) we consistently point to the same handful of underground comics whenever we talk about representation of female characters in the comics world and B) the vast majority of those comics are not really written with young adult audiences in mind anyway. (And so dated! That list of recs is, by and large, so dated! I get it, some people think that some things are classics and that’s fine, but what is out there right now for young girls?)

When I was young, the only thing that really made comics accessible to me was going to the grocery store with my parents where they would buy me the occasional Archie Double Digest or Disney Adventures (where I read the first book of Jeff Smith’s Bone.) Other than that, I didn’t have much exposure to comics until I started going to a local, independently owned comic store when I was in middle school. And, unfortunately, much of what I saw there felt alienating and unappealing to me. I eventually found a niche by reading shoujo comics, which at least were written for a wide variety of age groups and depicted “slice of life” experiences that I found emotionally engaging. (For what it’s worth, I just finished reading From the Heart, an ethnographic study about the shoujo industry and while it was very focused on the publishing mechanics, it was interesting to get a sense for the role that shoujo manga plays in Japan, the social and commercial functions that the publishing industry feels shoujo manga fulfills, etc.)

Anyway, we need more comics for readers of all-ages that depict a range of female protagonists and supporting characters — you can’t just tell girls, “Oh, wait until you’re a teenager/in college/whatever, there’s a ton of great underground stuff that you’ll love (and may or may not even be able to access depending on the availability of underground comics in your area, your ability to order comics online, your willingness to research underground comics when you may have had minimal at best exposure to comics culture, etc.) — until then tough it out.” Who wants to wait until (young) adulthood to join in on a culture that, by and large, misrepresents their embodied experiences and relegates them crummy supporting roles (which is my nice girl way of saying “vacant sex objects”)?

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    I need, NEED this to come out in trade paperback so I can buy it and hold it and keep it forever.
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  16. bluebeadsandbones reblogged this from lookuplookup and added:
    Reblogging because, as always, lookuplookup sums things up a million times better than I could. Girls—especially girls...
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  18. lookuplookup reblogged this from catsnrats and added:
    Reblogging because catsnrats’ commentary is SO GOOD. Like, yes, I like Love and Rockets and Dykes to Watch Out For and...
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  20. hikikomoriganglife reblogged this from catsnrats and added:
    first of all, howdy doodle michael letvin (at least that is who i think you are???) ebbits is great! why are you...
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  22. kayliesaurusrex reblogged this from piddlebucket and added:
    i need to read these!