The direction of Comics: for boys
Posted: 10.29.2009 5:01pm
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Comic books are for boys. I hope we all agree that that should forever be the main focus of Comic Books...no matter how much that we feel that we have been around and like them ourselves.
Comics are made for boys and dispite even how Marvel comics board itself feels about shuch a thing...that is and whom they should always belong to.
I intend this advice to help the company as it is and sincerely hope that they agree with this decision. _________________ Giant-man was unaviable for comment!
i mean, look at how female characters are drawn. the impossibly proportioned bodies, the skimpy outfits.
i'd assume there is a huge difference between most boys and girls in terms of what they find visually appealing.
comics, as a visual medium is just inherently geared towards boys. for some reason, spandex clad muscle men appeal to "us" boys (which, if you think about it, is kinda weird...eh guys?), as do spandex clad woman (obviously).
it's funny because there was an article i read about concerning Terry Moore (creator of Strangers In Paradise and Echo), and why his art appeals to more female readers. it's primarily because he is one of the few comic artists that draws anatomically accurate female forms. _________________ Fighting ignorance one fan-boy at a time.
As a woman who has been reading the X-Men for 26 years now, who is also an avid fan of Gail Simone'a work, who knows that there has been large influx of female fans in the last ten years or so, allow me just to say:
NO.
Comics may have been aimed at boys in the past but they have always had female fans. And they have not been exclusively at boys for a little while now and they should not be. To suggest that Marvel ignore half the human population in creating and marketing its product would be suicidal.
P.S. Never make assumptons of personal taste based solely on gender.
silver_raven hero Joined: 12.03.2006 Posts: 632
Posted: 10.30.2009 3:25am
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Are you serious with this topic. What are you scared about? That women will enjoy these comics too because they are fun and fascinating? That they will begin to take charge of the way they are portrayed and depicted? That they will join in the boy's club and write and draw more then they have been allowed too? Or do you not like being around women in comic book shops? What is your problem with comics being open to everybody?!
I didn't know an artistic medium could be made for just one gender.
From the lack of soundness and sense of your point, I can't help but think you are sexist, if not other things. You are obviously a boy with little knowledge and experience, if you consider comic books to be just a "boy's" genre. If you were open and aware of things you might consider how we live in a patriarchal world, dominated by men, who have had the power for centuries. And in the comic books industry they have had the privilege and position to make what ever stories they wanted and those would obviously appeal to other like-minded individuals. So for years, it's been a boy's club with the rare, exceptional woman coming on board to try and make a living in this male dominated profession. They have had to struggle uphill for years, depsite the efforts of the women's rights movement, there still have been few women who have had the chance to work at Marvel and I wouldn't be suprised with some of the views and attitudes expressed in the comic books and behind the scenes, many would stay away. No one wants to involved with people that objectify and mistreat females, fiction and non, to the levels comic books have. Women in fridges is still not a phenomena of the past, so we need more women to help fix the problems that perpetuate this archaic notion that comic books are just for boys.
And after decades of Marvel not honoring their female characters and staff, why would anyone not want Marvel to pay some respect to these groundbreaking heroines. It's about time they made a concentrated effort to reach out to female audiences and artists and writers. And I can't wait to read stories about Marvel's marvelous women.
Hopefully some more enlightened people can carry on with this, 'cause I am tired of having to explain how hard it is to be a female comic book fan.
No, comics are for people with money. Who cares about gender when money is to be made. If dogs started working to earn a paycheck, and started buying comics, you'll get more Lockjaw mini's and on-goings considered. (probably Wolverine as well just to be on the safe side)
Just historically, males have generally been the ones to spend proportionately more money towards them. Should comics be catered to any one single type of reader specifically?
If you intent with advice is to bankrupt Marvel lol (why suddenly stop trying to appeal to any category of potential comic reader? More boys won't start reading comics because less girls do, in fact, I'd bet more boys would stop too)
I don't in my humble opinion, think this idea/original post, was really thought about that deeply. Even just for the fact that money can't recognize gender yet. If its about the main focus? Well the main focus is already with males, but if profits increase/change/alter and so on...
Marvel,or DC,or any other comic-book industry would follow the policy you speak of only if they desired to go bankrupt.
What gave you the impression that comics are and should be destined to male audience exclusively?I don't deny that male readers used to be the primary marketing-focus of comic-book industries and that to this day the percentage of male comic-readers may be prevalent,but it's common truth that the female readers have largely contibuted to Marvel's success as a company.Have you ever wondered why comic-book series such as "Buffy:The vampire slayer" have been so successful?In order to execute the idea you suggest,Marvel would risk losing not only their female audience,but a large percentage of the male one,as well,considering that the quality of the books would falter dramatically,anyway.
As a matter of fact,it is atrocious that Marvel has not hired women creators for aformentioned reasons.If people are interested in progressing the comics to the next level and extinguishing the myth of "the mentally-deficient mollycoddles" that so many non-comic-book readers have of us,comics ought not to discriminate gender. _________________ Say good night,Gracie...Good night.
Some of the best comics I have read in the last few years have either been aimed at women or been gender nuetral.
Ultra is a brilliant graphic novel aimed at women
Ms Marvel is a fantastic ongoing series that has yet to objectify once and has a fairly possative and acurate portrayal of Carol Danvers
Buffy . . . well do I really need to say anything about Buffy?
X-Men Legacy has a female lead in Rogue and the same thing I said for Ms Marvel I can say for her
Heroes for Hire, while short lived, was a great comic which focused on almost entirely female leads.
I could go on but instead I say "get with the times" _________________ I cannot recomend X-Factor enough but here's trying.
that was one of Gail Simone's major gripes with how female characters have been portrayed.
there was a huge article in the indie magazine called "$#*$!@%" that had alot of Simone's commentary on the current state of female characters in comics.
she stated that if they weren't dealt with by stuffing them into fridges, they'd almost invariably be "rescued" by male characters.
the best current example i can think of was in an issue of Ms. Marvel, where she was struggling to get control over a descending airplane...then, who comes to her rescue? the Sentry. sure we can break it down to power levels...blah blah blah...but tell me if that isn't just keeping with the stereotype?
thank God she is in comics because she's striving to change that treatment (at least over on the DC side). why is it that she's a perfect fit for the Wonder Woman title? _________________ Fighting ignorance one fan-boy at a time.
Re: The direction of Comics: for boys
Posted: 10.30.2009 7:30pm
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Sentinelxy wrote:
Comic books are for boys. I hope we all agree that that should forever be the main focus of Comic Books...no matter how much that we feel that we have been around and like them ourselves.
Comics are made for boys and dispite even how Marvel comics board itself feels about shuch a thing...that is and whom they should always belong to.
I intend this advice to help the company as it is and sincerely hope that they agree with this decision.
This just strikes me as very odd. As a woman who has read and enjoyed comics since the late 70s, I heartily disagree. But I'm curious. What exactly is the reasoning behind your opinion that comics should only be aimed at boys? (And, by the way, does that exclude men?) And why do you think disregarding half their potential audience would help the company? _________________ Sunspot: "You were killed, Professor. Mutantkind was nearly exterminated! It's hard to hold onto a dream when you're fighting for survival."
Xavier: "That is when you must do so hardest of all."
