Authored by: billsimmon on Sunday, December 04 2005 @ 10:06 AM

Yeah I saw this article too and almost blogged about it myself. In the context of the article, the title makes perfect sense. Women comics artists aren't being celebrated alongside the men at the top of the feild, so yes, it's meant in the "cannonized" sense. And you must agree, as talented as the women are that you mentioned, they are fairly obscure outside the very indy world of underground and small press comics.

Your lead guitarist analogy fits perfectly. Where are the women? Well, the fan bases of Rock guitar and comics are each made up primarily of boys, and these fan bases are by and large where the artists arise from. Where are the women chess masters? Where are the black hockey players? The answers are similarly about access to and interest in the given fields.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Sunday, December 04 2005 @ 11:47 AM

And as Emily and I just realized playing this game, where are all the women dictators???

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: JIMO on Sunday, December 04 2005 @ 12:33 PM

Now THAT is an odd link, Bill. I just played as Frank Burns from MASH, and kinda had to think for a bit when it asked me, "Do you carry around a teddy bear?" Now, if I remember right, Frank slept with a teddy bear, like Radar, but didn't carry it around. Anyway, it guessed right.

---
There's always gotta be a reason for something.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: cresmer on Sunday, December 04 2005 @ 03:03 PM

I know, my opinion is suspect because I work for Alison (at least I do for another week), but I was a fan before I knew her. If you haven't read Dykes to Watch Out For, you should check it out. It's sad, I think, that no comprehensive collection of her 11 books exists as of yet, but I'm absolutely convinced that it will someday. She's just a really talented, astute observer of the human condition, and she deserves a wider audience.

I'm guessing she'll get one after her graphic memoir comes out next spring. Here's hopin'!

---
Don't give the devil a ride--he will want to drive.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: MarkS on Monday, December 05 2005 @ 02:16 AM

I photographed Alison for a publicity shot she needed way back when. I hadn't seen her comic strip before that. I think it started in SD, soon after I took her photo. She has a cool place way out in the middle of nowhere, on a dirt road. At least she used to.

Tell her I said "Hi".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Therem on Monday, December 05 2005 @ 04:47 PM

Two others who aren't exactly obscure these days: Lynda Barry and Marjane Satrapi. The former is syndicated in many papers (and the author of a FREAKY ASS novel called Cruddy -- very creepy and a work of genius IMO), and the latter has won awards for her "Persepolis" series of graphic novels about growing up in Iran.

About this canonization process... I think part of what keeps women out of the canon is the repeated assertion that they aren't in it. It is, after all, a popularity contest. The more people say, "she's great, but she's not popular", the less likely other people are to THINK of said artist as popular, or a contender, or whatever. It's a feedback loop.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: billsimmon on Monday, December 05 2005 @ 05:18 PM

Great points, Therem.

Now in great fear of perpetuating the cycle, I want to add that I think women have more of a presence in cartooning than in comics. Lynda Barry and Alison Bechdel are good examples. Again, I think this has to do with access. The audiences for strip cartoons are more diverse in terms of gender than the audiences for comics and graphic novels. So there are subsequently more women fans of cartooning as a form than comics. This is a result of the long tradition of comics (in the US) being by and large a medium for super-hero and boy-fantasy stories.

Speaking as someone who spent nearly ten years in the comics retail business I can tell you without hyperbole and with very few exceptions when women were in the shop that I ran, they were there with their boyfriends/husbands/sons or they were shopping for them (a woman actually owned the store I managed--an even rarer anomoly).

There are many fewer women comics writers/artists than men in general. That's the main reason they aren't represented in the canon as much, though I agree it is in part a self perpetuating cycle.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Therem on Monday, December 05 2005 @ 07:30 PM

OK. I wasn't thinking of "cartooning" as a separate art form from "comics", but it does make sense. I'm assuming the difference is that cartoons are published in magazines/newspapers in small chunks vs. comics being standalone books from the start? If so, I really don't know of many women making them. (Satrapi still counts, though.)

In response to another thing you said... I am one of those elusive female fans of comics. Yes, I buy them for myself! I have a whole box of them next to my bed! And they're not all indy highbrow stuff!

Have I ever considered drawing a comic, though? Nope.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Spine on Monday, December 05 2005 @ 10:24 PM

I feel that I should comment, lest I be accused of posting and running. Indeed, I do realize that while some of the "great" indie comics artists have been women, indie comics are an exceedingly small slice of the comics pie. Mostly I just wanted to sing their praises.

---
www.masaladose.com

[ Reply to This | # ]