"The women of Bikini Kill let guitarist Billy Karren be in their feminist punk band, but only if he's willing to just "do some shit." Being a feminist dude is like that. We may ask you to "do some shit" for the band, but you don't get to be Kathleen Hannah."--@heatherurehere


Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Week Two: A Year of Buying Comics by Women

Last week I officially started my experiment of spending a year only buying comics that have one or more women creators.  I'll repeat that this is just an experiment--I'm not advocating for others to do this, or that it's the way to get the culture of comics to be less sexist. I wanted to try it out to see how it would feel, for me. It's akin to Judith Levine's Not Buying it, or even more similar experiments, like only reading novels by women for a year.

This week there are a lot of comics that I want to read, that I have to leave off the buy pile because of this experiment:


No Women Creators Pile:
god is dead     
uber     

day men hellboy and the bprd 1952
big man plans
black science
rat queens
descender 

nameless 
All new hawkeye

The Buy Pile:
Revival -- regular covers by Jenny Frison
Saga -- art by Fiona Staples, cover by Fiona Staples
lady killer -- words, art and cover by Joelle Jones

names -- regular covers by Celia Calle
[Update] princess leia -- Jordie Bellaire, colorist
[Update] blackcross -- cover by Tula Lotay and cover colors by Jordie Bellaire, if I can find 'em
[Update] Rat Queens -- cover by Jenny Frison, if I can find it

Some thoughts about this week: 
  • First off, that's a small-ass buy pile. I have some new webcomics on my radar thanks to The Ormes Society, including the fantastic Agents of the Realm
  • Second thought: It looks to me like the Hellboy line of comics will be off-limits for me all year, since (correct me if I'm wrong) it looks like there has never been an artist or writer on any of the Hellboy books. I hope I'm wrong about that, and/or it changes soon.
  • I'm missing out on some awesome comics with this experiment.
  • It's tough to find who lettered an issue online. Any hints on this? 
  • Lots of coloring is being done by companies, rather than individuals. Huh. 
  • There's something wrong with an experiment like this that doesn't let me read Rat Queens. [Update] If I can find the Jenny Frison cover, I can do Rat Queens!
  • On the other hand: Nobody involved in creating the Princess Leia comic is a woman?  [Update] I WAS WRONG: Jordie Bellaire is the colorist!
  • [Update] I'm going to count variant covers done by women, if I can find them either hard copy or digital.

 

No comments: