Women in comics
The Forgotten history The history of comics is something that has been forgotten by many overshadowed by the multimillion-dollar industry it has grown to today. However, at the beginning comics held a very different status than they do now, the aim of this book is to tell the story of women throughout the comic industry. These stories will shed light on the forgotten women who helped make the industry what it is today.
Written by Tamara beeching
1920's
The Begining Comic books first started off as small strips of cartoons published in the local papers, the stories would follow a group of characters on wild adventures, often differing from day to never following one continuous storyline (Bellis, 2019). When papers where producing comic strips they did not write the story based on one demographic, at the time the publishers that produced the comics, as well as the readers believed
Fig 1: Mike,2008
Fig 2: The Grand Comics Databse, 2006
that comics where for everyone old or young, male or female. After years of creating comic strips newspapers started to see the increasing popularity in peoples love of comics, this led them to taking the past comics strips from newspapers and combining them into a book that would then be sold to many (She Makes Comics, 2014). This was the birth of the comic book. After the release of comic books the demand for more stories became an issue, leading many publishers to hire writers and illustrators to create
1920's
Neil brinkley Fig 3: Comixology, 2009
Neil Brinkley Is Widley known as one of the first women creators to be employed in the creative industry to produce comics, she first got into the industry when her design for a set of decretive plant pots was picked up by a department store in Denver (Robbins and Yronwode,1985, P.20). Brinkley was still at school when this happened.
She then went on to join the many female creators of newspaper comics. Brinkley drew and wrote comics for the New York journal during the 1920s, most commonly known for ‘Golden Eyes’ and ‘Her Hero Bill’(Fandom, 2019). Brinkley’s style of art started a wave of female creatives that followed in her footsteps, using her unique style. Brinkley’s drawing style was one that used delicate lines to create pieces of art that showed elegance and detail. Created a style that became very popular amongst the women of the time (Robbins and Yronwode, 1985, P.19). Her work was best suited for the genre of romance comics, her work featured the tales of young women who were living lavage lifestyles often showing
Fig 4: Comixology, 2009
the ups and down of love and heartbreak. Romance comics quickly become a global necessity, for many the books where in high demand, with a majority of the reading population being the everyday housewife (Booker, 2010, p. 517). The comics told wild stories of love and murder turning the everyday into
fantasy giving many an escape from their everyday life.
1930's
1930's
Claire s. Moe Moe was one of many at the time who used pen names, the names often resembled as more masculine. This was in an attempt to disguise her name from publishers or readers who may discriminate against her work because of her gender (Robbins and Yronwode, 1985, P.47).
Fig 5: Pintrest, no date
Claire S. Moe, was one of the few female artists during The Golden Age. Her work featured heroic young women in as multitude of locations (Lambiek Comiclopidia, 2007). She became part of the main trio of writers at the time that catered to the female audience (Robbins and Yronwode, 1985, P.47). Fig 6: TVTropes, no date
1930's
Romance comic's Romance comics appeared on the shelfs of newsstand and grocers for decades starting in the 1940s, the popularity if this genre of comics became particularly large due to the success of superhero comics such as superman. Publishers saw the growing success and started producing multiple books telling the tales of high-flying hero’s (Booker, 2010, p. 520). At the time romance comics where the only genre that was not based around superhero’s and therefore proved largely popular with people especially housewives, the stories would often show tales of female characters living out their dreams of true love throughout drama always
finishing the story with true loves kiss. The popularity of comics started to grow at a rapid rate during the 1940s where the world was introduced to ‘The Golden Age of Comics’ (Superworld comics, 2014). This era saw the introduction of genres such
Fig 7: Malano, no date
Fig 8: MGUITMANN, 2017
as superhero’s like superman led to the rise of new creators, allowing writing to become a reliable job for most (History Detectives, No Date). However, the onset of WW2 during this decade meant that many of the male writers who were creating the comics where being drafted for deployment. Meaning, like with many other professions,
women took on their job roles to keep businesses afloat and ensure that the Golden Age continued. Whilst this occurred in most publishing companies throughout the time period, many of the publishers did not give credit to the female writers for continuing these stories.
1940's
1940's
toni blum
Fig 8: Jay, 2015
One of the many examples of this is Toni Blum who was a comic writer for Eisner & Iger Studios. Whilst Will Eisner, the writer of ‘The spirit’, was serving in the military during WW2 she continued to write the comic under his name otherwise known as ‘ghost writing’. Due to the publisher at the time not keeping records
it is not known how many issues of the comic Blum wrote (Bedford, 2018). Toni Blum, whose original name was Audrey Bossert, went by many pen names while working at Eisner & Iger Studios including names such as Toni Blum, Toni Boone, Toni Boon and Toni Adams. She was signed to the studio in 1938 as a scriptwriter after her father Alex Blum joined the studio as an artist, due to her many names and history of ghost writing it is hard to tell what work that came out of that was produced by her (Jay, 2015).
Fig 9: Jay, 2015
1940's
switching the roles During the Golden Age of Comics, the rise of genres such as romance and crime created a stir in the number of women readers as the growing success in the superhero franchise had meant that storylines were being geared more towards the younger male audience (She Makes Comics, 2014). Publishing companies saw an opportunity to make stories that appealed to the women left at home while their husbands were at war. Sales of comics increased rapidly during WW2 as they were cheap and portable entertainment for all. The first comic that was directly market to the female audience was a romance comic
called ‘Calling All Girls’ the series ran from September 1941 and was kept alive by Parents magazine for almost 2 decades (Booker, 2010). This comic depicted tales of the sophisticated everyday life while adding twists of excitement and drama (Nodell, 2015). Although the stories were proving
Fig 10: Comic Book Plus, 2010
Fig 11: Los Angeles Times, no date
popular with the female audience the books often portrayed their female characters as love crazed housewife’s, depicting their only goals in life to find a husband and often showing the male as the dominant character. The booming success of comics during The Second World War meant that writers and creators were in high demand, which led to many publishers hiring male creators as women were preoc-
cupied with family life. Due to the success of romance comics male creators started taking over roles of writing and drawing leading to many comics showing a male’s view on female life. This has proved to be a common issue in the female representation in comic books, women not only written but drawn from a man’s view of often appeared oversexualized and undermined (New Visions, 2016)
1950's
1950's
The comics code Fig 12: Elfring, 2010
The comic code was one of the most proviant points that changed the history of comics, causing not only the downfall of once popular title and the sudden success that made superhero’s what they are today. On the 26th of October 1954 the comic books industry set in place ‘The Comics Code’, marking
the start of over 60 years of censorship in comic books (Sergi, 2012). The code was put in place due to many complaints from the public about the type of content being shown to young audiences (Sergi, 2012). Specifically, Dr. Fredric Wertham, a New York psychiatrist who fought to ban the sale of comics to young children due to claims that the actions of characters would desensitize children to violence (Nyberg, No Date). After the end if WW2, America went through great efforts of trying to return the country to how it was, which meant ending all depictions of violence that were com-
Fig 13: Sergi, 2012
manly found in comics. The code created a series of rules that were to be followed if the books wanted to pass, with those doing so being rewarded with a stamp on the cover. These stamps became a must at the time due to news-stands and grocers not wanting to sell unregulated comics, and so in order to meet the requirements popular comics had to change drawing styles and content. Scenarios such as violence, blood, weapons and sexual content including kissing
were no longer deemed acceptable (Sergi, 2012). The effect that the code had on the sales of comics at the time was drastic most newsstand stopped selling the unregulated comics that did not feature the stamp due to fear of backlash form consumers. This was the beginning of the downfall for the Golden Age of Comics, numbers started to decrease due to series not being the same as they were before (She makes Comics, 2014).
1960's
1960's
Womens liberation Fig 14: History Revealed, no date
The second wave of women liberation started in the 1960s with many having mixed reactions to the movement, the comic book industry started to release comics that were supporting the movement (Anand, 2018). However, the 1970s saw a backlash against the movement especially
throughout the comics being produced many using it as a platform to spread anti-feminist propaganda. March 1971 saw the release of one of Marvels romance comics, the comic was written by ‘Stan Lee’ one of the writers at Marvel most commonly known for creating characters such as ‘Spiderman’ and ‘Jack Frost’ (Debuk, 2019). The comic was titled “No Man Is My Master’ The comic tells a tale of a date between an overbearing man and women, with phrases such as “chicks are weak little creatures… and that’s the way I like it.” Being used by the man to describe his views on how women
should be treated (Debuk, 2019). After attending a female freedom meeting, she saw the error in which the man was treating here and left. However, the book finishes with the man quoting “Me Tarzan, you Jane!” to which the female agrees that that’s the way it was supposed to be. This becomes a common plot for big companies trying to follow along with the movement however most of the comics finished with a line or image that showed the writers real opinions on the matter. For example, ‘Bride and Broom’ written by Jack Oleck in 1971 showed the tale of a women who was displeased with her housewife role take part in a womans march only to be arrested by a cop mocking the movement declaring that if a woman has a husband what more could she want. The comic
Fig 15: Debuk, 2018
finishes showing the husband promising to learn more about feminism if the women learned to be quiet and not make any more waves. Most comic books made about women’s liberation had a backhanded meaning to them often being written by men sharing their views on how they thought the movement was too extreme (Debuk, 2019).
1960's
Underground comixs Fig 16: Dalzell, 2020
The Underground Comix’s movement was built up from small press or self-published comics, the movement was started in the 1960s and lead by Robert Crumb as a way to surpass the comic codes restrictions (Lambiek
comiclopedia, 2020). The comics produced went to every effort to go against the code to show people rebellion against it, showing gruesome tales involving graphic depictions of violence, sex and abuse. Most of which were aimed towards women, this is heavily shown in Crumbs work. Crumbs most recognizable addition to Undergrounds Comix’s was with ‘Yellow Dog’ an Underground Comix newspaper than ran from 1968-1973 with 22 issues (Dalzell, 2020). Yellow Dog is one of the many examples of a comic that portrayed woman in a way that sexualized and stereotyped them
Fig 17: Dalzell, 2020
to give the male characters a storyline or to be the but of a joke. The antics were simply seen as ‘Locker room banter’ for most in Underground Comix, the majority of which were creating the graphic work to show their disgust at the current women movement (Kirtley, 2018, p.17). As seen in the following quote by Trina Robbins “The place was a men’s club, and we couldn’t get in” (Gotthardt,
Fig 18: Dalzell, 2020
2018). This shows the positions that women held in comics at the time with men using them as a ploy to create stories for their own amusement. Crumbs reaction to the backlash of his work with the female audience is one that sparked controversy amongst many and showed the stance that male creators took on their opinion of women in their comics.
1960's
Underground comixs Fig 19: Roper, 2010
a revolutionary approach to the American life and them describing his work as playing into sexist and racist roles (Jones, 2013). Crumbs work was fuelled by his drug use, leading to a very strange portrayal and often oversexualized opinion of women. This lead way for a trail of sexist underground cartoonists (Jones, 2013).
Robert Dennis Crumb, more commonly known as R Crumb. Was one of the founders of the ‘Underground Comix’s’ movement in 1960. His work over the years has given him two different roles for people, one describing his work as Fig 20: Jansen, 2016
1960's
Tit's and clit's
Fig 21: Meier, 2014
Viewing the comics that were being produced throughout Underground Comix’s a small group of women found the stories told as unacceptable. Wanting to find a way to fight back against the idea of women being spread
among the community, Joyce Farmer and Lynn Chevli created the comic ‘Tit’s and Clit’s’. To retaliate against the gruesome images of women being shown in Underground Comix’s, the books which were written by women showed women’s issues such as mensuration, sexual health and body confidence in a graphic manor (Meier, 2014). This was met by a lot of backlash and disgust from audiences, even women, some deciding that the material should be classed as pornography for the images shown. Chevli learned about Underground Comix’s through the
bookstore that she owned with her husband called Fahrenheit 451 (Meier, No date). As the store was slowly going into debt Chevli took this opportunity to make her first underground comic, recruiting the help of Farmer they named the comic ‘Tit’s & Clit’s’ a play on the phrase ‘tits and ass’ often used by men’s magazines (Meier, No date). Chevli and Farmer placed a request for ‘Tit’s and Clit’s’ to be featured in a women liberation comic called ‘Fantastic, Avantgarde Comic Books by Liberated Women’. However, the comic refused due to concern that it would open up the comic legal action to a recent crackdown on pornographic content in Underground Comix’s (Meier, 2014). The new law issued from the supreme court started an ongoing effort to halt the production of ‘Tit’s and Clit’s’ as many saw it as pornographic content
Fig 22: Lambiek Comiclopedia, no date
with no educational input to society (Meier, 2016). Even though the intention of the stories was to enlighten other women on issues that were not shared in mainstream media. There where periods where both Chevli and Farmer were living In fear or being arrested due to them continuing to produce the produce the comic as the courts where deciding whether it was seen as illegal (She Makes Comics, 2014).
1960's
Wimmen's Comix's Just 2 weeks prior to the first release of ‘Tits and Clits’ Trina Robbins, a comic book artist situated in San Francisco, was starting to grow tired of the man filled industry that she was working in. Robbins took it upon herself to release true, believable content about women. She started to submit cartoons to a radical feminist newspaper called ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ (Gotthardt, 2018). The newspaper showed the everyday struggles of a young women that worked in an office job in order to support her husband, the story itself is one that was not often written with the
Fig 23: Gotthardt, 2018
stereotypical roles of man and women being switched. After working unpaid on the comic for a while Robbins decided that she wanted to not only further her carrier but the reach of the news-
Fig 24: Meier, no date
paper, having previously worked in the comic industry Robbins, with the help of the newspaper, created the first ever all female comic book named ‘Wimmen’s Comix’ (Fandom, No Date). The book was a collection of Barbara Mendes, Michele Brand, Nancy Kalish, Lisa Lyons, and Meredith Kurtzman, Robbins compiled the
work to form the book as well as creating the cover for each edition (Noomin, 2003). This was a big step for the female comic community not only showing that women could make comics but by highlighting the talent of females throughout the industry in each issue.
1960's
trina robbins Fig 25: Christian, 2017
Trina Robbins is an artist who loved comics from a young age, she became a very active member of the science fiction community in the late 1950s (Fandom: Women in comics, 2019). However, she got into
drawing comics during the 1970s where she moved to San Francisco with other Underground Comix’s creators where she found the scene unwelcoming to female writers. Due to this she started to produced cartoons about womens issues for an Underground newspaper called ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’. After working unpaid on the newspaper for some time she decided to start up her own comic book, Robbins drew the covers herself and filled the issues with art collected from other female creators such as of Barbara Mendes, Michele Brand, Nancy Kalish, Lisa Lyons, and Meredith Kurtzman
Fig 26: McCloskey, 2014
(Fandom: Women in comics, 2019). The series was named ‘Wimmen’s Comix’s’ after being the first all-female ran comic book to be produced, the comic went on for 17 issues (Riesman, 2018). After this she started to work in mainstream comics such as the ‘National
Lampoons’ and ‘Playboy’, since then Robbins has been dedicated to becoming a comic historian writing many books about talking about the hidden women in comics (Riesman, 2018).
1990's
1990's
sexualizing women For a long time, females excisted in comics for the main reason of giving their male counterparts a more interesting storyline. Around the 1990s the number of readers started to drop, storylines of female superheores started to become more common, noticing one big change was how the characters where being drawn and more specifically how their costumes where being designed. The most regognizable and arguably most important part of a superheros are their costumes, these become a trait that they are known for (Wheeler, 2014). Although
Fig 27: Green, 2020
many comics gave the female characters roles of strength their main purpose was made to attract the male gaze, leading to the creation of minimal
Fig 28: Green, 2020
costumes and a drawing style that showed of the body in an attempt to get comic numbers back up (Steele, 2016). One of the many examples of impractical costumes for the sake of the male audience was Susan Storm Richards otherwise known as the Invisible women. She was a female character that had been created for women as a symbol of strengths and smarts.
Was now being pushed as a sex object wearing nothing but minimal coverings in a drawing style that was created to essentute her body (Green, 2020). This was seen in many comics due to the main demographic of the time being men, the male writers decided to change the way the females were drawn to try and re-engage the male audience.
1990's
Gail simone
Fig 29: Fandom, no date
Gail Simone is one of the many female writers who started in the industry noticing a change that needed to be made to female representation. She is known for her views on gender roles, originally working for bongo comics then moving
to Marvel and DC, Simone has gathered experiences for all areas of the industry. She created ‘Women in Refrigerators’ in 1999, a website dedicated to highlighting the events in comic books where female characters were murdered, raped or abused in order to create a storyline of revenge for the male character. The website was named after an issue of The Green Lantern where he returned home to find his girlfriend murdered and stuffed into the refrigerator. This then continued with multiple storylines of revenge for the main character (Simone,
1999). Simone was a writer at the time working in DC comics on projects such as ‘Birds of Prey’ (A comic book dedicated to showing strong female heroes without a man’s assistance) (DC, no date). Her observation from the experience of working in one of the main 2 (DC and Marvel Comics) at the time was that there were only 3 stereotypes of women that existed in the current writing style (Abad- Santos, 2014). This observation shows how the different roles that women could play were not being explored sticking, to the key stereotypes of women that were first created during the early days of comics. As women’s liberation was becoming big in society the role of women in comics was not developing along with it, leaving female rep-
Fig 30: Simone, 1999
resentation in the past. This unleash an uproar of discussion and controversy which resulted in Simone being given a regular Colum on a comic resource called ‘you’ll all be sorry’ her comic was a sartorial take on comics and the industry. Simone to this day continues to work on a multitude of comics paying close attention to exploring female characters and relations.
2000's
2000's
Kelly Sue DeConnick Fig 31: Parker, 2015
Kelly Sue DeConnick Is a modern artist who has been said to have drawn female readers back to comics. she has played a big role in inspiring female creators. She first started off being a translator for a manga series, then moving up to
working on creating comics, eventually being assigned the ‘Ms. Marvel’ comic in 2012 by Steve Wacker (Parker, 2015). Her goal was to increase the sales of captain marvel to match those of the top selling comics by both DC and Marvel, to bring a female fronted character out on top (She Makes Comics, 2014). DeConnick is known in the industry on her thoughts about female representation not only in the way that she writes characters but also by creating a place where female creators can share their work. She created #VisibleWomen as
Fig 32: Johnston, 2015
a way to allow female creators to share their work, due to her noticing that publishers would hire the same female artists for jobs as people work with who they trust. She soon discovered that many female artists did not have the confidence to apply for jobs in big publishers due to fear of rejection (She Makes
Comics, 2014). The hashtag is named visible women after the character Susan Richards, the fist mainstream female superhero whose power happened to be invisibility, many artists including DeConnick found this ironic creating the tag to show retaliation to this (Nelly, 2017).
The end
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Fig 8 MGUITMANN (2017) ultimate guide to selling golden age comic books [illustration] Available at: https://www.sparklecitycomics.com/ultimate-guide-to-selling-golden-age-comicbooks/ (Accessed: 4 january 2021) Fig 8 & 9 Jay, A (2015) Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Audrey Blum [illustration] Available at: http://strippersguide.blogspot. com/2015/04/ink-slinger-profiles-by-alex-jay-audrey.html (Accessed: 2 january 2021) Fig 10 Comic book plus (2010) calling all girls 60 [Illustration] Available at: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17063 (Accessed: 30 December 2020) Fig 11 Los Angeles times (no date) Behind the Brenda Starr Comic Strip Illustration] Available at: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ct-biz-brenda-starr-history-dec8-photogallery.html (Accessed: 30 December 2020) Fig 12 Elfring, M (2010) Comic Book History: Comics Code Authority [Illustration] Available at: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/articles/comic-book-history-comics-code-authority/1100-141329/ (Accessed: 3 November 2020) Fig 13 Sergi, J. (2012) Tales from the code: How much did things change after the enactment of the comics code of 1954 Available at: http://cbldf.org/2012/08/tales-from-the-codehow-much-did-things-change-after-the-enactment-of-the-comics-code-of-1954/
Fig 13 History Revealed (no date) Womens Lib: The Second Wave of Fenminism [illustration] Available at: https://www.historyrevealed.com/eras/20th-century/womens-lib-the-second-waveof-feminism/ (Accessed: 4 january 2021) Fig 13 Debuk (2018) Comic books v. ‘Women’s Lib’ [illustration] Available at: https://hyenainpetticoatsblog.wordpress. com/2018/03/10/comic-books-v-womens-lib/ (Accessed: 29 December 2020) Fig 16,17 & 18 Dalzel, T (2020) How Quirky was Berkley: R.Crumb, The Underground Comixs Artist, was Here [Illustration] Available at: https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/01/13/how-quirky-wasberkeley-r-crumb-the-underground-comix-artist-was-here (Accessed: 2 December 2020) Fig 19 Roper, C (2010) Variations of R. Crumb [Illustration] Available at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2010/06/17/variations-of-r-crumb/ (Accessed: 2 December 2020) Fig 20 Jansen, C (2016) Why R. Crumbs Provocative Drawing of Women Are an Antidote to Beauty Stereotypes [Illustration] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-r-crumb-delivers-comic-relief-to-a-beauty-obsessed-society (Accessed: 4 january 2021) Fig 21 Meier, S (2014) Tits & Clits [Illustration] Available at: https:// www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2014/03/tits-clits/ (Accessed: 3 December 2020)
Fig 22 Lambiek Comiclopedia (no date) Underground Comixs and the Underground Press Available [Illustration] at: https://www.lambiek.net/comics/underground.htm (Accessed: 4 November 2020) Fig 23 Gotthardt, A (2018) The Irreverent, Feminist Comic Book that fought Chauvinism [Illustration] Available at: https://www. artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-feminist-comic-book-broke-cartoon-industrys-boys-club (Accessed: 10 December 2020) Fig 24 Meier, S (no date) Between Feminism and the Underground [Illustration] Available at: https://www.hoodedutilitarian. com/2014/02/between-feminism-and-the-underground/ (Accessed: 4 November 2020) Fig 25 Christian, J (2017) Trina Robbins comic strip is still going Illustration] Available at: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ ImageArchives?oid=25805945 (Accessed: 4 November 2020) Fig 26 McCloskey, K (2014) Illustrated concentration [Illustration] Available at: https://illustrationconcentration.com/2014/05/18/ pretty-in-ink-trina-robbins-schools-me-on-women-in-comics/ screen-shot-2014-05-16-at-11-37-27-pm/ (Accessed: 4 January 2020) Fig 27 & 28 Green, A (2020) Invisible Womans costume was not the worst thing on 90s comics [Illustration] Available at: https://bleedingfool.com/blogs/invisible-womans-costume-was-not-the-worst-
thing-in-90s-comics/\ (Accessed: 4 January 2020) Fig 29 Fandom (no date) Gail Simone [Illustration] Available at: https:// dc.fandom.com/wiki/Gail_Simone (Accessed: 4 January 2020) Fig 30 Simone, G (1999) Women in Refrigerators [Illustration] Available at: https://lby3.com/wir/index.html (Accessed: 15 December 2020) Fig 31 Parker, L (2015) Why the “Future of Women in Comics� Thinks it helps to Be Terrifying [Illustration] Available at: https://www. vanityfair.com/culture/2015/07/kelly-sue-deconnick-profile (Accessed: 4 January 2020) Fig 32) Johnston, R (2015) Kelly Sue DeConnick Leaves Captain Marvel [Illustration] Available at: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/kelly-sue-deconnick-leaves-captain-marvel/ (Accessed: 4 January 2020)