Ladydrawers

Gah this took so long to color properly. DX But that aside this might do with a bit of explaining.

I’m a part of Ladydrawers, a group of dedicated art students who tallied the fuck out of over three hundred comics from 12 major publishers to get industry averages for creator gender, main character gender, gender of nudes, price of comics, gender of editors, and several other important and interesting stats.  Needless to say I’m proud to count myself among the women and men who worked on this project. We sent out postcards to said publishers and other comic type people to spread our info around. Then we took the data and over a two-week period hammered out one stellar 32 page graphic novel with inserts and posters and other fun things. Needless to say there’s a lot of sleeplessness, sweat, and tears in this thing. In the comic book we had comics about our stats, articles we read, and even comment threads personified as sock puppets, literally. This pony piece is made from verbatim comments off of “Introducing the Ladydrawers” article on truth-out.org.  You can read the comments and try and find the offending flank-hole GT66. XD Here’s a link to the article http://www.truth-out.org/lady-drawers/1308413043

Also GT66 is a classic mansplainer. Not everyone knows what that word means but pretty much everyone has encountered some dude like this, not to say women don’t do it too but not as frequently or with such a sense of entitlement.  Mansplaining is when a dude interrupts a chick to try and explain to her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and he obviously knows more and just talks over or ignores any of her objections even if he has no idea what he’s talking about. The guy just assumes your argument is invalid because you’re either incompetent or obviously less educated or some hormonal screeching feminist she-harpy.  Simply because you have a uterus. The quintessential article about this is “Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebbecca Solnit in which she explains this phenomenon and why it’s so horribly dangerous to both genders.  It can be found here. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174918

I have that bookmarked because it’s a wonderful response to mansplaining on forums, it either shuts them up or further enrages them.

The final thing I feel I should explain is why I chose ponies to represent these commentators and myself in the bottom panel.  I love My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. A woman named Lauren Faust, who is extremely talented and very pro positive female role models and messages, created it.  The thing is the show she created is pink and fluff and ponies and yet people of all ages and genders love it. News outlets, even fairly liberal ones like NPR, are giving older male fans of this show shit for liking a show whose target audience is four year old girls. But these people who are reporting have probably never watched even an episode of Friendship is Magic. They don’t understand that this show is entertaining and smart and clever on many levels that appeal to adults as well as kids. It’s okay for girls to like pink and ponies but when boys do it’s wrong and laughable. Because obviously anything “girly” is stupid and couldn’t possibly speak to all genders and age groups. Because male is the default view for the entire world of course.

When a woman makes a story with a male protagonist that appeals to both genders it’s “universal” like the “Harry Potter Books” or  “The Wizard of Earthsea.” But if she writes something with a female protagonist or mostly female characters and povs well then it could only appeal to girls because boys can’t relate to the female experience or women can’t possibly be doing the same things boys do or want to read about. When you actually write it down and look at the words it seems preposterous and yet this is what the Comics, Publishing, and most Media outlets in general seem to believe.  When I was a little girl I shunned “girly” things specifically because society was telling me that girls only played with baby dolls, fairies princess crowns, skinny white Barbies, ponies, and homemaker stuff with play food.  And that all of these things were vastly inferior forms of entertainment compared to nerf balls/guns, trucks,  Yu Gi Oh cards, and of course video games.  It wasn’t until I was in high school did I realize it was okay to like cute things and bright colors and ponies.  That there was truly nothing wrong with these things, what was wrong was how they were stereotypically gendered and then marketed towards girls not boys. And so I applaud My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and other shows like it that take something that was stereotypically something “silly” and “girly” and make it wonderful, entertaining, badass, and wholly appealing to everyone.  I could rant for forever about this but I’ll spare you.

Idea and artwork belongs to me. The style of the ponies belongs to Lauren Faust and Hasbro 

Here’s a high resolution that works:

http://imgur.com/MICQ7

Re-upping ‘cause it’s our fave

This comic digs into the gender dynamics of comic book marketing. It’s part of a series of original comics about the comics industry that’s a collaboration between Bitch Media and Chicago comics collective Ladydrawers.

This comic is written by Janelle Asselin, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore, and drawn by Sarah Benkin. Read all the installments of this series at BitchMedia.org. 

daily drawing 2014

by K. Bühler

Not ours but delightful.

Bitch Media and Chicago comics collective The Ladydrawers worked together to publish six comics about gender dynamics in the comics industry. The series is called simply, “Don’t be a Dick.” Check out all six comics here. 

This comic, Debunking the Boys Club, was drawn by Sarah Vaughn, written by Janelle Asselin, and edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore. 

Role Modeling  - Liza Donnelly - more comics at The Nib

So… We have been working for a long time to make this comic survey. It is very important that everyone answers it, if you have anything to do with comics. It’s in FINNISH, LATVIAN, SPANISH and ENGLISH. More languages coming, if you know other languages really well, contact us and we’ll work together.

The thing is. We’re trying to find out how polarized the comics scene is. Is it more difficult for women? Disabled people? Different ethnicities? Anything else?

So please spread this link and ask all of your comic-friends to take part in it. You don’t need to be a pro to take this survey. If you draw/read comics, you’re good to go!