1 Left: "Hypochondriac" by Christa Donner, self-published comic, 2004. Right: Panel by Colleen Coover
Comic Sans
Issue #28
These comic artists are changing the male-dominated sex comic industry one panel at a time
By Jen Ng
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
Before Mattel infiltrated American homes with Barbie dolls, little girls were reading comic books starring characters they identified with. A 1940s comic book series called Katy Keene by Bill Woggon (of Archie fame) that featured a glamorous pin-up queen as its title character gleaned a strong female readership. Its popularity was partly attributed to reader interaction because Katy would wear clothes designed by her readers. Meanwhile male-targeted, superhero comics Superman and Captain Marvel Adventures led a successful co-existence with female-oriented comics.
But overall interest in comics dwindled after the release of psychologist Dr. Fredric Wertham's book, Seduction of the Innocent, in 1954. The book’s content aimed to prevent comics from entering the children’s lives — convincing the public that comics dressed in even the faintest themes of romance, gore, and violence were a bad influence. That same year, the Comics Code Authority was established by the comic industry — and in compliance with Wertham’s ideology — censored storylines that contained salacious and gruesome content. Soon, Batman, Katy Keene, and others walked off of shelves, resulting in a comic ghost town.
Meanwhile, other comic distributors revolted in response to Seduction’s release and manufactured their own brand of comics relying on smut, profanity, and gruesome crimes as their selling points. DC Comics was one of the leaders in catapulting the “superhero boom.” Males began dominating the comic industry beginning in the late 1950s, highlighting superheroes and hyper-sexualized beauties in their stories. The new wave of large-chested ladies and masculine heroes consummated handsome profits and a resurgence in comic interest, but female readers and female-centric comic artists weren’t reaping the benefits. The number of women comic readers and creators were few, and ousted from the scene. Comic stores grew to be an increasingly unwelcoming environment for girls.
Fortunately, in the last decade, independent publishers like Fantagraphics and Oni Press have created outlets for comics that stray from climactic superhero adventures and eye-fetching-and-disempowered-female-victim storylines. Underground comic artists and writers are also challenging mainstream and male-dominated comics with their work, all the while managing to delve into sexual issues in ways not necessarily pornographic or hyped. Works by several underground artists and writers such as Colleen Coover, Becca Taylor, Christa Donner, Amitai Sandy, and Noa Abarbanel, show that sex and women can live in a happy and healthy union in comics.
Colleen Coover is a Portland-based author and illustrator of Small Favors, a light-hearted, erotic comic with a hedonistic attitude toward sex. Her stories candidly tackle masturbation and bisexuality. Becca Taylor is a Chicago-based comic artist and the creator of a semi-autobiographical slice-of-life zine, The Wonderful Year,
which concentrates on topics such as gender and sexual orientation. Christa Donner is another Chicago-based artist whose work has received coverage in Punk Planet and The New York Times and whose large-scale work deals with women's health and body issues drawn from personal experiences that surfaced when modeling for Sassy
magazine as a teenager. Illustrator Amitai Sandy and writer Noa Abarbanel are from Israel and are creators of the graphic novel Shirley: A Sex Comedy, which narrates the story of a sexually adventurous woman whose lewd behavior scares away her many suitors.
Near and far — from Chicago to Israel — I spoke with these artists and writers
about today’s comic culture and how they incorporate sexy storytelling into their comics.
What is your personal approach to dealing with sexuality and relationships in your comics?
Colleen Coover: Small Favors was created with the thought in mind that sex is supposed to be fun, and so I've always focused on the playful aspects of sex. I don't dwell on subjects that would bring me down: jealousy, disease, guilt, or other dramas that we in the real world need to deal with. The relationships in the book reflect that, too. What conflicts there are between characters exist only to increase sexual tension
long enough for it to be released. It's an idealistic approach, but I figure if you can't be an idealist in your fantasies, then what's the point?
Becca Taylor:The Wonderful Year #9 came out of a period where I was questioning a lot of choices about gender that I've made since I was a teenager — not really a huge radical re-examining, but like, “Why is it more comfortable to wear jeans, sneakers, and have short hair than wearing makeup, heels, and a skirt?” With that issue, I was looking at where I came from and how I ended up who I am today — as far as gender, sexual orientation, and feminist principles. I also recently drew a
comic for a new Portland comic anthology called Papercutter (Issue #2). The story, “Cherchez La Femme,” is partly about the representation of women's sexuality in today's commercial culture and some of the differences between selling your actual body as a street prostitute and selling a sexual fantasy as a well-paid, highly protected Hollywood actress. The idea for that comic somewhat came out of trying to understand my own relationship to beauty as not only a visual artist but also as an
average American woman and an angry feminist.
What is the comics scene like in America — underground and mainstream?
Christa Donner: The U.S. mainstream comics scene is pretty much exactly what you think it is — a bunch of geeky boys and men working out their social and sexual frustrations via muscle-bound hero types and dangerous vixens whose proportions make Barbie look flat-chested. Going to a major comic convention usually means witnessing guys in ill-fitting superhero outfits attempting to cavort with the girls at the
Playboy booth. The independent comics scene feels much more diverse to me. Though of course there are plenty of sexist dudes and attitudes to be found, there's an interest in and respect for unique, personal narratives and original characters, which makes women's contributions more valued. That said, I spent a day at the Small Press Expo in Ohio one year and was treated as though I must be shopping for my
boyfriend.
Why do you think the comic and graphic novel industry is dominated by males?
B.T.: It seems like women and girls in this country are not really targeted as comic book consumers, so they are far less likely to ever imagine themselves as comic book producers. I do have to say that from the moment I started drawing comics, I got a lot of encouragement from guys, other cartoonists, reviewers, distributors, and store clerks. At the underground level — at least women comic book artists — we are definitely welcomed and valued.
Have you felt that working with someone of the opposite sex on a sexually graphic novel has created a different dynamic than working with someone of the same sex?
C.C.: The only collaborator I've worked with is my boyfriend, writer, Paul Tobin. To work with Paul is the most natural thing in the world, but I would be very uncomfortable to work on a piece of erotic comics with anyone else, male or female. I've illustrated erotic fiction before, but prose illustration is far less intimate than the collaboration in comics.
Noa Abarbanel: Yeah. [Amitai and I] bring what she or he understands of the situation, from their gender's point of view. Every relationship can have endless and different interpretations. I don't know if it's just the gender difference or simply that we're two different people, but between us, we can come up with 20 different ways of looking at things.
What was the motivation and inspiration behind your main characters?
Amitai Sandy: [Noa and I] are both a little like Shirley, in the way that we refuse to act as grown-ups and enjoy acting in an infantile-like manner. We don't like subduing ourselves and conforming to the standards of political correctness.
N.A.:Shirley is infantile — it's considered a fear of intimacy. When you grow up, your home becomes cleaner and your things are suddenly more orderly, but all of that orderliness and cleanliness takes a lot of time. Suddenly, things start to bother you even in other people and you are bothered that they don't grow up and find work. Sex is a metaphor for the place where Shirley feels free. Suddenly, this infantile nature bursts out of her and people react with hysterics because sex is sacred.
A.S.: People can have fun and laugh all day, but the minute they get into bed, they say, “Hold on.” Now we start to desire and be desired to let out groans full of passion, and two minutes after it's over, you can go back to making jokes. For many people, it really is a bourgeoisie thing and for others, it's simply what the culture dictates to them. They try to act exactly like what they saw in porn flicks.Shirley also refuses to conform to behavioral norms and is unwilling to change her spots the minute he gets into bed with a guy. The men in her life refuse to accept the fact
that this intelligent and funny chick insists on being herself between the sheets, and therefore, she can't keep a long-term relationship.
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