ramble through the bronx

Monday, November 20, 2006

Oh yes, and there's that other side of comics

Sigh... just as I'm excited for getting some more Justice League comments in the mail, some serious food for thought from a former DC staffer --

Go here for The Video Store Girl's memoir of her involvement with the comic book industry (I've linked to the "November archive," so that all the posts will be there -- start at the bottom, though, and work your way back up).

Joanna at Comics Worth Reading diagnoses the problem thus:

The length of the quote is because I want it on the record, and the source has already wiped her blog once. Not surprisingly, she’s leaving comics. After her story, no one should ever ask why, or wonder why corporate American comics are so unfriendly to women, both live and in print.

You put a bunch of immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both, and all of whom escaped into over-muscled power fantasies as a result, in charge of a publishing subgroup with no prestige and little money. Several of them have never worked anywhere else, or if they have, it was at one of the few similar companies in the same industry that behave the same way. They’re still geeks, mentally, with low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person, but they’re power brokers within their little world, and there are thousands like them who desperately want to be them… and you wonder why it all ends up so twisted?

I don't really have anything to say yet about this yet... I am reminded of some of the stuff in Linda Alcoff's collection, Singing in the Fire, about women in philosophy, though certainly the misogyny in contemporary philosophy is nowhere near as bad as what TVSG describes at DC. (The reminding probably has a lot more to do with me being in the midst of my own stuff, rather than me having yet fully grasped the real nastiness of what TVSG describes.) Curious as to your reactions.


Edit - see also Torontonian Christopher Butcher (from the Beguiling, on Queen)'s blog entry about TVSG's posts., and Rich Johnston from Comic Book Resources.

Edit #2 - see Gail Simone's comment a little ways down the Comic Book Resources thread about the post. Gail Simone, who writes comics for DC, including one of my new favourites, Birds of Prey, also commented in a supportive way on TVSG's blog.

jane 3:58 PM [+]