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Revised post - Women's comics

Safari Honeymoon was great, weird, and funny. It was definitely an enjoyable short comic.

I also read This One Summer. It's a great coming of age story about pre-teen girls and also just a great read in general. I think as an adult you can connect with the story. It really brings you back to those times when you start thinking about boys and wanting to be more grown up, as well as how you start to notice adult's relationships and how they affect you. It really captures what a pre-teens life is all about and that transition from a child to a young adult. It's beautiful written and illustrated. The images really add to the mood of the story and they give you a warm feeling.

I think we need more stories like this. Comics and graphic novels written by women, theres no reason why people should continue to see it as something that only men do or a boys thing.
I really connected with the story and it reminded me of how I felt as a pre-teen and how you want to change yourself and grow and be accepted by those older kids that you look up to and admire.

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Women are definitely becoming more involved in reading and writing comics. There's a lot of support for that too from both women and men which is great. Of course there are still some ignorant folks that probably think women writing comics is stupid, but they can't stop the women who are doing a great job of bringing new content while helping to get rid of gender roles. 
It's specially helpful that the internet makes it easier for people to access these new comics that women are self publishing. They can also get support from their audiences by creating kickstarters and gofundme pages in order to help them with publishing their comics and continuing to their work. 
Women feel more encouraged to create their own comics and comic strips. I constantly see characters and comic strips done by female artists on sites like tumblr and it's great to see that growing. 

Week 13 ~ Reconsidering Superheroes

I grew up watching the Batman Animated Series on Cartoon network, it was a really great show. I never really had an interest in reading comics, specially superhero comics.
This week I read Arkham Asylum and its way darker than I thought and clearly intended for more mature audience. Unlike the Batman cartoons, this comic was dark and really showed a different side to Batman. The style of the illustrations are very expressive and perfectly fit the story. They further emphasize the dark and psychological themes. The type also fits each character. For example when it's the Joker talking they use a red on white font thats just crazy and really suitable to the character.
I think it's great that over time each super hero or villains show/cartoon have catered to audiences of different ages, as well as how much these characters have evolved. I never really watched the old Batman show with Adam West before, it's funny and I think it's also fitting to the style of the 60's.

Week 12 ~ Comics by women

Safari Honeymoon was great, weird, and funny. It was definitely an enjoyable short comic.

I also read This One Summer. It's a great coming of age story about pre-teen girls and also just a great read in general. I think as an adult you can connect with the story. It really brings you back to those times when you start thinking about boys and wanting to be more grown up, as well as how you start to notice adult's relationships and how they affect you. It really captures what a pre-teens life is all about and that transition from a child to a young adult. It's beautiful written and illustrated. The images really add to the mood of the story and they give you a warm feeling.

I think we need more stories like this. Comics and graphic novels written by women, theres no reason why people should continue to see it as something that only men do or a boys thing.
I really connected with the story and it reminded me of how I felt as a pre-teen and how you want to change yourself and grow and be accepted by those older kids that you look up to and admire.

Week 11 - Comics as Contemporary Literature

 I read The Bus. It takes one object and shows how many different and creative ways you can use it in a comic, it sort of messes with your head and show some fun and exciting scenarios that are impossible but make it a really interesting read. It's really fun and a nice break from comics with text. Sometimes just having images that you have to put together in order to understand whats going on works just as well for comics.

I also watched Persepolis, it's honestly one of the best things I"ve seen. I think it's great that it was made into an animation. It's really great to see an autobiographical graphic novel written by a woman of color who shows her perspective of things and life, and what her family and people in her culture have to go through. I think it's a great example comics as contemporary literature. It provides something fresh, something that I think is important to have. Comics and stories by people of other cultures should be supported more. 

Week 10 - Yaoi Cinderella

I read a lot Manga when I was in middle school. I was mostly interested in a lot of the magical girl

stories, some of the romantic shoujo manga as well. I hadn't read any since then and I decided to check out Yaoi Cinderella. The idea of Yaoi never appeals to me, even though male characters in manga have very feminine features as well. I think it's interesting and funny that yaoi is like erotic novels for housewives. It makes sense too that women would be the ones to enjoy it more. 

Like a lot of other mangas and anime this one was very dramatic. Manga about bands and artists seems to be very popular. I remember reading some about young girls that were singers and teen idols. 

Week 9 ~ World/ European Comics

European comics were different from American comics. They had a variety of different styles and attracted different audiences. Stories that could appeal more to adults as well. There is also nudity in some of the comics but it didn't feel like sexuality was the focus, unlike a lot of underground comics.
I looked at some of the Stories From Heavy Metal. The styles were really mature and not so cartoony, except for maybe the Horny Goof, but even that grew into something more serious and intricate.

Week 8 ~ Stereotypes

From art and other content that I've seen I think it's hard for artists to avoid stereotypes, specially racist and sexist ones. I think a lot of films and comics tend to turn to stereotypes for character development because it's easier for them to have a character that follows a typical storyline and makes it faster for audiences to understand what these characters are about. I think it's important that a lot of people beginning to understand why this is wrong and why media and comics need to change this. It's lazy for them to just resort to using stereotypes just because they "don't have the time".

I think stereotypes could be used to some extent, but it shouldn't be something that defines characters as a whole or dictates their part in a story.

I feel like it's hard for artists and directors of films and animations to stay away from such typical and sometimes racist stereotypes because they perhaps don't understand the cultures that these characters may come from, they only see a layer of it. They see what the whole world generalize that culture, or the most attractive things, things that stand out. Things that can be romanticized.

I can't say I have been affected by stereotypical representations in comics, mostly because I have never been involved in comics so it's hard for me to think of any characters, but definitely from other types of media. I'm a Colombian woman. There are so many different kinds of people in Latin America but I understand for so long people have imagined latin women to be these "exotic" curvaceous women with dark hair and tanned skin. Which there are many women like that, but it's wrong to think that all Latina women are supposed to be like that. I'm just speaking from experience. I've been told in the past that I look white and people are surprised when they see that my mom has darker skin than I do. I've also been called exotic by people, and a spicy Latina. I've been asked if I can dance and when I say I don't, I've been told that all latin women do. I think this ignorance is the result of media portraying one kind of woman as Latin. It's great to see representation in the media, but when such heavy stereotypes are used it's disappointing because a lot of women don't fit into that mold. It ends up making some of us feel like we aren't "latin enough"

I remember reading a part of an interview with Sofia Vergara and apparently she was told to dye her hair darker because she didn't look spanish enough with her natural brown hair.

Week 6 ~ Underground Comix

It's clear why these kinds of comics are called underground comics. The content is obviously different than what mainstream comics showed during that time. They have explicit sexual content, drug use, and violence. It's understandable why they were pretty popular. They were something different and who doesn't want something thats forbidden.
Though I understand why these kinds of comics may have appealed to people, I'm not really a fan of them. I feel like most of them were made to appeal to men. I read Whiteman by Robert Crumb and it just seemed like it was just a man's fantasy. I want to say it was funny, but I mostly found it disgusting.
The character is a man who goes camping with his family. He forces his kids to go on a hike and enjoy the outdoors and is later abducted by the abominable snowman. The creature gives him up to his daughter who is a large hairy monster with very big breasts, pointy nipples and a large behind. Later he tries to escape but ends up very tired and realizes that the creature is very warm and climbs on top of her while she sleeps. He decides he "might as well" take off his pants so he can keep warm and survive. He ends up having sex with her and expresses that it's the best he's ever had.

Some of the language later used in the comic as some city men catcall the creature while she is disguised as a woman is dripping with objectification. It feels like a lot of them were written by men, or people who were trying to be funny but really it's just misogynistic and gross.

I read another comic that also depicts nude women and further emphasizes the kind of content that people wanted to publish with these underground comics. They had a chance to draw and write content that they wouldn't be able to if they worked with mainstream publishers so why not go all out.