Girls read comic books?

June 15, 2006 8:34 AM

Girl-Wonder.org is a new site tackling the portrayal of women in comics, written in the same vein as Women in Refrigerators and sequential tart.
posted by FunkyHelix (18 comments total)

Our goals are to foster an attentive, empowered audience community and to encourage respect and high-quality character depiction within the industry.

Or, in other words: Boobies.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:48 AM on June 15, 2006

the WiR website is a realy neat find. It's interesting to see some of the dialog (internal and external) of the writers, artists and fans.
posted by boo_radley at 9:34 AM on June 15, 2006

Well, what are the demographics here? I'd imagine far more boys read comic books then girls.
posted by delmoi at 9:59 AM on June 15, 2006

Right, but boys aren't the only ones who read comic books. Also, maybe more girls would read comics if the characters they could identify with weren't always being stuffed in refrigerators.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:18 AM on June 15, 2006

Stuffed into refridgerators? More like stuffed into spandex.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:19 AM on June 15, 2006

I think some of you might be missing the point of the site. They are dedicated to studying"the portrayal of women in comics". Just because boys might make up the majority of comic book readers doesn't mean that the portrayal of women in those books doesn't have an effect on the male construction of what a woman should be.
posted by SteveFlamingo at 10:22 AM on June 15, 2006

awesome.
posted by Doorstop at 10:48 AM on June 15, 2006

The supposed new divide is that girls read manga and boys read comics. I haven't found this to be the case in my experience.

But I think SteveFlamingo makes a good point.
posted by JeremyT at 12:07 PM on June 15, 2006

What does depowered mean? The wikipedia article for WiR uses it like 85 times, but never defines it. Is it a loss of superpowers? Or just being kidnapped/subdued? Does it mean the same thing as overpowered? Because women in comics get overpowered by men a lot.

Good FPP, FH! Boys who read comics love nothing more than girls who love comics, but true to form, rarely know how to address these issues. (I'm happy to say my gf is recently (re-)interested in comics and we get to have these sorts of conversations.)
posted by Eideteker at 12:50 PM on June 15, 2006

The domain isn't resolving for me at all. Is everyone else able to get to the girl wonder site?
posted by dejah420 at 12:53 PM on June 15, 2006

Depowered = the loss of super powers. It happens to female superheroes with depressing frequency (far more than it happens to male superheroes), for a variety of reasons. I could write an essay if you like, but I'll spare ya.
posted by kyrademon at 1:07 PM on June 15, 2006

Spare me? This is MeFi! Essay away!

dejah: I had no problem with the GW URL.
posted by Eideteker at 1:18 PM on June 15, 2006

I'm not having problems with the home site, but I can't get to the Project Wonder site.

These links are great. I think one of the main reasons that I could never get that into comic books was the secondary nature of the women characters in them.
posted by witchstone at 1:33 PM on June 15, 2006

dead for me
posted by puke & cry at 1:39 PM on June 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

Great. Another hatin' on comics thread.

Can we pin another medium down and kick the shit out of it next time?
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on June 15, 2006

I don't think if these people hated comics, they would devote so much time and effort on these sites.
posted by FunkyHelix at 1:59 PM on June 15, 2006

Thanks for the links, FunkyHelix! I read the essay about Robin, the Girl Wonder, and was disappointed with what looked to be pretty bad storytelling on DC's part. The linked pics to Robin being tortured were interesting. I think she might have been in sexualized poses because the artists for comics often use photographic resources and I could imagine the artist for that issue/s using magazines or other overly sexualized images to draw from. In other words, the effect was sexist, but the intent may have more stemmed from the inability of the artist to draw the female form from imagination.
posted by Slothrop at 6:03 PM on June 15, 2006

If you are interested in more feminine perspectives on comic books you must read Written World and When Fangirls Attack.
posted by lilnemo at 3:25 PM on June 16, 2006