NEWS: Why Have There Been No Great Women Comic-Book Artists?

CULTURE: Why Have There Been No Great Women Comic-Book Artists?

"Why Have There Been No Great Women Comic-Book Artists?" asks Carly Berwick in ARTnews. The essay uses "Masters of American Comics," the new show of comics-as-art at UCLA's Hammer Museum, as a launching pad to consider the role of women in the comic-book canon. As it turns out, there are 15 masters in the Hammer show, and none of them are women. Berwick summons Trina Robbins and Jessica Abel to fill in the gaps.

via Arts & Letters Daily

Colleen Doran.
Jill Thompson.
Rebecca Guay.

HELL YEAH! She worked on the one of the greatest comics of all time, The Invisibles.

Hm. Julie Doucet.

Carla Speed McNeil does one of the greatest books of the last 10 years, "Finder".

And she may not be big by fanboy standards, but Amanda Conner has a crisp style, clean linework and has done some classic pieces with warrenellis, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, etc etc.

hell yes!

Because I haven't written a book yet.





What?

Do it!

Marie Severin has been around since the 50s

They're forgetting that there are hundreds of successful female Japanese manga artists, and a lot of work by them is published in the states. Maybe it's because it's seen as being more socially acceptable to read comics over there.

Chynna Clugston is a laydee. And she rocks.

I forgot ^_^; Yay Blue Monday!

me! well someday i want to do cover art for comics! but im a chick!

The lack of a lot female comic book artists has a lot to do with the fact that there aren't tons of comics aimed at women, which itself stems from the fact that comics originally targeted young boys exclusively. When my sister and her husband were illustration majors, each had a goal that they later found out was pretty much the same as every other person of their sex in their major: he wanted to illustrate comics and she wanted to illustrate children's books.

Edit: I should read the first post before I go jumping in to answer the question.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2005 by TedKoppel]

Amanda Conner. I love her style.

i've always wanted to do a children's-style book in which the content was more like a comic....

mostly because i still like to draw with crayons but i don't like kids.

[Edited on Dec 02, 2005 by Maude]

When I took a high school class, we had an assignment to write a children's book using what we'd learned in said class. I didn't feel like we'd learned shit, resented the hell out of the assignment, and in a day or so wrote a children's story that I thought would most fuck a child up. Something about scientists kidnapping a child and putting their mind on a television display. Crayon drawings would've been nice - I used stick figures since I can't draw.

YES

so this is a plotte...

I third Chynna Glugston - Major.
The girl is bad. Do you hear me?
And she's everywhere!

Blue Monday
Scooter Girl <---- her titles

Hopeless Savages
Jingle Belle
The Atomics
Cut My Hair <----worked on

Not to mention doing work for Marvel and Dark Horse.

*snap snap snap* C'mon people catch up with the rest of the class.

Because even in a male dominated field there's only a handful of Great artists?

[Edited on Dec 02, 2005 by SuperNintendo]

Ditto that . . .

Is that where we get Holden McNeil?

It could be because they're only talking about (trite, vapid, action-movie-esque, old) superhero comics rather than interesting (substantive, funny, compelling, recent) ones.

Did you actually look at anything being talked about, or are you just ranting out of habit?

How could you forget Phoebe Louise Adams Gloeckner? Her artwork is like a perpetual acid trip.