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Comic by Darryl Cunningham

Fighting Sexism

How do you find out what girls want in comics? Try asking them! Author Hope Larson (Mercury, Chiggers) conducted an informal survey among her LiveJournal and Twitter followers, asking almost 200 girls and women about their comic reading. Now, she’s summarized the results (link no longer available).

There are a number of similarities. Most female fans were hooked before their teens. TV adaptations and male relatives were key introductions. They’re looking for satisfying characters, compelling stories, and strong artwork. (Who isn’t, right?) There’s also a list of things publishers and creators can do to interest this audience — much of it is common knowledge, like avoiding condescension and over-sexualization, and welcoming female customers — but it’s nice to have it reinforced.

Fighting Ignorance

Via Dave Lartigue comes this comic strip by Darryl Cunningham exposing the greed behind the bogus connection between vaccines and autism.

Comic by Darryl Cunningham

Update: (5/21/10) Brigid Alverson analyzes the mechanics of the strip and how effective the comic format is in sharing information.

Fighting Fans

Betsey Swardlick’s illustrated essay about doujinshi, Japanese fan fiction in comic form, includes this image that I love, summing up differing attitudes:

National comparison

But the whole thing is worth reading as a good introduction to another country’s view of fandom and comics. Great picture showing the size of Comiket, too. Now I want to read Homicide: Life on the Streets manga!



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