Girls & Comics
Comic book artist hopelarson is conducting a survey about Girls and Comics. You can find the survey here.
If you're female and read comics as a teen or tween (it doesn't matter how old you are now!), would you please take a moment on this short survey? Your answers can be as brief or long as you like. Feel free to ramble, vent or go off on tangents.
For purposes of this survey, "comics" means comic books, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, etc.
You can post your answers in the comments or e-mail them to me at hope@hopelarson.com.
ETA:
I ran out of space in the comments on her Journal so I decided to post my answers here. Heh.
1) How old were you when you started reading comics?
Not sure honestly. Pretty young so maybe 7 or 8?
2) How did you first discover comics?
Again, I’m not sure. They just sort of...appeared. I remember reading them so *someone* was supplying me. I don’t recall any kind of stigma associated with either comics or being a girl reading comics. I was hugely into the Sunday comic strips so it probably stemmed from that? Maybe? Then I guess I “re”discovered comics in high school through male friends that told me I reminded them of Death from Sandman.
3) What comics were your favorites as a teen/tween? Any reason why?
I loved Wonder Woman the most. Why? Because duh! She’s frickin’ Wonder Woman! I was obsessed. Even had WW underoos. I also remember reading the various Duck titles from Disney - Huey, Duey, & Louie; Donald; Scrooge - when I was a kid. When I was 17 or so I started getting really into the Underground Comix and Alternative Comics and read every single Dan Clowes, Pete Bagge, and R. Crumb title I could get my hands on. Why? I was a total stoner! OMG Buddy Bradley was living the same life as me and my friends. The 60s hippie culture resurfaced big time in the early to mid-90s and I was in the thick of it and those writers were tapped into that - besides also revisiting the heyday with the original Crumbs from Zap and the like. I liked Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, too, but didn’t really circle back into the “weirder” more mainstream and superhero titles until I was older than the ages requested for this survey. I still tend to mostly read titles from Fantagraphics or Dark Horse, sometimes Drawn & Quarterly.
4) Where did you get your comics? A comic shop? Library? Bookshop? Large book retailer like Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Books-A-Million? Amazon? The Internet?
Well, like I said in #2, I honestly don’t know how I came across the comics when I was little. I think I got some as birthday part favors, some from the school book-mobile, some from the library, random stuff like that. When I started actively seeking them out on my own, then it was always locally owned comic book shops. It wasn’t until my late 20s that I realized I could buy the trade paperbacks at large retailers and my 30s when I started checking said trade paperbacks out of the library.
5) Did you illegally download scans or scanlations, and did scans comprise a significant amount of the comics you read? (I'm not here to judge. I've done this, too. Just be honest!)
Not in the age range you’re asking about. Web 2.0 didn’t exist yet and I didn’t care. And the only time since then was the unreleased Tintin that Herge left unfinished when he died.
6) Did you attend comic or anime conventions? Free Comic Book Day? Comics-related library events?
Nope. I forget about Free Comic Book Day every single year and I don’t think it existed yet in the timeframe for this survey. I’ve only been to one con ever and that was Star Trek and I was in my 20s.
7) In your opinion, what can authors, publishers and retailers do to better serve teen/tween girls?
I truly don’t know. I’m aware now that there’s a stigma about comics in general and that Girls Don’t Read Comics (or sci-fi but that’s a different topic/rant) but I definitely never came across that in the 80s or early 90s, or more likely I was just too naïve or sheltered to notice. I think the biggest issue I come across currently is wariness of the format. The vast majority of my girlfriends all enjoy sci-fi and fantasy in many formats and are old/mature/self-aware enough to follow their own personal variation of Betty Rosenberg’s law to “Never apologize for your reading tastes”. And yet when I make graphic novel recommendations to them, they are brushed aside because the format is too strange and daunting. Even when they are canon supplements or continuations of television or book serieses they are already fans of, they won’t read the comic versions. And manga? That’s even farther from the mere hope of someday being a possibility. I’ve been reading a great title that a friend of mine is adapting, Mixed Vegetables, and I can think of so many women that would simply adore the story. And I know it’s a lost cause to even attempt to convince them to try it because it’s “backwards”. So...yeah. I got nuthin’. How do you make a format less scary when even artist friends of mine won’t read it because it’s too far from their sense of normal? No clue.
If you're female and read comics as a teen or tween (it doesn't matter how old you are now!), would you please take a moment on this short survey? Your answers can be as brief or long as you like. Feel free to ramble, vent or go off on tangents.
For purposes of this survey, "comics" means comic books, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, etc.
You can post your answers in the comments or e-mail them to me at hope@hopelarson.com.
ETA:
I ran out of space in the comments on her Journal so I decided to post my answers here. Heh.
1) How old were you when you started reading comics?
Not sure honestly. Pretty young so maybe 7 or 8?
2) How did you first discover comics?
Again, I’m not sure. They just sort of...appeared. I remember reading them so *someone* was supplying me. I don’t recall any kind of stigma associated with either comics or being a girl reading comics. I was hugely into the Sunday comic strips so it probably stemmed from that? Maybe? Then I guess I “re”discovered comics in high school through male friends that told me I reminded them of Death from Sandman.
3) What comics were your favorites as a teen/tween? Any reason why?
I loved Wonder Woman the most. Why? Because duh! She’s frickin’ Wonder Woman! I was obsessed. Even had WW underoos. I also remember reading the various Duck titles from Disney - Huey, Duey, & Louie; Donald; Scrooge - when I was a kid. When I was 17 or so I started getting really into the Underground Comix and Alternative Comics and read every single Dan Clowes, Pete Bagge, and R. Crumb title I could get my hands on. Why? I was a total stoner! OMG Buddy Bradley was living the same life as me and my friends. The 60s hippie culture resurfaced big time in the early to mid-90s and I was in the thick of it and those writers were tapped into that - besides also revisiting the heyday with the original Crumbs from Zap and the like. I liked Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, too, but didn’t really circle back into the “weirder” more mainstream and superhero titles until I was older than the ages requested for this survey. I still tend to mostly read titles from Fantagraphics or Dark Horse, sometimes Drawn & Quarterly.
4) Where did you get your comics? A comic shop? Library? Bookshop? Large book retailer like Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Books-A-Million? Amazon? The Internet?
Well, like I said in #2, I honestly don’t know how I came across the comics when I was little. I think I got some as birthday part favors, some from the school book-mobile, some from the library, random stuff like that. When I started actively seeking them out on my own, then it was always locally owned comic book shops. It wasn’t until my late 20s that I realized I could buy the trade paperbacks at large retailers and my 30s when I started checking said trade paperbacks out of the library.
5) Did you illegally download scans or scanlations, and did scans comprise a significant amount of the comics you read? (I'm not here to judge. I've done this, too. Just be honest!)
Not in the age range you’re asking about. Web 2.0 didn’t exist yet and I didn’t care. And the only time since then was the unreleased Tintin that Herge left unfinished when he died.
6) Did you attend comic or anime conventions? Free Comic Book Day? Comics-related library events?
Nope. I forget about Free Comic Book Day every single year and I don’t think it existed yet in the timeframe for this survey. I’ve only been to one con ever and that was Star Trek and I was in my 20s.
7) In your opinion, what can authors, publishers and retailers do to better serve teen/tween girls?
I truly don’t know. I’m aware now that there’s a stigma about comics in general and that Girls Don’t Read Comics (or sci-fi but that’s a different topic/rant) but I definitely never came across that in the 80s or early 90s, or more likely I was just too naïve or sheltered to notice. I think the biggest issue I come across currently is wariness of the format. The vast majority of my girlfriends all enjoy sci-fi and fantasy in many formats and are old/mature/self-aware enough to follow their own personal variation of Betty Rosenberg’s law to “Never apologize for your reading tastes”. And yet when I make graphic novel recommendations to them, they are brushed aside because the format is too strange and daunting. Even when they are canon supplements or continuations of television or book serieses they are already fans of, they won’t read the comic versions. And manga? That’s even farther from the mere hope of someday being a possibility. I’ve been reading a great title that a friend of mine is adapting, Mixed Vegetables, and I can think of so many women that would simply adore the story. And I know it’s a lost cause to even attempt to convince them to try it because it’s “backwards”. So...yeah. I got nuthin’. How do you make a format less scary when even artist friends of mine won’t read it because it’s too far from their sense of normal? No clue.