Women in 2000AD

[DavidXBrunt]

Cabals feature two interesting women, one who started off looking vulnerable and weak, the other strong and confident. In the course of the story so far they've changed status, which is either interesting or boring.  

Would I be right in saying that Maize DuMoir is was the first female lead character?

Has anyone pointed out female characters role in stories as the betrayer of the lead? Sister Sludge in Rogue Trooper is an example that sticks in my mind, as it was mentioned in the current prog.

[Byron Virgo]

"Halo Jones. Was this a good story because the lead character was a female or because it was a well crafted, fantastically illustrated story?"

Well, I hink really it's a bit of both. I mean, Gibson's playing his top game, there's some great sf ideas in there, and genuine characters who are believably real within the context of the story. However, I think it is important that she is a woman in the strip, first because it alows us a vantage point in the interestingly matriachal society of the future (clearly a bit of Steve Moore influence there), and second because this was really the first strip to ever really try to to acurately portray a leading female character. (I also think it was the first strip to feature an almost entirely female based war - if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me. This was still some time before the Gulf War and teh introduction of women to frontline combat, so you have to see it in it's context in time as well)

[Queen Firey-Bou]

excellent thread dudes, i shall read more when less hurried..

vampjen, i agree that one approaches the subject with trepidation...its a difficult one, & theres some shockingly bollocky attitudes still around.

soooo bryon, bet ya didnt know i wrong part of my degree disertation on purity browns character & development huh huh ?  sadly the bady handwritten scrawl in pre PC days is a pile of crap, but the idea was there.


more later....... i'll work up to a rant.

[Byron Virgo]

Well, I'd still find it interesting to see whatever scrawl might still remain. And if you need someone to rant at, consider my ear to be your doormat.

[The Amstor Computer]

To be honest, I found Hannah Chapter to be one of the weakest characters in Cabals so far, but she has become more interesting in the most recent episodes. Jenny has potential; she's less kick-ass, wise-cracking heroine, and I think the focus on her has helped the series immeasurably.

[madgirl]

Great thread. I read tooth because i'm into sci-fi and enjoy a lot of the stories. I never really take much notice if there are women in a story or not, just that a story is well scripted and the art is good.

When tooth first came out i used to read little bruv's copy along with his copies of Battle and Commando. I used to buy Misty and *gasp* Look-in.

For those of you who don't know Misty here's a link.

Link: http://www.mistycomic.co.uk/" target="_blank">The spooky world of Misty

[Queen Firey-Bou]

have now read; Blimey , where to start, lots of interesting stuff & shed loads really..

regards the trepidation which Si brought up, is this not a defensive reaction brought about by the recent un-friendly shit which gets everyone on edge?  I read absolutely NOthing in si's post which i'd start shouting or flaming about... nor in anyones, now a letter in input that says portraying women as strong is stupid.. that deserves a bollocking, but even then, reasonably.

now women, i generally left my feminist hat behind somewhere in the early 90's, so my current thinking is somewhere half way between arch feminist- anti feminist & something...

women in comix, its a messed up picture if you take it seriously. But so are mens characters. women & men in modern society are constantly undergoing huge upheavals in roles , expectations, dilemas, etc... as individuals we all struggle to fit in or fight these roles, finding what we, as individuals are comfortable with. do we find our own gender paths, or are we more comfortable fitting into perceived appropriate gender roles ... probably most of us a bit of each, we are 'us' within expected boundaries.

Today we may argue that the boundaries are more blurred & we are freeer than ever to be as masculine or feminine as we like. i don't think more free, just more pressure, more muddled.

thinking fight club for the boys here...

okay so comix? well any medium reflects society around it. so do comix reflect gender roles in a specific way more or less than , films, tele whatever? i guess comix are more narrow. so what bits of society are comix reflecting  2K in particular?

 i think one of the things that binds us comic fans is a peter pan, easy suspension of disbelief thing ?  why so many comix fans boys? are more boys interested in fantasy, pictoral fiction than girls ?  what are we comix girl geeks like?  do we have a common denominator?  Me , I am drawn to heroics, adventure, larger than life stuff, escapism maybe? i am & always have been a TOm boy, in that i like boys toys & boyish humour, BUT NOT in a butch way, i am a woman & have a womanly characteristics, the empathy , the emotional stuff, the crap at maths thing etc, often i read threads here & think "? ehh? boys are mad !!"... what about the other girl fans?

so when i read 2K, i respond to stories/ characters firstly as 'me' with my taste, but part of me is womanish, my tastes are a mishmash of artists eye liking pretty colours & textures, woman likeing emotional pull laddette liking big guns etc etc... how can we tease out what of all these is a 'womans' response rather than a 'persons' ?

comic characters; aieee where to start !?  artists draw good looking people. humans are drawn to attractive people... so thats why comic folk are so muscley so big titted, is this sexist? to draw what we are naturally drawn to ?
I think theres a (big ) difference between a comic & girl teen mag, the later i would be discusted if the only people in it were all beautiful painted skinny folk. but a comic is fantasy. we may have craggy un-pretty male heros, but is that not also what we find attractive in a male hero? how many of us girls here find a well placed facial scar on a hunk attractive? be honest.

So i don't worry about big titted pouty women being a sad male fantasy thing... its just beauty & the portrayal of it.imho( generally )

women acting like men? well thats a bit passe isnt it, i expect more from a comic writer , more sophistication nowadays. or at least an explanation of why she is man-like. a believable motivation.

what do we want from our characters? are they role models? do we want heros to look up to, aspire to be? do we want people to relate to , cos theyre like us or at least deal with things like us? Si's Scrap ( i think ive said before ) was very subtlely a real good go at a 'real' woman thing. whereas say durham? some have tried to put some backround to her coldness, but really she lacks real womans personality, shes a lean mean bloke in a decorative, scary, femme fatal archetypal bod.

femme fatals? they are in their essense cold aloof charachers arent they... the feared & the unknown, the male not understanding the female stereotype.

heros? well theres an essay here on male role models & lack of heros & how its been unfashionable for heros, all this new man myth, resulting in a society full of role-less weak men, women took power for themselves & blokes gave up & went to the pub. is this settling down? are more men being happy to assume a 'mannly' role now & women re-finding themselves as domestic goddessess etc?  is it okay again to admire strong dredd & alpha types, cos theyre in charge, theyre tuff, theyre great & not in a post ironic cynical way. So do we want women characters to be heroic ? or supportive? or both ?

what offends me in a female character? well not the tits , or even the secondary role, or needing resuceing , or being evil, i think i'm most offended by lazily written women. i have a problem with mills for example, " ooo woman thou art strong & lovely every blokes fantasy, but och expendable i'm afraid dieeeeee horribly, ... next" Its as if the strong lovely lady is an unsustainable unattainable thing to be held up as an over idealised woman on pedastle thing & cruelly swept aside, as a victim, as a justification for heros motivation. women don't have to be perfect ideal beings & we most certainly don't have to be bloody victims, or even brave dignified victims... not all the time..


far far too long post...... sorry ..... & yet i could rant much much more...

now valkyries ... ha ha ha theres a bloody thesis in its self ! ( Bou runs before shes flambeed )

[-=>DEMONIZER<=-]

Byron, Stront, ElS:-

Voices on the internet are sometimes strangely diluted and sometimes perceived as what they are not... this in turn leads to splinter arguments etc. and before you can say flaming troll things get out of control and egos take over subject matters.

The "Fact Culture" becomes so due to mass concurrences, and dissenters are viewed with extreme caution - this results in many boarders playing it safe to avoid alienation.

[VampiraJen]

holy shit bou, when you say you were saving up for a rant you don't fuck around do you?

I too was a tom boy growing up, had boy friends, played with g.i. joe's and was into comics.  being into sci-fi is because i was raised on star trek.  the problem with women is that if you portray them in a way that they are in touch with their feeling, they are percieved (wrongly) as being weak, as woman often have been in the past, the wailing woman huddled in the corner of the room, empathy confused with foolishness.  But this isn't a problem confined to women, men when portrayed as emotional are often seen as being weak pansies.

But characters are devices for telling a story, and if they story is good enough does it matter if they are male or female?  would some of the best dredd (random example) stories be different if the star was judge dreddina.  I honestly think not because for that character it's about the law and upholding the law, and why i've thought we have never seen his face, because there is nothing to see, all there is is the law.  Was demarco weak and stereotypically womanly for falling in love?

[Steamboy]

Judge Dreddina, classic way better than Joesphine Dredd.  I'll agree with the majority here doesn't matter weather the protagonists male or fe-male if the story sucks(be it bcos of art, characterization, etc)no amount of T and A or flexing Abs(if your fe-male or that way inclined) will make it a good story..

CU Krestel

[IndigoPrime]

Omar and Shenker (the ex-head) were hardly a barrel of laughs.

[JTurner]

I think the only problem is when writers feel the need to write a female character just for the sake of it. Problems arise with the Lara Croft syndrome - the part could just as easily be a man, there's so little character there. Generally the stories with a stock character type who is a female for novelty value are pretty shallow and lame and feel like a gimmick (Samantha Slade?).

Now let's reverse it.
Take a female character (that's character as in personality) and substitute for a man's body and see if it works. Halo Jones wouldn't work. Neither would Anderson. Venus Blue Genes, however, was just rogue with tits with no original character traits. It works with TV, too. Buffy was a true female character (or at least became one, after the initial novelty factor).

Or maybe I'm just waffling.

[Oddboy]

Was demarco weak and stereotypically womanly for falling in love?

I know it's rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway...

Of course not. <clich?>It takes two to tango</clich?> and DeMarco's boyfriend was also in love with her.
The difference came when *she* was the strong one, prepared to risk her relationship & career in order to save burning citizens, while *he* would rather leave them to die then accept the consequences of an unjudicial liason.



Another well characterised female was Ruby Fox from Zenith. A 42 year old woman, certainly not young & bouncy t&a material.
Yes, she was unrealistically stong, but then she could also fly & electrocute stuff from a distance, so you can't complain about that.

[Oddboy]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kathan/prog534/zenith/c/ruby1.jpg">

[Queen Firey-Bou]

hey i wonder if theres any dredd female clones in the pipeline? how would they turn out ? bit like hershey maybe?