A few weeks ago, I read a great interview with writer/artist Hope Larson in which she discusses an informal survey she conducted on girls and women who read comic books.  One of the questions she asked was “what can authors, publishers and retailers do to better serve teen/tween girls?”  Larson writes YA material, so this question was geared specifically towards helping her understand her audience better, but a lot of the suggestions really ring true for me as an adult:  more (and better) female lead characters, comic shops that are more female-friendly (though it’s worth noting that only one store in Seattle has ever been less-than-awesome on that front), stop the casual misogyny and objectification of women and for the love of god, get more women writers and artists into the business.

All of that seems like common sense to me, but this weekend, I revisited the interview on CBR and made the terrible mistake of reading through the comment thread and it seems that wow, the internet is just full of douchebags.  Apparently, expressing your belief that certain aspects of the comics industry may not be super welcoming for women in a fairly mild and non-confrontational way means that you’re a dumb, man-hating, over-sensitive feminazi who should just stop reading comics because they’re for men anyway and what are you, a lesbian or something?  Some highlights:

• “I seriously doubt that Marvel or DC or the other top-tier publishers are going to risk alienating their mostly male customer base by changing their comics to reflect some fringe feminist agenda on the slim possibility that more girls will suddenly run to the comic book stores.”
• “Girls get stared at. Wanna know why? Ask the same girls how often they have asked a boy on a date and compare it to the amount of times they’ve said yes to a boy who asked them on a date.”
• “I know the women’s conspiracy tries to keep it a secret, but you all blog and fanfic too much on the internet, and now we all know that women want sex more than men ever did.”
• “You might want to step back and realize that your post is infinitely more offensive to men than you think the comics industry is to women.”
• “I mean weve ALL been to conventions, we’ve SEEN the “for girl” comics FIRST HAND. THEY EXIST” [sic]
• “If you don’t like the way women are portrayed don’t read comics.”
• “There still isn’t an “excessive display” of tits and ass in most of today’s super hero comics. I mean, people would know this if they read comics instead of just complained about them.”
• “I don’t read shit that was written FOR WOMEN why do you have to read stuff that is written FOR MEN?  Comic books have always been a BOYS medium.”

Honestly, I don’t have much to say about this.  I mean, other than the obvious, that getting more readers is good for the industry.  And that suggesting changes that might attract/retain more female readers is not part of a radical feminist agenda.  Oh, and comics do not have to objectify women in order to appeal to men.  I mean, would making Catwoman zip her jumpsuit up all the way REALLY affect your enjoyment of an issue?  Would it, would it really?  Also?  YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK.  GODDAMMIT, YOU SUCK.

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