The nice guarantee of writing your own original comic book is that you can build one perfect finished product. There’s no waiting on some producer to read it ten years from now and maybe give you funding. I’ll never need to fight off PAs and cry by the craft table. I can see my characters now. All it takes is a writer, an artist, and a letter.
My artist is certainly special. He’s an inmate in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and has been for as long as I’ve known him. Though he’s the most gifted comic book artist I know, he spent much of last year working as a prison janitor. What’s more, he’s a convert to Orthodox Judaism. His art for issue one features characters with attitude and panache who are clumsy and a bit dumb. The action cracks out of the panels. It’s magnificent.
And what about his creative partner? I cried during the Pussy Riot documentary. I have a framed spec episode of Girls that Lena Dunham signed. I write pieces about Katniss Everdeen for feminist zines. And as for our letterer: who do you think publishes those zines?
Though he’s very pious, our artist’s depictions of the female form lack…”modesty.” Tight dresses, lots of chiffon, Elizabeth Berkley lips, and the soft print of a belly button in every dress. Look, my artist isn’t starting some sudden coup against the female body. Objectified female representations are the industry standard in comic books. Artists like Fiona Staples, Jamie McKelvie, and Cliff Chiang will bring forth a new era of creative maturity, but there’s still decades of art that asserts the old way. My artist doesn’t have a discourse of drawing women in a more balanced way. And it’s not like he’s had much real life reference to inspire him.
If I can get my act together and launch this thing, this series will have some pretty progressive content. The cast is loaded with intelligent women, many of whom are driving the plot. There’s going to be a gay romance and a trans warrior princess.
The centerfold of the first issue is the return of Gosia, a World War II era warrior who has returned from the dead to save her great grandson. Gosia is a Polish hardass with a mission. She’s everything I love about my Jewish grandmother. I can’t wait for her to start slapping everyone around.
But, in her triumphant return on the last page of the first issue, she looks a little too… hot. Her tush is cocked a bit. And her dress is uncomfortably tight. When did she have time to apply that lipstick in this battle sequence?
My first instinct is to stick to my vision and force my artist to draw Gosia and her peeps more sensitively. But how much of a right do I have to do that? This man works tirelessly on my characters, regularly spending more time on them than I do. He draws every lock of hair, every line of the body, and every last fingernail with meticulous love. He’s the one who breathes eternal life into the women of my dreams. Isn’t that the ultimate service to a female art?
All female characters, from Leeloo in The Fifth Element to Elektra in – cough!– Elektra, are comprised of the work of dozens, if not hundreds of artists. Just because the witches in Oz: the Great and Powerful were an offense to the female species doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a massive crew who didn’t work endlessly to make them perfect.
I don’t know what it’s like to draw a liberal comic book written by a queer when you’re in a Texas prison. My artist has probably got a lot of explaining to do. While I can certainly guide my artist towards a new understanding of sexualization and provide him with examples of responsibly crafted women, I have no right to teach this truly gifted person a lesson. He loves Gosia just as much as I do, but he shows it with his own vision. I should put all my power into making sure that the characters and the words of these women are perfect, so that their bodies are just vessels for their greater essence.
I just got the last page of the book back from my letterer. It’s finished. Gosia looks the same, but now she’s got a voice. And it’s entirely her own. Whether her delivery into the world was the way I wanted it to be is irrelevant now. She’s here. She’s perfect. And she wants me to get out of her way so she can dictate her story. Seeing her complete for the first time…what can I say? I have goosebumps.
Tags: artwork, david goldberg, the artist’s name is being intentionally omitted for privacy reasons, writing
“My first instinct is to stick to my vision and force my artist to draw Gosia and her peeps more sensitively. But how much of a right do I have to do that? This man works tirelessly on my characters, regularly spending more time on them than I do. He draws every lock of hair, every line of the body, and every last fingernail with meticulous love. He’s the one who breathes eternal life into the women of my dreams. Isn’t that the ultimate service to a female art?”
My first thought here is to say that you’re the mind behind this work and if you think Gosia should be drawn more sensitively, you have a right to ask that of your artist. End of the day, the artist is here to bring your characters to life in a way that’s consistent with your mental images of them. If she’s a kickass no-nonsense character who wouldn’t reapply lipstick before a climactic battle, you have a right to request that she looks that way. Female characterizations in comics aren’t going to change for the better unless their creators start asking it of their artists, if the artists themselves aren’t going to do it.
This. You have a right to request that of your artist, regardless of their personal circumstances. And yours.
Indeed, if you truly consider yourself and your colleague to be professionals, you need to be honest about his work, not treat him with kid gloves. Professionals can both give and take constructive criticism with grace. It’s kind of disrespectful and condescending not to speak to him, especially when you imply that the reason you haven’t been willing to criticize his work is because his worldview is somehow too limited to understand why his current artwork is problematic.
YUP.
Art is a HUGE part of conveying your message, not having Gosia look the way you want her to, just because you don’t wanna make a thing about asking (I’m assuming because you think he’ll be mad, in which case, he is probably not the right artist for this particular project) is not a very good excuse.
I did learn something from this piece though: comic books aren’t always written and drawn by the same people! I assumed that if someone was going to create a comic book, they would draw it themselves, but I guess I was wrong! Interesting.
I’m sure there are people out there who write, draw, and ink their own comics, but it’s rare. Most comics, especially the big ones, have people who draw, others who write, others who put the writing in (the letterers mentioned in the article), etc. It lets people play on their strengths but can be disorienting when you’re switching writers/artists/etc partway through a series, which happens sometimes.
Is writing a comic like writing any other manuscript? For some reason I’m having trouble imagining putting together dialogue without seeing the comic itself. I….know nothing about comics, apparently.
I’m actually not sure! I would guess that a writer plans out the story and dialogue, tells the artist what sorts of things they’re imagining in each panel, and then they kind of work from there, but I’m definitely not positive on that.
Mostly! The most common way(assuming you don’t know the artist at all and have never worked together before) is to break it up into panels, where each panel is described to the artist.
But at some point during a working relationship where you and the artist are totally in sync with each other, you may also get to the point where all you really need is some dialogue and some descriptions and trust the artist to deal with panels. I’ve worked with amazing artists that totally get me and can turn a description like “They walk into a church.” into two gorgeous, beautifully paced, pages of art. Lots of different teams work differently.
Mainly, the thing I keep on harping on in regards to this article is comics is a COLLABORATION. There’s a lot of talking involved! You have to communicate with each other, and at the end of the day, the relationship isn’t supposed to be “This is my story, and this is my artist that drew it” thing, it’s supposed to be “This is our story.” It’s not super easy, and you have to have lots of conversations and sometimes they can be really hard.
So, when I read an article like this which comes down to “I don’t know how to communicate with my artist” – it’s barely about feminism, it’s about not having a good comics partnership at all.
I’m really curious as to the circumstances that led to you working with this guy. It doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily germane to the plot of the comic itself, so what’s the backstory?
You know what else? It’s nice that you cried during that documentary or you own something Lena Dunham signed. Good for you. But talk is cheap, and those things are not really relevant to the situation here.
He is performing a service for you and if it is not what you want, have it fixed. Effort does not equal results. If you want something else, ask for it.
This is weird and self-congratulatory.
Isn’t that the ultimate service to a female art?
I have no idea what this means so I cannot comment on it. However: god knows artists of all types are despicable people to whom one doesn’t want to speak more than one is absolutely obligated, but I don’t know why it would be such an imposition or smack of teaching him a lesson to just say, like: hey, so all the women you draw are really sexy and idealized, but I need them to look more human and realistic.
or just looking at the artwork pictured — is that the artwork under discussion? no chiffon or immodesty that I can see — could you not just say, hey, this looks terrific, but how come she forgot to wear pants? You don’t have to gently and sensitively guide him to an understanding of anything except that fightin’ women like to armor their thighs too, not just their kneecaps. Sometimes feminism isn’t all that complicated.
“god knows artists of all types are despicable people to whom one doesn’t want to speak more than one is absolutely obligated” Is there a backstory to this? As an artist I worry that I resemble this remark…. 😉
I think it’s sarcasm, yo!
I do resemble this remark, and I’m not worried about it at all. 😉
I mean, it’s like a dream to me now but I did go to art school for a couple of months, so I know what’s what.
Cool story bro.
…Okay, that was a bit snippy. But really, what is this adding to the conversation? If I had a dollar for every time a comics-nerd dude told me that “he doesn’t see women THAT way” while creating or avidly consuming sexist garbage, I could retire, like, yesterday.
Do you want a cookie for having good intentions, although you apparently lack the conviction and drive to make them manifest in your work? I came away from reading this with a bad taste in my mouth.
This is a really odd article. Do you pay your artist? First of all, you should – it removes the guilt of giving notes.
And…there are like a ridiculous amount of times to have the “i need my women characters less hot” discussion BEFORE the last page of the first issue. The thumbnails, the roughs, the character design process. Hell, the script itself, coupled with a note that says “hey, this is what I want her to look like, with image references?”
I’m a small press publisher, and I write my own original comics too, and I pay my artists. I’ve had no issues with my artist drawing my Joan of Arc like anything other than a 16 year old girl.
I’m sorry, but this just sounds like you’re trying to shift blame to your artist while retaining feminist cred.
And his feminist cred is: Crying during a documentary, framing Lena Dunham’s signature, and writing about Katniss.
His certificate is in the mail.
“Just because the witches in Oz: the Great and Powerful were an offense to the female species doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a massive crew who didn’t work endlessly to make them perfect.”
What?
I’m surprised by all the feminist hate speech here. Not from the article, but from the comments. If you want to criticize, criticize with a goal of improving discourse. All of the “I’m a better feminist than you” reminds me of the self defeating attitude of female on female competition. Perhaps a more useful approach would be: “The author here has good intentions. I don’t agree with his execution. Here is how I think that can be improved” rather than “I’m a better feminist than you are. You call that feminism? I’ll show you feminism.” And I’m saying this as someone that eventually left a PhD program that had a feminism focus because I couldn’t deal with all the feminists measuring their proverbial penises against each other and ultimately cutting each other down.
Well, first of all, I wouldn’t call it “feminist hate speech.” But more generally, I don’t think anyone here is trying to say “I’m a better feminist than you.” I think that what folks are doing is noting that the author tells us he is a feminist – in a fairly superficial way – but doesn’t really show any depth of understanding of his situation from a feminist perspective. So it’s not insulting him for being a bad feminist. It’s calling him out on describing himself as a feminist (which is, since this is a piece of writing, a rhetorical tool as well as a personal statement) and then not following through.
I didn’t hate this piece, and I thought it raised some interesting questions. I just thought that the author didn’t really get anywhere productive by the end of it.
so glad the tone police is here to let us all know that our issues with this article aren’t legitimate because we’re not nice enough or something
It’s not the tone police, it’s the tone General. *salutes*
It’s definitely about the penises. Measuring ’em, thinking about ’em, hating ’em. Feminism.
Also, pretty much 100% of the articles posted on this site are feminist and we usually end up gathering together for friendly hang-outs in the comments. Some negative comments on one article by one person calling themself a feminist does a not a trend in feminism make. What are you, the style section?
Lastly, I’m sorry, who’s the one criticizing someone else’s feminism around here? I think that might be you.
I just reread all the comments and cannot for the life of me figure out where you’re getting your points about our comments from. Would you mind showing specific examples of what you’re interpreting as “I’m a better feminist than you”?
(I get the feeling you haven’t spent much time here. You should hang out for a bit! We’re a community full of smart, happy people who just want to kill all men and take to the sea.)
Ahoy!
To the fascinating idea that competing with other women is self-defeating, I have actually found that other women are different people, not just so many alternate versions of me in different wigs. So when I win an argument with another woman, I have actually defeated her, not myself. It’s not unlike arguing with a man in that way.
the other other comics guys
What I meant was that this sounds like the usual to me.
“the female species”
Every time I reread this, something new pops out!
They’re on to us!
The female species has been found, in laboratory conditions, to swarm what we thought were perfectly good excuses with pointed remarks.
Oh lordy. I’m sure you are a good person, but here’s your hint- you refer to yourself as Hannah Horvath. A famously narcissistic and non-introspective fictional character.
I don’t even know where to start unpacking this whole thing. Tempting to just throw up a big ol feminist PROBLEMATIC at you.
As an artist, it’s baffling to me that you think your artist can’t handle the assignment of desexualizing your character. If you think your artist is talented, then you should think that they can handle different styles and be able to render different looks. It doesn’t have to get into any paternalistic BS about educating someone else to be a feminist. It can just be, “this character doesn’t really wear clothing this tight.”
As a woman, I’ve certainly heard this before: “boy I’d love to make a better female character but it’s just to hard to draw them differently! Oh well, at least she’s a Strong Woman (TM). It’s lazy. As an artist yourself you should be holding yourself to a standard where you strive to do harder work, not take the easier path.
I also think it’s bizarre that he thinks this artist hasn’t seen women outside of comic books. Yes, he’s in prison. Many prisons have libraries. Presumably he remembers a time before prison?
This post is reminding me a lot of this cartoon going around, which was intended to be a complaint about how hard it is to get an audience for an independent comic, but ended up getting a lot more attention for the fact that the comic book shown in the first panel just has a pair of disembodied tits on the cover. (Not to mention the part where the writer later threw the artist under the bus for having drawn the disembodied tits! Seriously, stop doing that, that’s a lousy way to treat an artist you claim to admire.) You may indeed be totally feminist and progressive and telling a great story with great progressive content and amazing, interesting, fully-realized female characters… but if you put a pair of disembodied tits on the cover, you don’t get to whine about how that’s what your audience is judging you by.
I started reading this as serious and then at the third paragraph I thought “oh! This is satire” and then at the end I realized that it wasn’t. Seriously? It’s great that you like strong women and are concerned with problematic represention of women in media, especially comics, but if your response to realizing that someone you’ve (hopefully!) hired has drawn your female character in an overly sexualized way is to throw up your hands and say “oh well!” as opposed to, you know, asking him to change it then you’re part of the problem.
I feel like this was meant to be a ‘promoting his work through the backdoor’ sort of thing, like, because of his writing of a kind of hand-wringing, insincere, non-apology for a crime he believes his work has committed against women/feminists, they will be intrigued by his honesty and look into his independent comic book even though the art is, by his own admission, kind of sexist in a way that could potentially turn them off of a comic book normally. I’m not sure this approach has worked for him.
I… what?
You’re self-publishing a comic, I think? And having second thoughts about your artist? But feel bad about that, because of reasons? Also feminism?
I’ll be over here thinking about Lumberjanes.
I don't think that's really accurate for comic books, though — the art is part of telling the story, and it can be bad in a way that obscures the story. It doesn't matter how great the story is if, say, all the characters have the same face and the only way I can tell who I'm looking at is if another character helpfully addresses them by name.
I guess what I am thinking of as "bad art" would be something like XKCD (http://xkcd.com/), where the art is all stick figures but the writing is excellent.
I completely agree that great and inspired art makes a beautiful comic and is sometimes necessary to pull off an involved storyline.
I have, however, read comics with scantily-clad and "immodestly" dressed women that are in NO WAY anti-feminist. I don't think modesty = feminism. I am especially infuriated about this because I come from a strict and conservative religious background where modesty was enforced to an extreme (long skirts, long sleeves, high necklines, not too tight, no makeup, ETC) but similar to many conservative branches of religion the reasons for this had nothing to do with feminism and a LOT to do with patriarchy.
Excuse my rant, but little things about this guy's piece were niggling at me for a long time!
yeah, given a choice between objectification and diaphanous chiffon draperies on the one hand and sensitive responsible modesty on the other, I would pick none of the above. I am very happy with reckless, irresponsible and immodest female characters and I'm really not that interested in art that tries to be careful and responsible, even if its creators are good at heart. What bothers me is sexism.
Oh, I completely agree — a sexy or scantily-clad lady in a comic book is not inherently an affront to feminism or womanhood or whatever. It sounds to me, though, like the situation with this comic is more "all the women are drawn super-sexy, all the time, regardless of whether it makes any sense for the character or situation," in which case I do think the writer is right to perceive that as 1) a problem and 2) at odds with his feminist/progressive ideas. But you're right that the way he's talking about it, especially the use of "modesty" as a synonym for "you know, feminist stuff," comes across as seriously missing the point.
Um, this seems very “Once I saw a black lady in my yoga class and it made me cry” to me.
Um, this seems very "Once I saw a black lady in my yoga class and it made me cry" to me.
“Objectified female representations are the industry standard in comic books. ”
I stopped reading right there. Industry ‘standard’ doesn’t mean you have to comply to it.