More on the "comic books are not for you" story - if you're female. Shoot, if you have a pulse....

[kyburg]

When I was a teenager I worked at my local comics shop. The staff consisted of the kindly and cantankerous older middle-aged comics fan and a cast of lovable zanies. I had a great time. Until my boss asked me if I could stay late at work one day to help him bag some comics. And so I stayed late and started bagging the comics. And my boss took the opportunity to tell me that he found me sexually arousing. And he asked me to have sex with him. And I started to silently cry--pretty babyish of me, huh? Should I have punched him in the nuts? I didn't--I cried silently. I was 16, he was in his late 50s. The man expressed complete bewilderment that I responded in this matter. He said that he assumed that when I consented to stay late with him there to bag the comics I was "inviting" him in some manner. Gee is "bagging comics" some sexual euphemism that I am unaware of? I totally trusted this guy; he was like an uncle. So I was devastated, and I'm sitting there crying into this copy of Ghost Rider or Darkhawk or whatever--totally de-minting it, I might add. And the guy gives me some promotional buttons for this comic or that as a "gift".

No, you're never there because you like the books. Or, maybe - you are. But if you're there, you're never there because you want to work in the industry in the same place the males work. Standing on your own two feet, drawing and writing. Just like they do.

What she has to say about Wonder Woman is priceless.

And I quit comics a long time ago, I just never advertised it. Yeah, I read all the manga I can get my hands on - and I love Alex Ross' stuff - but you can't drag me into a "classic" comics store anymore. It just isn't my bag.

Comments

[rpeate.livejournal.com]

"Start at the top? Start everywhere."

That's good. Perhaps even "start with oneself" is best of all. :)

[machineplay.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. As a writer who'd love to be writing comic books, among other things, I'm constantly (over)analyzing what messages I'm transmitting through my fiction and poetry. I've recently resigned myself to the idea that I'll work outside my writing on separating myself from a patriarchal paradigm with all its included fetishizations and the resulting change in thought and perspective should communicate itself through my work without it becoming pedantic.