What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me | Hacker News Reader

What taking my daughter to a comic book store taught me

itinthed.com

I can already hear the debate raging about weather or not the images or particular examples in this article are acceptable or defensible or not. I think it's totally fine for the comics that this one shop has are there. Artistic freedom! Great! What's not super is that it's really the only kind. It's like netflix with only action movies.

This article should feature a bunch of blank photos representing the comics that don't exist. Those are the problem. It's ok to have super sexed-up comics in the store, but it's really sad that's all they have.

Japanese manga is fully of sexy, weird, objectifying stuff that most people really wouldn't want their kids to see, but go to a bookstore in Japan and you'll also see bookcase after bookcase of manga totally appropriate for all ages with young girls pressing their nose into them. Stories about teenage girls getting picked on at school or trying to meet the right guy or saying stupid things in class. Stories about girls who are in bands and office workers and every possible thing.

I think the comic industry, video games, tech, and geek culture in general are all going through growing pains as they find adoption in a larger market. We need more articles like this helping people realize what a "normal" comic shop could look like. The comics we have today would still be in there, there would just be more variety and the market for comics would be healthier.

It's actually a better scenario for everyone.

What you say is like a nice idea, but you have to remember that this is a business. These kinds of comics line the shelves, because they're the ones that sell. Of course, it could very well be that if we had more comics that were more moderate they would sell also, but nobody's willing to take the risk. On top of that, you also require an author that is interested in that - you can't just suck this stuff out of a pen to make money (although often this does happen, they tend to end up being less interesting though).

If the comic is printed out then somebody has to buy it. If the comics aren't bought enough then it just won't work. It doesn't matter whether our ideal society would have us have more moderate comics or not, because it seems that in reality that's not the case. Of course, you can always prove me wrong (and the comic industry) by creating your own comic that does adhere to the criteria you enjoy. You would probably be rather successful if people truly wanted it, because it seems like there is no competition for them. But it seems unlikely.

This is definitely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many other nations have a wider audience for comics, but in the US we've followed your advice so long that all the audiences that aren't adolescent males have been pushed away. Which leads to where we are: comic book companies chasing after a tiny fraction of their potential audience, because they can't make comics for anyone else, because not enough others are hbothering to look for comics anymore. They'd have to rebuild other audiences from scratch, having burned through them all.

Your talking about the tail wagging the dog. Comics are how they are because the market imploded and they have to appeal to the niche of of niche that is their customer base.

When I was a kid in NYC, I remember going to the newsstand with my dad and they had a few racks of the mass market comics. I'd get spider man and superman, my younger sister would get Donald Duck and similar things. Today there's no newsstand and paper media is imploding, so it's a completely different market.

I don't get manga at all, but it's a different phenomenon that doesn't have mass appeal, and girls aren't in the niche.

> Comics are how they are because the market imploded and they have to appeal to the niche of of niche that is their customer base.

It's been a long time since that implosion, that isn't an excuse any longer for why comics continue to alienate new readers and reinforce stereotypes.

> Donald Duck and similar things.

Yeah exactly, it's very hard to find comics like this anymore. I had a friend who used to love Archie comics for example. Good luck finding those anywhere these days.

They're sold in grocery stores in the checkout line. Pretty much relegated to "impulse purchase to satisfy your misbehaving child".

Archie remains popular (inexplicably, to me) and Archie anthologies are available in most supermarkets I've been in (in the US) and at least some of the several comic books are found in almost every comic shop. For a casual fan, I think Archie might be the easiest comic to get a hold of. Just FYI.

>I don't get manga at all, but it's a different phenomenon ... and girls aren't in the niche.

That's hilariously false, both in Japan and abroad.

Except they didn't follow my advice because I or someone else thought it would be cool, it bedmates of the market. People just weren't buying enough comics do they had to target a niche more and more. You say there is some kind of hidden audience that would buy comics if they just stopped portraying female characters the same way they portrayed spiderman? In sure there are some people that feel that way, but I don't there would be enough of those to support the industry, because, again, the internet and other mediums are just wrecking their business.

Also, what other countries really have a healthier comic industry than the US of you exclude manga and manhwa? Not to mention that a huge portion of manga actually is the same as US comics. There are just a bunch of others as well. Not to mention that in Japan you have to tie in the merchandise, light novel, and anime industries to manga as well. There are no popular equivalents for some of those in the US.

> You say there is some kind of hidden audience that would buy comics if they just stopped portraying female characters the same way they portrayed spiderman? In sure there are some people that feel that way, but I don't there would be enough of those to support the industry, because, again, the internet and other mediums are just wrecking their business.

You don't need to listen to me—read the responses in this very thread from HN readers in other countries, which have a much more broad comic book readership. It's filled with them! Just from a cursory glance, we have responders from France, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, as well as yes, Japan—and the enormous webcomic industry. The idea that nobody would ever buy comics except for adolescent males is both foolish and false. The evidence against it is tremendous.

But HN is a tiny minority. It is barely a drop in the ocean. Printed media is losing a lot of market (except books globally and comics in certain asian countries). Look at how manga works - most manga don't get that many sales. They rely entirely on their niche. There are just a lot of authors of them and a lot of buyers. However, in the western world comics seem to be dying like newspapers. The Internet just stomps them, so comics are trying to hold on to the niche they do have as hard as they can. You have to realize that this is afterall a business - the fact that there are very few comics that do portray what you're talking about disagrees with your "tremendous evidence".

Also note that I do not care for these types of comics you describe or even the "sexy" ones. I do not like western art in comics at all. I just think that people who say "oh, but I would read comics if only they had X" talk a lot about it, but not enough of them follow through for extended periods of time when offered the chance.

> But HN is a tiny minority. It is barely a drop in the ocean.

It is, although the comments aren't HN readers talking about themselves—the comments are HN readers talking about what comic book readership in their country looks like. To pick a random example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8898345. Pay attention to what the author is saying: not "I read X", but "the best selling comic in Norway for decades was Donald Duck", "The best selling French-language comic is usually Spirou".

> You have to realize that this is afterall a business - the fact that there are very few comics that do portray what you're talking about disagrees with your "tremendous evidence".

The fact that there are very few comics in the US. There are very many such comic books outside of the US, and they sell well. My point is, the way the US comic book market looks is not inevitable; instead it's a result of many years of poor decisions by the US comic book publishers to appeal to a single niche.

Or to turn your phrase back on you: it's a business for comic producers all over the world. However, elsewhere they have found success selling to audiences that US comic book producers have long neglected. I know given how popular US cultural products are, it's easy to assume that things outside the US look just like things inside the US, but that's not always the case. HN has an international readership; check out what they say to see what things are like in other countries.

I agree.

Take for example the new Ms. Marvel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Marvel_%28Kamala_Khan%29

She's a Pakistani superhero that dresses modestly AND her comics sell. Why? Because they're well-written.

But I guess it's easier to draw more boobs than to invest in quality writing.

> But I guess it's easier to draw more boobs than to invest in quality writing.

Aargh, you're reminding me that I really need to get back into reading that series. When I could buy comics from inside the Comixology app, it was really easy to keep up, and I haven't read any new comics since they pulled that out.

You can still buy from within the Marvel and DC apps. I've never tried it, but it looks like comixology has a tool to sync your comics between accounts.

It is not the males pushing people away from comics. It's exactly the opposite. This is a group engaged in an activity which has long been looked down upon. Reading comics was seen as merely childish. Men embraced it, get called basement dwellers and just go on enjoying the things they enjoy. Then someone sees they are having a good time in spite of decades of being called childish and now suddenly they are sexist for excluding others. These were commonly the guys getting excluded and the comic book store has been their refuge.

That's an interesting point that shouldn't be lost in the discussion. Men who read comics have long been ridiculed by the mainstream. Even the Big Bang Theory, which inspired the blog authors' trip to the comic store, plays to that stereotype of it being an activity for the socially inept. And now, 20 years later, the industry doesn't serve any other market and is being criticized for it. Interesting.

1985: "Ha, look at those comic book guys. What losers! No girls would ever be interested in them."

2015: "Ha, look at those comic book nerds. What misogynists! No girls would ever be interested in them."

It is possible to be both excluded and exclusionary at the same time.

I know exactly how you feel. For the past year, my main gaming rig has been on another continent and I've been making do with what I could play on a cruddy little netbook running Linux.

It's probably been my best year of gaming ever.

I've been an old west robot prospector.

I've seen a man have sex with a giant goldfish.

I've tried to get a mouse to wear a hat.

I've consoled a grieving child.

After all that was done, I got a small amount of my hardware back and I killed some zombies. That was awesome, too. In fact, it was more awesome than it had been in a long time, since the variety had removed a great deal of the staleness.

It's the same with comics. I want to read a comic about a gay college student coming out to his parents. I want to read a comic about a goat that's also a political prisoner. I want to read a comic about a child learning to cope with the death of a parent. I still want to read a comic about a preternaturally buxom woman throwing a bus, but I want to read other things, too.

Great point. Indie games are good for helping you realize how much hard work goes into triple-A games and can really help you appreciate them again with fresh eyes (and totally more affordable on the hardware front! :-)

The indie game equivalent are web comics. There are really well made and interesting ones out there, although finding them isn't always easy. For some, printed versions are also available.

Also there is Image, Oni Press and Vertigo.

Humble Comics Bundle 2, 'Image firsts' is currently running a good deal for anyone wanting to check out Image:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

Image doesn't really work for daughters.

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/savage-dragon/18-1.jpg

I saw that cover in a comic store in my 20s, and it made me do a "what am I doing with my life?" reaction.

Well, that's something of an edge case given that Erik Larsen originally came from DC & Marvel, so he has that over-the-top exaggerated anatomy style, but yeah it's indefensible.

Most of the newer Image stuff is really mature and has some fantastic female role models, see for example Lazarus, Shutter, or Copperhead, all have strong female leads.

I'm not familiar with Image anymore, but I remember Jim Lee's Wildcats and it was generally "supersexy females with ridiculous breast implants". And they had a couple more superhero teams, whose names I can't remember, which were similar to Wildcats in this regard.

Gen13. It's possible that it was meant as irony in just how far you can take cheesecake.

(Jim Lee got bought out by DC, so those characters are all part of DC continuity now.)

Also there are lots and lots of small press publishers out there.

Just off the top of my head there are: * First Second * Drawn and Quarterly * Fantagraphics * Koyama Press * Top Shelf * NBM

Going to have to second this.

There's a whole range of comics catering to those more esoteric (and often quite boring, frankly) storylines, and a good many of them have books for sale.

Check out Something Positive (terrible people), Stand Still, Stay Silent (kid friendly but a little dark, beautiful art), Dumbing of Age (ugh, but some people like it), Vattu (kid friendly, nice art, coming-of-age), Schlock Mercenary (goofy, sometimes a little mature but kid friendly), Gunnerkrigg Court (female protagonists), or any of several other dozens. All of those have books out, I believe, except for maybe SSSS.

EDIT:

Something Positive is probably the best-written webcomic out there today, with the best characters and dialog and plot--it's only flaw is that it might be a bit raw and inaccessible to people younger than teenagers (the first strip being a mean abortion joke probably doesn't help).

Something Positive is a wall-of-text comic which, unfortunately also has very bad writing in its walls of text.

I'm embarrassed to say I read the entire thing in high school in 2004, but in my defense I was starved for content and didn't know any better.

So, there's been 11 years of plot since then. But hey, that's cool, to each their own.

I think Dumbing of Age is targeted at people who are post-college, not kids. A lot of the humor and depth is most manifest to people who have gone through similar crap and can look back on it nostalgically.

SSSS book 1 was funded by an indiegogo campaign[1] in October 2014, which pulled 500% of the target. Book should be available fairly soon.

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/stand-still-stay-silent-b...

> I've tried to get a mouse to wear a hat.

...What game is that?

I'm interested in the games he listed as well. I know the first one (robot prospector) is probably SteamWorld Dig. Not certain about the others.

The four games I mentioned were:

- SteamWorld Dig: old west robot prospector (ForestC was right!)

- Coming Out On Top: a man have sex with a giant goldfish, a gay college student coming out to his parents

- Escape Goat: get a mouse to wear a hat, a goat that's also a political prisoner. It's more about the goat than the mouse, but I was afraid that "Play as a Goat" would make people think of Goat Simulator. Plus, I found the magic hat to be adorable.

- Long Live the Queen: consoled a grieving child, cope with the death of a parent

There's a graphic novel called "Fun Home" that ticks off 2 out of your 4 wish list items.

edit: and I just realised the author invented the Bechdel test, which is appropriate.

> I want to read a comic about a goat that's also a political prisoner.

Have you tried reading Sluggy Freelance? I don't think they had a goat who was a political prisoner, but many things of equivalent weirdness have definitely been in Sluggy, like a lop-eared rabbit who's also a mobster who's also a time-traveling space pirate.

Are you saying you want quotas for comic shops?

Why shouldn't they be allowed to just sell the things their customers actually buy?

If somebody has a vision for a better comic shop, why not create one, instead of calling for rules and regulations?

I suppose you could even apply to YC with the idea of launching a better comic book chain.

Edit: since HN prevents me from commenting atm - sure, write more articles about it. But writing articles about there being a market for x doesn't make it true. Buying better comics would make it true. What if some poor soul reads the articles, pours their savings into a fancy comic shop and then goes bankrupt because nobody is buying? Also, I suspect a lot of comic creators scratch their own itch - they make comics they want, not comics that other people want.

1) no

2) they can, and I'm also free to make commentary about it

3) they can, and nowhere did I mention rules or regulations

4) You're right, I could.

The only suggestion I made was that people should write more articles pointing out that there's a lot of potential for more types of comics. The medium is underused. I get the feeling you're replying to what others have said more than what I said.

> there's a lot of potential for more types of comics.

He said the same thing. Open your own shops and publishers. Problem is, no girls want to read your politicized feminist comics. Girls have their own thoughts and that causes a certain demand. That demand probably isn't large and historically girls mature earlier and are into reading novels (think YA and chick-lit) and comics don't provide something they aren't getting elsewhere.

I really hate how a lot of the people in this thread keep saying "oh fix it" and "display more comics." That is fucking regulation there. Right now comic stores sell what sells. This skirting of what you actually want to be done to get your outcome is weasel language. Apparently, starting yoru own store and publishers is too much work, but SJW'ing on HN is just fine. Nothing like low-effort whining eh?

Retail space is limited so the lowest common denominator items will be sold to maximize profit. Its not a conspiracy against your values. Its just business.

>This article should feature a bunch of blank photos representing the comics that don't exist. Those are the problem. It's ok to have super sexed-up comics in the store, but it's really sad that's all they have.

It's a vicious cycle. Comic book stores sell products that appeal to adolescent men, because their customers are adolescent men, because comic book stores sell products that appeal to adolescent men.

You can easily find English-language translations of the kind of Manga you describe, or of Franco-Belgian comics, but most American comic book stores won't make any effort to stock them, because they don't expect to sell them.

Here in Europe the comics market is more diverse, but that's as much an accident of history as anything else. For "normal" comic shops to exist, you need both a tradition of "normal" comics and a market for them, neither of which really exists in the US. You had Stan Lee and Siegel & Shuster, we had Hergé, Franquin and Peyo, and from there we diverged.

Amazon and online retail are actually a huge sociological problem in this context. If you can just order manga you like, and form bonds w/ online communities of folks w/ similar tastes on tumblr or twitter or wherever, what's the incentive to go to a physical place in your town?

Gaming stores have reinvented themselves as places to play games with others, but it'd be an interesting challenge to reinvent comic shops in that same way.

In the New England area, I think Newbury Comics has done a good job of reinventing itself -- it wasn't ever (in my memory at least) just a comics store and made a lot of its money from music for a while, but if you go in there now it's got some movies, music, a comic section/room, but it's mostly other stuff -- merchandise from trendy games, shows, movies etc. Funny/quirky gifts, toys, jewelry, etc.

Maybe doesn't appeal to die hard comic book fans, but it's a fun experience for the casual shopper, which makes it viable. My 12 year old is always excited to stop in there.

How can the market fix this?

If there is not enough demand, then publishers aren't going to create these titles.

As the parent mentioned, if you go to Japan, you'll see a thriving market for manga that appeals to girls of varying age groups. So, this would lead one to believe that the demand exists now, it's just completely untapped here. (Ignoring possible cultural differences.) Do you know how you create a large comic book market for older girls / women? Get them hooked when they're young on age-appropriate material, treat them well, and you'll create that market.

Consider 'normal' books. Kids (including girls) have a wide variety of age-appropriate books in a large amount of genres to choose from. I don't understand how there could be a demand for these books, and not those same books with added pictures in them.

> (Ignoring possible cultural differences.)

Well, that's a big part of it.

>Well, that's a big part of it.

Fair enough. I didn't want to get into it because I wanted to keep my point succinct but I believe the main point still applies. You want to change the fact that in the US, comics are only for kids/nerds? Get kids involved early, don't alienate them, and what was once only for geeks and nerds will be for everyone.

The titles already exist. The excellent clerk at my local comic store made me a long list of american and international series for my daughter to check out and I've been very impressed. Most of them have to be ordered though, and none are prominently displayed.

So it isn't so much that the titles aren't being created, but I think you're right that the demand will affect what is visible on store shelves.

Any specific ones from that list that you recommend?

Mouse Guard was excellent. Sometimes a little dark, but honestly, there are a lot of childhood classics that are more than a little dark.

You're giving the producers and distributors far too much credit.

> It's ok to have super sexed-up comics in the store, but it's really sad that's all they have.

I've never been to a comics store where that's all they have. Heck, even the comics selection in non-comics stores that carry some comics usually isn't limited to just that.

Its probably the majority of what they have, because the people that buy it are the ones who will by more comics if more of what they want to buy is available, so its the most profitable segment of the market to serve with comics.

> Japanese manga is fully of sexy, weird, objectifying stuff that most people really wouldn't want their kids to see, but go to a bookstore in Japan and you'll also see bookcase after bookcase of manga totally appropriate for all ages with young girls pressing their nose into them. Stories about teenage girls getting picked on at school or trying to meet the right guy or saying stupid things in class. Stories about girls who are in bands and office workers and every possible thing.

I think the big difference here is that the US cultures differs in that it has a very big "picture books are for children who are still learning to read or male adolescents" thing which skews the market for comic books, Japanese culture is different.

> I think the comic industry, video games, tech, and geek culture in general are all going through growing pains as they find adoption in a larger market.

In some cases, I think that's true. In some cases, though, I don't think its so much that the industries are really finding adoption in a larger market, its that people with ideological axes to grind who aren't part of the market are coming to those industries and beating on them for not even trying to find a broader market but instead doing what they've done for a long time to focus on a market that is well-proven.

"""I've never been to a comics store where that's all they have"""

I've been to plenty of comics stores that only have Marvel and DC, which are the super sexed-up comics being complained about. (Sometimes they'll have an "indie" section in the back with a few Dark Horse and Image trades).

I've been in comic stores that are going hard for the 16-year-old male demographic, and I've been in comic stores that are very friendly. (The latter even has adult stuff, but it's up high or in the back.)

A very good rule is to look in the window from the outside. If you can look in the window, that's a good sign.

That's the problem with these dialogues. Often left-leaning types see them as justification for censorship and shaming when the real issue is market penetration and audience.

I can walk my son through the girly section of 'toys r us' and see nothing but men represented as effeminate "prince" types who's only main motivation in life is finding a princess. The tumbler social justice warriors don't care about that, being mostly female, it doesn't affect them and they probably don't even notice. That doesn't mean we need more manly men in that section, it just means that certain audiences want certain things. Gender is an audience. Its weird that we pretend gender doesn't exist and how it affects us and our fiction consuming habits.

>We need more articles like this helping people realize what a "normal" comic shop could look like.

Its probably a little too late for that. The shops are folding due to digital distribution and they've somehow become even more manboy friendly as the hardcore and die-hards dictate demand. This is like saying that there aren't enough gay-friendly adult bookstores in your town. Um, sure, but the gays are just using the web like normal people. Or that the vinyl record store only has hipster stuff and not the new Kanye. Normal people are using itunes and google play.

If anything, the retail experience for things that can be gotten online easier is going to be skewed to a weird demographic. The great thing is that online and digital distribution lowers the barrier to entry and even with these low barriers, feminist comics are low on the demand side. Turns out a lot of girls just don't give a shit what activists tell them to do, which I think is wonderful. Girls can buy the girliest visual novel on steam then load up the most macho FPS game afterwards. Let them choose. Hand wringing and guilt trips are totally optional.

That's the problem with these dialogues. Often right-leaning types see them as ways to avoid having to take any responsibility or action for anything by claiming the real issues are things that are the neutral mechanics of an impersonal market.

There, fixed.

Except we've had a history of censorship and its been historically horrible. This is just a new Comics Code Authority Code. So yeah, we tried the liberal censorship (protect the $minority, $gender, $children) approach and its a massive failure because TOP DOWN CONTROL OF CULTURE IS HARMFUL.

Instead lower barriers, give people choice, don't guilt them, open markets, etc. Let speech and art flourish. Political correctness is the opposite of this.

Wow, I'm not sure who you're responding to. I was remarking on the diversionary tactic of using impersonal markets to avoid taking responsibility. Perhaps I hit a nerve.

I've read every comment on this page until this one so far, and you are the only one making this political. Who are you arguing with?

Your over-reliance on political straw men ("left-leaning types," "social justice warriors," "liberal censorship") might turn people off to your actual ideas.

It did me. The term "social justice warrior", like "nation-state", serves primarily as a flag-term that tells me I can stop listening.

Wow, that's the first time I've ever heard the Comics Code Authority called "liberal".

I think parent and grandparent posts both have somewhat valid if overstated points, but have improperly used "left-wing" and "right-wing" in place of "pro-censorship" and "anti-censorship".

Pro-censorship arguments can come from the right (and often do), and anti-censorship arguments in favor or personal choice driving availability can come from the left (and often do.)

Usually, there's slightly different subject matter that left- and right-wing pro-censorship folks target, though sexualized images of women tend to be targeted by both, though with different rationales.

I think that making it about 'censorship' immediately betrays a kind of knee-jerk status quo defending.

There are some folks who would want to see censorship of this kind of material, I'm sure. But I've not met them. And it certainly isn't what the vast, vast majority of feminists and social justice campaigners are interested in.

I don't want censorship for anything. I think people should be perfectly entitled to produce comics with toxic representations of blacks, Jews, Christians, LGBT+ folks, whoever. But I want to agitate and educate for a culture in which such representations are rightly considered unpleasant and unwelcome to most people. I want to change the culture so that those kind of facile objectifications are seen for what they are, and where most people reject them accordingly.

The idea that this is about censorship, is a strawman, as far as I can see. Remember Voltaire.

Unfortunately, it is common for some people to confuse organisation against something with censorship of it.

> The tumbler social justice warriors don't care about that

Yes they do! People are constantly talking about the stupid gendering of toys that don't need to be gendered.

Right. In fact the only people I see talking about this are feminists (SJWs if you like). The only time it comes up in MRA arguments is as this kind of attempt to find a defeater.

Generally, they talk about how its affects girls. My point is that flip-side (effeminate princes) is not a major social issue to them, the same way comic shops marketed and targeted to boys aren't a major issue to boys.

Now the "tough girl" trope is in full effect in fiction. If you portray a feminine girl in YA story you're going to deal with massive protests. We're going to look back at this period and wonder why we thought the Katnis Everdeening of all thing was a good idea and why we no longer have realistic girl characters. Unless they know kung-fu and are tough as nails they don't get published. This doesn't reflect real world girls at all.

"""Generally, they talk about how its affects girls. My point is that flip-side (effeminate princes) is not a major social issue to them, the same way comic shops marketed and targeted to boys aren't a major issue to boys."""

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I seem to have missed the suggestion of censorship. Or did you bring that up for some reason?

Yes, that what I thought too - manga is the answer, at least for some time. They have lots of different stuff for all ages, except of course there is also a huge amount of similar mainstream "adult" stuff.

I would like to chime in and say that if there is story, any story (or even no story) at all - there is manga about it. And interesting thing is, according to https://www.mangaupdates.com/genres.html - there is more series targeted at girls than boys: shoujo - ~17K, shounen - almost 9K. Though it's almost reversed for 18-30 age group: josei - ~7K, seinen - ~12K. In sum female oriented works trump male oriented (24 vs 21).

If only Japanese publishers (or it's laws?) were not so narrow minded and hired fans that translate those mangas to fill something like iTunes/Steam library, any human being of any age and sex would have something to read their whole life.

>Japanese manga is fully of sexy, weird, objectifying stuff that most people really wouldn't want their kids to see, but go to a bookstore in Japan and you'll also see bookcase after bookcase of manga totally appropriate for all ages with young girls pressing their nose into them. Stories about teenage girls getting picked on at school or trying to meet the right guy or saying stupid things in class. Stories about girls who are in bands and office workers and every possible thing.

I, uh, read a lot of manga intended for teenaged Japanese girls. The ironic thing is, a lot of times even the manga intended for girls is mildly sexualized to please members of the peripheral male demographics, yet the original female audience doesn't run away screaming in response. Guys enjoy "girls comics," and vice versa, and growing up around female anime and manga fans, I never really questioned it. Stories about girls trying to choose between a group of handsome suitors, or stories about guys surrounded by improbably attractive women. Cutesy slice-of-life, or ultra-violence. Ones with boobies and panty shots out the wazoo, or ones with homoerotic undertones... we didn't care, we watched it all together.

Meanwhile, in our more "enlightened" mainstream American culture, people write angry blog posts filled with stupid impact font image macros about how they literally judged an entire medium by its cover, because the female body is offensive or something.

This is such a good post, its shameful the HN political correctness crowd have downvoted it so. I don't think HN is a mature enough forum for this discussion. Its just a reddit-like upvote/downvote gamificiation machine at this point.

I find it amusing that American culture dictates that once you become 18 you are now sexualized and free to partake of whatever media you like, but an hour before your birthday you are an asexual being with no interest in things other than what the political correct types dictate.

A lot of this stuff is aimed for the 14-18 group where puberty kicks in. Yes, there are boobs and bulging crotches! The characters sometimes have sex! I know, its crazy! It almost reflects the hormonal madness of puberty.

The problem is American culture is so damn puritanical that not only have we dismissed this kind of art as victimizing, if not illegal, that we pretend that the status quo of this level of censorship is fine. Puberty will find a way. Kids will date, fuck, get high, etc. Why our art needs to reflect some kind of Judeo-Christian 1950s ideal is beyond me. Heaven forbid kids that age are represented as how they truly are or art they want is aimed at them. Or that, heaven forbid to SJW types, that most people don't have a problem with traditional gender roles. A manga about a girl trying to get a boyfriend shouldn't cause a social catastrophe. Its fine.

I think this kind of thing is a legitimate social panic, the same way people were obsessed with Satanism in the 1980s. We're going to look back at these ultra-politically correct attitudes today and wonder why we were so worried about displaying traditional roles, sexuality, and violence in fiction.

I like your post, but I'll just say that nobody I know personally would care about displaying traditional roles, sexuality, and violence. When people get pissed I think what they're mostly pissed about is the ridiculous caricaturization that occurs. For instance, a movie with tons of ass-kicking makes you feel excited. Realistic portrayals of violence usually makes you feel sick and horrible. Similarly with sex and gender roles. Much could be said on the topic, but my feeling is that too much of the caricature-fiction produces similar effects as eating too much candy. It's fine in small quantities, but not something to organize your diet around.

In fact, I'd be interested to see who's getting upset about realistic portrayals of anything. Even with the caveats about what would count as a 'realistic portrayal' I think you'd be left with a tiny minority of weirdos and chronic pains-in-the-asses.

I think you and ANTSANTS have both missed the point of the article. It's not about puritanism, though there is plenty of that to be found in American culture. It's about objectification.

Objectification literally means treating a person like a thing. An example of objectification would be a "damsel-in-distress" character with no personality of her own, that exists only as a "reward" for the hero after his struggles. The characters in these comics are not objectified, they are sexualized. They are designed to be sexually attractive, often sporting revealing outfits and exaggerated proportions, but they are still characters with their own personalities, motives, agency, strengths, weaknesses, struggles, and stories. The conflation of the two is absolutely a neo-puritan problem.

If you have problems with your elementary school aged kids seeing sexualized images of women, maybe you shouldn't be buying them comic books about Batman beating criminals into pulps either.

> The conflation of the two is absolutely a neo-puritan problem.

No, I think you're quite mistaken. Japanese culture is even more male-chauvinist than American culture. Gender roles, while loosening a little in recent years, are still extremely rigid. How long do you think it will be before Japan has a female Prime Minister? 50 years? 100?

The presentation of girls and women in fiction is part of the culture, both reflecting it and playing some role -- probably not small -- in perpetuating it. The relentless, unceasing portrayal of sexualized women characters sends the message that the value of women is in their sexuality -- not their intelligence, their emotional perceptiveness, their leadership qualities, or any of hundreds of other positive attributes I could name and that women, like men, possess in varying degrees. That drumbeat -- inescapably present in American culture as well as Japanese -- is heard clearly by both girls and boys, and shapes their attitudes about gender roles.

I'm not trying to play cultural superiority here. Most cultures on this planet have a problem in this area, and the US is no shining exemplar. But holding Japan up as having particularly healthy gender psychology is rather naïve.

And there is such a thing as sexual objectification. If they're such strong characters, then wouldn't they still be as interesting and appealing if physically portrayed as small-chested and straight-waisted and wearing loose t-shirts and jeans?

The truth is that their character depictions are made rich IF doing so serves the story. But their physical portrayal serves no purpose except titillation. (And don't get me wrong, titillation has it's time and place and we could argue forever about whether its overwhelming prevalence in superhero comics is that place.) To claim otherwise is disingenuous.

> Meanwhile, in our more "enlightened" mainstream American culture, people write angry blog posts filled with stupid impact font image macros about how they literally judged an entire medium by its cover, because the female body is offensive or something.

It is absolutely offensive when it is posed in an unreal and unnatural way with impossible proportions and impossible looks.

I get that they are comics, but a story about super girl where she has a perfect 36-24-36 with Tripple F boobs that are molded and sculpted and pointed so far north you could almost navigate by them...it...it is a bit ridiculous.

Fun to look at, yes, but they don't offer much other than a fantasy.

Batman is improbably built. See how his muscles bulge preposterously from his armor? [1] In real life, most body builders focused on "aesthetics" would have to starve themselves to bring their body fat levels low enough to create that kind of appearance. They would not have the energy afterwards to serve Gotham. A fighter [2] or soldier [3] like Batman would prefer to build up "functional" muscle that will be useful in combat, and maintain much greater body fat levels to provide energy reserves in tough situations. Is Batman "offensive," or is exaggeration a basic element of art?

[1] http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/Batsuit-Reveal-...

[2] http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2011/1223/mma_2011best_29.jpg

[3] https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3c/f4/81/3cf4816e3...

I hate to respond with an image macro, but in summary: https://i.imgur.com/MMdocdc.jpg

Two things:

1. killertypo is talking about the way /women/ are portrayed in comic books — not men. He may think the way men are portrayed is wrong as well, so bringing up Batman makes no sense.

2. The way men and women are portrayed is vastly different. Male superheroes are written (and drawn) as people you want to be, women superheroes are written (and drawn) as people you want to have sex with. This wouldn't be such a big deal if this wasn't the norm.

Check out the Hawkeye Initiative [1], Hawkeye is drawn the way female characters are drawn. Notice that you never see comic book heroes drawn that way unless they're women.

[1] http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/

Again, I hate to respond in image macros, but the idea that women don't find men like Batman or Spider Man attractive is bullshit.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/258/9/6/tumblr_mtg09c...

(what do you know, the comic that image mocks was written by a guy...)

I'm sorry, but things like the "Hawkeye initiative" are just plain stupid for completely overlooking the differences between male and female sexuality. Look at the romance novel covers above and try to tell me they wouldn't look absolutely ridiculous with the genders swapped. It reminds me of sites like "Escher Girls", a collection of "boobs and butt" poses in art that the bloggers think are "anatomically impossible" and "disturbing", despite being absolutely trivial for men and women to perform alike.

http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/

http://pirate-cashoo.tumblr.com/post/26538269244

https://twitter.com/kinucakes/status/552353978378633218

And judging by the number of female comic book character cosplayers, I think it's safe to say that quite a few women "want to be" these characters, sexualized or not, as well. Women have created strong, sexualized, camp characters like Bayonetta explicitly as female power fantasies, but that never stops a certain band of puritanical American feminists from branding them as "offensive" symbols of the patriarchy.

http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/

http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/bayonetta/1013849p1.html

http://platinumgames.com/2014/06/27/character-design-pt-1-ba...

Sexuality isn't the problem. Whatever you find sexy is whatever you find sexy and there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem is when media gets sexualized to the point where children grow up thinking only one way of looking at sexuality is the right way. It creates body image-related traumas that get reinforced in places like schools where kids are often taunted for not having the 'right' type. This should be fought whenever possible.

Let's try this again.

Your initial argument was essentially "but men are sexualized too!" And that was irrelevant, because we're talking about ladies.

That comic you posted actually sums it up pretty well, super heroes are drawn as male power fantasies. Also notice I never said anything about women finding Batman unattractive, the problem is that women are drawn almost exclusively to please just men. (Look up male gaze)

If I started reading romance novels, then I too might give a damn if my gender is normally portrayed in certain ways. But I read comic books and found myself enjoying the ones where women get to be people to.

>Check out the Hawkeye Initiative [1], Hawkeye is drawn the way female characters are drawn. Notice that you never see comic book heroes drawn that way unless they're women.

OR unless you're reading Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

http://theglorioblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/jojos-bizar... -- pictured: some kinda Aztec vampire thingy eating some poor soul

Damn, I really should have included JoJo as an example of straight male manga fans being totally cool with ludicrously flamboyant male characters.

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121201210751/jjba/image...

http://animebot.everyboty.net/pix/2994.png

Bishounen is quite popular in Japan, many studios often use this art style, as well as female and male mangaka.

Also "Aztec vampire thingies"? Kars and his lot are the progenitors of mankind.

No, the Pillar Men are a prehistoric cousin-species that couldn't withstand UV light and ate both humans and ordinary vampires. The Aztecs worshiped them as gods, and Cars' attempt to mutate himself into an even-more-super superbeing was what created the Stone Mask.

(Yes, I do remember far too much, far too easily about fine details of anime stories.)

Yes, of course the portrayal of men is oversexualized and problematic. Next question.

"Problematic?" Why is that? Straight women and gay men enjoying beefcake aren't hurting anyone.

the portrayal of men is just as dumb and unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy comics quite a bit (Infinity Guantlet anyone? Planet Hulk? World War Hulk???)

I think hyper sexualization of any gender is stupid and serves more as softcore porn than anything.

It is just slightly more offensive to women who spent a long time in our history being told "Well maybe you shouldn't have worn that dress and he wouldn't have hit on you the way he did."

BUT HEY before this gets out of hand, it is equally as degrading as putting down a man for "Well if your wife hits you and you just take it, your a little b()."

There has to be some give and take on this issue, it is not so clearly black and white.

I'm a big enough adult to recognize it's just stupid to think I can change comics and how they are drawn. Maybe if there were a bit more selection for my daughter so she could ease her way into it though? That would be pretty cool.

We're talking about creating a business out of an existing business.

Not getting rid of what we have, at some point you have to accept the reality of the world we live in. I don't want to strike down comic books, but it would be cool if they had a bigger selection for my kids (who would love to enjoy what daddy is reading, but they can wait until they're more mentally/emotionally/physically developed before being exposed).

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/01/16/9-incredible-examples...

here is a great example of how to make interesting and compelling art without drawing your females as hyper sexualized pieces of meat.

Sans the DBZ one, which is -okayish- but still debatable.

The men are sexualized too. Just not in the hyper masculine sense.

Half baked idea for broadening the U.S. comics market.

There is some familiarity with manga in the U.S. I've seen tankobon format translations in Barnes and Noble and public libraries. But there's not the same association with super heroes for books in that format.

So create new works of English language sequential art, but publish them in tankobon format. You could market them to whatever market segment you like, without the superheroes-for-adolescent-males stereotype. You could connect with the existing manga fans first (many of whom already want to prove "Comic books aren't just for teenage boys!"), then broaden out from there.

Has anyone already tried this?

They've been trying that for 20 years.

> What's not super is that it's really the only kind.

well, there are some exceptions, like Ms. Marvel (http://marvel.com/characters/1017577/ms_marvel_kamala_khan/f...) or latest run of She-Hulk (http://marvel.com/comics/issue/49122/she-hulk_2014_8)

Well that, and his comic book store sucks.

The store I go to has an entire rack/shelf/section for kids. On that rack is MLP, Lego, Minecraft, and a lot of other stuff. Options exist, that store didn't have them available and was probably just hyperfocused on what has traditionally sold, which is a shame because they lose the chance to pick up a new audience. If more stores carried it, the hope is more girls would buy them, and more of those comics would exist, the same way there are 8 parallel running Batman series all with women drawn to to appeal to the instinctual desires of young men.

Side note: The author also seems to have a perception issues that is very telling in his expectations about comics, and fails to realize there are also a lot more in those comics that are reasons you wouldn't want your seven year old reading them beyond the way women are depicted (which is a point I agree with, I think its ridiculous too, and I don't buy those comics). There are a lot of themes in comics that are made for more mature audiences, the writer just sounds kind of ignorant of the media. He thinks "comics are for kids" for example. No, Archie comics are for kids. Comics haven't "been for kids" since the Comic Authority was still prevalent, he's at least a decade or two out of touch. It's almost entirely geared towards teens and young adults, you know, the ones with disposable income who drop $5 per comic. The lack of options sucks, but like most modern retail industries, the industry is optimized to stock/create and churn out what sells the most. Kids under 10 don't buy nearly as many comics as the 17-50 male who will walk out with 5-30 comics sometimes after pay day.

It's kind of like the parent that complains about the prevalence M rated games because video games are for kids. That medium changed a lot since they were playing Nintendo, or video games first came out and mainly only appealed to kids. Those kids grew up, and they still play video games/read comics, but they spend a lot more on them, but want more sex/violence/darker themes, so the market adapted because they want money. The problem is your comic book shop doesn't even stock the equivalent of a Nintendo games section for the younger audience. He's worried about his daughter, but he probably let his kid walk out with comics that are on the level of GTA, just because it was "Batman".

I've never understood Americans' obsession with superhero comics. When I was a kid I was reading Asterix[1], Gaston Lagaffe[2], Spirou et Fantasio[3], Lucky Luke[4], Prince Valiant[5], The Phantom[6] and similar stuff. Of course, I've read Superman, Batman and Spiderman also but at least I've had a choice. I can't understand why they don't exist in US, why are the only comic books Americans know superhero comics?

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_%28comics%29

[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirou_et_Fantasio

[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luke

[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Valiant

[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom

I grew up in Sweden so I rather fittingly had a school library with comics about norse mythology. [1]

Also I think everyone in Sweden has heard of Goliat. [2]

[1] http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhall_%28tecknad_serie%29

[2] http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliat_%28tecknad_serie%29

Superheroes of a different era.

No, not if the comics stay true to the mythology, anyway. Norse mythology is pretty similar to Greek. The Gods aren't really heroes; they are Gods. They lack the "hero" in "superhero".

The Marvel depiction of Loki is not as one-dimensional as that of Lex Luthor, for example, but the underlying myths actually depicts him a bit more nuanced still. And while the Gods are generally good, they are also at times foolish, funny and arrogant.

With wish fulfillment superpowers but recognizable as human.

Not all comic superheroes are two dimensional.

Read up on the history of the Comics Code Authority[1]; I suspect that after the Comics Code was introduced, the remaining comic publishers were over-eager to prove their products were the exact opposite of the content prohibited by the Code, setting the thematic pendulum forever swinging toward and away from that content, instead of exploring broader themes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority

Yes, this exactly. The CCA grew out of a widespread moral panic about comic book content, and its effects on youth. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seduction_of_the_Innocent. Basically, after this, the once thriving comics industry in the USA was reduced to just superheroes as all other genres like romance, horror, detectives (there's a reason Batman was published in detective comics), science fiction, were considered too "dangerous." It's quite unfortunate.

There's other reasons of course as well - notably the rise of the collectors market, but the USA today is still overwhelmingly dominated by superheroes in the comics market.

FWIW I read Asterix, TinTin, Lucky Luke and grew up in America.

Asterix and Lucky Luke humour still makes me laugh. So many levels in deceptively simple drawings.

Later I spent a huge amount of time on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9onard_(comics)

I loved Asterix comics as a kid, but my all-time favourites were the Commando comics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_%28comics%29

Grew up in South America. I read Disney comics. I found and tried to get into Marvel comics when I got older, but couldn't get into them. Too much stuff needing me to read other series ("hey if you want to know how The Hulk got here and saved IronMan from this peril, read xxx chapter y") to know what happened.

I grew up on Asterix and Tintin.

How is Asterix not a superhero, though?

Asterix isn't a superhero - he's just a normal guy till he has his potion. I guess you could argue Obelix is, since it had a permanent effect on him. Neither of them dress up (any more that the rest of the characters).

Batman is just a normal guy with a lot of money, and still considered a superhero.

But Batman has a cape. Asterix and Obelix got their clothes made by Edna Mode: "no capes!".

The money only affects his capabilities. Rorschach only had a mask and an unshakable sense of purpose.

Asterix is an adventurer, not a superhero. He doesn't go around righting wrongs, he has adventures.

> "I've never understood Americans' obsession with superhero comics. When I was a kid I was reading Asterix[1], Gaston Lagaffe[2], Spirou et Fantasio[3], Lucky Luke[4], Prince Valiant[5], The Phantom[6]"

It is a culture thing. Growing up in latinamerica in the 80's and 90's meant that I have access to four of the comics you mention and the ones coming from USA. Asterix's stories for instance were cool but I still preferred reading Superman, and I guess that's because in my original country we were closer to USA's culture than French culture.

Similar comics existed (and exist) growing up in the U.S., but they are less prominent in comic book stores, and more prominent in traditional book stores or the Sunday paper. E.g., Calvin and Hobbes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes).

We got those in addition to those. E.g. Calvin and Hobbes had a monthly magazine in Norway until a decade after Watterson stopped drawing (publishing reruns after they'd run dry of original material) alongside guest series. On top of that comes the collected editions.

Some US newspaper strip artists end up earning more from Scandinavia (aggregate potential market of about 25 million) than the US because of this.

As far as I can tell, many of the would-be non-superhero comic creators and readers skipped past print and moved to web comics. There's a huge variety in that space.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. America has non-superhero comics, of course - the Sandman series, Y: The Last Man, Preacher, The Walking Dead, American Vampire, etc.

...but Marvel Comics is superheros. Marvel is owned by Disney, and Disney has a huge marketing budget. DC Comics is superheros...owned by Warner Brothers.

EDIT: yeah...none of those that I mentioned are remotely for kids. Hmmm.

Allow me to add Elfquest, Cerebus the Aardvark, TMNT, Love and Rockets, and R. Crumb! Not sure if all of those are American or not, but a few of the non-superhero books I (as an American) grew up with.

Of course none of them was ever that widely known (apart from TMNT after it stopped being a comic), so the original point about the US and superheroes certainly remains.

I imagine it's partly due to the legacy of the CCA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority].

I think Cerebus is not a very good answer to the concerns brought up in this piece.

+bignum. I never minded impossibly proportioned Marvel heroines, but Cerberus put me off of comics for years.

I haven't read the article, its server is [edit:was] down. I was replying to the parent comments.

Probably not a good idea to have one's young daughter read Cerebus is I guess what I'm saying.

Not a good idea to have one's young son read it either.

As opposed to R. Crumb?

Sure - nor anything else I mentioned, nor anything in the post I replied to. They were just some non-superhero comics.

I'm from the UK and loved my occasional childhood holidays in France or Portugal for a chance to buy Lucky Luke and Pink Panther comics. For some reason Asterix and Tintin were popular in the UK but other Franco-Belgian comics didn't take off. There were a few 70s prints of Lucky Luke and I have one translated 1970s Iznogoud but they went out of print quickly until Cinebook [0] started selling new translations about a decade ago, and the characters are much less well-known here than on the continent.

I think Gaston is still unavailable in English - I'm not such a fan of Spirou and Fantasio but I recently bought Cinebook's "The Marsupliami Thieves" as it was the only Franquin book available in English, sadly.

By the way, a recent HN thread on internationalization mentioned how few really well localized film translations there are and gave Shrek and Frozen as examples of good ones. The English translations of Asterix were brilliant and full of English-specific puns, presumably replacing original French puns (I have read some of them in French but my French is not really good enough for wordplay).

(edit: Although obviously the UK has its own tradition of kids-including-girls-friendly comics: Beano, Dandy, and many others. And for a modern equivalent I like the Phoenix comic [1]. But comic book shops here are mostly also very full of superhero comics and adult manga and not young-girl-friendly.)

[0] http://www.cinebook.co.uk [1] http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/

Like you, I enjoy Gaston significantly more than Spirou; he also has a more adult work called Idées noires (Dark Thoughts), which is filled with great (and often disturbing) dark humor. It's probably not translated to English either, alas.

The Americans have produced the following fantastic series: [1] The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_Scrooge_M... [2] Donald Duck Adventures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_Adventures

Many of the non-superhero comic books in the U.S. end up being adult themed for various reasons. Even many notable French artists are only known here for their work in magazines like Heavy Metal.

One I grew up with (that I probably shouldn't have had as a child) was the Conan the Barbarian comics. Definitely not a superhero title, and definitely skewed towards the adult demographic.

Asterix has tried to penetrate the U.S. market several times, but the style says "newspaper comic strip" to Americans and that's where it got stuck.

Prince Valiant is also an American comic, shown mostly in newspapers.

Spirou et Fantasio looks excellent, I don't think there's ever been a concerted effort to translate the title into English.

Same with Gaston.

I personally think there's a deep well of wonderful French comics that have yet to really make it into the American market: Valérian and Laureline, Blueberry, Arzach, etc. Where the artwork and writing are wonderful. But then again, I think Arzach and other Moebius works ended up here under the Heavy Metal books, which are widely known among late-teen early adult readers.

> Even many notable French artists are only known here for their work in magazines like Heavy Metal.

It's not the artist, it's the environment. Moebius did amazing and innovative comics for the French and Belgian markets. Guess what he did once arrived in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraud#Marvel_Comics

hmmm...that's depressing.

I don't know about any previous attempts but Cinebook are working on Spirou et Fantasio in English - they're still ongoing but they're not in the original order (the 7 so far are 5 80s Tome & Janry titles followed by two Franquin 50s titles) so who knows how many they plan to do. http://www.cinebook.co.uk/index.php?cPath=182

It's a British English translation but I think any UK/US differences will be fairly small compared to the cultural differences from the original source era. I have books 2 and 5 and to be honest the racial stereotypes in book #2, from 1987, are more troubling than anything I remember in book #5, from 1952!

Fantastic! I'll have to seek these out.

I almost keep wanting to take some time to learn some basic French so I can read French comics. (I know it sounds kind of trite, but whatever motivates I suppose).

I was surprised the first time I went to France, I was more or less able to make out the gist of the majority of the Museum placards and explanations when there wasn't an English translation available. Common ancestor, French influence, Latin and all that.

From the Wikipedia page on the "Golden Age" of comics.

"Although the creation of the superhero was the Golden Age's most significant contribution to pop culture, many genres appeared on the newsstands, including humor, Western, romance, and jungle stories. The Steranko History of Comics 2 notes that it was the non-superhero characters of Dell Comics — most notably the licensed Walt Disney animated character comics — that outsold all the supermen of the day. Dell Comics, featuring such licensed movie and literary properties as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Roy Rogers, and Tarzan, boasted circulations of over two million copies a month, and Donald Duck writer-artist Carl Barks is considered one of the era's major talents."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Comic_Books

There are also Wikipedia pages for Western and Romance comics.

So there used to be other kinds of comics in the U.S. As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, the Comics Code Authority seems to have marked the end of non-superhero comics.

Mafalda seems exactly what you are looking for. Perfect for smart little girls.

Calvin and Hobbes, Marsupilami, The Smurfs, Superlopez, Asterix, Gaston, Spirou, Lucky luke, Zipi y Zape, Rompetechos, Mortadelo y Filemón, El botones sacarino, Tintin...

For those who honestly believe that women will never want to read comics - look into webcomics. A huge proportion of the reader base for a good, PG-13(-ish) webcomic will likely be female, and there's a number of webcomics that are targeted towards women. A number of these comics will eventually be printed and sold, usually via the Internet, sometimes at conventions.

I went to the Thoughtbubble Comic Convention last year in the UK, and returned with a hefty bag full of comics that do not exaggerate sexual characteristics (or, in fact, mention sex at all in most cases), focusing on good art and a compelling storyline. Some of these are webcomics, some were designed to be sold as graphic novels and serial comics.

The comic book store is a remarkably poor selection of what's out there, and I think they might've got themselves into a recursive image problem - they stock primarily comics for a certain audience, so only that audience go there, so any change is not welcomed.

Oh yeah, Cucumber Quest (http://cucumber.gigidigi.com) is pretty excellent for any age and has multiple female protagonists.

Oh wow! I remember being introduced to that, and thought it was really cute, but stopped reading it due to real life things. I'll have to bookmark and catch up again.

Schlock Mercenary (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/) also has a large number of strong female characters. It's a comic space opera.

Having recently been on a comics binge after 20+ years of reading very few US comics and only slightly more European comics, and definitively not being very sensitive to this issue, I must admit it's still very much more noticeable today. The number of "lets make sure her ass shows" "shots" is much higher than I remember. Occasionally you even have characters comment on it. I'd think that if this was as prevalent when I was in my teens, I'd have much more vivid memories of it.

Most of the characters that were clearly targeted at children when I grew up are now clearly targeted at adults or at least teenagers. E.g. compare X-Men, Spiderman or Avengers from the last 10 years with the 1980's. The dialogue and over-exposition and extensive abuse of soliloquies alone in the 80's Marvel was something I didn't even remember from when reading it as a kid, but which makes a lot of them unreadable to me except for the nostalgia today (compare with Alan Moore's legendary Swamp Thing run which has kept fantastically), but the drawings were also lot less "realistic" and so I at least don't remember the same amount of overly sexualized images.

But at the same time, as some of the commenters on the article points out, there are also a number of titles with characters that fit better for younger readers, and some of them with female leads, and generally more diverse such as the new Ms Marvel (which is a teenage muslim girl of pakistani descent) as Marvel in particular seems to want to capture a wider audience.

I could be wrong, but weren't X-Men, Spiderman and the like always in the trash department of comics? From a European perspective it always seemed so. Sure they have a lot of fans, but they are not really representative of quality comics. (and by trash I mean silly stereotypes and exaggerations are basically implied).

The entire US superhero genre, with some notable exceptions, were in the "trash department of comics". You are right they are not representative of quality comics, but they were and are representative of a large segment of what sells.

Though especially in Europe there's a wider segment of non-superhero comics that sells well (and often outsells Marvel/DC titles by a wide margin), and that is not nearly as sexualised - see my comment elsewhere. But these are very poorly represented in most comic stores in English speaking countries.

The high brow stuff, even in Europe, sold - and sells - in far smaller quantities.

My daughter is seven, and she comes with me to the comic book shop several times a month. She has 2-3 comics a week on her pull list -- Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo Team-Up, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Tiny Titans (until it goes back on hiatus again), My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. We just got into an arguement the other day -- I am NOT buying two copies of Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl a month, she can just borrow mine. Get yourself a copy of the Diamond catalog (it's right there in the store, or you can normally find the solicits on the publisher's websites -- look for Boom and IDW especially, in addition to the Big Two), find stuff your daughter might like, and tell the store to order it for you. Or go to a different comic book store, if they won't. I've been going to the same comic book shop for years now, even though there's five shops closer (I drive by at least one comic book shop on the way to my regular shop), because they'll order what I want, and they even let me know when there's things they think she might want to read.

Thanks for that list, going to buy some of them for my daughter now.

I might tend to disagree with the author's final conclusion, that his daughter is too young to understand (at least about sexism and double standards, if not sex). Talking about this subject with your daughter when she brings it up is absolutely appropriate. There is lots of societal pressure on very young girls to fit a specific mold. It starts with very mundane differences... like short/long hair.

Two weeks ago, for example, my daughter and I had a play date with a friend and his son. As we're leaving the basketball court, and putting on our winter jackets, my daughter says to him: "that's a cool jacket". To which the son replies: "this is a BOY jacket". My daughter laughed and said: "that's silly".

Anyway, speaking of Comics, PaperCutz has some very nice ones that my 5 year old daughter loves: http://papercutz.com/comics/monster

Agreed on she probably not being too young to understand. And the whole "if she dresses sexy we'll lock her up ha ha" just sounded wrong.

As another suggestion, Orc Girl[1] is nice, though somewhat dark.

[1] http://readchallenger.com/comic/orc-girl/

His daughter.

Thank you for correcting me; I originally wrote "her daughter" when I meant "his daughter".

I had a similar 'revelation' with violence in video games. I knew a lot of games were violent, but it wasn't until I found my 2 year old son watching me murder human after human with a crossbow in Tomb Raider that I 'got it'. It has ruined AAA video games for me.

I solved the problem by buying a Wii U. I'm not sure why that's better. I have killed hundreds of pikmin, squashed hundreds of goomba and worst of all, used the blue shell in anger. It's still incredibly violent, but I'm not willfully enjoying a murder simulator.

I could be wrong but it seems you have issues with the idea of games for adults and games for kids. The fact that a game is unsuitable for your child to play, or even watch you play, prevents you from enjoying certain games seems just wrong. Did you stop watching movies rated PG-13 or higher as well?

And why is it wrong for young children to understand the concept of life and death? I mean, an overly gory game is one thing but I don't think my ten year old slaughtering opponents by the dozens in Minecraft is going to cause her to grow up with psychopathic urges.

You missed his point. Once he saw what he was doing from his child's perspective, he was uncomfortable with it. Note that this is distinct from being uncomfortable with his child seeing what he is doing.

I had a similar reaction after not playing many games during grad school, which was 2003 - 2010. After graduating, I picked up a PS3. Some games it wasn't too much of an issue (such as Mass Effect), but in others, it was startling (such as Bioshock Infinite).

I think you missed my point, which is if he was uncomfortable with his child watching him play such games, don't let them watch such games. His negative reaction to "AAA" games in general because of that is what I found odd. If he no longer found the games appealing due to that then I suppose that's cool. But there are games in that space that don't fit that style of gameplay.

Again, I think you're missing it. He's not uncomfortable with his child watching him play such games. (Well, maybe he is, but that's not his point.) It was knowing that his child was watching him play such games that gave him the perspective for himself to see playing those games differently. He gained new perspective.

Why killing needs to be presented as a game? You want to teach children about life and death? Get then to a slaughterhouse. No? Why not? It's just teaching them about life and death...

Well, considering many children learn to kill and dress game early in life; I don't see a problem with that. Depends on the child and the parent. But I appreciate you trying to show my point is invalid by trying to get me to disagree with a completely different example.

> many children learn to kill and dress game early in life

Can you give some examples? I'm genuinely curious about the first, "learn to kill", type of games.

he's talking about hunting. in real life. game is the word for animals that are hunted.

"But I appreciate you trying to show my point is invalid by trying to get me to disagree with a completely different example."

And I liked how you substituted a completely different meaning of "game".

rytis brought up slaughterhouses. talmand replied about hunting. the use of the word "game" in hunting is a coincidence.

There are recent AAA games around that attempt to get away from the kill-kill-kill dynamic. A good example is Dishonoured - there's a bonus for completing missions without killing anyone, and the entire game can be completed non-violently.

Reminds me of my 2-3 year old watching me and getting to play GTA 5. I am sensitive to exposing him to that kind of violence, and boy is it a challenge to play that game without inciting violence or even cussing while driving around. An entire play session would be me driving out of the city as carefully as possible, then heading to some of the more abandoned parts of the map. Finding a tractor or giant dump truck and letting him drive it around, to which he absolutely loved. No ai characters were killed in these play sessions and very few were incited to yell at me...

Uhg this. Recently decided to pick up some of my old favorites (Quake Live, Counter-Strike) and didn't realize fully what I was doing until my two daughters, ages 6 and 8 were peering over my shoulder watching me throw grenades, shoot rockets and snipe opponents (complete with blood effects).

Honestly, I don't think they even blinked, as they are exposed to a lot of media these days, but it certainly gave me pause, and started my quest for more appropriate games (for them).

To contrast this, I have several nephews of varying ages and they would do backflips at the chance to play one of these extremely violent games. Not sure what that means, or says but a man with daughters lives a different life than a man with sons. Not that my daughters don't enjoy shooting rockets and blowing up bad guys, but it doesn't have that same "power" over them as it does with young boys (which I've witnessed first hand as a boy myself and uncle)

Maybe it's me but I cannot figure out what point the post is making. What exactly does the author 'get' now? How does the sexualisation of comic book characters relate to how women experience the tech industry? I'm not saying there isn't a link, but the author doesn't explain it from his point of view.

I have to admit I am a little discouraged by the way the author handles his interactions with his daughter. To explain something to your child as being for "older people" and to dismiss her questions with "Daddy's thinking, don't worry about it" seems to parallel the way adult women are treated by men. It's not my place to criticise how a parent behaves with their children but in an article that talks about the problems of empathy and understanding another's point of view it still seems that the author doesn't quite 'get it'.

It sounds like what he "gets" is how hard it is to notice a lot of the sexualization when you don't get to see it from their side.

It's easy to e.g. dismiss the way female superheroes (and villains) are being dismissed with references to how the men are also in tight outfits (as you can find examples of in this thread). It's harder to dismiss the difference between your son having no problems finding something he likes vs. your daughter being put off by the depictions of women in the same series.

Ok, that makes sense. I guess I can see how that kind of dissonance would then apply when thinking about women and technology.

Consider the number of replies on HN and other sources that are essentially "Well I don't see it..." or "Not at my office..." rather than taking women at their word for their own experience.

The problem is that sometimes when sexism is claimed - such as at github - it turns out not to be sexism at all. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but when you have false positives like this, it makes you want to see some evidence.

This essay is part of a larger body of narratives about men not understanding sexism, or at least not really internalizing how pervasive it is, until it directly effects their wife/girlfriend/daughter.

This is an American problem. In Europe I grew up with Tin Tin, Jo, Zette & Joko but also John Difool and Nikopol.

Got to a comic store in Paris an there's an abundance of comics that are 'real' and kids friendly. No boobies or asses etc.

I find this interesting when you think America is considered to be much more prudish than Europe. Anecdotally it seems that although sex and nudity is less taboo in Europe it isn't abused in the way it is in America.

It's not really that weird, though; both behaviors are a result of a lack of maturity dealing with the subject, as taboos often are.

In a comparable situation, the Catholic countries which were/are more devoted (and often fanatic, such as in the Inquisition) are also the ones that have the most blasphemous slang and insults. Spain in particular has a whole host of them involving religious figures (God, the Virgin Mary, etc) and scatological acts.

A lot of European comics have a different issue: racism.

I really liked Tin Tin but I cannot pretend like the entire thing isn't incredibly racist. All of the bad guys had a certain skin colour, you could guess who was going to betray the main cast just by their colour/culture, and a lot of other cultures are portrayed like savages (sometimes literally).

http://www.cracked.com/article_19610_the-6-most-secretly-rac...

I'm surprised at the number of comments in this thread excusing it because of the market. The fact that nearly everyone who has made that point felt the need to create a new account to do so is very telling.

The market is influenced heavily by human beings. And no human being is morally perfect. There are lots of comics that sexualise women because there are lots of guys who, for some reason, enjoy seeing sexual cartoons. The people who draw comics, for some reason, also seem to enjoy drawing comics like this. That doesn't excuse the problem. There have been markets for plenty of things that we decided as a society aren't morally right to sell anymore.

"There have been markets for plenty of things that we decided as a society aren't morally right to sell anymore."

You want to argue that comics with sexualized women (or men, it doesn't matter who) aren't morally right to sell? Are you out of your mind? Let's go back to the fig leaf, shall we? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_leaf Our society is becoming more and more prude again.

That's the typical conflict between liberals and left wings in politics. The conflict between freedom and "good". In this case freedom of artistic expression on one side, and anti-sexualism of women (unisex) on other side.

Sounds like an American problem to me. There's plenty of sexualization in works by authors with left-wing inclinations - though usually not so gratuitous like those comics.

A good on-topic example is the comics series Louis La Guigne, which had sexualization (like this cover[1]) but a heavy left-wing slant (the protagonist, among other things, is involved in the resistances against the fascist and nazi regimes in Europe).

[1] http://www.bede-news.com/public/images/vols/louis-guigne-aut...

>> "In this case freedom of artistic expression on one side, and anti-sexualism of women (unisex) on other side."

To be clear I would never advocate against artistic freedom. The problem is with the big comic book companies. They should make the decision that they aren't going to sexualise women in comics for no good reason anymore. The artists who truly enjoy making that work can continue to do so at another company, through self-publishing etc.

You can't just trample on people's rights because you disagree with them. Nor say "it's OK that it exists, it just can't be popular."

How is that trampling on anyones rights? Nobody has the right to be popular...

Yes, yes, they do.

Otherwise, I'd like to have Justin Beiber locked up in jail tomorrow. along with every other insipid pop artist and creators of other things I don't like.

It's okay not to like things, its not okay to force people to stop doing things you don't like or keep those things from being popular because you have value differences. You're effectively using the same argument of people against same sex marriage. "This thing offends me and hurts my feelings/values, so others should be stopped from doing it." I like how the attempt at being progressive has come full circle to one of intolerance.

What? It's not the right to be popular. It's the right to artistic freedom, including sexualized comic books, regardless of whether or not you're popular.

And if you read the next comment up in the thread I wrote that I would never advocate against artistic freedom. I'm saying the major companies should look at the situation, realise it's not right and stop publishing highly sexualised comics. That doesn't mean the people that really want to draw those can't. They can continued find another publisher, or self publish.

It kind of sounds like you're arguing against artistic freedom within big companies, though. As in, weird little shops can do "sexy" publications. However, once a company is "big" it "should make the decision that they aren't going to sexualise women in comics for no good reason"?

But why should this depend on the size of the company? Either companies should be able to sell a product (it is acceptable to the community, culture, standards, etc), or else they should not.

"guys who, for some reason, enjoy seeing sexual cartoons"

Yeah, that's really weird. What's up with that?

But in seriousness, let's remain clear on what (supposed) problem you want to solve: men being interested in sexual attributes of women, or poor selection of comics that appeal to women? Those are not the same things.

Ok so I have a daughter about the same age, and recently introduced her to comics (I was never a comic person).

I randomly picked up some weird Disney themed comic books at a flea market and showed them to my daughter who kept them in her bed. She ended up liking them, and so I casually started searching for comics for younger children.

In the city I am not, so my shopping started at Amazon.com - where I easily found a comic appropriate: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401216684/

So yes, there is a large segment of comic books that is marketed towards horny teenagers, and overgrown horny teenagers and yes, you local comic shop probably doesn't cater to the under 10/female crowd. However, the content is easy to find, and it doesn't involve exposing your children to your creepy local comic store.

I had a similar realization a few months ago. On special occasions people at the office will photoshop someone's face onto a superhero and send it around.

When it came time for my female manager's face to be put on a superhero, I had a seriously hard time finding a SINGLE non sexualized picture of a well known female superhero. Try it -- pick a female superhero and do a google image search. Then count the number of pages you have to navigate before you find a picture that you'd photoshop your manager onto.

That feels weird to me because I like comics (I am from Europe, so "european comics" is a weird name for what I'd roughly translate to `Drawn stories` or `graphic novels`) and there are a lot of interesting indie or ya comics out there (edit: I mean, in the US too).

I suppose comics bookstore are just dump ground for Marvel/DC/Images/DH production of the week ?

For a 8-12 years-old, of the top of my mind: http://www.mouseguard.net/ and lmgt.

There are also the translated comics from Europe.

But I understand these are not weekly `updated` and that might not appeal to an american audience (cultural heritage).

As a Norwegian (where translated French and Belgian titles as well as US translated imports and a wide range of our own production tends to be available in nearly every grocery store, gas station or corner store), who now lives in the UK (very similar comic culture to the US, and with very limited own production) and who have visited a few US comic stores too:

The US market is dominated by superhero comics, with some book versions of newspaper strips, and a small segment of other stuff. From a non-UK European point of view, it's a very strange experience. Though I love the superhero comics, I also grew up with a wide range of alternatives.

The first time I went into a comic store in the UK was a shocking experience. Not least because of how thin and filled with ads the US stuff was.

Basically the US format is to bombard the market with a massive number of titles, fill it with ads, and pump out a tiny number of pages each issue.

When there was a regular translated Spiderman title in Norway, it was edited together from the stories in something like 4-5 different US titles, in order to get a single magazine of sufficient number of pages to be viable in the Norwegian market. Trying to publish multiple titles for a single character would be seen as suicide. Instead the Scandinavian approach is generally to publish titles with a single "headline" character and then guest stints of a few pages of smaller characters. When guest series gets popular, they get to try out their own titles.

Some main titles get odd in that they get a level of popularity whereby even if the main series may not be drawn any more the magazine is kept alive, and eventually the guest series kinda "takes over" more and more - Calvin and Hobbes survived that way as a monthly title in Norway for a decade after Watterson ended the series.

I think the US publishers basically have shot themselves in the foot this way, by creating an image for comics as cheap and trashy childrens entertainment, and so massively limiting their audience, as reflected in the extremely low sales numbers even for the top series.

Mouse Guard was the first one that came up for me too. As a bonus, it's also got an RPG.

I had the exact same experience about 6 years ago...my second oldest daughter (I have four) wanted comic books. She'd found some cool ones about Mary Jane Watson that were probably young adult-ish in story, but the drawings were pretty okay (nothing overtly sexual).

So we went to a comic book store and immediately the guy behind the counter jumped out and steered my kids to a very small corner in the front of his store. He looked me in the eye and said, "They really need to stay in this section."

I look at the rest of this very large store and it's a few teenagers, but mostly middle-aged men. The image I got in my head was not one of the defensible comic-book reader, but of a soft-porn environment.

So we looked at the kids comics and it was Archie and stuff. Nothing that my daughter wanted because she wanted the "drama" and "serious" tone...without the hyper-sexualized stories and images. We asked the owner and he said there was no market for those comics. They (the publishers) tried a few, and he named the exact comic my daughter had found, but those just didn't sell.

So we left with a handful of replacement comics, but we never went again and my daughter moved on, never even considering a comic book again. She reads YA novels now.

The YA novel industry is huge. I really don't understand why there's no market for YA comic books (not graphic novels). It seems odd and sad.

I worked at a comic shop for 4 years, we pride ourselves on having a good "Kids/all ages" section of stuff that was more in line with what kids saw on TV; Justice League, The Avengers, Young Justice, Batman Brave and the Bold, avatar the last Airbender, adventure time, etc. That shop sounds like they need to stock better.

It's really sad to me how all of us in our industry are getting slapped across the face day in and day out about how unfairly, unequally and unjustly women are treated in our industry and peripheries.

You gents are too smart to still 'not get it.' I'm at the point where I see it as willful ignorance.

And I'm tired of all of it.

It's no coincidence that Comic Books and Video Games have gone hand in hand. A long time ago there used to be quite a number of comics that targeted young kids, girls and people other than the 11-15 year old male demographic. There's also been lots of effort put into making games that will appeal to people outside of that demographic.

You could say, numbers don't lie, that those titles weren't being sold in enough quantities to keep them alive...and in some sense that's true. But how many ultra-niche comics with bizarre indie storylines stay alive year after year?

Actually a very large number of women I know ended up just reading Manga, they managed to find storylines and characterizations that they enjoyed. And now those women are watching cartoons, movies and dramas based on those same Manga. Most comic book stores you go into have a Manga section these days. But Manga is also full of titles with lots of sexualization. Like anything you have to be a smart consumer and not write off an entire class of entertainment, like movies, just because adult film stores exist.

It's the same with video games, after decades of struggle to find the market, some surveys are showing that women make up a significant portion of computer-game players: with leading games like The Sims, Bejeweled and WoW having huge populations of women playing them.

So the market is there, it's just that the makers are not doing a good enough job of hitting that market. Console game makers are just now starting to learn from computer game makers, and we're starting to see decent titles (mostly PC ports) to woo the other 50% of the market. But they too have really put out some crap trying to find that market.

But here's the truth, the women in mainstream super hero comic books are barely anatomically correct, but so are the men. Average characters possess exaggerated musculature not even the Greek gods possessed. And everybody has fantastical powers. These aren't meant to be forms of entertainment that represent reality...even a little bit. They're meant to be highly exaggerated depictions of reality, but the vector of exaggeration is very obviously on stereotypical male vectors.

It's not about anatomical correctness. It's that the sexualization–of both the male superheroes and the female ones–is explicitly male-based. Female gaze sexualization looks different.

Having a daughter will teach you a lot of things, and give you more perspectives. Music lyrics, YouTube videos, ads on the billboard/bus, cartoons and even comics. They'll notice. And you'll notice them noticing.

I have to say that that combined with the whole GG thing certainly opened up my eyes how incredibly mysonginist some things and communities are, and how badly they are in denial of it.

I looked in this online Belgian strip store and for the Dutch language market (quite small demographic), I could find 5 (five) titles for girls! And I'm pretty sure there's more (Noortje, Tina...)

http://www.stripweb.be/R-stripverhalen-mooie-navels-bestelle... http://www.stripweb.be/R-stripverhalen-girlz-bestellen.asp http://www.stripweb.be/R-stripverhalen-kathys-kat-bestellen.... http://www.stripweb.be/R-stripverhalen-dance-academy-bestell... http://www.stripweb.be/R-stripverhalen-claire-bestellen.asp

How did you search? I just searched for "Yoko Tsuno" on that site and they seem to be available.

Yoko Tsuno comics are really great, by the way. It's disappointing that Franco-Belgian and Italian comics never get full runs in English.

For a young girl, it looks like the new Batgirl might fit the bill well [1]. Not trying to minimize the issue, I just thought the author might like this for their daughter.

[1]: http://36.media.tumblr.com/98dffc116ba398dd71703e02abd7518b/...

http://40.media.tumblr.com/f0256cc6e4845526b9b9444935a6b287/...

There are a lot of good options out there, comic shop guy didn't help as much as my local shop would have.

These comics aren't aimed at young children, of any gender.

There are comics available for younger ones. Here in the UK my two read The Phoenix. It would benefit from more female characters, but they both enjoy it (boy 7, girl 6)

http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/free-digi-phoenix/

cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.iti...

Just recommended the author check out Ryan North's comics: https://twitter.com/ryanqnorth

Ryan North's the guy who does Dinosaur Comics (http://www.qwantz.com), and has since been hired to write the Adventure Time comic and the most recent run of Marvel's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

http://www.themarysue.com/interview-squirrel-girl-ryan-north...

This is how I want to see more people solving this problem: not by trying to shout down the ones responsible (which goads people into defending institutional sexism to shout back in their defense, ugh), but by just doing it right.

I agree that there's an awful lot of comics aimed squarely at the adolescent male, but at least in the comic store that my 8 year old daughter likes to go to, there's also a fair amount that she loves.

Her favourites at the moment are the Happy Happy Clover series, the Powerpuff Girls and Adventure Time, but there's quite a few others that she's enjoyed as well. That's alongside all of the books and merchandise for things like Studio Ghibli, and (nerdy) girl-friendly sci-fi like Dr Who and Star Wars.

As she gets older, I can see that she'll probably start to struggle to find stuff she still wants to read, but if that comic book store is offering nothing more than Hello Kitty and Monster High for young girls, you might want to see if you can find a better comic book store.

(The original site has been HN'd.)

Every "Free Comic Book Day" my family goes down, and my youngest son always finds entirely appropriate things for him. He love Sonic and Mega Man.

A bit shocked that he seemed to be allowing his 5 year old son to buy Batman comics. I recently played catch up on the New 52 Batman series and found them pretty violent in places, enough that I wouldn't let any young child read them.

Harvey Quinn isn't a superhero or "role model" either like Superman/Batman.

Ms. Marvel is a good character but of course drawn for men.

And I am bracing myself for the WW movie, I've got a really bad feeling. Wish it had been Joss Whedon running that show.

Speaking of Whedon, it is too grown up concepts for a seven year old perhaps but Buffy Season Eight in comic form is pretty great.

In Toronto and surrounding cities (Canada) things are getting better with comic stores catering to independent publishers and artists (e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beguiling).

Many local independent bookstores also contain a "graphic novel" section that tend to carry independent, literate examples of the medium.

I guess if you haven't been interested in comics for some time it can be disorienting to walk into any shop without doing a little research first.

Go indie! You'll do much better. One series I'm looking forward to getting my kids into is Mouseguard. But I also have comics about the fantastic women pioneers in science, the manhattan project, fairy tales, and so on.

I've only glanced at the top comments so I may have missed it if someone already said what I'm gonna. Can we just admit that it's stupid that superhero female characters are anatomically comical and wearing things they could never ever fight in?

I feel like he went to the wrong comic store. Or something.

Superhero comics don't interest me in the least (with the exception of the Watchmen, which I really enjoyed). But there's a ton of more "literary" comic books out there that are awesome.

In fact, the last comic I read was "Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller" -- and it was great! Something a young girl might find really interesting.

(http://blogs.slj.com/goodcomicsforkids/2012/04/18/review-ann...)

He's JUST NOW REALIZING this? Modern comics are the most sexually objectifying medium in the world, second only to straight pornography.

I always thought it was fucked up, even as a kid, how crazily unrealistic and sexualized comics were. Like, I knew it was wrong that women were being portrayed this way. But I still bought the comics of course.

If you think the way women are portrayed in video games and comics is normal, you are honestly messed up. The most scary thing about this article is that it took him this long to figure this out.

Hello? they have the Winx comics series http://winx.wikia.com/wiki/Winx_Club_Comic_Series Here the main heroes are girl fairies in high school (greetings from Harry Potter) and they even have a fairy of technology who has to fix things; my daughters (five and eight) like these.

Also in Germany they have Donald Duck series (quite popular); don't know why they don't have that in the US

Site is down. Cached copy link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r3wdwWW...

It's kind of interesting - I can think of a number of comics that don't fall into the sexualized gender trap, but they're all comics that have no business being read by a 7 year old, which seems almost backwards.

In a lot of ways I guess comics aren't really for kids anymore, which seems kind of sad.

If the OP is reading this (I had a connection error when I tried to register to comment there) check out the Mary Jane comic aimed at teenage girls. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_Loves_Mary_Jane

While I can understand how part of his post is about the way women are portrayed physically in those comics. I'm not so sure on his examples he picked in reference to his children and their unsuitability. I already commented on how I wasn't sure if Batman was suitable for his 5 year old, given the nature of some lines, but some examples he picked in reference to his 7 year old daughter were a stretch.

Power Girl: Haven't fully checked but appears to be part of a line rated T for Teen.

Harley Quinn (Batman Detective Comics): Rated T for Teen. http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFg5MDA=/z/axsAAOSwD0lUlJHV/$_...

Perhaps comic book stores should designate areas for different ratings of comics. Or comic companies should agree to make the rating larger. Or some parents need to become more aware that comics are just for kids, the same way that computer games aren't either.

Most of the shops I frequent have a young readers section. Diamond (the only North American comic book distributor) even has a young readers section of their release list. The author of the article clearly thinks comics are intended for children, when only a small portion are.

I do find it worrying the amount of parents who dismiss a form of entertainment as "for kids" in their mindset. I've seen it a lot with video games, where a parent will buy a game for their child who is not even a teen and the game itself is rated for adults only (Call of Duty a prime example, once I saw it with Saints Row).

It's a shame the article author didn't bother to take this into account.

Exactly. More importantly the store owner stocks what he sells, or what he thinks sells. If more 7 year old girls came into the store everyday, he might stock something more appropriate for that audience. It is like asking a Harley Davidson dealer whether he stocks Toyota Prius's.

Young teen males buy these comics because there are half-naked, caricatured, over-sized breasted women in them. Later on they just buy porn mags, or more often these these days, just download porn from the internet.

That's a reasonable point. As a store owner he's probably trying to target the demographic that's buying the most comics. If the majority of his custom comes from male teens then that's the type of comic he'll stock.

Of course there's nothing stopping him from trying to stock comics for other groups, as he had stock of younger comics and those aimed at girls, but it can't be expected that he provides equal footing if he's simply trying to make money from his main group of customers.

When I go shopping, it's nice when I see a shop that has a gluten / wheat free section. But I don't expected them to have a large aisle dedicated to it if they're not seeing enough custom to validate it.

A lot of small comic store owners are fans first and business people second.

I think you're missing the point: his daughter knows those characters through pop culture. She wants to read those comics. But the art for those comics is clearly telling her: you are not our audience. And this is most of the store.

The male characters are male power fantasies, and appeal to his son. But the female characters are not female power fantasies, meant to appeal to women. They are male idealized-woman fantasies, and do not appeal to his daughter. That is what he realized.

Exactly. Men in comics are male power fantasies. Women in comics are also male fantasies. The message that these kinds of covers send to his daughter, or women in general is "This is not for you".

Welp. That's cause it's not. She would not be their target audience anymore then Grand Theft Auto is.

They have other comics for her: http://www.kidscomics.com/Home/1/1/60/1046

Breaking Bad is also pop culture, the problem comes in when Lego makes Lego Breaking Bad figures, then your daughter wants to watch the show.

I can understand the point of view. In a world where they produce children's toys based on adult videogames, there is always going to be content that crosses the age boundaries and make it difficult for parents to cope with.

Disappointingly, she isn't their audience probably because her demographic don't buy enough comics or comics of the right theme. The same could be said for people with Wheat / Gluten allergies in most shops, which is why they have little or no products available in most general stores, because they aren't a big enough demographic to make money out of.

Those comics weren't aimed at her (due to the age rating), which meant that they shouldn't have been a factor. I'd also be curious about which Batman comics were actually suitable for his young son. What should have been a factor was the lack of content available for his daughter (which was mentioned), instead of the focus on the unsuitability of content which isn't even aimed at her. Too much focus on his daughters age and older themed comics.

I would have sided more with the author if they spent more time researching and promoting alternatives and encouraging parents to be more careful with the content they children are consuming (due to the closely related adult versions).

As the father of a daughter, and someone who normally gets worked up about this sort of thing, I don't see the big deal. I've always viewed comics as equivalent to daytime soap operas made more pornographic to suit teenage male tastes. What value is there in trying to capture this bit of culture for girls? Is it going to lead to higher paying jobs or more equal gender roles in the home? Is it going to lead to greater fulfillment in their personal lives?

To me, asking how we can get girls more interested in comics or sci-fi is like asking how we can address the gender imbalance in ditch digging jobs.

Ouch. I can't speak for comics, as the only ones I've really enjoyed are Alan Moore comics which emphatically aren't suitable for children (Discworld is good, though), but plenty of sci-fi has high cultural value, IMO, in both TV and book form.

Star Trek: TNG, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Foundation, and many more show a lot about the human condition, teach the important concept that the future may be radically different from the present and we can shape it, and they are enjoyable to boot. Typically the newer sci-fi is either barely or not at all misogynistic (although 1950s-era sci-fi certainly is).

Is it going to lead to greater fulfillment in their personal lives?

It certainly did for me. Reading Bill Watterson, Quino, André Franquin, Frank Giroud and a few others had a great impact in my childhood.

Consider that your impression of comics is coloured by apparently (based on your description) mostly having been shown a single, very limited segment (US-style superhero segments).

Comics are no more limited to that, than TV are limited to daytime soap operas.

The value isn't in trying to get girls to read US-style male-focused superhero stories, but in pointing out that the current comics most widely distributed in the US represents a tiny fraction of what is available.

Imagine what TV would be like if all that was on was daytime soap operas. That's the US comic market. If your TV was like that, would it not be nice to get a wider selection?

> Is it going to lead to greater fulfillment in their personal lives?

Role models - even when depicted in fiction - matters:

http://www.slashgear.com/uhura-recounts-her-epic-talk-with-m...

My comment was really directed at Marvel/DC comics. My mom grew up reading Tintin (in Bangladesh!) but when an American talks about "comicbooks" that's not really what they're thinking of. I think those sorts of comics are so different you're talking about a different industry almost.

> What value is there in trying to capture this bit of culture for girls?

You understand you're essentially saying comic books are not for girls? That seems to be the conclusion the daughter was nervously coming to when she asked her dad where the "real" comic books were. Also, there's nothing about digging a ditch that's exclusively male. The big deal might be something you can't quite see right now.

It seems like comic books are not what you are looking for for your child. Try graphic novels

Quite a lot of people appear to be under the impression this is about comics.

Ugh. This website has modified the behavior of two-fingered scrolling and broke two-fingered magnification on OS X. How do I send glitter to the idiot who decided to break Mac users' conventions?

"Error establishing a database connection"

I don't know who thought thought the new Harley Quinn outfit was better than the old one but they were wrong.

Breaking news! Father takes 7-year old daughter to a comic shop for older, male audiences. Daughter is offended! Misogyny, etc! Males are creeps! Sexualizing women in comics is offensive to women and therefore immoral! It's not like women can choose not to read such comics. It is a sign that you live a life of highest quality if you can worry about sexualization in fictional comics.

...so you didn't read the article. I'm not sure why you feel the need to announce that.

I read it word for word. That is pretty much what he wants to communicate.

Just because your eyes passed over the letters doesn't mean you read it. You went in with preconceived notions of what it was going to say and you came out without those preconceptions changed. Reading requires that you actually spend time trying to understand what someone is saying.

I admit it's not entirely clear what the author's point is, but that doesn't mean you get to fill in your own and pretend like the author said it.

I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of feminism, but there's nothing particularly outrageous being said here.

The seven year old girl was correct: It was not really a comic book store in the sense she had in mind. Instead it was a store with comic books for teenage boys and men and even there a fairly narrow audience. The store was definitely not for children, especially not for grade school or younger girls.

A lesson she might have learned: It's a big world out there, and some of it, e.g., the view of women in that store, is not good, and sometimes, too often, in life we have to be selective.

It's been a while since my brother and I were in grade school and he was collecting comic books. So, only vaguely do I remember Donald Duck and Batman, and those comic books weren't right up against the line, the other side of which was porn.

Instead, say, take your seven year old daughter to a music store, not one for pop music but one where seven year old girls have a nice violins and are learning the "Preludio" to the Bach E major Partita for unaccompanied violin,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYRdRnnBYw

with Hillary Hahn, the Chaconne of Vitali,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o

with David Oistrakh, the Bach "Chaconne"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tezau3hlRxs

with Alina Ibragimova, or the Bach Busoni piano version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8

with Valentina Lisitsa, a store where the seven year old violin students are looking forward to playing the violin part to the Wagner "Prelude to Act I" of Lohengrin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7prUFflX0_E

with Otto Klemperer, also from the same opera In fernem land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHCeEO_0-4

with Peter Anders and, of course, especially since she is a seven year old girl, starting at about 3:00, the bridal chorus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebx9KhcnyLM

with Andris Nelsons. Of course, also tell her the story of Lohengrin.

More? Sure: Camille Saint Saens "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79OkSayPSw

with Elina Garancas.

More generally expose her to places and media content where girls and women are actually doing things, good things. E.g., currently there is the Nova program on he LHC and the Higgs boson at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/big-bang-machine.html

Two detectors there found the same basic result, and one of the detector groups was led by a woman. That program has more examples of women doing things.

Yes, there's a lot out there where the women are all interested in nose jobs, breast implants, micro skirts, and thong panties, but there's also a lot out there for women being productive, building a home and family with love, victory over loneliness, being productive, and with pride in accomplishments and emotional and financial security.

Get her a copy of the classic E. Fromm, The Art of Loving which is about getting emotional security, exchanging knowledge, caring, respect, and responsiveness, and a role for religion -- best thing I ever read to understand people and personality.

Maybe take her to some Saturday classes in cooking school where she can learn to make, say, some really good cookies she could make and share with her friends, e.g., at school. If I were 7-9 and a girl 7 gave me 2-3 really good cookies she had baked herself, then she would have a good friend for years, prom dates, etc. If she could play classical music on piano or violin or sing opera, even better.

How to get her interested in working hard on, say, piano or violin? One way: Let her hear some of the music that is easy to like. Then let her see some people working hard on learning piano or violin and liking it. Example: A sister in law tried to get her daughter interested in piano. No luck. At the farm at Christmas, I was upstairs working on the Bach "Chaconne", and a niece, about 7, came up to watch. I put my violin under her left chin, showed her how to hold the violin and the bow, and to draw the bow across the strings. The next day her father asked me: "How much is a violin going to cost me?". It works.

More? Sure: Get her the DVD of the Australian Ballet performance of Coppelia -- it's a total sweetheart story, nearly all about young women, and where nearly everyone on stage is a young woman. And the actual young women on the stage, the real performers and not the characters they play in the story, are examples of astoundingly hard work, productivity, and, in particular, are just fantastic as actresses, artists, and athletes, especially aerobic athletes.

Of course, at Christmas, get her all dressed up in some sort of a princess outfit -- when I was that age the style was dresses with red or black velvet with lots of satin ribbons and bows -- and take her to a good performance of The Nutcracker. Also get her a Nutcracker doll. It could be one of the happiest times of her life, make her feel more secure as a girl, and be a memory she will have and value forever.

Also get her DVDs of some of the movies from American Girl. They may also have some retail stores it would be better for her to visit than that fake comic book store.

For books, maybe Nancy Drew? Or something similar but more recent?

Since she's seven, a girl, and bright, it may be that she could get good at French with blinding speed -- try to find a way. Talk to some people who know about how a girl of seven could learn French. Maybe have her join a group, e.g., where also she could meet other girls learning French. Maybe try a local Alliance Française. Maybe try some Internet learning materials.

Connection with her being a girl? At that age, typically girls have much better verbal aptitude than the boys and are just fantastic at learning a language.

Be sure to have her learn touch typing -- one of the best skills to have in life now. Talk to some people who know how a girl of seven could learn touch typing, get her some materials, and pay attention her efforts, encourage and praise them, and help her learn.

Then encourage and praise her in writing: Have her start writing on nearly anything -- letters to grandma, how to train a kitten or puppy, how to bake terrific cookies, how to tie a bow tie, how to wash out stains, how to iron a dress, how to sew on a button, how to use a text editor, how to use Facebook, blog posts (anonymous), etc. Then get her started on English grammar -- sentences, subjects, verbs, prepositions and prepositional phrases, adjectives and adverbs. Then make friends with a high school English teacher (nearly all women, right?) and have that teacher help your daughter improve her writing. Then have your daughter write some longer pieces with sections, subsections, table of contents, figures, references, etc. on anything: If your family moves, then have her write on moving to a new house. On getting a puppy or kitten. Whatever. Get her going on writing, then reading, the more in writing, then more in reading.

For being better in talking to her, and to others, too, get, read, study, think about, and use

Thomas Gordon, Parent Effectiveness Training: The Tested New Way to Raise Responsible Children.

also called reflective listening.

For more, get her several, used will be fine, high school texts in plane geometry, pick a favorite, use the others for alternative sources, and work through plane geometry with her, that is, get the fun of doing the proofs. Emphasize orthogonality and the Pythagorean theorem: Orthogonality is one of the most important ideas in all of pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, engineering, multi-variate statistic, and best approximation, e.g., in computing, right up to how to do ad targeting on the Internet, Fourier theory, the fast Fourier transform, digital filtering, etc. Sure: Quite generally every closed convex set has a unique element of minimum norm, and quickly get to a supporting hyperplane with orthogonality. Sure, one of the biggest results in college math is the polar decomposition in linear algebra and, right, about orthogonal eigen vectors. Can get going on orthogonality right there in high school plane geometry, and she likely has all the prerequisites. If not, in a few places take out a few minutes and get her caught up.

Give her a little on electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, energy and energy levels, and chemical bonds. Then, right, presto, bingo, guide her to the Internet videos of the Eric Lander lectures on biology at MIT, say,

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-01sc-fundamentals-of-bi...

Also, don't have her miss (get her a bowl of popcorn for the occasion)

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/flash/lectures/20100419_pu...

with

April 19, 2010,

Eric Lander: "Secrets of the Human Genome"

Sure, have her watch some Brian Greene videos.

Get her a freshman college chemistry book and help her work through it, learn about NaCl, CaCO3, C-H bonds and methane, gasoline, and converting O and C-H bonded hydrocarbons to CO2 and H2O -- e.g., as in heating the house, powering the car, flying an airplane, etc.

Look at the GED materials and get her through all of them by the time she is 8-9. A bright girl of seven should be able to get through all of that in one not very busy summer.

The GED materials are minimal -- in particular in addition she will need to get through algebra I and II and trigonometry and high school physics.

Then, to heck with high school -- then get some good advice and guide her in home schooling through, say, at least the first two years of college. So, for calculus, just get her some good college calculus books (my view of AP calculus is that it is to be avoided, skipped, ignored because the authors didn't understand calculus very well -- similarly for Khan Academy -- repeat, just get some good college calculus books, period), and, sure, make friends with a college math prof to help her not get stuck and to stay on track. Then, sure, have her do college freshman physics -- that's heavily just what calculus is for.

Then when she goes to college she will be nicely ahead.

"Youth is such a wonderful time of life. Too bad it's wasted on young people."

Don't have her waste hers.

Garfield, Dilbert, Foxtrot and Calvin and Hobbes is about the extent of my comic repertoire

Taking a 7 year old to a comic store is like tasking her to a pg 13 movie.. . Not too surprised it didn't work out. Comics tend to deal with adult themes and are aimed at older people.

When I was a kid, comics were for all ages. When my parents were kids, comics were for kids. That seems to have changed.

Because kids don't read comics. When your demographic changes you have to adapt or die.

Back then, comics were ten cents. Now they're twenty bucks. Kids don't read stuff that costs twenty bucks.

Twenty bucks? Show me the regular run issue that costs that much.

And it's not about the price, kids would much rather play with a tablet than read a comic (or go outside, even).

The price still adds up. When I had tens of dollars a week of paper route money, it was easy to get a pile of 75 cent comics every month.

I might just be an old grump, though.

Do kids not read comics because they wouldn't be interested in them? Or do they not read them because they're no longer kid-friendly? Which is cause and which is effect?

Well, for the past 10 to 20 years kids have been reading comics less and less because they have TV and the Internet. Kids don't even go outside as much as they used to. Things change, and the comic book companies are adapting as best they can.

Kids have had TV for 60 years.

> Kids have had TV for 60 years.

Most haven't had TV with on-demand 24-hour access to child-targetted programming for nearly that long, however.

And even less time have they had portable, go-anywhere screens with the same thing.

Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon not so much.

Nickelodeon's been around for 30. Cartoons or family oriented shows at all times when kids aren't in school, since the 1950s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_comic_book#The_Modern...

The shortened-to-the-point-that-it's-mostly-wrong version:

Prices went up for a variety of reasons, ordinary stores stopped stocking them, and the only way the companies found to move enough issues to avoid total disaster was to target men in roughly the 14-40 age range through dedicated comic book shops, embracing, in the process, a sub-genre of "grittier" comic story lines that had gained some traction.

Archie, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Asterix, Tintin... Old comics, from the 1980's or earlier are pretty safe. These days the audience is 15+ guys. Soft porn and hardcore violence. Why would he take his 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son to look at that?

For kids that young seeing is believing. My nephew at 6 watched Star Wars over Christmas. You explain that it isn't real, they are actors in a play, playing characters - he's been in several plays himself - and then later on he says 'but it must be real, because how could they make a whole planet?'.

> Why would he take his 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son to look at that?

Presumably because he himself remembered how it used to be, and did not realise that the age bracket had shifted so dramatically.

Even US comics used to be kid friendly.

Early(?) Simpsons had Bart going to the comic book store all the time, and he's a 10 year old. Sounds like that part of the show has now aged!

Taking her to that particular one might be, but my local one caters pretty well for the pre-teen girl market (as well as the more adult themed stuff). My daughter drags me in there every time we go into town.

This is the moral panic of the religious right all over again. Just like during the 80s and 90s, this one is aimed at sanitizing all adult aspects of society and making everywhere a "family friendly" place.

Or "The Continuing Saga of Those Who Feel That Everything Must Be For EVERYONE"

Now with extra moralizing and breathless rhetorical style free of charge.

Why comics? There are plenty of good books (even with pictures) for the girls of that age. Comics were never supposed to be educational or have any non-entertainment value and primary tarted at hormones soaked male teens. Take her to the books store instead. You don't complain that nobody does piano recital during pop concerts -- either go there or not. Actually, I find annoying the trend of complaining about anything that does not suite somebody's needs or attitudes.

Because his kids were enthused about going to a comic book store. Notice that his little boy found plenty of material for him. The point is, his daughter clearly got it: that stuff is not for her. An entire comic book store, and none of it for her. That doesn't feel good.

> Comics were never supposed to be educational or have any non-entertainment value and primary tarted at hormones soaked male teens.

This hasn't been true of comic books for several decades now. The medium has many examples of high quality, well written, and unique books. Also, the demographics of comics has changed many times over the last 100 years, the focus on men over the last couple of decades is recent phenomenon in the grand scheme of things.

> Comics were never supposed to be educational or have any non-entertainment value and primary tarted at hormones soaked male teens.

In the USA, perhaps. There is literally nothing about the medium - panes of images, some with dialogue or narrative, which when put together portray a story - that makes it targeted towards males. If I tried to explain comics to people, there's nothing in the explanation that makes it male-only.

And in fact, there's plenty of people writing family-friendly and female-targeted comic books. They're just distributed through the Internet these days, and funded through advertising and merchandise. There's plenty of people reading them, along with manga and similar media.

You're seriously telling his kids what to do? Get real. Kids love to read comics: comics have great value for kids. Colours, heroes, secret hideouts and cool punchlines. Why wouldn't kids (male & female) want that? Why shouldn't they?

The next time you're about to tell someone('s kids) what to enjoy, remember that what you like is not necessarily what others like.

The writer of the article didn't 'complain about anything'. The complaint is very specific: lots of comics in the comic book store he visited featured more adult illustrations that he and his kid would've liked to see. Valid complaint that doesn't have anything to do with 'attitudes'.

Except that it's not true that no comics with "normal" female heroines exist. We had Yoko Tsuno when we were kids, for example. The most recent comics I bought were Buffy and Fray. You don't have to buy cheesy sex comics - I don't.

That lots of men enjoy comics with exaggerated sex symbols has no bearing on the offering for the female target democratic.

Same goes for books and movies and so on btw.

In the same vein, it doesn't bother me as a man that there are thousands of women's magazines, and only very few men's magazines. I just don't care - nobody is forcing me to buy them, after all. In fact there are zillions of products in the world I don't care for, and that doesn't make me feel discriminated against.

Articles like this further reinforce that we have major issues here in America around sexuality. Why can't we teach our children that sexuality is a positive thing, not something that's akin to commiting a capital offense? When we reinforce the negative aspects of sexuality, that leads to abnormal behaviors like nymphomania and self-destructive tendencies. i understand that there are gender objectification issues, but I think that misses the point entirely.

Because a great deal of this isn't just about "sexuality", and sexuality isn't necessarily a positive thing when the message to one gender is "You are an object to be enjoyed for another's pleasure" and to the other is "Objectify away! And if you don't, something is wrong with you."

And no one here has suggested it's "akin to committing a capital offense" but you. "It would be nice to take my young daughter to do something she wanted to do, and find stories about women with clothing that doesn't look like it's painted on" is pretty far away from calling something a "capital offense".

You missed my point entirely. The reason why women are objectified is that sexuality is hidden in public in America. That's why hyper sexualized imagery exists in comic books and the like. This is a unique and peculiar American problem; posters from other countries don't have the same issues.

I've traveled a good bit of the world, and lived in a number of non-American countries (including some where sexuality is more...upfront), and hyper-sexualized imagery of women, and the attendant problems, are hardly a uniquely American phenomenon.

It might be comforting to believe it to be so, but it's not. Hell, one of the most problematic comic covers I can think of in the most recent past wasn't even by an American artist.

Just be honest. Seven year old girls aren't stupid. "Most comics are made for older guys and teen age boys that don't have girlfriends. So they try to make them feel better about it by making comics with half-naked big boobed women. Sad perhaps, but such is life." Then proceed to show her the many comics she would like, from Archie to Oz, there are still plenty of options. The new Ms. Marvel is a particular stand out.

Trying to convey this as some sort of social ailment is rather silly. It's simply human nature. And unless you think we should all become asexual, it isn't going to change.

If the demographics swing at the edges of the market the center will respond. Particularly if there is social pressure to do so. This is not a malicious endeavor it is a market response and we frankly don't have to be so hand-wringy about it.

I agree 100%. I don't understand why everything has to be over-analyzed to death. Good grief, we're talking about comic books.

I'd love to hear this guy write about taking his daughter to a shop selling uncensored Japanese Manga. "Maaaaybe our comics aren't so bad after all."

All sexual material sold legally in Japan is censored by law.

Many people in this thread are talking about how 'the market should adapt' or 'the market doesn't need to adapt', but I think a more interesting corraly is that 'the market' is the primary force acting on the culture of this niche. Japan is lucky to have a diverse comic market, but I think there's an interesting case to be made for non-market forces to encourage a broader set of creativity in the comic world, if not for the young girls at the very least countering the incessant duldrum I find myself stepped in as a consumer.

> All sexual material sold legally in Japan is censored by law.

So there's a little black bar where the tentacle is penetrating the woman?

I'm not versed enough in the law to answer the spirit of that question, but the law has chilling effects greater than the letter of it. Adult material is kept in a separate section, usually with the books sealed in opaque packaging, and 7-eleven in Japan has removed it's adult section entirely.

It's kind of a shame for the minority of women or men who prefer to see women depicted realistically in the comics they read. But that contingent is small enough that I fear it just isn't viable to serve them. The comics market has been around awhile and is fiercely competitive, so I think we can be confident it is delivering the efficient solution as it stands. That said, gradually shifting the tastes of everyone around you by writing countless articles and making speeches at conventions etc. is legitimate if you feel that strongly about it, so more power to them I guess.

Terrible writing... Some people code like this. You look at what they did and just wonder why something that can be written in 3 lines is written in 200 lines of code.

Point made by author is still valid.

I dont see this as an issue. Putting it very bluntly. Comics are (in general) of low quality (in terms of writing, ideas* ), aimed (in general) at a specific creepy contingent of society composed of teenage boys or men who still act like teenage boys. So, who cares about them!? Contemporary media, games, tv shows, films, music, are filled with and largely composed of terrible dross. If you're discerning that involves ignoring 99% of media and almost completely ignoring comics.

*Obviously there are some good comics which I've read (Akira is a good example) but, in my experience, the soaring heights of the greatest writing in comics would be seen as mediocre in another domain.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Creep_shaming ?

> *Obviously there are some good comics which I've read (Akira is a good example) but, in my experience, the soaring heights of the greatest writing in comics would be seen as mediocre in another domain.

There's lots of genres like that. Soap operas. Romance novels.

As a father of daughters, I'm waiting for the series of articles that will help me understand the proper way to have a conversation with them about the fact that their boyfriends, when they are old enough to have them, do not have the muscular build nor the attractive looks of common comic book characters such as Batman, Superman, and so on that they constantly see. Never mind when they see movies with all those overly attractive male stars.

But all I get are articles about how certain comic books, that they probably shouldn't be reading anyway, gives them unrealistic expectations of what their bodies should look like. Plus the fact that will somehow prevent them from getting a career they want to have.

Anyway, I often take my daughters to the local comic book store that I feel has an adequate range of comics for all ages and gender. I let them loose to get what they want. The older one goes for things like Monster High and My Little Pony. The younger goes for those as well as TMNT and Transformers. I just let them decide for themselves what kind of comic book reader they want to be. I feel they'll mostly work it out for themselves. Some people shouldn't worry so much over such details because in the end it only stifles your kid's growth as a person. Trying to shield them from the world they live in doesn't help them in the long run.

Thanks for the feedback. I, for one, feel the negativity only reinforces much of my point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com