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Where Are All The Women?

lavaside rahi

Entry posted by lavaside rahi

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Taking a break from the creator commentaries to go back to a more general topic - one I've touched on before but never with much depth, and that's the shortage of female comic makers on this forum. Prior to writing this, I looked at the personal profile of everyone who had started a topic in the comic forum that had been posted in the last 20 days - of the four pages of topics, only four people claimed to be female. This was actually slightly better than I was expecting - Miraka was the only one I knew of doing comics recently. But it was still a disappointing statistic.

 

After all this time here, there are only two female comic makers I'm familiar with (I know that there have been way more than that, but there's only two I know of). The first is, of course, my old partner Lady Ervai. She was (and most likely still is, I just haven't had contact with here in a while) a very talented drawer who just brimmed with originality (or "weirdness" as she referred to it). I was very fortunate to have her as a partner in my, err, formative years.

 

The second is the previously mentioned Miraka of Alternate Reality Inc., a series she started a couple of weeks after she joined BZPower. She is - and I can not emphasize this enough - insanely talented. Every other comic maker I know started off with really childish stuff - I did, Dark709 did, T-E did...silly, goofy, very poorly-drawn stuff. Not Miraka. She started her series with a level of humor and graphical skill I have never seen from a beginner. In the six months since she's started she's earned a well-deserved status in the comic forum.

 

Now I don't want to come off as sexist; I know you can't determine an entire gender based on two examples. HOWEVER, I can't help but shake the feeling that we're missing out on a lot of great talent and potential when the vast majority of the comic forum is one gender.

 

comic198.png

 

This is one of the last comics I did before the finale series, and I still stand by nearly all of what I said. When you have so many male comic makers, female characters seem to fall in one of two categories: they're either 1) the girlfriend of the main character (numerous examples of this - Chilly of Gavla, L'evia in mine) or 2) they fall into the "girly" stereotype of being love-struck teens who say "like whatever" all the time (Zacku of Dark709's comics is probably the best example). There's nothing wrong with using a character who falls into one of these categories of course, it's just that...well, those are the only two categories.

 

The one part of that comic I'd probably take back is the comment about BZPower being "such a male-driven site". The majority of the site seems to be male, but I can find females playing significant roles in other parts of this site. I've seen plenty of females in the Artwork I forum and we have the likes of GaliGee in the library forums. Why doesn't the comic forum have that?

 

I'm going to leave the rest to the comments forum. Thoughts? Arguments for/against? Solutions for getting more girls into comics?

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Shadonix
  • Megan51
  • MirMir
  • Emkay
  • Fried Ingenuity, kinda
  • Taka Nuvia, kinda
  • Vahi's sister, kinda

 

Yeah, but how many are still active besides me?

Emkay and Meg at least. Emkay's got WBtHotM and Meg just started her first series relatively recently.

:s::s:

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Miraka

I have realized a reason from a buddy why there might not be more gals in the forums...

 

If we're all openly female, guys would constantly hound us, as is now painfully apparent in my own series...

THREE guys have now developed crushes on my character... Maybe five. You know who you are.

 

:glare:

 

This needs to go.

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Superkid11

Yeah, in my comics I occasionally noticed that my entire cast was male, but it just felt cheap to me to invent a female character specifically for that and I had no other ideas. I had more characters than I knew what to do with anyway.

 

As for attracting female comic makers, I'm pretty sure any attempt at doing so would end badly. :P No matter what, it'd just come off as mildly sexist no matter how well worded and intentioned. Not to mention derailed. I really think you just have to be inclined to do it, male or female. Combine that with Bionicle's predominantly male fanbase and there you go. Plus as Miraka pointed out, you have to have the guts to reveal your gender on a board full of hormone-crazed piranhas and not get too annoyed with what happens after that.

 

Also, I don't know if she's been mentioned already because I haven't quiiiite been following the comments here, but Kayru: Toa of Drumming was one too. I don't know if she's still around though, and her character was male.

 

... for the record, if I could go back to 2004 and change things I would make Kazu a woman. I don't know why, I just would.

 

Just saying.

 

... why is the cancel edit button IN FRONT of the complete edit button.

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lavaside rahi
As for attracting female comic makers, I'm pretty sure any attempt at doing so would end badly. :P No matter what, it'd just come off as mildly sexist no matter how well worded and intentioned. Not to mention derailed. I really think you just have to be inclined to do it, male or female. Combine that with Bionicle's predominantly male fanbase and there you go. Plus as Miraka pointed out, you have to have the guts to reveal your gender on a board full of hormone-crazed piranhas and not get too annoyed with what happens after that.

Hard to argue with that...

 

...sigh... :(

 

Well, at least the question has been addressed (and answered to a degree). And there's plenty of comics off of BZPower to look for, to find out how the other half makes comics. :P

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Miraka

There should still probably be a new rule about how no flirting is allowed in BZP - seriously, this is starting to get ridiculous.

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Tavakai
I have realized a reason from a buddy why there might not be more gals in the forums...

 

If we're all openly female, guys would constantly hound us, as is now painfully apparent in my own series...

THREE guys have now developed crushes on my character... Maybe five. You know who you are.

 

:glare:

 

This needs to go.

 

I've found that that usually happens when the ratio of males to females is super high. Evening out the ratio would be pretty hard, unfortunately, and the fact that this is a fan forum for a line of children's construction toys that happens to be out of production only makes it less likely.

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Superkid11
There should still probably be a new rule about how no flirting is allowed in BZP - seriously, this is starting to get ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure it would qualify has harrassment on some level. You could report the posts and Pohuaki could slap them.

 

Failing that though, all you can really do is ignore them. Easier said than done I know. General rule for the internet at large really. Though elsewhere people would do it to deliberately be annoying. :P

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Miraka

At least now that I've made my annoyance known, some of my fans are trying their best to tone down on the flirt jokes now... sorta'... :rolleyes:

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Sniper Jo

I believe that Autodude has flirted with every female comic maker on BZP. Just sayin'. :P

 

Also, you know Emkay? That female comic maker?

 

SHE IS SECRETLY A MANBEAST

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D-D-D-Ddude

@Arrow-wait, what? O_o

 

By the way, LR, you forgot the "violent and reactionary" stereotype. Examples would be Meg in Shadonix's comics, and (sorta) Twilight Helyrx in mine.

 

...I know Helyrx is going to kill me for putting her in that stereotype...waaaaaait...

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lavaside rahi
By the way, LR, you forgot the "violent and reactionary" stereotype. Examples would be Meg in Shadonix's comics, and (sorta) Twilight Helyrx in mine.

 

...I know Helyrx is going to kill me for putting her in that stereotype...waaaaaait...

Eh, I think there's a male category of that as well. I had a rather alarming number of guest stars (male) who told me their character liked to beat up annoying people. :P But I agree that some female characters do fall into that category.

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Kyori
@Arrow-wait, what? O_o

 

By the way, LR, you forgot the "violent and reactionary" stereotype. Examples would be Meg in Shadonix's comics, and (sorta) Twilight Helyrx in mine.

 

...I know Helyrx is going to kill me for putting her in that stereotype...waaaaaait...

 

Hey! I'm not reactionary! I'm radical! :P

 

Seriously though, in my profile, I only said I'd punch out someone if they pushed me over the edge. Otherwise I stare at them blankly and/or just barely restrain my annoyance. ;)

 

EDIT: Btw, it's spelled H-E-L-R-Y-X. I still don't know how people are constantly getting it wrong where I'm involved. =P

 

Eh, I think there's a male category of that as well. I had a rather alarming number of guest stars (male) who told me their character liked to beat up annoying people. :P But I agree that some female characters do fall into that category.

 

I've noticed that a lot as well. If the author can portray that in a clever way, it's funny, but otherwise (and a lot of the times) it gets old.

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BS01 Poll Mistress
By the way, LR, you forgot the "violent and reactionary" stereotype. Examples would be Meg in Shadonix's comics, and (sorta) Twilight Helyrx in mine.

 

...I know Helyrx is going to kill me for putting her in that stereotype...waaaaaait...

Eh, I think there's a male category of that as well. I had a rather alarming number of guest stars (male) who told me their character liked to beat up annoying people. :P But I agree that some female characters do fall into that category.

I guess Shad likes portraying me in that violent way. In my comics, I'm not really violent. </shamelessadvertising> :P

 

In fact, I'm portrayed as violent in almost every comic series I PGS/GS in. <_<

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Nuparurocks
numerous examples of this - Linnea of Nuparurocks

 

I would like to point out, in my defense, that I have five (five and a half, counting Kanyedora) female characters in my series, so I see this as a little offensive. Especially as Linnea did not start out as the stereotypical girlfriend; I developed the relationship over two years before actually committing to it. ;)

 

EDIT:

 

You get the extroverted types; you also have the introverted types. Most guys tend to pay attention to the females who are extroverted, easy-to-get, social, attractive, and the dependent, and very few are attracted to girls who are introverted, quiet, hard-to-get, asocial, normal, and independent.

 

Ironically, Linnea is portrayed as the almost polar opposite of the kind of girls I'm attracted to in real life. I'm actually far more attracted to the second type you listed here, despite my high conversational failure rate. :P

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lavaside rahi
numerous examples of this - Linnea of Nuparurocks

 

I would like to point out, in my defense, that I have five (five and a half, counting Kanyedora) female characters in my series, so I see this as a little offensive. Especially as Linnea did not start out as the stereotypical girlfriend; I developed the relationship over two years before actually committing to it. ;)

 

Fair enough - I wasn't paying much attention to the comics forum during that period, so I'll cross that example off. :)

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Nuparurocks

Thanks. :)

 

Also, it's actually six women in the series, if you count Lola, but I don't because she was a one-off character that parodied the stereotype you're talking about :P

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Miraka
Also, it's actually six women in the series, if you count Lola.

 

Get a wig for Makito and you'll have seven, meh-heh. :D

 

 

 

... That actually might not be a bad idea - have a lady comic-makers appreciation day and have most of the guys wear wigs in their comics for that day just for the heck of it.

 

No. Wait. Forget it, that'd just be too... disturbing. :blink:

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Ayel Hyland

Well, it's been awhile since I've updated the comics themselves, not to mention they aren't exactly a comedy series, but I have three main female characters in "City in the Sky," as well as a female supporting character an a female villain who was to be revealed before I had to close the series.

 

Really, there's nothing more for me to add that hasn't been said for why we don't have much female comic makers around here, though I personally believe the fact that Bionicle/Hero Factory are targeted at a mainly male audience is the largest factor. What can be done, however, is just to get the word out about other female comic makers so that female fans can become inspired to make their own comics.

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