#292 Women’s Issues

women's issues

FLASHBACK! At a panel at San Diego Comicon 2011, Dan DiDio (bottom picture at left) caused a stir by seeming belligerent when a fan asked why the DC reboot included fewer female creators — even fewer than had worked on for DC pre-reboot. DiDio seemed to think there were hardly any female comics creators he could consider. Hear it here

Jake Ekiss was probably not alone in expressing disapproval of this sentiment — in this case, on Twitter. So Tim invited him to come on the podcast and discuss it here. (Jake’s comic is Solomon Azua.)

Joining Tim and Jake is one of those female comics creators the mainstream isn’t hiring, EK Weaver, creator of the Web comic The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (that’s Amal in the top picture at left). We discuss why women are so much further out of the comics mainstream in the US than they are in, oh say, Japan.

Also this week, Tim’s former day-job office mate Cassey, now based in Anchorage, joins Tim to discuss Bryan Lee O’Malley’s pre-Scott Pilgrim work Lost at Sea, the coming-of-age story of 18-year-old Raleigh (middle picture).

Originally published August 29, 2011

 

Critiquing Comics #063 “Demon Archives”

Demon ArchivesJust because a story is full of tropes doesn’t mean it’s bad. Consider Demon Archives, by Daniel Sharp and Sebastian Piriz. Postapocalyptic future? Check. Members of a troop being picked off one by one, by an unknown enemy? Check. A.I. who may or may not be on the heroes’ side? Check.

And yet, much of it moves along quite nicely, including an exciting battle scene. Still, certain questions remain to be answered. Tim and Mulele weigh the pluses and minuses.

#409 Avast, maties! Comics!

Captain KittenTim came back from his Tim Across America trip with an assortment of comics, including a couple from the New York Aspiring Comics Creators Club, and trove of self-published books that he bought at Isotope Comics, including one about a feline pirate captain. This week, he and Mulele read through those comics and review them:

Captain Kitten #2 by Jemma Salume

The Nomad Church #1 by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey

Dreamwalker by Diane Pascual

Jerks in Space #1 by John Karnes

Torchbearer vol 0.25 by Nicholas Dedual and Dennis Calero

Nippy Wallaboosh #3 by Jamie Cosley

Sara Rising #1 by Emilio Rodriquez, James Rodriquez, Michele St. Martin, and Wilson Ramos

#408 Studio Revolver

Studio RevolverTim talks with the members of Studio Revolver in Atlanta, some of whom are have done work for Cartoon Network and storyboarded TV commercials. Not beginners, these are folks who are accomplished and in demand.

So why’d they decide to make their own Web comics? Isn’t that how artists try to make names for themselves? Time times are a-changin’…

Irene Strychalski’s “Shaman Child”

Stephanie Gladden’s “Girls of Monster Paradise”

Rod Ben (Killamari)

Dominike Stanton

Tariq Hassan

Johnathan Floyd

 

 

#407 Should “Building Stories” be condemned?

buildingstoriesChris Ware’s 2012 work Building Stories attracted a lot of attention because of its unusual format: a box of 14 publications of varying shapes and sizes, which can be read in any order. Ware says the work is about memory, in various ways, and reading the story in various non-chronological ways can give us different points of view on how its characters remember (or mis-remember, or forget) various things.

While Tim finds the examination of memory to be interesting in itself, and feels that the format enhances that, Kumar is less patient with it, wondering what the conclusion is, why all the characters seem so miserable, and whether the work’s form has any relationship to the content. This week, they discuss whether the work deserves a “historical landmark” plaque, or a wrecking ball.

AV Club review of “Building Stories”

#406 Aya Rothwell, Comics Anthropologist

Aya RothwellHaving grown up with feet planted firmly on both sides of the Pacific, Aya Rothwell has always been observant of cultural differences, and this shows up in her comics. Who else would do a comic about a human visitor to an alien world, with the biggest conflict being that the human keeps getting the aliens’ names mixed up?

Aya also fills us in on using watercolors in her comics, her journey to comics via the worlds of biology and film, and more.