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A review by will_sargent
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them by Jill Pantozzi, Elizabeth Bear, Jill Thompson, Gail Simone, Kelly Thompson, Jen Van Meter, Mark Waid, Delia Sherman, Carla Speed McNeil, Tammy Garrison, Seanan McGuire, Amanda Conner, Terry Moore, Sara Ryan, Greg Rucka, Sigrid Ellis, Sarah Monette, Colleen Doran, Louise Simonson, Lynne M. Thomas, Rachel Edidin
4.0
There are a couple of targeted essays (notably on the Jean Grey / Emma Frost identity breakdown), but for the most part this is a book of essays detailing how women like comics. Guess what? The women who like comics, like them for the same reasons that men like them, and like them the same way that men do. In fact, the women who like comics are just as mystified at the women who don't like comics as the men who like comics are.
The big difference? If you're a woman who likes comics, not only did you not find anyone who looked like you, but you had to deal with men who tell you that you don't exist. Repeatedly. And this lasted for decades, until Neil Gaiman got on the scene and then Bone, and the movies happened and then the floodgates opened and the world accepted that women could like comics, as proven by the millions of women who like comics.
I think the saddest essay was the one where a comic book creator talks to one of the writers and she slowly realizes that she is the first woman he's ever spoken to about comic books. Ever. Ouch.
So yeah. I was actually expecting more of an examination of male-gaze centered discussions (and yes, Power Girl is mentioned) and the tendency for men to not recognize that their male characters are power fantasies rather than female love interests... but reading the essays reminds me that it's so much better than it used to be.
The big difference? If you're a woman who likes comics, not only did you not find anyone who looked like you, but you had to deal with men who tell you that you don't exist. Repeatedly. And this lasted for decades, until Neil Gaiman got on the scene and then Bone, and the movies happened and then the floodgates opened and the world accepted that women could like comics, as proven by the millions of women who like comics.
I think the saddest essay was the one where a comic book creator talks to one of the writers and she slowly realizes that she is the first woman he's ever spoken to about comic books. Ever. Ouch.
So yeah. I was actually expecting more of an examination of male-gaze centered discussions (and yes, Power Girl is mentioned) and the tendency for men to not recognize that their male characters are power fantasies rather than female love interests... but reading the essays reminds me that it's so much better than it used to be.