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represented in many different ways, ranging from feminist to feminine stereotype. Given this
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Mel Gibson
Gender and comics is a huge and complex field, so this essay can only flag up a few key
themes: first, representation within comics, something that varies according to genre; second,
gender and audience, again, this varies according to historical period, geographical location
and genre; finally, creators and gender. Historically, the medium has, in English-speaking
countries, been seen as dominated by male creators. The issue of creators and gender is further
complicated in relation to genre, as we shall see. These issues tend to be intertwined, in
that many of the debates link the depiction of female characters with a supposed, or intended,
impact upon readers. Here, ideas about media effects, and sometimes moral panics, link with
comics and gender.
Gender within Comics
I turn first to representations of gender within comics, and a particular genre, that of the
superhero comic. Most academic work on gender within comics has focused on female
characters so far. However, gender studies has begun to incorporate masculinity in order to
address gender more broadly, something I return to later in relation to comics. My focus in
this essay is predominantly the representation of women, something that might be seen as an
ideological battleground. For example, the first appearance of Wonder Woman was intended
to act as an inspiration to readers. This emerged from, in part, the influence of America’s
progressive movement upon creator William Moulton Marston. In trying to change culture
through a focus on what might be seen as an essentialist view of female qualities, Marston
wrote:
Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength,
and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-
loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because
of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the
strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
(Marston 1943: 42–43)
As Michelle R. Finn notes, the aim was to create a new kind of female figure. Finn adds that
Marston stated in a letter to Coulton Waugh in 1945, ‘Frankly, Wonder Woman is
psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world!’
(Finn 2014: 7). Yet, there are other ways of thinking about Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman, as Joseph J. Darowski’s (2014) edited collection indicates, as does Jill
Lepore’s (2014) monograph, is a complex figure who changes over time and has been
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potential range of interpretations, there have been concerns expressed by critics. For example,
the bondage elements in the early narratives have been criticised. Marston, as Lepore (2014)
indicates, was privately committed to both bondage and emancipation. However, although
Marston argued publicly that showing the character breaking free of chains was intended to
inspire women and girls, others, such as Josette Frank (1944), saw it simply as perversion.
Frank was usually a supporter of comics and so her criticism, as outlined by Les Daniels (2000:
61) and elsewhere, is significant. This reading of a female character as representing a
pornographic discourse exists in tension for Frank with the notion of emancipation and female
power.
Possibly the most notable opponent of Wonder Woman was Fredric Wertham, who saw
her as both perverted and perverting. In The Seduction of the Innocent, he was insistent that
‘[s]pecific comics had specific dangers: superhero comics were essentially fascist . . . often with
homo-erotic undercurrents’ (cited in Sabin 1993: 158). Wertham was particularly concerned
that girls reading superhero comics might desire to be like Wonder Woman, stating:
[Wonder Woman] is always a horror type. She is physically very powerful, tortures
men, has her own female following, is the cruel, ‘phallic’ woman. While she is a
frightening figure for boys, she is an undesirable ideal for girls, being the exact
opposite of what girls are supposed to want to be.
(Wertham 1954: 35)
He later characterised this comic as ‘[a] crime comic which we have found to be one of
the most harmful’ (Wertham 1954: 64), a judgement related to his concerns about appropriate
behavior for girls, linking representations and readers. He argued that ‘[i]f it were possible to
translate a cardboard figure like “Wonder Woman” into life, every normal-minded young
man would know there is something wrong with her’ (Wertham 1954: 235). Thus, he places
himself and the ‘normal-minded’ young man as the right-minded citizen against the deviant
female, including those women and girls who might admire Wonder Woman.
These divergent views of Wonder Woman give an indication of the complexities around
gender and representation that emerge, even when looking at only a single character. Looking
at superheroes more widely with regard to female characters, I next turn to the work of
Richard Reynolds (1992), whose comments about all female characters links readership and
representation in a rather different way to Wertham. Reynolds insisted that the superheroine
was a pornographic sadomasochistic fantasy figure solely aimed at male readers.
Reynolds talks about the inaccessibility of such material for female readers, often using
arguments derived from feminism, but using them to identify comics as an exclusively male
space rather than empower women or argue for change in comics. For instance, he asks in
relation to the figure of the superheroine, ‘How can women who dress up in the styles of
1940s pornography be anything other than the pawns and tools of male fantasy?’ (Reynolds
1992: 79). He also argues that all female figures in comics are the same in acting as the ‘sign
of pornography . . . [which] comes to stand for an entire pornographic subtext, a series of
blanks which readers remain free to fill in for themselves’ (Reynolds 1992: 34). These
comments reiterate that the superhero genre is exclusively for boys and men and so serve to
play a double role as feminist statements, arguing that this material objectifies women, but
also as assertions of justified male dominance in the medium.
To further illustrate Reynolds’ use of feminism, he says:
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Any feminist critic could demonstrate that most of these characters fail to inscribe
any specifically female qualities: they behave in battle like male heroes with thin
waists and silicone breasts, and in repose are either smugly domestic . . . or brooding
and remote – a slightly threatening male fantasy.
(Reynolds 1992: 80)
Here, he both distances himself from the ‘feminist critic’ and uses the argument that he assumes
one might make. The idea of the heroine as disguised male also begs a question about what
‘specifically female qualities’ are, as they clearly do not include strength or activity, which
reveal a woman to actually be a man.
Nowhere is there a suggestion that superheroines might be appropriated, celebrated or
changed by female readers of any age. Indeed, for Reynolds, the female reader does not exist,
because, according to Reynolds, women do not consume pornography. Further, Reynolds
insists that there can be no other readings of superheroines. Others have challenged this; for
instance, Mel Gibson (2014) offers an alternate reading of the superheroine through an analysis
of the characters Supergirl and Ms Marvel in relation to second wave feminism. Further,
recent comics explicitly offer both a celebration of and changing perspectives on the
superheroine and are intended to appeal to female readers. For example, the new version of
Ms Marvel is Kamala Khan, a teenage Pakistani Muslim American. One of the editors, Sana
Amanat, said in an article by Matt More that the series came from a ‘desire to explore the
Muslim-American diaspora from an authentic perspective’ (More 2013). The figure functions
as a comment on representations of Muslims, teenagers and women in comics and may be
seen as breaking down Reynolds’ assumption of representations of women in superhero comics
as a pornographic monolith aimed at only one audience.
Another approach to female characters in the superhero genre is to focus on violence against
women as a motivation for the actions of male characters. Gail Simone, who has written,
among many other comic titles, Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman, coined the term ‘Women
in Refrigerators’ in 1999 (Simone 1999). The term referred to Kyle Rayner’s (Green Lantern)
lover Alex DeWitt, who was indeed killed and put in a refrigerator. Simone argues that women
in superhero comics have historically been far more likely than men to be murdered, raped
and tortured. The website developed to catalogue such incidents was, in effect, a quantitative
research project about gender and representation. Further, while male characters who are
killed or otherwise harmed are usually at some point restored to their original power and
position, this is argued to be much less the case with regard to female characters. Simone
argued that such acts would drive female readers away from the genre.
A final approach to gender in relation to representations of the superheroine returns us to
these figures as a fantasy for specifically male readers. Carolyn Cocca (2014) focused on
physically impossible and sexualised postures in mainstream superhero comics. Such postures
mean that the reader views both breasts and buttocks simultaneously (impossible without
breaking one’s back). She explored whether such images could be considered pervasive, and
whether their numbers have changed since the 1990s. This was both a quantitative and
qualitative study looking at a number of titles. Coincidently, at around the same time Cocca’s
work was published, artists were experimenting with gender and representation by depicting
male characters in poses usually only seen in relation to female characters, and conversely,
depicting female characters in what might be seen as male postures. The resulting images
were both entertaining and made a point about sexism. For an example of this kind of work,
see Jancy Richardson’s (2014) collection of images by various creators.
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Finally, to revisit the growth of studies of gender, comics and masculinity, this leads into
interesting work in relation to the superhero body. This includes an article by Robert and
Julie Voelker-Morris (2014) on the limitations of constructions of masculinity in mainstream
comics. Other approaches are included in the edited collection by Gibson et al. (2014). A
key example of exploring masculinity is the article by Will Brooker that focused on the
character Flex Mentallo, described by Brooker as:
the weakling from the Charles Atlas ads of the 1950s who was humiliated on the
beach, sent off for a bodybuilding course and became a man . . . [a character who]
now fights crime in leopard-print trunks, ankle-bracelets and high boots, a ‘Hero
of the Beach’ halo materializing over his head when he goes into action.
(Brooker 2011: 25)
However, Flex is also the creation of a comic fan in the comic (making explicit themes around
the male gaze in relation to male characters). These various levels allow for a complex reading
of the character and the comic, referencing queer theory, comic book history and bodybuilding
culture.
Gender and Audience
The article mentioned above by Robert and Julie Voelker-Morris (2014) also flags up the
issue of what the predominantly male audience might understand about male roles from
reading superhero comics. There is also work on women and girl readers of superhero comics
and the ways in which they might be seen. For example, Gibson (2003) looks closely at the
ways in which superhero titles were seen as by boys and for boys, so policing female involve-
ment with the genre. Other work also talks about the notion of female readers as trespassers,
most notably, perhaps, that by Amy Kiste Nyberg (1995). In addition, there are studies that
analyse LGBTQ audiences, for example that by Andrew R. Spieldenner (2013), which focused
on gay men reading across gender difference in Wonder Woman.
Moving on from superheroes, however, I turn to an historical example of gender, audience
and representation, that of the British comics for girls (although I touch on titles aimed at
boys as well). The girls’ titles, such as Bunty, Jackie, Twinkle, School Friend, Girl, Misty and
Tammy, formed a major genre (see references for publication details of all the British comics
that appear in this essay). Each weekly publication would contain a number of ongoing longer
narratives and some short self-contained strips, along with, in some cases, prose articles and
stories. These anthology comics for girls existed from the 1950s until the very early 2000s.
They were, however, rooted in concerns about gender and the female reader, as well as some
of the concerns addressed above in relation to the female reader of superhero comics. Marston
subscribed to a tabula rasa theory regarding the female reader, as did the creators of British
girls’ comics. In both cases, the basic idea is that readers are empty vessels or blank slates who
will be influenced to change behaviour or appearance in response to what they read. This
notion of media effects also encompasses the idea that what one reads may result in problematic
behaviour, as Wertham suggested. Both Wonder Woman and British girls’ comics were
intended to be inspirational and create aspirations in the female reader, but the British girls’
comics were more down-to-earth in focusing on education and career.
The emergence of the British girls’ comic in the 1950s came about as a result of the lifting
of post-Second World War paper rationing in Britain. Prior to the war, story papers, which
contained written serials, had been dominant for both boys and girls. Although entertaining,
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like the comics that followed, story papers could be seen as instruction manuals regarding
the concerns and social roles of boys and girls.
When they appeared, girls’ comics could be seen as aimed at modifying behaviour in
potentially positive ways. Yet, the contradiction between the comic as ‘bad’ medium (seen
in Wertham’s responses to comics, above) and periodicals for girls as ‘good’ means that comics
for girls, or containing female characters, as is the case with the superhero titles, may act to
undermine, or be seen to destabilise, traditional ideals of femininity.
An example of this can be seen with Girl, whose very title separates the comic from the
other titles published by the Hulton Press, Robin, Swift and Eagle. The title positions the girl
reader as explicitly other. After an attempt to model Girl along the lines of Eagle for boys
(where the heroes were motivated by nation or religious belief), there was a shift to making
narratives in Girl about supporting family or friends. These more personal motivations were
attached to a notion of idealised femininity. However, creators did see work and education
as appropriate for girls, with a large number of stories featuring what were the glamorous
careers of the time, such as being an air hostess or a nurse. There were also stories about
sports and hobbies, including, particularly in the 1950s, ballet, suggesting the importance of
feminine grace.
In addition, non-fiction elements in Girl included pin-ups of British or Commonwealth
stars (both male and female), pets and the Royal Family. The diverse range of elements
contained in Girl offer a contrast to the content of superhero comics. These British titles
begin with a premise that there is a range of activities for girls that should be represented in
comics, albeit within a gender-constrained set of interests.
The tensions around girl readers of the superhero comic do not appear in relation to the
genre of the girls’ comic. There is also a sense in that each title for girls, all of the constituent
parts that make them up represents a model, or social construction of girlhood. The social
construction of girlhood is part of the notion of the social construction of childhood. Allison
James and Alan Prout (1997) explained this concept by stating that childhood is a relative
concept and that what it means depends on when and where one lives. They stated that there
are a variety of childhoods and that childhood can never be entirely divorced from class,
gender, disability and ethnicity. Thus, the British girls’ comics were created by adults based
on their own views and assumptions of what girlhood was, that is, their construction of
girlhood. The adult construction of girlhood was then offered to actual girls, who might choose
to accept, negotiate or reject that model. Further, that many of these titles, for instance Bunty,
used a girl’s name as the title of the comic emphasises that these texts can be seen as social
constructions of girlhood. I would, however, add that the actual readers accessed and thought
about these texts in a range of different ways, as my research around readership of these and
other titles indicates (Gibson 2000, 2003, 2008).
To show how these assumptions and constructions worked out in practice, Bunty differed
from earlier publications such as Girl was that many of the school stories focused on the
problems of being a working-class outsider (Girl had focused on middle-class experience).
Thus, gender is cross-cut by class to create a more specific construction of girlhood. The
stories tended to be concerned with the struggle of such outsiders to deal with the snobbery
of, and bullying by, both staff and pupils in private schools. These particular stories often
potentially undermine the aspirational intentions of the publications through their dark view
of the world (increasingly the case in the 1970s), and extensive use of the victim heroine.
Like school stories, ballet stories were incorporated in Bunty and similar titles, adapted from
the middle-class papers such as Girl, as well as from the earlier story papers. Again, the heroines
were often disadvantaged. In the story ‘Moira Kent’, which ran in Bunty from 1958 to 1964,
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the focus is on an orphan’s desire to become a ballerina despite overwhelming obstacles. As
the story continued, it followed the progress of her career. The outsider who fights against
adversity is intended to offer the reader an aspirational model, revealing a construction of the
girl reader as needing external motivation to develop interests seen as outside of those that
are assumed to be traditionally working class.
Returning to male readers, the comic as a medium has typically been defined as addressing
a male audience, as noted above, and yet also as having a negative effect upon boys. To an
extent, this was about national differences about suitable entertainment for boys returning us
to social constructions of the child. For example, Eagle was partly designed to counter what
were seen as the potentially negative effects of American comics upon British boys. Eagle
contained stories such as ‘Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future’ with science fiction, detection and
adventure dominant, accompanied by cutaway images of boats, planes and other machinery.
The appeal to the male readers, as mentioned above, was pitched in terms of national sentiment
and a muscular Christianity. The construction of boyhood, here, has specific interests attached
to it, irrespective of what actual readers may like. In effect, Eagle can be seen as aiming to
inspire boys and direct them, as Girl did. It can also be seen as part of the response to the
UK version of the anti-comics campaigns, in offering what was seen as more wholesome fare
(although it too was criticised by British anti-comics campaigners).
Other titles for boys suggest how they were seen by publishers. The titles themselves are
more abstract than those for girls, for instance Tiger, Victor and Wizard. I would add that
Wizard is an exclamation suggesting that the comic is very good, not a reference to a
practitioner of magic. Tiger is about emphasising power and action, not the actual animal.
Victor, as one might guess, is about achievement. War appears more often than in the girls’
titles. Sports are a major feature, but football and athletics appear rather than horse riding and
netball. Again, judgments on content are made according the views the publishers had about
what was suitable according to gender, also cross-cut by class.
Creators, Genre and Gender
In discussing creators, publishers and editors in relation to gender, quite simply, in the cases
discussed above, the majority of the creators were male. This may seem odd in relation to
the British girls’ comics, as one might expect female input in a genre specifically for girls.
The following anecdote suggests how one British publisher saw the girls’ comic. For DC
Thomson, launching Bunty was a new initiative. Ron Smith described their lack of experience
of publishing for girls:
The problem was that no-one at Thomson’s amongst the journalists, writers and
illustrators had produced a girls’ comic. This was, for them, the first, so the managing
editor obviously had to scout around the various papers within the company and
pull out illustrators from Wizard [and others] . . . someone who was probably
adaptable, and would draw girls.
(On These Days, BBC Radio 4, 17 January 1998)
Despite the previous history of publishing for girls, none of the staff had worked on such
a periodical. In addition, the use of the phrase ‘would draw girls’ suggests that many of the
staff were unenthusiastic about the prospect of working on a girls’ comic. This creates a
situation in which a group of male editors and creators hoped, or perhaps assumed, that they
knew enough about girls’ interests to make titles sell.
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The practice of DC Thomson, publishers of Bunty et al., of not revealing the names of
writers and artists can make their gender difficult to ascertain. However, once one has contact
with a writer or artist, their narratives about gender and comics are enlightening. Benita
Brown, for instance, offered her views on the publisher’s structure and practices. In particular,
she stated that twice a year, ‘the DC Thomson safari’ of predominantly male editors would
go around the British Isles to meet creators to discuss the storylines for the next six months
(interview, 9 August 1999). This positions the editors as hunters and the creators as animals,
which, even if tongue-in-cheek, is suggestive. Brown felt that all creators were treated similarly
but stated that she thought female contributors were in the minority. In addition, the process,
in being driven by the editors, also emphasises the way that male editors made definite choices
on behalf of girls, rather than consulting female readers.
In response to the success, or failure, of titles, what was offered to girl readers changed,
with darker and harsher stories emerging in the 1970s. Brown cited one of her own narratives
as an example. Brown said:
There was one I was talked into doing called ‘Blind Bettina’, she was an orphaned
pop-singer whose only friend was her guide dog and her cruel aunt and uncle were
her theatrical agents. Well, this little girl’s life was supposed to be miserable, so I
thought, right, I’ll make you really miserable and at the end of one episode I drowned
the dog. And my editors said ‘you’ll have the little girls weeping into their pillows’.
[I asked them] Isn’t that what you wanted?
(interview, 9 August 1999)
She argued that she would have to rewrite the episode, but the editors instead gave her the
opening caption of her next episode, ‘Brave Laddie Swam across the Loch to the Other Side’
(interview, 9 August 1999).
Although female creators were a minority, they contributed to a number of titles, including
Tammy. This was a significant title in that Pat Mills identified Tammy as ‘the beginning of
what could be called the “new wave” comics’ (cited in Barker 1989: 17). The ‘new wave’,
could, among other things, be characterised as more responsive to readers than previous
comics. The girls involved in the market research for Tammy (aged 8 to 13 years) generally
confirmed the editors’ assumptions about preferred content, but the readers’ enjoyment of
stories that made them cry came as a surprise (Anonymous 1993: 13). This amounts to a
major change in terms of the relationship between comic, gender and audience, and leads to
the harsher stories mentioned above.
However, while comics for girls faltered, other kinds of periodicals continued to grow in
popularity, especially general interest magazines that focused on make-up, clothes and popular
music. Jackie had led the way over a number of years in the 1970s and onwards by slowly
dropping comic strips. Periodicals such as Patches and Oh Boy that launched in the mid-1970s
initially contained photo-stories but later became wholly magazines. Their focus on the girl
as consumer reflected what was becoming the dominant construction of girlhood. This was
combined with a growing assumption that comics were for boys and young men, again a
construction of childhood. Consequently, comics became increasingly dislocated from both
actual girls and social constructions of girlhood across class during the 1970s and 1980s.
Conclusion
In the cases of British girls’ comics and the representation of the American superheroines,
there are flashpoints around the intersection of gender and comics. These can take a range
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of different forms, as we have seen. One issue has to do with the ‘ownership’ of the
superheroine by male and/or female readers. Another is about the notion of the reader as a
‘blank slate’, that is being someone who will copy or be influenced by what they see. In this
case, the content of the comic is seen as leading those supposedly vulnerable to media effects
into problematic behaviour. The costume and posing of such characters offers another point
of tension.
In contrast, the flashpoints about British girls’ comics are specifically around the implied
constructions of girlhood and class that the titles can be seen as conveying. ‘Blank slate’
understandings of the child also appear in relation to British titles, this time with the intent
of guiding boys and girls into specific behaviours, attitudes and aspirations. In addition, there
is a tension between comics and magazines with regard to gender, in that the magazine became
increasingly associated with female readers and the comic with male (something that the arrival
of manga in translation did much to disrupt). Finally, as has been noted, that both sorts of
comics were and are predominantly created by male artists and writers shows a dislocation
between gender and the comic around female readers, characters and narratives.
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