Friday 20 May 2011

anne alizabeth moore on gender inequality in comics, and her ladydrawers column

I think it's well known amongst my friends that I have a brain-crush on Anne Elizabeth Moore, and here's more proof of why...

I suggest skipping through to about 13:36 til 30:17 of this podcast to hear an interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore: http://matthewf.net/2011/05/19/the-matthew-filipowicz-show-episode-14-with-anne-elizabeth-moore-and-josh-kalven about women in comics ahead of her new project that I got an email about today. I'll paste that email below cuz it's kinda rad and I don't want to paraphrase what AEM has to say or misquote the radness she has in store!


Hi friends,

Exciting news!

Starting in mid-June, I'll be doing a biweekly column on gender in media and comics for Truthout, a progressive news and opinion site on the internet! But this column is unique, because I won't be doing it alone: each installment will be a collaboration with a different artist, mostly (or at least initially) from the comics community.

Some of you are probably familiar with the graphic essays I've been doing since I left the Best American Comics—collaborations with Esther Pearl Watson, Susie Cagle, Christa Donner, and most of the young Chicago comics community for lit pubs and mags like Tin House, Bitch, Annalemma and others. I also teach a course on gender and comics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago that has allowed me to collect, sort through, and play with a whole mess of raw data, stats, and media theory that I look forward to working with you on presenting to the world in as funny a manner as we can collectively muster.

The latest set of data looks at the participation of women in comics creation (approximately 40% of the field) as compared to the number of published pages they are offered (currently between 13-24%) across the spectrum of comics published in the US. Once gathered, we can compare this to, for example, the likelihood that women are to appear sans culottes on comics pages (5.3 times more likely than they are to draw them). We also looked at rape stats (75% of Vertigo books feature a rape or sexual assault), MSRP per book (on average, pages by female creators cost approximately 58% what pages by male creators do), and plain old ridiculousness (that in most cases—in comics, journalism, film, and literature—the experts offered space to weigh in with opinions on these matters are men.)

In addition to statistics, the column will feature interviews with artists that both stayed in (Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel) and left the game (Julie Doucet, Katherine Collins) and will intercut the heaviness with, basically, splash pages. Titled things like, WHY WOMEN CAN'T DRAW GOOD FIGHT SCENES; CUTE GIRL IN THE COMICS SHOP; GET OVER IT, SISTER; and I don't know what-all else. Your funny ideas, however, are welcome. Nay—necessary.

To start with, the column will appear as a regular series of collaborations with various women and trans comics artists: Over the run of the series I aim to involve as many creators as possible. Each assignment will start with a loose script we can finalize together—although all non-text decisions I'll leave to your superior skills—and I'll try to get them to you with a ton of lead time. Final JPG art must come in black with one color of your choice (pink seems popular but is not mandatory) at 800 pixels wide and 1600, 2400, or 3200 pixels tall (your call, depending on how you choose to depict the material) and there will be some flexibility in how many subsequent assignments it takes you to fill out the script. I can currently offer a hundred bucks for totally new work, and $50 for reworked, previously published pieces that fit within the structure (most of these will be print pieces we've collaborated on together, but I'm open to other ideas, too).

Want to get started? I have scripts read to rock it, due as soon as June 8. Just hit me back with a "Yes, please!" and a "I'd be into doing something about __________!" or an "I won't be free until _______" and we can put you in the lineup.

Excited to work with you all!

heart,
aem

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