I kind of resent the suggestion that there would be something inherent about superheroes that wouldn’t be of interest to women. That makes me nuts. I’m a 5-foot tall women with a quick temper who always looks like a child, so power fantasies are not strange to me. I also have this theater background, and I’ve always loved superhero comics the same way I love Commedia dell’Arte. The same way I love opera. This is Greek mythology. These are huge overwrought characters that somehow speak to the lizard brain. There’s genuine catharsis available in this stuff. I don’t think working in superheroes is slumming it. I’m proud of this form. I like this. There’s nothing inherently masculine about power fantasies. There’s nothing inherently masculine about superhero comics. There’s nothing inherently masculine about mythology. About science fiction. There is no reason that a woman who is interested in this field as a reader or creator should feel that she is peculiar in any way. It makes me furious when I see that — particularly when it’s the “nerd culture” that does it! Really?! Is that what we’re going to be about?! From a business standpoint, it’s just stupid. Women control the purse strings in families very often. Young women have their own income and love to shop and read. Why would you leave money on the table?
So the Smut Peddler Kickstarter has made over twice its original goal, holy damn! There are just under two weeks left for the fundraiser now, and all of the donations are still going right into the contributors’ pockets in bonus form. In case anyone still needs enticing, and/or because I felt it was interesting, here is some more Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Knowledge for you all!
Last summer I went to Dallas to visit theyoungdoyley and work on our entry, “Travesty.” It was all a haze of stifling heat, delicious Indonesian food, action anime, and playful kittens. Also we went to StripCon just to weakly flail at EK Weaver. She was so nice in the face of our fangirling!
BUT IT WASN’T ALL FROLICSOME BLISS. I did a ton of interesting research, especially on period clothing. Above are the character designs Jenn did for the comic, plus some of the images we found that informed our choices. (Shoutout to Lena for her costuming chops and helpful hints!)
Other things I looked up:
- Common mistakes made by Russian-speakers in English
- 1920s New York, Chicago, and LA, especially Chinatowns
- Burlesque and vaudeville routines
- Popular songs of 1923 (including, hilariously, “Yes! We Have No Bananas”)
- Makeup fashion and technology of the 1920s
- Russian and Chinese translations (shoutout to Sinoiru and to hippos-poptarts’s friend Nancy, respectively!)
- Drag history (shoutout to the lady next to me on the plane for being so interested in my reading! That conversation went way better than it could have.)
So I learned a whole lot, not just about comics writing (to be addressed in a later post) but also about language, fashion, and history! Neat you guys!
Wow, you guys. The Smut Peddler Kickstarter has really taken off—we reached our minimum goal in under 24 hours! But if you donate now, everything goes straight into the pockets of the artists and you will get to read their fabulous work, so please keep up all the promoting and dollar-flinging!
I thought I would entice y’all with some details on my and theyoungdoyley’s sixteen-page contribution, “Travesty,” which takes place in the same universe as our upcoming webcomic (!!), New Dresden Blues.
The time: 1923. The place: New Dresden. Our hero, Bob Huang, is working as part time muscle for the Martelli family, but he has more than just that on his plate: a kid sister to raise, a night job even shadier than his mob work, and a note on the kitchen table from a mysterious older gentleman. Is there more to their relationship than meets the eye??? Stay tuned for glamor! Sarcasm! Petulance! Blowjobs!
(Seriously, Jenn’s art is beautiful and you should be getting your eyeballs all over it stat. Plus, she is a classy, classy lady—I’m so lucky to be writing for her!)
Thompson uses Habibi as a venue to argue that Islam and Christianity are not at odds with each other, but interconnected to one another. On this mark, Habibi is a well-done and original contribution to the canon of contemporary Western comics literature. I applaud Thompson for humanizing a religion that many have been quick to vilify, and for managing to do it in a non-preachy way. In fact, because he approaches Islam with a clear compassion and level-headedness, I suspect many readers let Thompson off the hook for the Orientalist elements of the text.
Which brings us to the bulk of the book: the love story between Dodola and Zam spanning multiple decades, set predominately in the land of Wanatolia. While this story is drawn with the same detail-attentive pen that Thompson uses at the service of calligraphy and geometric patterns, here it predominantly captures the vagueness of stereotypes. Thompson contributes to (instead of resisting) Orientalist discourse by overly sexualizing women, littering the text with an abundance of savage Arabs, and dually constructing the city of Wanatolia as modern and timeless.
— Nadim Damluji
Great criticism of Thompson’s Habibi. I really enjoyed this comic, he’s a masterful storyteller, but holy hell are some of the moments uncomfortable. The incredible research he does on classical culture — language, religion, folklore — just makes the lazy stereotypes of rapist Arab men and sexually vulnerable Arab women more frustrating. Well-intentioned, but not always successful.
(Trigger warning for racialized depictions of rape.)
![lgbtlaughs:
[illustrating featuring four white people. Top: a man with slicked-back hair in dark blue jeans, white sneakers and a yellow shirt. Right: A man with short hair in lighter blue rolled up jeans, boots and a red t-shirt, who has a very pert bum. Bottom: A woman with multicoloured short hair, wearing a yellow dress with a cat-print top over it, pink leggings and black ankle boots. Left:A woman with long curly brown hair, wearing a yellow shirt, brown trousers, a loose open brown shirt, teal socks and black high heels. They are all looking at the person anti-clockwise to them, and each has a thought bubble that reads: “what a beauty!”]
annearchal:
Page from Gay Comix 05 c. 1984](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf8utbOdoF1qfjqx0o1_500.jpg)
