Girls’ comics

Posted on March 23, 2005 by Brigid Alverson

There’s quite a discussion on Love Manga (scroll down a bit) about the upcoming issue of Comics Journal, which will focus on shoujo manga. This becomes a conversation about the perception that girls don’t read comics.
Here’s my two cents: I think girls will read comics if they can find satisfying ones, but story-driven girls’ comics have been missing from the American market until recently. The British girls’ comics of the 1960s and 1970s, titles like Bunty and Judy and Diana, had stories and characters that were very like those in shoujo manga: schoolgirl stories, mysteries, teenage love, plucky orphans making it on their own, and the ever-popular my-classmate-is-an-alien plotline. Even after 25 years, my sisters and I still remember and talk about those stories, and my kids like them too.
These comics have disappeared, although Bunty and Mandy hardback annuals are still available. They’re totally safe for kids and would make a nice gift for girls 8 to 10. I have a 20-year run of them, and my daughters love them.
Here is an interesting if a bit depressing essay on why that particular genre bit the dust. What is interesting is the apparently clueless publishing exec dismissing the idea of girls’ comics because girls have less time to read and are spending their money on other things. You wouldn’t know that from my house, where we have pre-ordered the next two issues of Fruits Basket and the girls are offering to do extra chores so we can pour even more money into the Tokyopop coffers. It’s amazing that DC Thomson could miss the boat so spectacularly.
A non-manga title that my daughters also enjoy is Amelia Rules. Actually, “enjoy” is not a strong enough word; our copies are worn to tatters.

About Brigid Alverson

Brigid Alverson has been reading comics since she was 4. After earning an MFA in printmaking, she headed to New York to become a famous artist but ended up working with words instead of pictures, first as a book editor and later as a newspaper reporter. She started MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters’ reading habits and now covers manga, comics and graphic novels as a freelancer for School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Comic Book Resources, the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and Robot 6. She also edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Now settled in the outskirts of Boston, Brigid is married to a physicist and has two daughters.
This entry was posted in Mangablog. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Girls’ comics

  1. Immelda Alty says:
    March 23, 2005 at 11:03 pm

    Hehe, my sister and I used to fight over the two annuals we had of Mandy I think, till my father bought The Trigan Empire at some antique fair, and I read the cover off that!

    Manga had always been the lure for me, followed by anime, rather than comics, I have for a while had my fingers in both pies, but I am quickly discovering that I just prefer manga. I think the wide generalisation that girl’s don’t read comics is a little too steeped in the concept that comics are a boys only club, its still hard to shake the stereotype, and I have encontered FAR too many instances where I have been talking about comics, or manga, (or games) and the response is one of incredulation that I can be female and still get enormous pleasure and enthusiasm from such sources.

    I wonder, one of the problems that often seems to beset comics, particularly from the larger companies (and some of the more well known superhero genres) is the recycling of stories. I know if I pick up a manga, I will more than likely get a new story, offering me a glimpse into something fresh and exciting. With comics, I just stopped buying them when they didn’t seem to really be giving anything new. I want to know that what I am paying for is actually worth the money I am spending on it. Manga often fulfils that in so many ways that comics don’t any more.

    The independant field of comics, is fresh and invigorating and I love seeing what comes from that. Having some involvement with a comic shop, I have noticed that the women tend to go for the more small press or independant titles. Stories that are exploring different themes or something a bit more complex than the latest supervillain with a dastardly scheme. Not that there isn’t any place for such comics, they fill a niche that is as every bit as important. But, it just doesn’t press my button like manga can.

    LoL *quietly steps off soapbox and sidles off* ^.^

Comments are closed.