My comic Life of an Aspie has a female protagonist what with it being a shoujo comic and all. The twist on the formula this time is the fact that our heroine has Asperger's Syndrome (which is similar to being autistic in many ways). You don't normally see autistic people in the media much aside from re-runs of the popular movie Rainman and shows that do a special episode on people who are autistic like on the long running PBS kids show Arthur.
A female main character who falls somewhere on the spectrum is more or less *unheard of * in TV, comics, movies, etc. From posts I've read on tumblr by a young woman who is an aspie and research I've done, women tend to be better able to blend in with normal people than male autistics on average. However, there are still certain social cues that can give away the fact that she's autistic much like her male counterparts.
To clarify, I'm not doing LoaA for the money. I'm not doing it to appease to the rabid SJW tumblrites who just as quickly lash out against something that doesn't fit their narrow minded deluded "progressive" views as they do latch on something they think is "progressive". I'm doing it because as someone with Asperger's, I feel there is a LOT of value in making a comic that hopefully humanizes people who actually have some form of autism to the general public. i.e the "neurotypicals" who may not fully understand what its like having your brain wired much differently than others. I know that aspies tend to be the butt of internet jokes (which is sad, really ****ing sad) and my comic aims to change that as much as possible.
While there has been advances in understanding autism and its various forms in the past few decades, I feel there's still a lot more to be done especially in countries where their understanding of the social disorder is basically like what 50's America was like: Autism = Mentally retarded and/or social reject. Yes, we don't always get social cues. Yes, we tend to have niche tastes that separate us from the "cool kids" growing up. Yes, some of us have extreme cases of autism like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman, but most of us whether we are low functioning or high functioning tend to be a lot smarter than most people are willing to give us credit for.
And NO, being vaccinated at birth does NOT later lead to getting autism/Asperger's. Modern science and research has proven multiple times that its something you are born with much like being homosexual/bisexual. You either are or you aren't.
Currently, my comic is on hiatus while I'm working on both a guest comic for a certain Tapastic series I follow and my art style a bit. I do plan on getting back on track with it hopefully no later than the start of the new year.
