Really interesting Youtube Video that discusses increasing importance / prominence of women in the comic book world as consumers in terms of purchasing etc

[IdiotWithPencil]

yeah web marketing would be a great for us specificaly, also I have been in a basic marketing class (just simple stuff and mostly traditional) and I do find it helpfull in marketing my comic from time to time, maybe sombody could post their notes from these clases like they did with the college comic clases

[IdiotWithPencil]

fine arts is also part of the marketing spectrums since you have to make it so people actually asociate your brand as fine art

[punkarsenic]

of course, of course, but i dont know if as many fine art courses dedicate time to teaching their students marketing and business as illustration or graphic design courses do

[IdiotWithPencil]

oh no perish the thought, I think in that case those courses should be diffrent, I don't want to go to a fine arts and traditinal painting class or course and see market theory, that's what the marketing classes and courses are for, now if the colleges of fine art don't put those courses in the curiculum(don't know if that's the right word) then their very slow on the uptake

[punkarsenic]

okay this is just a miscommunication bc university is run differently in the UK. over here, you take A Course and that course covers everything youre gonna learn at uni besides how to get really drunk. so thats how i was phrasing it. i dont expect a degree composited of various classes to have a fine art class that has marketing thrown in.

[IdiotWithPencil]

ah ok, no in Mexico we have a carreare and in it they put diffrent clases about diffrent things, from math to social culture and history, we have this paper called pensum and that tells us what kind of clases we have to pass to be able to graduate, don't know if the UK has a similar system, also we don't have drunk courses we know how to drink comming from the womb XD

[punkarsenic]

haha no in the UK you select a course at university, and that one course is in one thing. for example, you select the 7 year fine art course at edinburgh - totally different to the 3 year fine art course at leeds, or something - and you have a course runner who decides what the course covers - and thats all you get. that might include an economics class or module, but its all in the one course.

and ofc theres no getting drunk courses, its just that people get drunk a lot in their free time lmao

[IdiotWithPencil]

I'm getting drunk right now (beer on the table) also yeah carrears differ uni from uni here too, but not to that degree XD and there should be some drunk courses cause some people really need to learn how to hold their liquor (yours truly included)

[emmyengberts]

and ofc theres no getting drunk courses, its just that people get drunk a lot in their free time lmao

Maybe someone should have told my classmates that... They seemed to think that the "Writing for the Stage" class meant "getting drunk off your face at 4 in the afternoon"...

[IdiotWithPencil]

they need those creative juices man XD *swigs on the be** creative juice

[Amecha]

No, most fantasy stories aren't primarily about humans. Or at very least they aren't all just about humans with one token elf* lady thrown is as a love interest *(I mean sure, LOTR but the main cast wasn't all humans is what I'm getting at). Yes hetereosexuality is more common but why is it a male main character with a female interest instead of the other way round? Why can't some of the other characters who aren't love interests be women? Sure if we're talking about the past of course the lack of diversity makes sense because people then didn't think those people's stories were worth telling to the majority, and somehow they're still not important enough to even grace side characters? Even those this persecution is apparently over? How can both of these things simultaneously be true?

(you're entering stereotype territory)

There is both the stereotype that women like feminine things and the stereotype that women reject feminine things. I like the color pink and pastels and romance and cute things, am I a stereotype? I also used to pretend to hate the color pink and I didn't ever wear makeup and don't dress traditionally feminine, was I a stereotype then? I mean I still don't dress femininely or wear makeup, does that mean I've gotten over worrying about stereotypes and was I reacting to stereotypes before? What does that tell you about me? And what would your interpretation of me tell me about you? You see how layered this is?

Some people fit into stereotypes and some of those people reject them or embrace them. I've spoken to gay people that used to over embrace the super feminine stereotype of gayness because they felt obligated to, and others that rejected it completely because the last thing they ever wanted to be was another negative stereotype. There are stereotypes that say gamers are fat white males, how do you think an actual fat person feels about video games? Maybe they hide their interest because they're afraid of being a stereotype or maybe they embrace it even though they don't actually like games that much. What if they're also white? What if they're not? What if they're female? Or the stereotype that women who like video games are either sexy bimbos that are fake geeks or ugly real geeks. Do you think some ugly women might avoid games? What about a beautiful woman?

I'm not saying that you should reduce a character to a stereotype, you should never do that, but I am saying that for me, my character's relationship and feelings about the stereotypes that apply to them are important to me understanding my characters. Its because I want to avoid making making stereotypical caricatures that I consider these things in depth. It's hard to write characters that are vastly different from me but honestly I'd rather make mistakes and apologize and then get better at writing them then just never write a character that isn't my race, gender, religion and sexuality. It doesn't mean stories about characters like that are inherently bad but I feel like it robs me of plot and story opportunities. The stories I want to tell, and the stories I want to read involve these things.

*edited for clarity

[Luminosophy]

I'm just writing up my opinion on the whole thing, including racial diversity because it's always been directly tied to women in comics/ media issue.

1. I agree that there's been a lot of media that behaved as if women/ other races didn't exist and were only relevant when being a love interest/ hot piece of ass or otherwise the token non white/ "exotic" piece of ass.

2. Media was already trending to change that long before this new young generation sprung up and started hurling names at creators like sexist/ bigoted/ racist for not including [specific list of superficial traits that represent me perfectly character here]. In my opinion, they were doing a good job and all they needed was more time to develop more wonderful thought out stories and epics even that generations will treasure to come. Good work simply doesn't happen overnight.

3. I can't get behind anyone who pressures creators to shoehorn "diversity" into their comics, even if the cast is purely straight white men at the end of the day. I have a friend for example who's story is 100% white dudes with only one black dude. People might look at that and say he's racist, until you realize he lives in Poland and the country itself has a vastly different racial makeup and cultural issues, which he still criticizes from a progressive viewpoint. My beef is that a lot of the diversity complaints are coming from a heavily American-centric perspective. What looks "diverse" in one region is radically different to another, and it's sad to see people make such ugly assumptions about the writers based on nothing more than superficial traits of the characters.

4. The thing about writing is that you write from what you know, or you go and gain second hand experience vicariously through multiple interviews and try to glean as many perspectives within the group you're writing about that you can to work out an average, rather than one person's bias. And a lack or presence of specific genders and races is not a sole determining factor of the story's quality. It's a free market and if someone writes a story about straight white dudes that's utter horseshit, people won't like it and the world will move on.

We have the internet now where everyone and their dog with a blog is able to publish comics with just the cost of an internet connection. The people who have been dying to write stories from unique cultural/ gender perspectives will do so, and if they happen to be amazing material people will like it all the same. I just don't see what the fighting is about anymore, it's a moot point. Everyone has their own platform and is completely free to publish whatever they so desire. Don't force creators to write stuff they don't want to write, don't bitch that people writing diverse stuff are doing it just for "diversity points" and above all, just treat the characters like regular people.

My favourite series to read on Tapastic has two main female characters who are lesbian and I completely forget they even are because their relationship is so natural. It's never brought up even, they're just girlfriends and that's all there is to it. At the end of the day we can spend forever whining at other people to change things to our personal liking (who truly have no reason to care about some random stranger's opinion) and have a billion circle jerk arguments on forums about it.... or we can just be productive and create the change we want to see in the world.

[Amecha]

a lot of the diversity complaints are coming from a heavily American-centric perspective. What looks "diverse" in one region is radically different to another

I completely agree.

I don't care for pushing diversity, especially in just a random person's hobby project. I think diversity is extremely important in mainstream media, and mainstream media that lacks diversity very much deserves criticism and the sort of dialogue it starts is very beneficial on many different fronts but shoving this on amatuer hobbiests can be and is damaging. I care about diversity and that reflects in the stories I write and read, but some people just care about writing or reading really cool fantasy stories or something else and that's just as good.

Unfortunately there is a point where your visibility will punish you for your weaknesses. If your work is in someway offensive your readers will talk about it, they will demand better and that's just how it's going to happen. We can't fault them for deciding to not consume media they aren't happy with, and we also can't fault them for criticising media they're not happy with (being critical of the media you consume is extremely important, you can even criticise media and still enjoy it, those things are not mutually exclusive). Even if that media is from a hobbyist. The hobbyist is still putting it out there for consumption. I don't support witch hunts, I believe if you're unhappy with something at most you say as much and stop consuming or you at the minimum just stop consuming it. You don't hunt down the creator to demand better (unless it's actively harming people). The hobbyist has the choice to cave and do what people want or to continue down their path but losing or missing out of consumers isn't a punishment, it's the natural order of things as much as I encourage people to be as easy as possible on hobbyists.

[emmyengberts]

being critical of the media you consume is extremely important, you can even criticise media and still enjoy it, those things are not mutually exclusive

So true!
I can enjoy TV shows like Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and shows for young women like it, but I can still critisize them for being sexist as hell and being very very very problematic of (female) sexuality when both shows have attempted rape in the first episode and the girls are the ones blamed for the men (both important romantic leads in the series) forcing themselves on them... Like... nope, not okay! But I still watch it because there are other elements that I do like and it's easy watching.

[IdiotWithPencil]

Yes hetereosexuality is more common but why is it a male main character with a female interest instead of the other way round?

Maybe cause the character is hetero?

lets see one of the rules of writing was write what you know, and write what you want, soooooo if most writers are hetero and they want romance..... they will write a huber gay couple XD, also remember that gays have been opressed/hound and wasn't and "accepted" thing until the 2010 (I know people they still are being hounded but it ain't like in the past where they where burned and hanged),

You see how layered this is?

yeah because those are personalitys traits that we can all understand, and yes you are a stereotype, you're a guy who likes sports? you're a stereotype, you're a girl that likes sports? you're a stereotype, NOW if we add some more traits like, I am a guy who likes sports and musical theator? you are layerd but you are just as layerd as a woman who likes theater and sports, gender is a tool for creating characters but it ain't the be all end all. get what I am saying?

my character's relationship and feelings about the stereotypes that apply to them are important to me understanding my characters.

yeah but it has nothing to do if that stereotype is female, male, human or animal, it's like I said

situation makes the impact

I think you're confusing character traits and stereotypes as mutualy exclusive, like only a gay character will know about having a forbiden love in the eyes of socity (othello), only a female character can know what it is being pressured to be something your not (happy feet) only a bunny will know the terror of being hounded by a fox (any horror story ever made)

again gender, religion, race, etc are tools but they aren't the most important thing in a character, if you can't relate to a guy character and his problems(well written of course) cause you're a woman, or black or gay, then you have a problem and I won't change your mind

If your work is in someway offensive your readers will talk about it

then we will get free publicity and the people who do like it will read it (also offensive really is a buzzword these days, even a foto of two girls hugging is ofensive, cause they ain't black, or disabled or fat or etc. -_- really hate tumblr)

[Amecha]

Maybe cause the character is hetero?

But wait, it's not important though? The what isn't as important as the who, as you said, but they are heterosexual and that's important enough that you can't just swap them out with a gay character? Why? How can these two things be simultaneously true?

it has nothing to do if that stereotype is female, male, human or animal

Then why are stereotypes for one gender massively different than stereotypes for another gender? Why does the liking watermelon stereotype only apply to black people? Why does the fake geek girl doing it for attention only apply to women? Why does "looks like a terrorist" only apply to people who are brown? Jock stereotype applies to men and women but I assure you there are hundreds of stereotypes that only apply to a certain segment of the population. Hell there are different stereotypes for white women and black women that both have to do with femininity but are vastly different. There are a huge difference between the types of stereotypes you're talking about and the types I'm talking about.

Let's regroup. Your stance is that gender, race, etc. isn't always important. My stance is that it is sometimes extremely important. We're practically on the same page here.

I've never once said that a character's relationship with their gender is the end all be all, I did however say:

I don't focus on gender and race but I don't ignore it entirely
play sometimes a huge and sometimes a minor role

I also said:

There are also non-white characters raised in a primarily white area may be completely rejecting or embracing of their own culture

and you followed with:

just cause your black in a white majority you have to throw away your culture?

So I'm going to say this now, you need to stop putting words into my mouth. The stance you're arguing against is not the stance I hold and I'm not interested in defending an opinion I don't even have and we're going to talk ourselves into circles if we're misunderstanding each other like that. Do you maybe want to start over now that I've hopefully made myself a little more clear? I am interested in your opinion and I might be able to understand it better if we're actually on the same page. I might even be misunderstanding what you're trying to tell me since it's not poised against what I'm actually saying so do you want to start from the beginning?

[IdiotWithPencil]

ok let me clarify mi stance since you also clarified yours,

my stance is gender race and everithing else, tells a reader WHAT a character is, and that what is engaging and relatable is WHO a character is

being gay is what he is, being a fun respectable guy who likes cats is who he is,

what a character is can't be changed, but Who he is can

a violent person can turn into a happy and calm person with an arc, or a situation that forces it to change.

but a hetero can't become gay just as a gay can't become hetero, or a black turning into white, the gender one is for trans storys only (I think we can agree with that), though all this is made in the sand so if some one wants to make a story of a white or black wanting to change into something else they can do it (have fun with the comments : /) also let's be cleare the this character was gay or hetero all this time, is something jarring if you don't start the story with hints to this as in since the start this person was gay/hetero or even bi.

stereotypes are a fluid they change from culture to culture, example in my culture blacks don't have this stigma of being gangsters or liking fried chiken(everybody likes fried chiken), but in USA they do, so why should I have to use black as gansters as a stereotype if my culture dosen't think that?... see what I am getting at? stereotypes are like fads they change they evolve and they are forgotten through time, before japaness where sterotyped as having giant teeths... when was the last time you saw a comic or movie with and asian with giant buck teeths.

I hope I explained myself better this time and that we can stop going in circles C:

also to your questions of why some stereotypes are for some and not for others

that's cause in this time that gender or race has done that so manny times that it became a stereotype, its a fad that will pass as people get sick of stories with that stereotype example, the Idiot father was before the Idiot mother from sickcoms of the 50 and 60, the idiot father and sensible mother was a reaccion to this stereotype so now it's the new stereotype... they change and are made of water, they aren't set in stone so go wild with them, change them, follow them or subver them. this is what makes writing fun

[LordVincent]

I was gonna avoid getting into this discussion but...

the gender one is for trans storys only (I think we can agree with that)

Can you specify what you mean by this? Because I have several transgender characters as well as one intersex character in my comics that don't like pause the whole storyline just to tell you the story of how they transitioned. The way you stated this makes it look like transgender characters should be reserved for stories about being trans only, and excluded from any other story.

A big part of representation isn't so much telling you about what being gay, black or trans is like, as it can be these people just being there being... well. People. People in the background, people the main characters meet, a close friend, their parents (for example, scandinavian comic character Nemi has two dads and it's handled like any normal parents. The comic itself is about a goth chick and her experiences and thoughts in life.) or sometimes the main characters without the story even having to be about them being trans/gay/black.

[Amecha]

Okay, yes I understand you much better now.

I'm totally not saying that writers should change their character's race or gender mid story, that is totally a bad idea and I agree with you there. The question I'm asking is that when the writer was writing the character, if they didn't think race or gender was important then why did they all end up the same? Why do you think a writer would have only written one character as a woman if they really didn't think that the gender mattered?

And yes, stereotypes are very fluid, but that's kind of adds to the point I'm trying to make. Say in you have a black character in your culture that never really knew about the fried chicken stereotype but then went to America and their love of fried chicken got them mocked? Do you think they would be the kind of character that takes that in stride or the kind that would get really upset, or maybe somewhere in the middle ground? Do you think that asking yourself questions like these might help you better understand the character you're writing? Even more importantly, do you think a scene like that might help inform your readers more about that character? This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the value of looking at stereotypes. But you can also play that similarly with a different character and a different stereotype. Some of those stereotypes might tell a more powerful story but they can play pretty similarly. That's what I mean when I'm saying that their race and gender isn't completely important.

But those gender and race differences can play a role. How do you think a twin brother and sister might be different? You can ask actual twins this question and they might have some interesting answers for you. They're raised in the exact same environment and everything but they also tend to be different. Sometimes in major ways and sometimes in minor ways, it depends on the people.

At the end of the day, if all of the stories you want to tell happen to be entirely based on your culture, race, religion and gender that is okay. In that case those things don't matter, and that works. You might get backlash on it but you should tell the story you intended to tell. A lot of people want to read stories about characters that aren't all white straight males though. For some of the readers the character's relationship with their gender matters, for others it doesn't. It depends on who's reading it.

[IdiotWithPencil]

ok first

Can you specify what you mean by this?

that changing genders is reserved for trans characters, Obviously you can't make a character and make part of the story about it changing gender(main side or back story), and not make the character trans, agreed?, also I was enfasising the character creation not so much about stories, I talk about stories with the stereotype part,

trans is something you are not who you are, you can't change the fact that your trans (your born like this no?) but you can change the how you act and how you go about it, again this is about characters not stories