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Jan 2016

I write and draw a comic that stars a female main character. It's about a princess who has to go on a journey to save her brother. It started out as just an experimental thing- I wanted to gender flip the whole "rescue the princess" thing for fun. I initially had a hard time figuring out where I wanted it to go, but I'm making progress.
Here's a link to it if you want to check it out:
http://tapastic.com/series/ThePrinceisMissing4

My comic Bite Me2 have three main protagonists, two males and one female (because romance duh xD). But the girl is in the centre of attention and a heroine of the story. Comic itself is still in early development, but maybe you will give it a shot.

My comic, Amy Plays Games2, is about me (a sort of androgynous female protagonist) and my struggles in playing video games! I really wanted to catalog the crazy and random stuff that happens to me during these play-throughs. The language is strong from time to time so it's not really for all ages.

I have another work-in-progress comic with a female protagonist, but it's currently in it's scripting stage.

I'm certainly having a crack at it with Justice Guardians, trying to introduce a cast of colourful and interesting characters, both heroes and villains. The current storyline revolves around Jessica, who is bestowed power and is now learning how to control and use it for the good of her city, aided by her childhood heroes.

I don't know what to say really. At the first glance it looks like all I make has a female protagonist. But the main character that appears in most of my stories is actually genderless. But "she" looks very female and usually represents a more female apprach to the story (not literally. It is hard to explain with words).

@1800flame The way you advertise your webcomic already makes it sounds super fun and interesting!

@AffectedMind I like your drawing! And of course, ahhahah how would a romance be without a female protagonist right?

@Tindabox Its great to read webcomics that comes from personal experiences as its more relatable and "real". What's the other work in progress webcomic about?

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Two out of my three comics have a female protagonist:

  • SweetGum1: A woodland skunk who enjoys playing her guitar and making new friends.
  • Strike Pup1: A high school senior who is both a fashion model and a third degree black belt in taekwondo!

Hello. I have a female and a male protagonist, but my female is the main one. Her name is Sonia and she is my female protagonist for my story Shadowed Life1. She is also very young, only a young teen at the beginning.

All the awesome looking ladies and girls in this thread!

I've got two comics, and both have unconventional female protagonists (and the casts of both are 50/50 male and female too, come to think of it. Not specifically on purpose, but I do enjoy creating a variety of characters.)

In The Art of Monsters its a non-too-pretty monster who really wants to turn a new leaf...

And in Breaking the Lore, its a wise old lady, whose experience of the world can't prepare her for the world of magic and enchantments she's having to face.

As for WHY I'm drawn to female protagonists... I think I'm just interested in making characters that people haven't seen before, and a diversity of kinds of female characters is part of that.

Tell you something interesting though - these comics were originally posted on ComicFury, I'm mirroring them here. On there, The Art of Monsters was posted first. It was well received, but the second comic, Breaking the Lore, started to really pick up subscriptions, fuelled by the fact that people could trust someone with an existing completed comic and the fact that it was in colour.

Here, however, its The Art of Monsters which is taking the pole position in terms of subscribers! Since the only thing people have to go on is the avatars featuring the characters, I'm going to assume that monsters look much more exciting than old ladies.

Aww thank you. I try my best!

The work in progress is a fantasy webcomic about a sort-of-warrior Princess whose fiance, a Prince she's about to marry, gets kidnapped. She makes it her mission to bring him home with the help of a royal guard, an enchantress, and a wizard who can never get a break. I was hoping to improve on my art and finish school before I started. I'm currently trying to decided between two climaxes.

Aww, somehow this makes me sad xD Really, anyone able to develop a character with depth deserves applause!

Agreed! I care less about the gender of the protagonist than that the cast of characters be balanced. Whether the protagonist is a female really depends on the story you're trying to tell, and how the character will put into play different elements.

That's similar to what I'm doing... My main character is a guy, but that was because I wanted to take a step back in portraying the female character upon whom the whole story hinges.

I like your story a lot. Also loving the art!

My serie also has a main female protagonist but she kind of shares it with other 6 people...
I don't know if that still makes her a protagonist.... 🤔

This is true, applause is well deserved to all deep characters and their creators. smile

Where I was coming from is a place of personal experiences [a dude who is pretty much in touch with his sensitive side] and hopefully I wasn't making it seem like I was dismissing characters, or creators, of any form.

The most elementary thing of it, I guess, is culture. My local culture would quickly dismiss the male figure who cries out of losing a love, on the other hand it is quick to applaud a woman for fighting and being tough while still accepting the tender side as well.

So for me as a creator who wants to reach as many folks as possible with a story, Female Protagonist make sense.

P.S. I love talkin' shop haha. I wish I had more time to do it! Thanks for your input.

Made a series last year that only have females in it (more or less). It is called Al Khemet. It is not really a traditional comic, but at least it is drawings that tells some sort of a story. Almost all of it is marked as NSFW jus to be safe. There is nothing explicit in there, but it contains some nudity and some slightly suggestive drawings.
http://tapastic.com/episode/2110782

15 days later

This is an interesting question, and one that I've actually been thinking about just recently. The main characters of my comic (which I'm still in the process of making) are loosely based on my closest friends in real life (and naturally, I've just kept them the same gender/sex), with the main character being based off of myself. Originally, he was just male because I'm male, but recently I've developed a desire to turn him into a female character, for no other good reason than "I simply want to."
The one thing that was (is?) holding me back from going through with this is the fear that my comic will fall under judgment for having this dynamic. For example, because I am writing a female main character, while being a male, I fear that I will come across as assuming that men and women are exactly alike, or I just don't know how women work. However, I don't want to appear like I think being a man or a woman affects your personality, and what you like or don't like (because that's just silly). Since my comic will be centered around interactions (it's basically a bunch of opinions with faces walking around, haha), I don't think it would matter too much if my main character was male, female, or otherwise, as long as they had a defined...character, I guess.

Sorry for rambling (I do that from now and again), but I appreciate getting to converse about people's different thoughts on this topic! Thank you for bringing it up, and I wish your journey with your webcomic well (I'll be following it from now on, it looks like a very fun and interesting story)! stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye

First, I wanted to say I respect the fact that you create the female characters you would want to see yourself.

You raise an interesting thought, that female characters allow for deeper (and perhaps more?) expression than male characters. I can't speak for the whole world, but I know for sure that here in the US, being "male" or "masculine" definitely involves being more controlled (see; restrained) about your own emotions. I suppose that would allow female characters to be more apt for the use of exploration of emotions and personal expression in stories. Then again, I'm not sure how true that necessarily is, it's just another thought.
I definitely agree with your point, regardless!

I can understand the fear of representing a group wrong. I hesitate to include race or sexuality in my stuff since it's things I don't understand. Somehow, gender isn't as much of an issue. Here's the thing - there isn't much to "get" about either men or women, because everyone is an individual. Saying that gender doesn't affect your personality would be naive though. The moment you're born, you're treated differently based on your sex. So basically, be aware of what society expects of a man and a woman, but write a person who can be either. Does that make sense? <'D
P.S. gender roles are garbage.

yup. which results in dudes exploding.

I'm with you on the race/sexuality issue...I certainly want to encourage diversity in characters, but I don't want to open more cans of worms than I need to. You can learn only so much about other races and walks of life through online research.
That being said;

I think this is a great piece of advice. It's almost like there is a different way to write men and women, but at the same time there isn't. I agree with you about the relationship between personality and gender, since being a man or a woman doesn't dictate how you act, but it does affect what people expect from you (at least, I think that's the case in real life). There's a tricky balance, but I definitely agree that writing a character as a character first, and a man/woman second is super helpful! :smiley:
Because yeah, I'm starting to see more and more of the bullshit in gender roles as time goes on. :\

PS Amen to that! I definitely feel the exploding sometimes...not fun!